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LAUREL
I receive a text from Lorelai requesting me to meet up with her at a coffee shop around the corner from work for lunch. Hudson won’t even notice I’m gone while he’s in his meeting. Has she changed her mind? When I enter the coffee shop, Lorelai is with his sisters, I presume. One of them was with Lorelai yesterday. She introduces us as I sit down. His sisters look nothing like him. They are identical to Lorelai, or at least, what I assume she would have looked like many years ago. “So, what’s going on? Have you changed your mind?”
She laughs. “Of course not, sweetie. We wanted to discuss some ideas.”
This makes me a little more at ease. I wonder what crazy plans she or his sisters have come up with. I can’t wait to hear. Although, I need to try to hide my craziness. People didn’t always take to me so quickly. I’m a great deal to take in all at once.
Tina seems quirky like me. She’s the younger sister. She doesn’t have a filter, whereas Kassie seems more like Hudson. This causes the situation to be a little more uncomfortable, talking about it in front of her. I can’t tell if this is how she is or if she’s faking it to make me nervous.
Lorelai talks about ideas of how to stir things up for Hudson. Her motives are utterly genuine. They are all so down-to-earth. Nothing like Hudson, that’s for sure.
“So how is it working for my son?”
“It’s going fine besides the fact he’s an ass. He’s so uptight. Maybe I should book him for a deep tissue massage. Work out some of those knots.”
“Maybe I’ll do that. Slip it into our next conversation over dinner. He will loathe it, but it might do him some good.”
His sister knows how much of a pain in the ass it is, having done it herself for a year. Over the course of the next hour, she tells me multiple stories about things that happened in the office while she was his assistant.
“Let’s get back on track here. Your brother is off his wagon when this woman is nearby. I don’t know why, but he is. With her working so closely with him, he is bound to let go of some emotion,” Lorelai explains to her daughters.
“Wow, that doesn’t make me feel very good. I don’t know what it is about me that irks him so badly.”
They grin and assure me it’s not a shocking thing. Sure, not to them, but it is for me. I didn’t need the man blowing up on me all the time. Who knows how long I can keep my mouth shut? I don’t take shit from anybody, especially egotistical, arrogant men.
Lorelai has invited some of the guys from the office to help with the plan. They shift chairs over, squeezing into our table. Everyone is shouting out ideas and coming up with plans, but I’m not paying attention.
From what I can tell, no grand plans are made. It’s time to leave. Hudson will be out of his meeting shortly, and I need to be there. Hopefully, not many people called while I’ve been gone. If so, I’ll never hear the end of it.
I make it back about five minutes before Hudson’s meeting is over, leaving me just enough time to listen to voicemails and write the names and numbers down for him to return after lunch. He will never know that I’ve been gone for the last two hours, conspiring to make him combust.
“I’m going out for lunch. You can set my messages on my desk. I’ll return them when I get back. This means I’m permitting you to put the messages on my desk, not rummage through anything.”
He says it like I want to go through his things. Well, he’s right. I want to know more about him. He spends most of his time at work, which means this is the best place to find out personal things about him. I already know how he likes his coffee, but what does he like to eat? He enjoys pizza, but what else? I think about following him while he goes to get food, but I don’t want to seem too stalkerish. I stay at my desk and search the internet to pass the time.
About an hour later, Hudson returns with a to-go box and a man. I’m not sure who the man is, but it must be a client.
The man is in his office for about two hours, and many people have called to ask when they will be hearing back from him. “Hudson?” I ask, as I knock on his office door.
He hollers at me to come in. “Sorry to bother you. I have a couple of clients asking when they can expect a call back. It’s on the brink of time to go home for the day.”
“Let them know I will call them back shortly. Tell them I’m in a critical meeting right now,” he says, and then motions me to get out of his office.
Sometimes, I wonder why people even like him? He’s such an ass. Who the hell is the guy in his office? Is he that big of a client that Hudson can blow off the others? He’s the boss, but that isn’t a smart move from my point of view.
Five o’clock comes, and I’m not going to sit around and wait for him to return his messages. He’s a big boy; he can handle that himself. I tidy up my desk, clutch my purse, and hike it out of there. The man is still in his office, and no calls have been returned. It isn’t my job on the line when he didn’t return the calls. I won’t hold his hand like a child. I don’t get paid enough for that. I jump in my car and head home. As I park and walk up the stairs, my phone rings. “Hello?”
“Where are you?” Hudson asks.
I can sense the anger in his tone. “I’m just getting home. What do you need?”
“Well, none of these calls got returned. I will need you to call them in the morning when you get in and schedule the best time to call them back.”
Jeez, why can’t he call them before he leaves the office? Maybe he shouldn’t have had that man in there for almost four hours. His day has been unproductive, but instead of refusing to do it, I smile and reply, “Yes, sir.”
He makes me want to scream and not in a good way. If he treats his clients like he acts today, then how is he in business? He missed over twenty calls today and didn’t even bother to free up time to call them back.
I put my key into my door and peel off my heels before I even make it to the couch. Why does being a woman have to be so damn painful? I like wearing heels because they always give an outfit that extra oomph. Every day, I complain about wearing heels when I get home, then I turn around and put them on every morning. Go figure.
