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“Clever of you to ask,” he smiled, but it wasn’t a warm grin. No, it was appraising, calculating, and it made a shiver travel up my spine. “While it is mostly to reward tons of hard work, there will be business prospects there. A couple of CEOs from companies I’d like to try a joint project with, plenty of talent that we might or might not be trying to woo. If this party goes well, it could be quite a profitable thing for us.”
I couldn’t help it, I swallowed nervously, my tongue coming out to wet my lips again. “And if it goes poorly?” My voice was barely a whisper, but if Mr. Fitzgerald thought anything of it, he didn’t say.
“Why, are you planning on doing poorly?”
His tone had dropped and goodness, if that didn’t do something for me that I didn’t want to think about. “No,” I said as solidly as I could muster.
“Then that’s not a question that we have to worry about, is it?”
I swallowed, forcing myself to remain calm. Impervious. “I suppose not,” I said before hurrying out to send the email that he had told me would get the ball rolling. I was suddenly staring down an astounding to-do list, but I was sure I was going to nail it like I nailed everything else he had told me to do.
Oh geez, maybe I shouldn’t mentally use the word ‘nailed’ ever in conjunction with my far too attractive boss. I couldn’t help but feel like all of our interactions had changed, like there had been a sort of electricity running between them, arching through all the parts of my body that I usually tried to ignore.
Breathing out a big sigh, I sat down at my little desk and went about this whole party planning business. All I needed to do was put my head down and chug through, just like I always did.
I would show him that it was impossible to break me. That he could heap on as much responsibility as he wanted, but I would always, always come out on top.
I’d gotten this far, after all. And after twenty-two years, it would be a shame to ruin my streak.
Beverly
While parties were supposed to be fun, and happy, and full of all sorts of good things, I was quickly finding out that party planning was the complete opposite.
There were just so many details! The location, the parking, how close it was to public transport considering how big a city we were in and how cars weren’t the preferred method of transport. The food, the decorations, the music. Not to mention the invites and reminders and everything else it might possibly need.
And somehow, I had reviewed all of it in two days, approving of everything by noon on Friday with only ten hours to go before the party started.
Ugh. I wanted nothing more than to slink home and hide under my covers until Monday, but I knew I needed to go to the location and double check that everything was how it should be.
Because of course the party had to be held off location. Because rich, media people were annoying and so were the internet famous people they recruited. Or at least that was how I felt in my tired, cranky mood.
It wasn’t often that I let my work affect me so, but I just felt so on edge. Between my mind constantly flitting to the way Mr. Fitzgerald had looked at me when telling me about the party, and the seemingly endless list of minutiae I had to wade through, I was surprised that I hadn’t ground my teeth down into nubs.
I debated going to Mr. Fitzgerald’s office to tell him I was leaving for the party location, but I didn’t. On one hand, he told me not to check in with him for every little thing so it just made sense not to.
On the other hand, I was somewhat avoiding him.
I knew it was stupid. He was my boss that I was assisting so I was going to have to interact with him eventually. But was it wrong for me to want that interaction to be after I had a full weekend to myself and a chance to breathe? I was so run ragged and worried over the party that I felt like a raw, exposed nerve and even the slightest touch would just shatter whatever façade of control that I had.
I thought about getting on a bus, so that I could take my time and let my thoughts unwind, but I knew that would be wasting far too many minutes that I should spend on making sure everything was perfect for the party. Because it had to be perfect. Mr. Fitzgerald had made that very clear.
So, I flagged down a taxi, sliding my work credit-card through the reader in the back. At first, I had been quite nervous about having anything work issued that required me to spend money. But after all the coffee runs, food pick ups and dry cleaning that I had to do for Mr. Fitzgerald, I had quickly realized that carrying that amount of cash was just unfeasible.
