We kept talking while she eased the bullet she had selected on the counter. Once she paid for it, we left the store together. On the way to her car, I told her that I was a salesman on the verge of closing a big account, and this was a bit of a treat for myself. “Congratulations,” she said. “I hope it works out for you.”
She told me that she had recently moved to Atlanta from Los Angeles, and had been doing some work as a business consultant. “So if your company is looking for a freelance consultant, let me know.”
“I’ll do that,” I promised and gave her my card.
“Well, it was good talking to you.” She looked at the name on the card. “Zack. I’ll follow up with you in a week or so. Find out how your deal went.” She paused. “And to see how you liked Gang O’ Girls.”
“Do that,” I said and started to walk away, but stopped quickly. “Hey, what’s your name?”
“Tyhedra Crawford.”
Chapter Twelve
Chris
“That mutha fuckin’ Ivan is starting to get on my nerves, CJ.” I had just gotten though another nerve-racking day at TMG. It wasn’t the job, other than the usual little issues, things were running smooth. The problem was Ivan DeVito. Anal-retentive doesn’t begin to describe him. If it wasn’t for the money and fact that I didn’t have much else going on, I’d tell Ivan to have a coke and a smile and shove those reports up his ass. But I had to consider that my actions affected more than just me. I’d hired two people and telling them that they were fired wasn’t going to happen.
It’s the same thing everyday. “Chris, can I see you in my office. I’ve got a question about yesterday’s reports. It will only take a minute.” It never does. He would sit behind his desk, smugly and proceeds to dissect every line of every report. And it’s the same questions about the same thing everyday. I can see why my predecessor spent practically no time at all in the office. He knew, like I know now. I was fed up and I had to talk to somebody, so I called CJ to vent and to make sure that she was still planning meeting me at a networking event that I’d heard about.
CJ always was a good listener. She always had a positive spin to put on things. “Maybe it’s just me, but you’d think that after all this time he’d stop askin’ the same stupid questions.”
“Maybe he just wants to make sure he understands exactly what’s going on. He has people he has to report to. You don’t know what kind of changes they’re taking him through or how much grief he caught after the last disaster. So maybe you should cut him some slack.”
“Maybe I should get a couple of crack heads to fuck him up.”
“You don’t mean that and you know it.”
“Yeah, but the visual of Ivan, lying on the ground begging them to stop, does have a haunting pull on me. ‘Cause that’s how I feel when he’s beating me down. I sit there screaming to myself, Please, just let it end.” I laughed. It felt good to laugh about it. I had to laugh. The idea of homicide was becoming appealing.
“You need to stop.”
“You don’t know how bad it’s getting.”
“You just gotta find a better way of dealing with him, that’s all.”
“I know what I have to do.”
“No, Chris, hiring somebody to hurt him is not the answer.”
“I know that, CJ. I was only kidding about that.”
“That’s good to know. So what’s your plan?”
“I have the go on the offensive. Start taking the game to him. If he wanted to go over the reports daily, cool, but it would be on my terms. If I had to be there at seven, when Ivan got there, then that’s just the way it would have to be.”
“There you go. Now that sound like the Chris I know.”
“No.”
“No?”
“I needed to train someone to take over that responsibility. But which one, Tina or Kim?”
“I haven’t had that much dealing with either of them to really give you and intelligent answer,” CJ said.
“Actually, CJ, you would be perfect.”
“Me?”