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Maybe he was in training with his boss. Now that dude was seriously in control of everything he did in a day. I’d venture to say very few people fucked with him.
“I’m fine, really. You didn’t have to make a call.”
“It’s the least I can do. Plus, now I get to talk with you a bit before I see you after work. It’s really quiet at your office. I don’t know…” He paused for a few beats, as if really listening to the background of my end of the call. “I just assumed it would be noisy and bustling in a newsroom.”
Oh, here we go.
We didn’t even make it into the conversation four minutes, and he was grilling me about random things. My immediate reaction was something acidic, but I paused a second to breathe. Reminding myself that he reached out to me calmed my rising temper. I could try to get away with not telling him what had happened, but it would come out eventually and we’d have another argument on our hands.
“I’m at home,” I admitted.
“Are you ill? Still hungover?” He paused a moment between one accusation and another. “Or did you drink last night after I left?”
“No,” I sighed. “None of the above.” If he didn’t drop this bullshit nagging, we would never survive to see our first anniversary.
“Then—”
“I was fired.” I couldn’t take his guessing game, so I let that lie between us in the conversation like a pile of cat vomit everyone saw but no one dealt with.
He didn’t say anything.
I didn’t say anything.
We both just sat there quietly and listened to each other breathe.
“Oh…well…I’m sorry that happened. Do you want to tell me what straw broke the camel’s back?”
I tried to make sense of his wording choice. Was he insinuating there were so many things I did wrong that it was inevitable? Was I projecting my own guilty thoughts onto him?
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I bit into the phone. It only took two seconds of contemplation until his comment really pissed me off.
“Settle down, Storm. Usually when a person is let go, there are incidents leading up to the big bang. There’s no way your HR department would sign off on a termination because you were late one time. Or whatever… That was just my example.”
I sighed in resignation. Of course, he wasn’t wrong. I just didn’t want to admit what a fuck-up I was at my chosen career path.
“Well, I overslept this morning, but I called and told my supervisor I had car trouble and I would be there as soon as possible. But you’re right.” Christ, how I hated having to admit that. “There have been other things. She just doesn’t like me.”
“Do you think you were targeted? Wrongfully terminated? Those shitty things still happen even though they could result in huge lawsuits,” Carmen went on like the subject expert.
“I thought you were a PA?” I asked.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“You seem to know a lot about human resources.”
“It was my major in school. Just landed this job first before I got something in that field. So here I am.” I could picture his easy shrug after he spoke.
Another tick in the plus column for the man. His easy temperament soothed my fiery one. Just talking with him for a few minutes helped calm my nerves more than anything else I tried.
“Okay, my wife, I have to go. I’ll see you after work. I get off at five, and I think it should only take thirty minutes to get to your place.”
I spurted a cackle at his naïvety. When he didn’t comment, I asked, “How long have you lived in Los Angeles, man?”
“My entire life. Why?” He sounded genuinely confused.
“And you think you can make it from downtown to Brentwood in under an hour during quitting time?” I shook my head at the nonsense. “The freeway will be a parking lot.”
“Who said anything about the freeway? There are a few surface streets you can take. We’ll see who knows what when I get there.” I could hear the smile in his tone, and a matching one crossed my lips too.
