Dirty Thoughts, Page 3
Brenda Bradley
CHAPTER THREE
The next day Jocelyn put her fears behind her. She put on a green sweat shirt displaying a camel with a cigarette dangling from its lips. It said ONLY DUMB CAMELS SMOKE. The sweatshirt was long enough to cover her hips. She had paired it with a pair of shiny green pants.
She reasoned she didn’t have to be uncomfortable to clean and besides she was only going to get dirty. By the end of the day, she would probably be streaked with dirt. She figured by Halloween she could add a green sweatshirt to the pants and use the outfit to go to a costume party as a streaked frog.
When Jocelyn got to the front desk, Lilly screwed her face and looked at Jocelyn as if she smelled something rotten.
Jocelyn muttered, “I will smile at this woman even if it kills me.” So with a bright smile showing all of her teeth, she said, “Hello Lilly, I hope you had a restful evening and I hope nothing scary happens today.”
Lilly glared and with a snippy attitude responded, “Tiffany is down the hall getting cleaning supplies. You probably need to get yours too.”
Tiffany said, “Good morning,” when she saw her.
“I see Lilly is in a good mood again today.” “Jocelyn said facetiously.
“She’s being her usual bitchiness.” Tiffany said, “By the way, do bugs still bother you? I remember Reese mentioning how you hated them when you were little girls.”
Not wanting to look like a wimp, Jocelyn stood up straighter and stiffened her back. However, her left eye started to twitch nervously. She said, “They don’t bother me so much anymore.”
Jocelyn hated to admit to anyone big flying bugs still terrified her. She detested them and figured if she saw any in the building, she would just swing at them with a rolled up magazine and once they were on the floor, she would squash them with her shoe. Afterwards she could just wipe them off her shoe and put the little critters in the trash.
Walking out of the utility room, Tiffany pulled something out of her big apron pocket that looked like a tennis racket. It had metal wires crisscrossing the rim and it was called a Zapmeister. She showed Jocelyn how to press the button on the side when she cornered a bug. “All you have to do is just touch the bug. The Zapmeister will kill it instantly.”
Jocelyn wanted to start cleaning the offices first. After finishing several offices, she started cleaning the bathroom located nearest Mr. Holliday’s office. She was almost finished. The last thing that she had to do was sweep the floor. As she was sweeping the bathroom floor, she knocked over a plunger sitting beside one of the toilets.
Something dark about the size of a quarter flew up at her. It was a stink bug. Lord, how she hated those things. They didn’t bite, but they were still pests and she was terrified one would fly into her hair and start crawling around.
When the bug flew up, the thing looked like it was coming straight at her face like a jet in attack mode. She started to scream then caught herself. She covered her mouth with her hand. She told herself get a hold of yourself. You have a weapon. Use it. So she got the Zapmeister and went after the bug. It had landed on the wall. She went after it. The bug avoided the Zapmeister.
Then she saw it. After frightening her half to death, it was casually walking on the edge of the sink. Jocelyn sneaked up on it. She pressed the button on the side of the Zapmeister and gently put it on the stink bug. She heard the thing go “zapzzzzzz” and she could swear lighting flew from the bug. But it didn’t die.
It played dead for a second, shook off the effects of the Zapmeister, and then dove at her face again. It hit her right on her neck. She was so startled; she yelled, tripped over a trash can and landed on her butt. Mr. Holliday heard the noise and rushed into the bathroom.
He saw her on the floor and asked, “What happened?”
Stunned and still on the floor, Jocelyn said,” I tried to kill a stink bug.” She pushed the button on the side of the Zapmeister. It sounded as if a miniature fire cracker was going off and white light flew from it!
The bug had somehow landed and gotten stuck on the Zapmeister. Mr. Holliday first looked at the bug, and then he looked at Jocelyn sitting on the floor. A frown started to form on his stern face, then it turned into amusement and finally he bent over in laughter. Jocelyn didn’t see the humor in the situation. Then she thought about it. Maybe she had overreacted to the stink bug.
Mr. Holliday reached for her hand to help her up. Once he had her on her feet, he apologized for laughing.
Now showing concern, he asked, “Did you hurt yourself?
“No. Big bugs just freak me out,” she replied. “I guess I’m okay.”
“Hey, let me take you out for lunch. It’s the least I can do since you were attacked by a giant bug in my building.”
“Well, tripping over a waste basket and falling can be a little painful. I guess I could use a break.”
As Jocelyn and Mr. Holliday exited the building, he said to Lilly, “Please take messages for me while I’m out. I’m taking Jocelyn out for lunch.” Then he turned to Jocelyn and grinned while he was still talking to Lilly. He added, “Jocelyn had an incident while going one-on-one with a giant stink bug.”
“Yes sir.” Lilly didn’t even smile. She just said, “Sir, your messages will be on your desk or on your voice mail when you return to the office.”
Mr. Holliday put his hand on Jocelyn’s elbow to escort her out. Jocelyn couldn’t help herself. She turned partially to look back at Lilly. Lilly was glaring at her. She said to herself, “Oh boy, if looks could kill, I’d be dead.”
Ramon took Jocelyn to a small Chinese restaurant near his office. He often ate there at night if he worked late and wanted a meal before he went home. Once they entered the restaurant, Jocelyn took a moment to look around. The place wasn’t fancy. Some pictures were hung on the walls and there was a large fish tank off to one side of the cashier. The tables were covered in white linens, and each table had a candle on it. She guessed the candles were probably used in the evening to evoke a cozy atmosphere.
When they reached their table, Ramon was very polite. He pulled out a chair for Jocelyn to sit in before he seated himself. He asked her if she would like something to drink. She replied, “Yes, just a cup of hot tea please.”
When the waiter came over to get their order, Ramon told him, “Two cups of tea please.” Then he asked Jocelyn what she would like to eat?
She perused the menu the waiter presented to her and after a moment replied, “Scallops with rice and vegetables. That sounds good.”
He told the waiter, “Two cups of tea and I’ll have what the lady is having.”
Once the waiter had taken their order, he leaned over and said, “Tell me how you’re getting along at the company.”
“I’m getting used to the job and the people.”
They discussed the usual topics people who had recently met do. They talked about the weather, if they knew people in common, what schools had they attended and which sports they liked.
She raised her eyes in surprised when he asked if she was married or had any children. She hadn’t expected him to be interested in the life of one of his cleaning ladies.
“No to both questions. I was married once, but it didn’t work out. I got tired of supporting his nonexistent acting career.”
“How long were you married?”
“About two years.”
“How about you?”
“Me, What?
“Are you married?”
“No. Can’t you see I’ve been too busy creating an empire?”
Jocelyn stared at him. She wasn’t sure if he was kidding. The company was thriving as far as she could tell from her conversations with Reese, but it was nowhere near being an empire. Ramon winked at her. He was kidding and she realized with surprise he was also flirting with her.
When the waiter returned with their tea, Jocelyn patted her hair self consciously and asked, “How long have you owned the paint company?” Ramon was making her nervous. No one
had flirted with her in a long time.
“My name has been on the company for the past fifteen years,” he said with a hint of pride in his voice. “The bank owned it the first ten. Now the bank loans have been paid off and I own it outright.”
As Ramon sipped his tea, she watched the way his hands fit around the cup. She thought he had beautiful, strong hands. Her mind started to wonder about other areas of his body. She wondered what size shoe he wore. Her aunt had always told her, “Look at a man’s shoes before you to sleep with him. If a man wears big shoes, he has big private parts.” Jocelyn knew she was going to hell. She could feel it.
“You kind of drifted away there for a minute. Was I boring you?” Ramon inquired.
When had her thoughts gotten so wicked? She had to remind herself she’d sworn off men.
She steered the questions to less personal areas. “How did you get into the paint business?”
He told her a little about his past. His dad had worked two jobs so he and his brother could go to college. His mother had been a homemaker. In his dad’s home, children were expected to excel. He was allowed to go to school, do his homework and play sports. That was it.
He related that at one time, he had been estranged from his father because he’d dropped out of college. Ramon further stated he had finally come to his senses and returned to college when he could only find a low paying job as a lab technician in a paint company. The dismal low paying salary had made him realize he needed to return to college if he wanted a decent lifestyle.
He told Jocelyn, “I also wanted to help my parents and in order to do that, I realized I needed to get a degree. I completed my degree in chemistry and I minored in business administration. Now I own the paint company where I started as an underpaid lab technician.”
Jocelyn’s mouth dropped open. “Wow! You bought the Holliday Paint company? It couldn’t have been named Holliday when you bought it.”
“No I changed the name. It was on its last legs when I bought it. I doubt anyone even remembers the original name. The company was never really profitable before I bought it. It had changed hands several times even before I bought it.”
“I’d never heard of Holliday Paints before my sister, Reese, started working at your company. Whenever I needed to cover up dirt or food stains on my walls, I’d just go back and buy whatever kind of paint I’d purchased before.”
Ramon looked at her and questioned, “You’ve never bought my paint before? And how in the world do you get food stains on your walls?”
“When I make spaghetti sauce, sometimes it splashes up on the wall. Hasn’t that happened to you? You can’t tell me I’m the only one who uses paint to cover cooking stains?”
“Who taught you to cook? Don’t you have pot lids? I have a couple I can lend you if you cook spaghetti for me.”
After he asked the question, Ramon started to smile at her again. When his dimple appeared in his cheek, Jocelyn realized he was teasing and flirting with her again.
She looked him in the eye. “I taught myself and I have pot lids.”
Their waiter sat some chips and a green sauce on the table. Jocelyn dipped one of the chips in the green sauce the waiter had sat on the table. Ramon started to say something before she put the chip in her mouth. He was too late.
Jocelyn’s eyes started to water. She began to choke and fan her mouth. Ramon looked hurriedly around for the waiter. Jocelyn was starting to stand up when the waiter appeared with a glass of cold water.
Ramon got up from his seat and rushed around the table to pat Jocelyn on her back. Then when her coughing subsided he handed her the glass of water. The waiter said, “Excuse me miss, Mr. Holliday comes here so often I didn’t think to explain to you he always requests our own special blend of extra hot wasabi sauce for his table.”
When Jocelyn’s breath came back, she looked at Ramon and asked him in between gasps for air, “Why didn’t you warn me? How can you stand this stuff?”
Ramon said. “I tried to stop you. I‘m sorry; I wasn’t fast enough. I like my food spicy. I often put lots of hot sauce on most of my food.”
“Lots of hot sauce on most of your food! What are your taste buds made of - steel?”
He gave her a beautiful smile and said facetiously, “I don’t put it in my morning cereal or my female friends.”
Jocelyn sighed and sat back down. She hoped their entrees would be served soon. She wanted this day to end as soon as possible. And she hoped she found another job quickly so she would have an excuse to leave the Holliday Paint Company forever. If her day got any worse, she reasoned, she would have to crawl into a hole and hide.
She managed to finish her lunch. By the end of the last bite, she had decided that Mr. Holliday was a nice man and good to look at, but she wanted the company and its owner out of her life.
On the ride back to the factory, Ramon kept sneaking glances at Jocelyn. Finally she asked, “What? Is there something on my face?”
“No. I’m sorry about the hot sauce. Did it burn your tongue? I promise to be more careful when I ask you out for lunch again. Did you enjoy your meal?”
“I really enjoyed the lunch,” she lied.
Jocelyn forced herself to smile at him. In her mind she said to herself, buddy there will not be a next time. First you have the wicked witch from the west working as a secretary for you. Second you have giant stink bugs in your bathroom. Third you try to kill me with wasabi sauce hot enough to start a fire in hell.
Jocelyn wondered what else she would find to dislike about the Holliday Paint Company. She resolved by the time she got in Ramon’s car to return to the office if anything else bad happened at the paint company she was out of there. Reese would just have to find someone else to clean with Tiffany.
When Jocelyn and Ramon returned to the office, Lilly told Ramon that he had several messages on his desk and a few on his voice mail. He said to Jocelyn before he returned to his office, “I hope that the lunch break made you feel better.”
Jocelyn crossed her fingers behind her back and hoped God would forgive her for telling another lie. She said, “I feel much better now. Thank you.”
Once Ramon was in his office, Lilly muttered, “What some people will do to get in good with the boss.”
Jocelyn overheard her. It was Jocelyn’s turn to glare. She was already upset. She marched up to Lilly‘s desk and said sweetly, “You are such a good receptionist. It’s so good of you to worry about your boss’s welfare. But I’m not trying to sleep with him.” Then she walked away, then turned back to Lilly and said, “Oh, didn’t someone try that and got shut down?”
Before Jocelyn was out of earshot she heard, “Bitch.”
Jocelyn fumed; the woman was getting on her last nerve. She went to find Tiffany. She found her in the lab emptying trash cans. Several employees were in the lab so Tiffany introduced Jocelyn to them. First she introduced her to Juan, a handsome Hispanic man, in his late 20’s. He openly appreciated Jocelyn’s looks. He said in accented English, “I am so pleased to meet you. If you need anything, please don’t hesitate to come to me.” Then he repeated, “Anything.”
Jocelyn felt like giggling. He was openly and outrageously flirting with her. Tiffany laughed and told her, “You have to watch out for Juan. He flirts with anything in a skirt. Even if a woman was eighty, he would give her the same line.”
Juan raised an eyebrow and said, “Yes I would, but she would have to have to be eighty, filthy rich and have one foot already in the grave.” Jocelyn let out the giggle that she had been holding in.
Tiffany pointed to the other man in the lab. She said, “Over there is Roger. He hasn’t been in the lab long but he’s a hard worker. His head is always bent over some paint samples he’s testing. “Roger, meet Jocelyn; she’s here to help clean.”
Roger, an average, slightly overweight looking guy about forty, gave Jocelyn a brief smile and went back to inspecting his paint smear.
Finally Tiffany introduced
her to the only woman working in the lab. Jocelyn saw a woman standing over a paint sample who was of average height and about forty pounds overweight. She had dark brown hair plaited in a long braid and she was wearing thick black glasses.
“Miranda, meet Jocelyn.” Jocelyn shook Miranda‘s hand. Tiffany said, “Miranda and I started here about the same time. Sometimes when she’s not too busy, we eat lunch together.”
Miranda gave Jocelyn a big smile and welcomed her to the lab. Jocelyn said, “When you’re not too busy, please join me and Tiffany for lunch. I can bring a special treat for all of us.”
“Hey! What about me? I’d like something special.” Juan asked with an accent and arched each of his eyebrows separately pretending to wave an imaginary cigar up and down in front of his mouth in the styling of Jimmy Durante. Jocelyn couldn’t help herself. She giggled; he was hilarious.
After Tiffany and Jocelyn had finished emptying the trash cans in the lab, Jocelyn whispered to Tiffany, “Hasn’t anyone told Juan about sexual harassment in the workplace? He could get fired for some of his comments.”
“No one takes him seriously,” Tiffany replied. “He keeps the people in the lab laughing and no one wants to see him get in trouble. Whenever he gets close to going over the edge, Miranda reels him back in with one of her deadly death ray stares and he just says, “Excuz-moi,” in a mock French accent and puts his head down and goes back to work. She usually forgives him.
As Tiffany and Jocelyn were walking down the hall, Tiffany said, “By the way, I heard that you had lunch with the boss, how was it?”
Jocelyn groaned. “Dang, word sure gets around fast. Let me guess, someone told you.”
Tiffany didn’t look at all embarrassed to be repeating gossip. After all gossiping was her forte. She leaned a little closer to Jocelyn and said, “Yes, Miranda saw the two of you in the restaurant she usually goes to when she wants to treat herself. She thought that Mr. Holliday was going to have to call the paramedics for you when you sprang up from your seat gasping for breath. Miranda also told me she sees him there often at dinner with different women.”
Tiffany leaned a little closer to Jocelyn’s ear and whispered, “I’ve heard that Mr. Holliday had a beautiful longtime girlfriend. You can take my word for it. You need to watch out for those old girlfriends. They show up when you least expect it. One could have walked up on the both of you while you were out having lunch.” She suddenly leaned back and stopped whispering. She asked Jocelyn boldly, “Hey, what made him ask you out for lunch anyway?”
Jocelyn didn’t feel she had anything to hide so she related the incident in the bathroom and added, “Maybe he was trying to be nice because he didn’t want the company sued. Even though falling over the trash can was my own stupid fault.”
After getting the information she wanted, Tiffany left Jocelyn to clean elsewhere and to spread more gossip.
To Jocelyn’s delight at 3 P.M. she and Tiffany had cleaned the entire building. She was finished for the day. She had never worked so hard in all of her life. All that bending and lifting and carrying trash had done a job on her muscles. All she wanted now was a hot bath to soothe her aching muscles.
Just when she finished carrying out the last trash bag, she got a call on her cell phone. Reese asked her to come over.
When Jocelyn got there, one of her nephews opened the door. Reese was sitting on her large, comfy couch talking on the phone. Reese waved at her sister and motioned for her to sit down.
When Reese finished her call, Jocelyn looked at the phone. She couldn’t believe it. Her sister had the latest iPhone.
“You didn’t go out and buy a new phone did you? What happened? “Don’t tell me you had a run-in with Clarence again.” Reese started to cry.
Jocelyn felt helpless and angry. She blamed Clarence for Reese’s present struggles to be both mother and father to her children. She also blamed him for Reese’s financial predicament.
Because he could no longer control Reese, he refused to give her any money to help take care of their children. In addition, he constantly took things from the house when Reese wasn’t home. When she would call him about the missing items, he would reply defensively, “I paid for it; it’s mine, so I took it.”
He had even threatened to call Social Services and report Reese as an unfit mother even though he didn’t want the responsibility of caring for their two sons.
When he’d walked out, he had expected Reese to beg him to come back so he could continue controlling and berating her. When she didn’t and started her own business instead, he couldn’t believe it. He thought leaving her to suffer without an income would force her to grovel and beg him to return home. He hadn’t realized his wife’s untapped inner strength.
When Jocelyn handed Reese a tissue to dry her tears she said, “My jackass husband came over last night and said he wanted to spend some time with the kids. They were jumping around and were happy to see him so I figured, everything would be okay. He’d spent about fifteen minutes with the boys when his phone started to buzz every five minutes.”
Reese’s eyes started to fill with tears again. She could barely control her voice as she continued. “Finally I asked him what was going on. He said one of his buddies was trying to reach him. Then he answers his phone and I heard his girlfriend start screaming, “Where are you? You better not be with some other woman.” ‘I grabbed the phone from him and hollered-‘he’s home with his wife and kids where his ass belongs!’ I called him a jackass to his face. He ended up leaving in a huff soon after the girl called.”
Jocelyn sighed, “Reese you can’t force him to treat you with love and respect. You have to let him go.” Jocelyn pointed to the phone. “The letting go part also includes the new phone.”
Reese said, “I know. Buying the phone was the wrong thing to do. When I bought it, the stress I felt eased. However, the phone may not be so easy to return, but I can try to sell it on eBay. Hey! I bought some of my best cleaning supplies from eBay. You can sell almost anything on there. My old phone needed to be replaced, but I can get something cheaper.”
Jocelyn sighed again. She wished her sister was able to afford the extras she wanted. She patted her sister’s shoulder and before leaving teased her asking if she had bought anything else, like- a diamond tiara. Reese responded by saying, “No, and I promise you this is the last thing I’ll ever buy because of Clarence.”
“Good.”
Later that night just as Jocelyn was getting ready for bed, her phone rang. It was Reese again. “I just got off the phone with my jackass husband. He said someone threw a bag of glitter out their apartment window just as he walked by. He said he had the glitter in his hair and on his clothes. He walked into his apartment and now he has it on his floor and on his couch. “I told him his bad luck was coming down from heaven because he was treating his family so poorly.”
Jocelyn said, “Well, like the note attached to the balloons he received said, ‘what goes around comes around.’ Somebody could have bought a bunch of glitter from the craft store and paid two bored teenagers $50.00 each to pull a prank on an unsuspecting guy.”
Reese deadpanned, saying, “It could have happened to anybody.”
Jocelyn replied, “I guess we’ll never know if someone did that on purpose. Goodnight sis.”
Jocelyn went to bed satisfied that instead of Reese, Clarence was the person upset for once. When Jocelyn, Reese and their sisters had been kids, they had been notorious for playing practical jokes on everybody in the family except their mother. She threatened to spank them if they pulled a prank on her. One summer their mother took the children to New York City for a week. Their dad had to stay home because he couldn’t get time off from his job.
Before they left, the girls hid all of the remote control devices to the family’s televisions. Their dad was a notorious out of control-remote device “surfer.” Every night when he was home, he changed the television channels constantly with the remotes even if his family
members were watching something else. The whole family hated his bad habit. As soon as a commercial came on a television, he grabbed the remote and started to flick through different channels.
Reese had been the major prankster in the family. She had come up with the idea to play the trick on their father. She knew it would drive their father nuts. She and Reese had collected all of the remotes and hid them in a box. They placed the box under their youngest sister’s bed. So she would get the blame.
On their way to New York they continually laughed and whispered to each other. Their mother suspected something was going on, but she couldn’t figure out what they were up to. By the time they got to New York, their mom’s cell phone was buzzing constantly. When she finally pulled over the car, to check her messages, she saw dozens of messages from her husband about the remote controls. Their dad was furious. They could hear him yelling when their mother called him.
Before their mother could get a word out, the girls started to laugh loudly. Their dad heard them and knew he had been a victim of one of their pranks. They confessed and told their mom where the remotes were. She told her husband and he threatened to withhold Jocelyn’s and Reese’s allowances for a month.
Now that the girls were grown, they didn’t play jokes on anyone any more. But it looked to Reese like Jocelyn had found a new victim to play pranks on. Somehow the thought lightened her mood.
The next day Jocelyn put her fears behind her. She put on a green sweat shirt displaying a camel with a cigarette dangling from its lips. It said ONLY DUMB CAMELS SMOKE. The sweatshirt was long enough to cover her hips. She had paired it with a pair of shiny green pants.
She reasoned she didn’t have to be uncomfortable to clean and besides she was only going to get dirty. By the end of the day, she would probably be streaked with dirt. She figured by Halloween she could add a green sweatshirt to the pants and use the outfit to go to a costume party as a streaked frog.
When Jocelyn got to the front desk, Lilly screwed her face and looked at Jocelyn as if she smelled something rotten.
Jocelyn muttered, “I will smile at this woman even if it kills me.” So with a bright smile showing all of her teeth, she said, “Hello Lilly, I hope you had a restful evening and I hope nothing scary happens today.”
Lilly glared and with a snippy attitude responded, “Tiffany is down the hall getting cleaning supplies. You probably need to get yours too.”
Tiffany said, “Good morning,” when she saw her.
“I see Lilly is in a good mood again today.” “Jocelyn said facetiously.
“She’s being her usual bitchiness.” Tiffany said, “By the way, do bugs still bother you? I remember Reese mentioning how you hated them when you were little girls.”
Not wanting to look like a wimp, Jocelyn stood up straighter and stiffened her back. However, her left eye started to twitch nervously. She said, “They don’t bother me so much anymore.”
Jocelyn hated to admit to anyone big flying bugs still terrified her. She detested them and figured if she saw any in the building, she would just swing at them with a rolled up magazine and once they were on the floor, she would squash them with her shoe. Afterwards she could just wipe them off her shoe and put the little critters in the trash.
Walking out of the utility room, Tiffany pulled something out of her big apron pocket that looked like a tennis racket. It had metal wires crisscrossing the rim and it was called a Zapmeister. She showed Jocelyn how to press the button on the side when she cornered a bug. “All you have to do is just touch the bug. The Zapmeister will kill it instantly.”
Jocelyn wanted to start cleaning the offices first. After finishing several offices, she started cleaning the bathroom located nearest Mr. Holliday’s office. She was almost finished. The last thing that she had to do was sweep the floor. As she was sweeping the bathroom floor, she knocked over a plunger sitting beside one of the toilets.
Something dark about the size of a quarter flew up at her. It was a stink bug. Lord, how she hated those things. They didn’t bite, but they were still pests and she was terrified one would fly into her hair and start crawling around.
When the bug flew up, the thing looked like it was coming straight at her face like a jet in attack mode. She started to scream then caught herself. She covered her mouth with her hand. She told herself get a hold of yourself. You have a weapon. Use it. So she got the Zapmeister and went after the bug. It had landed on the wall. She went after it. The bug avoided the Zapmeister.
Then she saw it. After frightening her half to death, it was casually walking on the edge of the sink. Jocelyn sneaked up on it. She pressed the button on the side of the Zapmeister and gently put it on the stink bug. She heard the thing go “zapzzzzzz” and she could swear lighting flew from the bug. But it didn’t die.
It played dead for a second, shook off the effects of the Zapmeister, and then dove at her face again. It hit her right on her neck. She was so startled; she yelled, tripped over a trash can and landed on her butt. Mr. Holliday heard the noise and rushed into the bathroom.
He saw her on the floor and asked, “What happened?”
Stunned and still on the floor, Jocelyn said,” I tried to kill a stink bug.” She pushed the button on the side of the Zapmeister. It sounded as if a miniature fire cracker was going off and white light flew from it!
The bug had somehow landed and gotten stuck on the Zapmeister. Mr. Holliday first looked at the bug, and then he looked at Jocelyn sitting on the floor. A frown started to form on his stern face, then it turned into amusement and finally he bent over in laughter. Jocelyn didn’t see the humor in the situation. Then she thought about it. Maybe she had overreacted to the stink bug.
Mr. Holliday reached for her hand to help her up. Once he had her on her feet, he apologized for laughing.
Now showing concern, he asked, “Did you hurt yourself?
“No. Big bugs just freak me out,” she replied. “I guess I’m okay.”
“Hey, let me take you out for lunch. It’s the least I can do since you were attacked by a giant bug in my building.”
“Well, tripping over a waste basket and falling can be a little painful. I guess I could use a break.”
As Jocelyn and Mr. Holliday exited the building, he said to Lilly, “Please take messages for me while I’m out. I’m taking Jocelyn out for lunch.” Then he turned to Jocelyn and grinned while he was still talking to Lilly. He added, “Jocelyn had an incident while going one-on-one with a giant stink bug.”
“Yes sir.” Lilly didn’t even smile. She just said, “Sir, your messages will be on your desk or on your voice mail when you return to the office.”
Mr. Holliday put his hand on Jocelyn’s elbow to escort her out. Jocelyn couldn’t help herself. She turned partially to look back at Lilly. Lilly was glaring at her. She said to herself, “Oh boy, if looks could kill, I’d be dead.”
Ramon took Jocelyn to a small Chinese restaurant near his office. He often ate there at night if he worked late and wanted a meal before he went home. Once they entered the restaurant, Jocelyn took a moment to look around. The place wasn’t fancy. Some pictures were hung on the walls and there was a large fish tank off to one side of the cashier. The tables were covered in white linens, and each table had a candle on it. She guessed the candles were probably used in the evening to evoke a cozy atmosphere.
When they reached their table, Ramon was very polite. He pulled out a chair for Jocelyn to sit in before he seated himself. He asked her if she would like something to drink. She replied, “Yes, just a cup of hot tea please.”
When the waiter came over to get their order, Ramon told him, “Two cups of tea please.” Then he asked Jocelyn what she would like to eat?
She perused the menu the waiter presented to her and after a moment replied, “Scallops with rice and vegetables. That sounds good.”
He told the waiter, “Two cups of tea and I’ll have what the lady is having.”
Once the waiter had taken their order, he leaned over and said, “Tell me how you’re getting along at the company.”
“I’m getting used to the job and the people.”
They discussed the usual topics people who had recently met do. They talked about the weather, if they knew people in common, what schools had they attended and which sports they liked.
She raised her eyes in surprised when he asked if she was married or had any children. She hadn’t expected him to be interested in the life of one of his cleaning ladies.
“No to both questions. I was married once, but it didn’t work out. I got tired of supporting his nonexistent acting career.”
“How long were you married?”
“About two years.”
“How about you?”
“Me, What?
“Are you married?”
“No. Can’t you see I’ve been too busy creating an empire?”
Jocelyn stared at him. She wasn’t sure if he was kidding. The company was thriving as far as she could tell from her conversations with Reese, but it was nowhere near being an empire. Ramon winked at her. He was kidding and she realized with surprise he was also flirting with her.
When the waiter returned with their tea, Jocelyn patted her hair self consciously and asked, “How long have you owned the paint company?” Ramon was making her nervous. No one
had flirted with her in a long time.
“My name has been on the company for the past fifteen years,” he said with a hint of pride in his voice. “The bank owned it the first ten. Now the bank loans have been paid off and I own it outright.”
As Ramon sipped his tea, she watched the way his hands fit around the cup. She thought he had beautiful, strong hands. Her mind started to wonder about other areas of his body. She wondered what size shoe he wore. Her aunt had always told her, “Look at a man’s shoes before you to sleep with him. If a man wears big shoes, he has big private parts.” Jocelyn knew she was going to hell. She could feel it.
“You kind of drifted away there for a minute. Was I boring you?” Ramon inquired.
When had her thoughts gotten so wicked? She had to remind herself she’d sworn off men.
She steered the questions to less personal areas. “How did you get into the paint business?”
He told her a little about his past. His dad had worked two jobs so he and his brother could go to college. His mother had been a homemaker. In his dad’s home, children were expected to excel. He was allowed to go to school, do his homework and play sports. That was it.
He related that at one time, he had been estranged from his father because he’d dropped out of college. Ramon further stated he had finally come to his senses and returned to college when he could only find a low paying job as a lab technician in a paint company. The dismal low paying salary had made him realize he needed to return to college if he wanted a decent lifestyle.
He told Jocelyn, “I also wanted to help my parents and in order to do that, I realized I needed to get a degree. I completed my degree in chemistry and I minored in business administration. Now I own the paint company where I started as an underpaid lab technician.”
Jocelyn’s mouth dropped open. “Wow! You bought the Holliday Paint company? It couldn’t have been named Holliday when you bought it.”
“No I changed the name. It was on its last legs when I bought it. I doubt anyone even remembers the original name. The company was never really profitable before I bought it. It had changed hands several times even before I bought it.”
“I’d never heard of Holliday Paints before my sister, Reese, started working at your company. Whenever I needed to cover up dirt or food stains on my walls, I’d just go back and buy whatever kind of paint I’d purchased before.”
Ramon looked at her and questioned, “You’ve never bought my paint before? And how in the world do you get food stains on your walls?”
“When I make spaghetti sauce, sometimes it splashes up on the wall. Hasn’t that happened to you? You can’t tell me I’m the only one who uses paint to cover cooking stains?”
“Who taught you to cook? Don’t you have pot lids? I have a couple I can lend you if you cook spaghetti for me.”
After he asked the question, Ramon started to smile at her again. When his dimple appeared in his cheek, Jocelyn realized he was teasing and flirting with her again.
She looked him in the eye. “I taught myself and I have pot lids.”
Their waiter sat some chips and a green sauce on the table. Jocelyn dipped one of the chips in the green sauce the waiter had sat on the table. Ramon started to say something before she put the chip in her mouth. He was too late.
Jocelyn’s eyes started to water. She began to choke and fan her mouth. Ramon looked hurriedly around for the waiter. Jocelyn was starting to stand up when the waiter appeared with a glass of cold water.
Ramon got up from his seat and rushed around the table to pat Jocelyn on her back. Then when her coughing subsided he handed her the glass of water. The waiter said, “Excuse me miss, Mr. Holliday comes here so often I didn’t think to explain to you he always requests our own special blend of extra hot wasabi sauce for his table.”
When Jocelyn’s breath came back, she looked at Ramon and asked him in between gasps for air, “Why didn’t you warn me? How can you stand this stuff?”
Ramon said. “I tried to stop you. I‘m sorry; I wasn’t fast enough. I like my food spicy. I often put lots of hot sauce on most of my food.”
“Lots of hot sauce on most of your food! What are your taste buds made of - steel?”
He gave her a beautiful smile and said facetiously, “I don’t put it in my morning cereal or my female friends.”
Jocelyn sighed and sat back down. She hoped their entrees would be served soon. She wanted this day to end as soon as possible. And she hoped she found another job quickly so she would have an excuse to leave the Holliday Paint Company forever. If her day got any worse, she reasoned, she would have to crawl into a hole and hide.
She managed to finish her lunch. By the end of the last bite, she had decided that Mr. Holliday was a nice man and good to look at, but she wanted the company and its owner out of her life.
On the ride back to the factory, Ramon kept sneaking glances at Jocelyn. Finally she asked, “What? Is there something on my face?”
“No. I’m sorry about the hot sauce. Did it burn your tongue? I promise to be more careful when I ask you out for lunch again. Did you enjoy your meal?”
“I really enjoyed the lunch,” she lied.
Jocelyn forced herself to smile at him. In her mind she said to herself, buddy there will not be a next time. First you have the wicked witch from the west working as a secretary for you. Second you have giant stink bugs in your bathroom. Third you try to kill me with wasabi sauce hot enough to start a fire in hell.
Jocelyn wondered what else she would find to dislike about the Holliday Paint Company. She resolved by the time she got in Ramon’s car to return to the office if anything else bad happened at the paint company she was out of there. Reese would just have to find someone else to clean with Tiffany.
When Jocelyn and Ramon returned to the office, Lilly told Ramon that he had several messages on his desk and a few on his voice mail. He said to Jocelyn before he returned to his office, “I hope that the lunch break made you feel better.”
Jocelyn crossed her fingers behind her back and hoped God would forgive her for telling another lie. She said, “I feel much better now. Thank you.”
Once Ramon was in his office, Lilly muttered, “What some people will do to get in good with the boss.”
Jocelyn overheard her. It was Jocelyn’s turn to glare. She was already upset. She marched up to Lilly‘s desk and said sweetly, “You are such a good receptionist. It’s so good of you to worry about your boss’s welfare. But I’m not trying to sleep with him.” Then she walked away, then turned back to Lilly and said, “Oh, didn’t someone try that and got shut down?”
Before Jocelyn was out of earshot she heard, “Bitch.”
Jocelyn fumed; the woman was getting on her last nerve. She went to find Tiffany. She found her in the lab emptying trash cans. Several employees were in the lab so Tiffany introduced Jocelyn to them. First she introduced her to Juan, a handsome Hispanic man, in his late 20’s. He openly appreciated Jocelyn’s looks. He said in accented English, “I am so pleased to meet you. If you need anything, please don’t hesitate to come to me.” Then he repeated, “Anything.”
Jocelyn felt like giggling. He was openly and outrageously flirting with her. Tiffany laughed and told her, “You have to watch out for Juan. He flirts with anything in a skirt. Even if a woman was eighty, he would give her the same line.”
Juan raised an eyebrow and said, “Yes I would, but she would have to have to be eighty, filthy rich and have one foot already in the grave.” Jocelyn let out the giggle that she had been holding in.
Tiffany pointed to the other man in the lab. She said, “Over there is Roger. He hasn’t been in the lab long but he’s a hard worker. His head is always bent over some paint samples he’s testing. “Roger, meet Jocelyn; she’s here to help clean.”
Roger, an average, slightly overweight looking guy about forty, gave Jocelyn a brief smile and went back to inspecting his paint smear.
Finally Tiffany introduced
her to the only woman working in the lab. Jocelyn saw a woman standing over a paint sample who was of average height and about forty pounds overweight. She had dark brown hair plaited in a long braid and she was wearing thick black glasses.
“Miranda, meet Jocelyn.” Jocelyn shook Miranda‘s hand. Tiffany said, “Miranda and I started here about the same time. Sometimes when she’s not too busy, we eat lunch together.”
Miranda gave Jocelyn a big smile and welcomed her to the lab. Jocelyn said, “When you’re not too busy, please join me and Tiffany for lunch. I can bring a special treat for all of us.”
“Hey! What about me? I’d like something special.” Juan asked with an accent and arched each of his eyebrows separately pretending to wave an imaginary cigar up and down in front of his mouth in the styling of Jimmy Durante. Jocelyn couldn’t help herself. She giggled; he was hilarious.
After Tiffany and Jocelyn had finished emptying the trash cans in the lab, Jocelyn whispered to Tiffany, “Hasn’t anyone told Juan about sexual harassment in the workplace? He could get fired for some of his comments.”
“No one takes him seriously,” Tiffany replied. “He keeps the people in the lab laughing and no one wants to see him get in trouble. Whenever he gets close to going over the edge, Miranda reels him back in with one of her deadly death ray stares and he just says, “Excuz-moi,” in a mock French accent and puts his head down and goes back to work. She usually forgives him.
As Tiffany and Jocelyn were walking down the hall, Tiffany said, “By the way, I heard that you had lunch with the boss, how was it?”
Jocelyn groaned. “Dang, word sure gets around fast. Let me guess, someone told you.”
Tiffany didn’t look at all embarrassed to be repeating gossip. After all gossiping was her forte. She leaned a little closer to Jocelyn and said, “Yes, Miranda saw the two of you in the restaurant she usually goes to when she wants to treat herself. She thought that Mr. Holliday was going to have to call the paramedics for you when you sprang up from your seat gasping for breath. Miranda also told me she sees him there often at dinner with different women.”
Tiffany leaned a little closer to Jocelyn’s ear and whispered, “I’ve heard that Mr. Holliday had a beautiful longtime girlfriend. You can take my word for it. You need to watch out for those old girlfriends. They show up when you least expect it. One could have walked up on the both of you while you were out having lunch.” She suddenly leaned back and stopped whispering. She asked Jocelyn boldly, “Hey, what made him ask you out for lunch anyway?”
Jocelyn didn’t feel she had anything to hide so she related the incident in the bathroom and added, “Maybe he was trying to be nice because he didn’t want the company sued. Even though falling over the trash can was my own stupid fault.”
After getting the information she wanted, Tiffany left Jocelyn to clean elsewhere and to spread more gossip.
To Jocelyn’s delight at 3 P.M. she and Tiffany had cleaned the entire building. She was finished for the day. She had never worked so hard in all of her life. All that bending and lifting and carrying trash had done a job on her muscles. All she wanted now was a hot bath to soothe her aching muscles.
Just when she finished carrying out the last trash bag, she got a call on her cell phone. Reese asked her to come over.
When Jocelyn got there, one of her nephews opened the door. Reese was sitting on her large, comfy couch talking on the phone. Reese waved at her sister and motioned for her to sit down.
When Reese finished her call, Jocelyn looked at the phone. She couldn’t believe it. Her sister had the latest iPhone.
“You didn’t go out and buy a new phone did you? What happened? “Don’t tell me you had a run-in with Clarence again.” Reese started to cry.
Jocelyn felt helpless and angry. She blamed Clarence for Reese’s present struggles to be both mother and father to her children. She also blamed him for Reese’s financial predicament.
Because he could no longer control Reese, he refused to give her any money to help take care of their children. In addition, he constantly took things from the house when Reese wasn’t home. When she would call him about the missing items, he would reply defensively, “I paid for it; it’s mine, so I took it.”
He had even threatened to call Social Services and report Reese as an unfit mother even though he didn’t want the responsibility of caring for their two sons.
When he’d walked out, he had expected Reese to beg him to come back so he could continue controlling and berating her. When she didn’t and started her own business instead, he couldn’t believe it. He thought leaving her to suffer without an income would force her to grovel and beg him to return home. He hadn’t realized his wife’s untapped inner strength.
When Jocelyn handed Reese a tissue to dry her tears she said, “My jackass husband came over last night and said he wanted to spend some time with the kids. They were jumping around and were happy to see him so I figured, everything would be okay. He’d spent about fifteen minutes with the boys when his phone started to buzz every five minutes.”
Reese’s eyes started to fill with tears again. She could barely control her voice as she continued. “Finally I asked him what was going on. He said one of his buddies was trying to reach him. Then he answers his phone and I heard his girlfriend start screaming, “Where are you? You better not be with some other woman.” ‘I grabbed the phone from him and hollered-‘he’s home with his wife and kids where his ass belongs!’ I called him a jackass to his face. He ended up leaving in a huff soon after the girl called.”
Jocelyn sighed, “Reese you can’t force him to treat you with love and respect. You have to let him go.” Jocelyn pointed to the phone. “The letting go part also includes the new phone.”
Reese said, “I know. Buying the phone was the wrong thing to do. When I bought it, the stress I felt eased. However, the phone may not be so easy to return, but I can try to sell it on eBay. Hey! I bought some of my best cleaning supplies from eBay. You can sell almost anything on there. My old phone needed to be replaced, but I can get something cheaper.”
Jocelyn sighed again. She wished her sister was able to afford the extras she wanted. She patted her sister’s shoulder and before leaving teased her asking if she had bought anything else, like- a diamond tiara. Reese responded by saying, “No, and I promise you this is the last thing I’ll ever buy because of Clarence.”
“Good.”
Later that night just as Jocelyn was getting ready for bed, her phone rang. It was Reese again. “I just got off the phone with my jackass husband. He said someone threw a bag of glitter out their apartment window just as he walked by. He said he had the glitter in his hair and on his clothes. He walked into his apartment and now he has it on his floor and on his couch. “I told him his bad luck was coming down from heaven because he was treating his family so poorly.”
Jocelyn said, “Well, like the note attached to the balloons he received said, ‘what goes around comes around.’ Somebody could have bought a bunch of glitter from the craft store and paid two bored teenagers $50.00 each to pull a prank on an unsuspecting guy.”
Reese deadpanned, saying, “It could have happened to anybody.”
Jocelyn replied, “I guess we’ll never know if someone did that on purpose. Goodnight sis.”
Jocelyn went to bed satisfied that instead of Reese, Clarence was the person upset for once. When Jocelyn, Reese and their sisters had been kids, they had been notorious for playing practical jokes on everybody in the family except their mother. She threatened to spank them if they pulled a prank on her. One summer their mother took the children to New York City for a week. Their dad had to stay home because he couldn’t get time off from his job.
Before they left, the girls hid all of the remote control devices to the family’s televisions. Their dad was a notorious out of control-remote device “surfer.” Every night when he was home, he changed the television channels constantly with the remotes even if his family
members were watching something else. The whole family hated his bad habit. As soon as a commercial came on a television, he grabbed the remote and started to flick through different channels.
Reese had been the major prankster in the family. She had come up with the idea to play the trick on their father. She knew it would drive their father nuts. She and Reese had collected all of the remotes and hid them in a box. They placed the box under their youngest sister’s bed. So she would get the blame.
On their way to New York they continually laughed and whispered to each other. Their mother suspected something was going on, but she couldn’t figure out what they were up to. By the time they got to New York, their mom’s cell phone was buzzing constantly. When she finally pulled over the car, to check her messages, she saw dozens of messages from her husband about the remote controls. Their dad was furious. They could hear him yelling when their mother called him.
Before their mother could get a word out, the girls started to laugh loudly. Their dad heard them and knew he had been a victim of one of their pranks. They confessed and told their mom where the remotes were. She told her husband and he threatened to withhold Jocelyn’s and Reese’s allowances for a month.
Now that the girls were grown, they didn’t play jokes on anyone any more. But it looked to Reese like Jocelyn had found a new victim to play pranks on. Somehow the thought lightened her mood.
