“Yes, sure, the flight. I’ll send you the details. Of the flight that I booked last week. When you told me to.”
“Emerson,” she ground out between her teeth, “you better not have forgotten. Spitfire is a huge client. It took me months to get them to agree to a meeting. I know we are doing well, but we can always do better. I want this account.”
I was calling the airline faster than you could say screw up. I knew I better fix this or I’d be stuck going to lunch with her mother for the foreseeable future. It was the worst possible punishment, and she knew it. She’d sent me more than once simply because she didn’t want to sit through a five course meal that included mostly liquids. And neither did I because even if it sounded like fun, it definitely wasn’t. Her mom’s attitude did not improve with alcohol.
Five minutes later, I had a seat for her in economy, the only seat available but at least she’d get there.
“You’ll have to go to the meeting with Rhett instead of me. When you’re not busy screwing up my schedule, you are amazing at remembering every single detail of every single thing we do. You know how to do this. You’ve seen me pitch our services a million times. And you know Rhett. That has to make this easier.”
“But I can’t,” I wailed, hoping she’d take pity on me. There was absolutely no way I was ready to face Rhett. The last time I’d seen him was forever burnt into my memory. And not in a let’s dream about it because it was so romantic way. “I have to take care of Josie. Oma’s had her all day. She’ll be exhausted. She’s old. Nearly eighty. She needs a break.”
“Whatever. Oma loves that tiny little angel of stickiness and you know it. Besides the fact that she is the most well behaved child I’ve ever met, she is probably in a sugar coma by now anyway so she’ll have a good long nap like usual. You’re going. Stop arguing.”
“I’ll call her just to make sure. She might have plans.”
At that, Cassie started laughing. A full on hold-your-belly-and-watch-out-not-to-keel-over laugh. “We both know that woman hasn’t left her property except to go to the market in over ten years. If she didn’t love her garden and cooking so much, she probably wouldn’t have left her house at all in that time.”
And wasn’t that the truth. But I wasn’t ready to give up that easily. “It would mean I have to drive to Denver. It’s two hours to get there.”
“So?”
“I’ll need tomorrow off.”
“It’s Saturday tomorrow. You don’t work on Saturdays. Now can we get on with it? I need to finish this proposal before I leave for the flight that you just booked. You better hope I don’t get cramps in my legs from sitting in those small seats.”
“You’ll be fine. Slumming it with the masses will help keep you grounded. You’ll thank me one day.”
“Doubtful. Now do your job. And change your shirt. You got a scary looking stain on your boob.”
Since I didn’t think I’d be going anywhere but the office today, I didn’t bother changing this morning when Josie wiped her peanut butter covered hands on my shirt.
Cassie shooed me away. Because that’s what she did. If she considered a problem solved she moved on. “Just grab one of my spares.” I knew she had about ten extra sets of clothes in the office wardrobe. Resigned to the fact that there was no way out of this, I changed my shirt to a beautiful and soft, dark blue blouse with cute little bows instead of buttons that felt amazing when I slipped it on. It probably cost as much as my car. There was no way I’d ever return it.
“And don’t you think you can steal more of my clothes. You still have my grey Alexander McQueen suit.”
Instead of answering her, I dialed Oma to let her know I’d be home late. She answered on the tenth ring. Impressive considering sometimes she didn’t make it to the phone at all so I was used to calling a few times. She must have been close by.
“Edeltraud speaking.”
“Oma, it’s me. Something came up at work today, and I’ll be home late tonight. Can you put Josie to bed for me please?”
“OkaySpatz. Don’t work so hard. See you when you get home.”
Despite having lived in the US for over sixty years, she still had a crazy accent and liked to speak German. She told us time and time again how important it was to know another language.
“You are the best. I’ll see you tomorrow morning then.” I knew I would most likely see her tonight, no matter how late I got in. She didn’t sleep much and always worried about us girls. Me and my little sister Freddie, that is. She had not only taken me in, but also Freddie, who was seven years younger than me and had only been two at the time.
Adding another girl to the mix didn’t seem to faze her at all. She never complained, not when Nate showed up on her doorstep in the middle of the night with me and Freddie, and not when I brought Josie home one night. And definitely not when Mom came after me, screaming down the neighborhood. Oma always told us family is everything, even though my mom didn’t seem to get the memo.
The rest of my day went by in a blur, my thoughts on the upcoming meeting with Rhett. I knew I could do it, I just didn’t know if I could handle seeing him again. In the end, I abandoned work in favor of some solid social media stalking. Turned out, he didn’t have a single social media account but I did find a few pictures of him on a mutual friend’s profile. We did both grow up in Butler and were bound to have some of the same friends, even if he was two years older than me.
And that’s how I found photos of him and his fiancée. His very attractive, very blonde and very skinny fiancée. They looked perfect together. It made me want to throw up. But that would ruin the very nice—and clean—shirt I was wearing that looked awesome with the kick ass black pencil skirt I’d got on sale. My love for designer clothes was only curbed by my lack of money. I splurged on special occasions like my birthday and Christmas. And by splurged, I mean I’d allow myself to buy one piece of clothing on sale. But I was building up my wardrobe, helped by my best friend having a similar addiction and the funds to go wild. She also hardly ever noticed when I kept her clothes. Unless it was a grey Alexander McQueen suit.
“Alright chickadee, I’m out of here. Try not to drool over my Louboutins when you see Rhett, no matter how good he looks in a suit.” She blew me a kiss which I returned with a wave and she was gone.
Which meant I only had about another hour before I had to leave if I wanted to make the dreaded meeting. I was supposed to meet him for dinner to pitch the proposal. Rhett still thought he was meeting with Cassie, so I wasn’t sure how the it was going to go.
But there was no time to dwell, and just like Oma always said to me,das Leben ist kein Ponyhof, which literally translated to life is no pony stable. So put on your big girl boots and get back on that horse. Or something like that. It always sounded better when she said it in German. It also made a lot more sense.
So I put on my big girl Louboutins and got in my car and drove to the meeting.
