When it finally sunk in for Frank that Vanessa was actually
leaving the firm, the smile vanished from his face during the presentations and
meetings to be replaced with furtive looks of suspicion. This all came to a head during her last week
at the firm. Frank came into her office with the firm’s owner Steve Peterson.
“Hello,
Mr. Peterson-“
“Call
me Steve.”
“Steve,
Frank. What can I do for the two of you?”
“Well,
Vanessa can I call you Vanessa?” Steve began then continued after she nodded.
Steve gestured at chairs and they all sat down in her office. Van crossed her
legs, marveling as she felt that muscles that had formed there over the past
few weeks. She unconsciously flicked at her skirt and smiled over at Frank.
Frank squirmed. She blinked then glanced back to Steve who folded his hands in
his lap and licked his lips.
“Vanessa,
Frank informs me that you are planning on leaving us very soon?”
Ah, so
this was what Frank had been up to. She smiled back at Steve Peterson.
“Yes,
Steve, I am in fact down to my last three weeks before I leave.”
Steve
glanced at Frank, one eyebrow raised, Frank to his credit only squirmed a
little then shrugged. Steve nodded as if making up his mind about something and
looked back over.
“We are
prepared to offer you a promotion to director of Marketing with a substantial
raise in salary, if we can persuade you to stay with the firm?” Steve gives her
his million dollar smile.
Vanessa
keeps her smile in place as she ponders what a substantial raise would entail.
After a reasonable pause she shook her head slightly and watched to her great
amusement Frank’s shoulders tense.
“Are
you sure, We’d be open to negotiations on the benefits and perhaps even the
salary.” Steve said trying to smile even bigger.
Wow,
apparently I never gave myself much credit of my importance to the company- or…
Vanessa pursed her lips realizing that there was something more going on. She
shrugged slightly and shook her head again.
“I am
sure we can offer you more than Russell Nash can with more perks than he has.”
Steve announced as he steepled his fingers in front of him. Frank looked so
tight she figured he would snap in two at any moment.
Aha and
oh ho, as Spencer would say at a critical moment in his books. The truth is
revealed. Steve doesn’t want her to go so much as to her personal importance to
the firm as much as he cannot deal with losing an employee to his nemesis,
Russell Nash across town. Van almost laughed and her eyes sparkled as she shook
her head in an effort not to giggle. She succeeded in stilling the laughter, as
delicious as it was. Her mouth quirked into a grin as she watched Steve’s
expression go from incredulous to a dark shade of red- anger or embarrassment
or both?
“Steve-“ Vanessa began.
“Mr.
Paterson.”
Well,
that was the way of things.
“Mr.
Paterson, while I am flattered by these offers, I am afraid I cannot accept
them.” She held up her hand to stop him from interrupting. “I am not sure what
you have been told but I can assure you that Mr. Nash has not made me any
offers. I am not leaving the firm to go work for a competitor. No, I am not” - this at his sudden scornful
look of disbelief. “I am leaving the for
a change of career and scenery.”
“Well,
Ms. Schumpert I am sorry to hear that but the offer still stands despite my own
personal feelings to the contrary.” And with that he stormed out of her office.
Frank stood wiped his hands in his best Pontius Pilate imitation (though
Vanessa seriously doubted that Frank had ever read the Bible) gave her the evil
eye and walked to her door before stopping and looking back at her.
“You
know, I am not fooled by any of this. We both know what you are up to and I
won’t be held accountable when the chips are down.”
Talk
about mixing metaphors. Frank was the king of that and never even knew it, well
she wasn’t going to point it out.
“Frank,
I told you that I am not pulling a fast one, I want to travel and go on a-“
“Vanessa
stop kidding yourself, we both know the whole adventure-“ and here he held up
his hands to make an exaggerated quotes expression before continuing “ is
complete malarkey.”
She
must have shaken her head as she shrugged because Frank flapped his arms, threw
up his hands and slammed out of her office. Vanessa sighed as she leaned back
in her chair. She spun around to look one last time out of her office window.
“Leavin
of an jet-plane, don’t know when I’ll be back again.” She sang to herself as
she spotted the hunky guy from her office musings making his way through the
construction site. She waved down at him, more for herself than any hope he
could see her.
Sue
came in later to announce that the staff was waiting in the break room and
there was cake. So she followed Sue out to the break room where the men and
women from her department yelled surprise and her going away party started. Sue
led the staff in singing “For she’s a good fellow” before presenting her with
the ginormous cake. Everyone lined up for cake and punch which tasted quite
alcoholic.
People
would come up and ask her where she was going and Sue-who was a bit tipsy by
that point would interject over anything Vanessa would say and tell them
outrageous lies.
“She’s
joined the brothers of Assisi and is moving to Tibet to live in a monastery.”
Or
“She
taking up professional bull fighting and moving to Mexico (which she pronounced
as MEHIKO).”
Or
“She’s
joined the space program and is being launched into space Friday.”
Following one of the last statements, Vanessa escorted Sue
to a couch and had her sit down for awhile until she thought the woman would
sober up a bit and stop giggling.
No comments:
Post a Comment