Diluted Desire (14 page)

After she paid for her coffee, she meandered to the elevators.  She was sipping her drink when Malynda, one of her colleagues sidled up to her. 

She looked around before leaning toward Brooke.  “I heard that there’s going to be some layoffs,” she whispered.

“Really? Which department?” she asked, bored, she really didn’t care, the same layoff rumor floated around every couple of months and nothing ever happened, besides her mind was on getting those reports completed.  She shot an impatient glance at the elevator. 

“I don’t know, but my contact in Human Resources, said that these are going to cut deep.  A lot of people are going to be affected.”

The elevator’s bell dinged and Brooke stepped forward, poised to step on when the doors slid open.  “So when are they going to make the big announcement?” Brooke asked, before stepping on the elevator, with Malynda on her heels.  She pushed her floor number, so did Malynda.

“Sometime within the next couple of days,” Malynda announced excitedly.  She loved gossip, and when it came to the goings on of the company, she was better than TMZ.com.  “They’re going to do it in waves.”

The elevator stopped on Brooke’s floor and she stepped out.  “Thanks for the scoop.  I’ll talk to you later.”  She waved at Malynda then hurried to her cube.  “I need to get those reports done before my meeting with Ruben,” she muttered.

Brooke knocked on Ruben’s office door before entering.  He pulled his gaze away from his laptop long enough to nod at her and motioned for her to close the door.  Brooke did so and sat in one of his chairs across from his desk. 

He had been her manager for the last five years and she loved working for him.  Out of all the managers in the company, not only was he the nicest one, but he was also the smartest. He could run rings around his colleagues.  While his cohorts had a Master’s in Computer Science, he trumped it with a Doctorate in Computer Science.

“How are you doing today?” he asked somberly, and a ribbon of fear cut through Brooke. 

“I’m fine,” she answered cautiously.

Ruben sighed.  “There’s no easy way to say this.”

“I’m getting let go, aren’t I?” she asked, her voice quavering. 

Ruben nodded.  “It’s not just you, it’s the whole department…including me. The head honchos decided that it would be more cost effective to relocate the entire I.T. department to India.  I’m sorry,” he said, still reeling from the news himself.  He only had a few hours to absorb it, he was told last night, during a late night meeting after most of the employees had left for the day.

Brooke thought about her never ending bills and the possibility that she might not be able to pay her mortgage rattled her.  She started crying.  “What am I going to do?” she sobbed.

Ruben pushed a box of tissues toward her, Brooke snatched out a few and dabbed at her eyes.  “You’ll be fine,” Ruben answered.  He opened a folder on his desk.  “You’re getting four months of severance pay, you’ll have access to our resource center, they’ll help you write a resume—”

Brooke whimpered and Ruben hesitated at the sound, he hated doing this, especially to Brooke, a single mom whose son’s father was an absentee dickhead.  He knew because he served as her mentor and they occasionally lunched together where she updated him on her life.

With a heavy heart Ruben continued, “Since the beginning of the month is quickly approaching the company will let you have health insurance until the end of the upcoming month, after that if you want insurance, you’ll have to sign up for COBRA.  There’s information in the folder about rolling over your 401k or keeping it here.  I know that this is a lot to absorb right now, I know that you’re in shock.” 

She fixed a tear stained gaze on Ruben.  “I’m more than in shock, I’m in a shitload of trouble,” she croaked.

One Toe Out - $.99

J’Twan, J.T. for short, Morrison, quarterback for the Atlanta Jaguars, sat across from Marcella Narozzi, his publicist.  “This is fucked up.  You know that don’t you?” she barked not pulling any punches. 

J.T. nodded.  “I know.”

“This is a public relations nightmare.”  She sighed, then strolled over to the window and looked out over the skyline.  The sun was just setting, casting a honeyed glow over the city.  After twenty years in the business she had seen it all and had cleaned up more messes than a cleaning lady.  No scandal or soon-to-be scandal was too big.  Her biggest coup was creating a campaign that convinced the residents of a small town to drink the water after traces of pharmaceutical drugs were found in it.  She polished tarnished images, she was
the
Spin Doctor.  Marcella was the lady to go to when people needed things fixed and they paid her handsomely for it.  She clasped her hands behind her back.  “You know that I respect you?”

“I do.”

“And you know that I always have your best interest at heart, don’t you?”

He did, Marcella had been his publicist when he first signed to the NFL, he trusted her totally.  “I do.”

“And you know that I don’t give a fuck about your lifestyle don’t you?”

“I do.”

She turned away from the window.  “But everybody isn’t as understanding as I am.”

“I know, but—”

She threw up her hand.  “The video was pulled from boobtube.com and all the celebrity gossip websites, but naturally we can’t retrieve the video from the people who have it in their private mailboxes.  I called Barry—” 

“Oh shit!”  Barry Nevins was the owner of the Atlanta Jaguars. 

“I needed to go on the offense and not the defense, that’s one thing that I learned while representing athletes.  I told him that it wasn’t you in the video,” Marcella reported in clipped tones.

“And he believed you?”  J.T. asked, his voice hopeful.

Marcella shrugged.  “He didn’t fire you,” she said dismissingly.  “I think he was suspicious, but that’s all it is.  And I don’t think that he wants to wrap his head around the fact that his one hundred million dollar quarterback might be gay.” 

“Did he see the video?” J.T. tentatively asked.  Barry controlled his future in football, one word from him and his career would be over.  J.T. didn’t want to do anything that would piss him off.

A short thirty second video clip had leaked on the Internet showing him giving head to another man.  Fortunately the amateur video wasn’t that great, so he wasn’t outed…this time.  The lighting and sound quality was horrible; a college freshman film major could’ve done a better job. 

He had been feeling extra horny that night and had a friend of his arrange for a couple of men to get together.  They had gotten a cheap motel room on Moreland Avenue, the type of place where occupants were quickly forgotten as soon as they paid the fifty dollars for their room.  The group had spent the night drinking, smoking and popping pills and doing things to each other that left even him, an award winning quarterback, sore the next morning. 

At the time he didn’t know that he was being videotaped, after all the weed and alcohol he had consumed that night, they could’ve taken him to Piedmont Park, a popular gay hangout in Atlanta, and had him run around naked and he wouldn’t have protested. 

If it came out that J.T., the quarterback for the Atlanta Jaguars, was gay, it would ruin him. 

“What am I going to do?” he groaned.  “It’s a sad thing that America won’t accept a gay quarterback.  I’m a man who happens to love men, that doesn’t make me any less of a human being does it?”  Every day he got the urge to run outside or go on TV and tell everybody that he was gay but he squashed the urge, knowing that the backlash would be horrible. 

Instead of answering his question, Marcella strolled over to her wine cabinet and pulled out a bottle.  She handed it over to J.T. for him to uncork it.  Marcella pulled out two wine glasses from her mini china cabinet and set them on her desk.  As soon as J.T. filled them, she lifted hers.  She brought the glass up to her nose and inhaled deeply, the aroma instantly calmed her.  She sipped while J.T. nervously tapped his glass.  “I’ve given this a lot of thought.”

There was hope in Marcella’s voice and J.T. desperately reached for it.  “Yeah?”

“Find a wife,” she said.

“What?” So shocked by her response, he nearly fell off the chair.

“If you want to continue your lifestyle, you’ll get a wife, some young lady, not a celebrity, and she must not have any aspirations of being a celebrity.  But a good hometown girl, who would be willing to sign a pre-nup and have a whirlwind romance.  You two get married, you get her pregnant and you all live happily ever happy.  Let her know what’s going on so that way she won’t be taken by surprise.  You can continue dating men, but keep it quiet…very quiet.”

J.T.’s head was swimming.  “So we orchestrate this whole relationship?  My marriage?  A baby?  Who would go along with this charade?”

Marcella snapped her fingers.  “I can instantly come up with twenty women who would gladly step into this situation and exploit it for the goldmine that it is.  But you don’t want a gold digger, you don’t want a manipulator, you want someone sweet, someone pliable, and someone who needs you just as much as you need her.”

He looked helplessly at her.  “But I don’t know anybody like that.”

“Sure you do.  You just don’t know it.  I’m sure once you start paying attention to the women around you, one will stand out.”

“But what happens if I don’t find anybody?”

She pointed a finger at him.  “Then, I’ll find one for you,” she threatened.

MY HUSBAND & MY WIFEY - $.99

Barrett McKenzie laughed loudly; it started in her heart and erupted into a blast of playfulness.  Sierra, her best friend of fifteen years, grinned at her.  “You’re too crazy girl, keep pulling stunts like that and those people are going to fire you.  That’s for real.”  Barrett sat back in her chair and crossed her legs.  She and Sierra were sharing their weekly lunch at their favorite restaurant. 

Sierra grinned.  “I know.  I’ll try to behave myself.  So what are you getting Tavis for his birthday?” she asked.

Barrett shrugged while taking a bite from her orange glazed salmon.  “I don’t know.  I’ve been going crazy trying to think of something.”  And she had been, for the last three months, as soon as the reminder popped up on her BlackBerry.  Her husband had every gadget created and was a bigger clothes whore than she.  So those gifts were out.  She had a gift in mind, but it was so unusual, so different, and so unlike anything she had given him, that she had skirted away from it…until now.

“What about a spa day?”

“Nope, did that for the last two years in a row.”

“Okay.  What about a trip?”

“I’ve already sent him to Vegas, Miami and the Dominican Republic.”  As a successful lawyer, she was able to be generous with her husband.

“Well, ain’t he the lucky man,” Sierra drawled.

“I kinda have an idea,” Barrett sheepishly admitted.

Sierra ran her finger through a dollop of butter.  “What?” she asked before licking the butter off and she nearly choked when she heard her friend’s response. 

Barrett glanced around to ensure that no one was listening, fortunately everyone within hearing distance was engrossed in conversation or focused on their food.  “I was thinking,” Barrett repeated softly, “about Tavis and me having a threesome.”

“What the—” Sierra vigorously shook her head.  “No Barrett, don’t do that.  Why would you do something so stupid?”

“He’s been hinting around.”

Sierra placed her hands, palms down, on the table and glared at her long-time friend.  “So! Let him hint all he wants, hell let him take an ad out in the newspaper, don’t do it!”

Barrett took a deep breath, while Sierra wasn’t entirely straitlaced and proper, she did at one time carry on a three-year affair with a married man, she could be quite prissy when the mood hit her.  “But I kinda want to,” she whispered. 

“Oh lawd!” Sienna yelled and Barrett covered her face with her hands and slumped in her seat.  She hadn’t planned on telling Sierra her plans, it just slipped out and now that it did, she regretted it.

“Can you not shout?  I don’t need everybody knowing my business,” Barrett hissed, as she straightened up and removed her hands from her face.

“Why do you want to invite a woman—it is a woman isn’t it?” she asked and Barrett confirmed that it was.  “Why would you invite an outsider into your marriage?”

“We’ve been married for ten years.  Things are getting stale.”