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“Yes, we can talk later.”
Later was never going to come. It was time to leave this party and find a gym. She blinked back the tears until she got to the company elevator. When the doors closed, she slumped against the wall, breathing hard in the luxurious box. It wasn’t the front of the hotel, but the employee elevators were still posh. Jessica realized she had made it out just in time. By now someone would have asked Ms. Prince who is going to fill the position and by now they would have figured out it wasn’t her. The sympathy looks would have started, ‘passed over again’.
Jessica stepped out of the elevator and stood in the empty lobby at the back of the hotel. She pulled out her phone and dialed Beth.
“Welcome, we are always open for you,” Beth said in sultry voice.
“I didn’t get it,” Jessica whispered.
“It’s not often that I offer this, but I can get to the office and make her fall in love with me and then dump her.”
Jessica snorted at the optics.
“No, but thank you for offering,” she sniffed.
“You know I would have offered to knock her out but the whole modeling thing, not wanting to damage my body, you know?”
“Yeah, I know it’s hard being gorgeous,” Jessica joked, with her bestie who was a model.
“You coming over so we can watch tearjerker romances and contemplate what ever happened to the Errol Flynn’s of the world?”
Jessica thought about it and then decided not to.
“I’m going to go to the Boathouse,” Jessica said.
“The karaoke place by your job?”
“Yes, I’m not ready to go home yet and everyone is in the board room. The food is still arriving, so they’ll be occupied for a bit.”
“I can get dressed and —”
“No, but thanks bestie. I’ll talk to you later.”
Jessica gave it some thought, and she knew she was right. She would take a little time and regroup and then make some decisions. Maybe then she wouldn’t hear Ms. Prince’s words in her head about finding someone qualified.
She was qualified. She was spontaneous and she was not stuck in a rut.
She called an uber and when it arrived, she told the driver where to go.
“To the Boathouse please.” Jessica sat back and thought about the Boathouse. She’d be able to sing and lose herself in a crowd of strangers. Maybe at the end she’d find enough courage to give her walking papers to Ms. Princess, I mean Ms. Prince!
* * *
Being around happy people didn’t make you a happy person.
Brian Cholan was sitting at a table in the middle of a karaoke bar wondering when did his life go off the rails. All around him people were laughing and singing songs from the 80s and all he could think about was he didn’t even own a suit to go into a corporate office. Nothing good came from wearing a suit. You had to wear one to your funeral. You had to wear one to a wedding, which in Brian’s point of view was a different kind of death. Originally, he had promised he wouldn’t be wearing any suits in this lifetime. In fact, Brian had gone into accounting, so he’d be left alone.
Well, all of that changed today. It was the butterfly effect in the worst way. Somewhere out there, in the big wide world, a man followed his heart and got on a plane to Hawaii. Then, from Hawaii a wind pushed a woman closer to him and they both decided to rediscover life and on that wind, the story was told to a woman in a very big house on Long Island, NY. When she heard of what had happened, she had donned her great V.P. initials and all the others scurried away on the winds of fear until the shadow of her authority fell upon him, Brian Cholan. He would comply or lose his job and part of the job was to put on a dreaded suit. Brian shook his head at his situation. He was about to leave when he heard someone tap the mike to do a song.
“No, no I’m alone and I already loaded up the song I want to sing,” the woman said. Then in the most screeching voice he had ever heard, Brian heard a woman sing the sun will come out tomorrow. It was heartfelt, sincere and the worst singing he had ever heard. Brian was sure fighting cats sounded more harmonious and on key.
She was a nice plain girl, the kind his mother would have told him to marry. He didn’t know what had happened but whatever it was the girl was singing her heart out and reaching for her confidence and independence again. Brian realized he needed to see the underdog win at something. When the caterwauling was done, he got up to shake the young woman’s hand and tell her it was going to be alright. When he got to the stage the woman looked down at him and gasped.
“Oh, my goodness, not you! You don’t belong here!”
Brian let his hand fall by his side. Okay, maybe it wasn’t going to be alright. He wasn’t used to people having such a strong negative reaction to him. Beautiful lips were pulled back in horror and the young woman was shaking her head so much, tendrils of hair slipped out. Around him others were starting to look at him as if he had done something.
“Um, Miss, do we know each other?” Brian asked. Then it was like a light switch went off in the woman.
