“You were dealt a very rough hand in life, losing him so young,” she said. “I know you have a lot of unresolved feelings, which is natural. But you can’t continue to punish yourself forever for the mistakes you made when you were younger.”
“I know,” I said in a small voice.
“I hope you do,” she said firmly. “And while he may not have been here to see how amazing you turned out, your mom did. I know it was hard on you when she followed your sister to South Carolina, but you never let her know. Every time I’ve met her, she makes a point to tell me how thankful she is for everything you do for her. You don’t need me to remind you how supportive you’ve been to her both emotionally and financially. She is so proud of you.”
“I know.” I let out a deep breath. Then I added, “You’re right.” I sat back down behind my desk and brushed a strand of hair behind my ear. “About everything.” I swallowed hard. “If I’m honest with myself, I know I picked the wrong guys to date, or sabotaged the relationship with the good ones because I feared I couldn’t handle being in loveandbeing successful and productive at work. My focus has always been my career.”
“I know. Your goals have been very admirable, but it gets lonely, doesn’t it?”
I nodded as my eyes watered again. “Yes.”
“So, what’s next?”
“You know me, I have a plan,” I said with a forced smile. “Before I go and try to right the Titanic of a ship that is my love life, I’m going to revisit the past.”
She crinkled her face. “What?”
“A couple of weeks ago, I received an Evite to my twentieth high school reunion. I missed the tenth one because we were in California at the international food conference. I had no intention of going to this one either next month, but I changed my mind this morning. I RSVP’d ‘yes’. What better way to move forward than to revisit who I was in the past. Maybe I can learn some lessons from remembering the girl I used to be.”
8
October
“Look at this,”I said as I pointed toward my computer monitor. Sydney leaned over and squinted at my screen.
“That can’t be right,” she said as she glanced at the data showing the tremendous sales for our newest line of white chocolate bars imported from Switzerland.
“I know,” I said. “Charles would love it if we sold eighty-five thousand candy bars, but it’s impossible. We only brought in twenty-five cases for test marketing. Either the data got corrupted, or Kimmie strikes again.”
Kimmie was Charles’s niece. She was a very sweet young lady, but she was utterly incompetent. Right after she graduated from college in June, she began to work at the firm. Charles placed her on Sydney’s team. It was clear from the moment she walked through the door she meant well. Unfortunately, good intentions weren’t enough. Everything she touched turned into a complete disaster.
I felt so bad for Sydney, who was constantly cleaning up her messes. Syd complained to our boss numerous times, but he didn’t want to hear one bad word about his kin. He kept insisting Kimmie would improve over time with proper training and coaching.
Unlike me, Sydney had the patience of a saint. For countless hours, she tried to groom the girl but to no avail. No matter what she did, Kimmie still wasn’t capable of completing even a simple task accurately.
Sydney scratched her head and exhaled deeply. “I can’t stand this anymore. I don’t know what to do with her.”
“I know what I’d do if I were in your shoes. I’d stop giving her real work to do. Face the facts: either Charles can’t handle the truth about his brother’s daughter or doesn’t want to hear it. He’s not going to do anything to help you or the situation. You have to make your own life better. You waste so much time unraveling her mistakes. It would be so much easier and less stressful for you to either do her work yourself or divvy it up among the rest of your team.”
Sydney looked defeated when she said, “You’re right. I’ve been thinking the same thing for a while. It’s so wrong, though.”
“Of course, it’s wrong, but your hands are tied. What else are you supposed to do?” I pointed to the door. “Go get your laptop and bring it in here. I’ll help you figure out what happened so you can fix this before the final monthly reports are run this afternoon.”
Sydney returned to my office a few seconds later and situated her computer on the edge of my desk. We immediately got to work sorting through the data, and we were making good headway when the fire alarm blasted, which caused us both to jump in our seats.
“Not again,” I grunted as I reached in my drawer for my pocketbook. I had lost track of how many times this month the buzzer had gone off, causing us to rush downstairs and stand outside shivering. A contractor was working on the floor above us, renovating a suite. He must have found his license in a Cracker Jack box because he was so incompetent.
Sydney raised her head toward the ceiling and made a loud sniffing sound, reminding me of the basset hound my childhood best friend, Lauren, had growing up. “I think I smell something burning this time.”
I inhaled deeply. “So do I.”
“Hey guys”—Jamie, Sydney’s controller, popped her head into my office—“don’t worry. It’s another false alarm. Kimmie tried to make popcorn again.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Sydney groaned and balled her hands. “I’ve told her a thousand times…” She didn’t need to complete her sentence. The building had prohibited popcorn making years ago because of how easily it smoked up the premises. They even sent out monthly reminders to the tenants, which we always circulated to our teams. However, without fail, Kimmie neglected to heed the warning.
“Are you coming down?” Jamie asked.
Sydney and I looked at each other. Then I said, “What do you think? Should we stay and finish this? After all, it’s not like there’s a real fire or we’re in any danger.”
