Blind Squirrels (32 page)

He started laughing.  “I wish you
could see your face,” he said between guffaws.  “You didn’t really buy that
drivel, did you?”

I didn’t quite know what to say. 
Was Brad suggesting that this had all been a joke?

Brad looked crestfallen.  “You
don’t like my joke?”  Then he turned pasty white, “Oh my gosh.  You did believe
it.  And now I’ve upset you by saying it was a joke.  Does that mean…”

Uh-oh.  Before he started thinking
I really had romantic feelings for him, I spoke up.  “I did believe it.  I just
didn’t know how to explain that I didn’t feel that way about you.  I was afraid
I’d hurt your feelings
and
spoil our friendship.”

“
That
would never happen. 
We will always be best buds.  Anyway, now let me tell you why I
really
sent you roses…”

Brad proceeded to tell me how he
was trying to convince Nancy that he was in love with me.

“Why would you want to do that?” I
asked.  “Why would she care?”

“Oddly enough, she’s a hopeless
romantic.  One day she was asking me if I had a thing for you.  She had
overheard us talking about having dinner together.  Anyway, she’s been
encouraging me to make a move.  The roses were actually her idea…”

I still didn’t understand why Brad
wanted her to believe he loved me.  “So what is the point of all this?”

“Well, of course you are going to
break my heart.  When you do, Nancy is going to chew you out.  She’s committed
100% to getting us together.  She won’t take it well when she sees how dejected
I look when I leave for the day.  In fact, I may go confide in her in just a
few minutes.  Cry on her shoulder and such.  She’ll be gunning for you for sure
after that.”

“Again, Brad, what’s the point? 
Do you want her to fire me?”

“No, but I want to get her fired. 
She’s not aware of it, but Mr. Bigelow is coming to your office at 5 pm.  He’s
going to catch her jumping on you.”  Brad had it all figured out, but I didn’t
want to get Nancy fired for something like this.

“Brad, I don’t like this idea. 
You could have shared your plan with me so I could have pointed out how petty
and mean it is.  I don’t like Nancy, but this isn’t fair to her.”

“Too late.  It’s already in
motion.  Unless you want to pretend that you and I are a couple for the next
several years…”

“Wait…Why is Mr. Bigelow coming to
my office at five?”  This part of Brad’s plan had finally reached my brain.

“I’m not supposed to tell you
that.  But, okay, you’ve twisted my arm: he’s giving you a promotion.  He’s
making you a Senior Programmer, and he’s hired someone new to do your old job. 
I guess you’ve impressed him.  But you didn’t hear it from me.”

“That’s interesting.  I’m still
not fighting with Nancy though.”

“We’ll see about that,” Brad said
with a smirk, and he was gone.  I saw him heading to Nancy’s office in a hurry.

At five, I picked up my purse and
headed out.  Brad was gone already – or crying to Nancy.   As I approached
Nancy’s office, I tried to sneak by unseen.  Too bad it didn’t work.  She stuck
her head out the doorway.  “Could you step in for a minute?” she asked.

“Nancy, I’m in a hurry, I don’t
have time to talk to you right now.  I’ll see you first thing in the morning…” 
I had to avoid this conversation in case Mr. Bigelow showed up.  I still wasn’t
convinced that Brad had told the truth.  Besides, the last thing I wanted to
discuss with Nancy was my personal life.  I couldn’t believe Brad had thought
this was a good idea.  I was now wondering if all the time we’d been spending
together lately had been part of this stupid plan.

I moved towards the door, but
Nancy positioned herself in front of it.  “We have to talk about Brad.  I’m
concerned that his obsession with you is affecting his job.  He’s not handling
your rejection very well.  I can’t have him running around acting like a
lovesick teenager…”

It looked like Brad had been wrong
about Nancy.  She didn’t seem very sympathetic to his situation.  Well, his
pretend situation.

“I know the two of you have been
spending a lot of time together outside of work.  You may have led him on, even
if you didn’t mean to.  I may have encouraged Brad to move…let’s say…a little
faster.  I may have suggested that he send you the flowers.”

“So what are you saying?  Get to
the point, Nancy.”

“I’m asking you to
try
to
like Brad.  If it ever got out that I encouraged him…But that’s not going to
happen, right?  I’ve convinced Mr. Bigelow that you’re a valued employee, and
he has plans to promote you and give you a raise.  All thanks to me.  So no one
ever has to find out about the part I played in Brad’s pursuit of you – if
you’ll just pretend to be interested in him for a few weeks.  Once you have
your promotion, you can tell Brad that things just aren’t working out…” 

“Are you actually trying to bribe
me?  You have a lot of nerve.  Brad isn’t in love with me.  He’s been playing
you all along.  He was hoping that you’d do something stupid and get fired over
it.  I’m trying my best to keep that from happening.  Now get out of my way. 
I’m not listening to anymore of this.”  I pushed Nancy out of the doorway and then
I ran straight into Mr. Bigelow.  He was standing just outside of Nancy’s
office and he didn’t look happy.

“Hello, Mr. Bigelow,” I stuttered.

“Katrina,” he said and smiled. 
“Please step back into Nancy’s office.  I have something to say concerning this
department.”

I was terrified that Mr. Bigelow
was going to fire all of us if he had heard our conversation.  He hadn’t heard
any of it, or if he did, he never mentioned it.

As it turned out, Mr. Bigelow had big
plans for the department and for the entire company.  He told us that he had
been evaluating the company, and he’d realized that some people were in jobs
that weren’t ideal for them.  He wasn’t getting rid of anyone, just doing a
massive reorganization.  He felt that Nancy would be better utilized as a sales
manager since she worked really well with clients and customers.  He had hoped
Brad would move into the IT manager position, but Brad had rejected it.  Mr.
Bigelow was bringing someone else in for that position, and he wanted to promote
me to a senior programmer.  He was hoping to bring on some other new people as
well. 

Neither Nancy nor I was able to
say anything more than thank you when he finished up by telling us that we’d
both be getting a bump in our paychecks that he’d discuss with us privately in
a few days. 

The next morning, Brad stuck his
head into my office.  He had a big smile on his face.  He started laughing and
joking about how he’d played Nancy.  I felt like skinning him alive after what
he put me through in the name of a good laugh, but I was too excited about
being rid of Nancy and about my promotion.  I gave him a pass this one time.

The week slipped by amazingly
fast.  I found that I hardly had time to think about Max and Julie.  I did
wonder what Olivia was up to because she hadn’t called me since Monday.  I made
the decision to drop by her house on Saturday morning.  I wanted to stop her
from going on any more of her spying operations.

I drove up into Olivia’s
driveway.  Olivia lived in a two-bedroom brick house that she had scrimped and
saved to buy.  The yard was green and plush, but it needed a trim.  Flowers
were blooming everywhere – roses, petunias, daffodils, and snap dragons – a
fiesta of colors dancing across Olivia’s yard.  Blue country style curtains were
hanging in the windows, and a homey “welcome” wreath hung on the carved oak
door.  I followed the stepping stones up to the front door and pressed the
doorbell.  I heard Olivia’s footsteps, and then the door opened.  Olivia was
wearing a pair of jeans and a knit shirt.

“Hey, Kat.  Come on in.  What are
you doing here?”

I stepped into Olivia’s cozy
living room.  A blue oversized couch was along one wall.  The matching chair
and loveseat – placed neatly on either side of the couch – helped form a tight
little semicircle that gave the room a certain amount of intimacy.  Opposite
the couch was an oak entertainment center that housed a twenty inch television,
an ancient VCR, and a meager stereo system.  A coffee table in the middle of
the room held several magazines and Olivia’s purse.

“Were you going out?” I asked
suspiciously.

“No.  I just got back.”  I hated
to doubt Olivia, but it was only nine o’clock in the morning.  I wondered where
she might have been.

“You weren’t...” I began.

“I wasn’t spying.  Honest.  But I
do have a surprise for you.”  She picked up her purse and took something out. 
She held her hand out to me.  There were two tickets in her palm.  I took the
tickets and examined them.

“I...I...I can’t believe this!”  I
stuttered from my excitement.  “These are Elton John tickets!  How did you get
them, Olivia?  That concert is sold out.”

“I know.  I know.  Did you notice
that they are for the front row?”

“The front row?  How?  Tell me
how!”  I was frantic.  I couldn’t believe Olivia had tickets for me.

“Do you remember the guy who won
the front row tickets and the limo ride and all that stuff?  He called me last
night and told me that two of his friends couldn’t make it to the concert.  He
wondered if I still wanted to buy some tickets.  He wouldn’t sell the backstage
passes – he only had two.  But he sold me these two tickets.  Can you believe
it?  In only two weeks, you’ll be sitting in the front row at Elton’s concert. 
You might even get an autograph.  Oh, and by the way, you owe me seventy-five dollars.”

“He sold you the tickets for
seventy-five bucks each?  Some of them are going for two hundred or more.”

“No, he sold me both tickets for
seventy-five bucks total.  That’s less than we would have paid if we bought
them at Ticket Master.  Anyway, I’m letting you pay for my ticket because I
went to so much trouble to get them.  Besides, I don’t really like Elton John
anyway.”

I didn’t care if I had to pay
three times that amount or more.  I was getting to go to an Elton concert and
sit on the front row.  This was a dream come true for me.  I grabbed Olivia and
gave her a big hug.  “Thanks, Olivia.  You can’t imagine how much this means to
me.”

“Well, it’s not Max, but it is
close.  Through the years it’s been hard to know if you loved Max or Elton more. 
I can’t wait to see you at that concert.”  Olivia hugged me back.  I felt
guilty for ever doubting her.  She was the best.

I visited with Olivia for a
while.  I kept wondering how I could pay her back.  I wanted to do something
wonderful for her.  I began to realize that I didn’t know one thing that I
could do to make Olivia happy.  I had been too busy chasing one dream or
another – expecting Olivia to help me through every close call – and I had
failed to listen to many of Olivia’s dreams.  Oh, I knew she wanted to be a
lawyer, and I knew she someday wanted a family.  But what else did she want out
of life?  I was clueless.

When I got up to leave, Olivia
told me to hold on to the tickets.  I held them tightly in my hand and promised
to keep them safe.  I hugged my friend again, and she seemed comforted by my
show of affection.  “Are you seeing Lee?”  I asked as I walked out the door. 
“You two are getting close.”

“We’re going out to dinner
tonight.  We are working on something; I’m just not sure what.  I think we
could become serious, but we both want to take it slowly.  Hey, I’ve got to
become a lawyer first.”  It did seem that Olivia’s world was coming together. 
We were both happy for the moment.

I spent most of the weekend
alone.  Max never called, Olivia was busy with Lee, and Brad was distancing
himself.  I drove over to my mother’s, and we had a decent conversation for
once.  My brother Rick was coming for a visit and Mom couldn’t conceal her
enthusiasm.  She hoped this meant that he would be coming for visits
regularly.  Just before I left her house, Mom took me by the arm and said,
“Kat, I want you to know that I’m proud of you.”

Mom had never said this before,
and I felt the tears begin to well up in my eyes.

“That’s not all,” she continued. 
“I told you the last time you were over here that you were ordinary.  That
wasn’t true.  You are very special, Katrina.  I’ve always known that.  I think
in some ways that I’m envious of you.  I spent most of my life married to a man
that treated me worse than an animal.  I know you loved your daddy, but he was
a hard man to live with.  Rick was born one year after we married, and I became
a prisoner.  I had to quit my job to stay home with the baby.  I loved both of
my children, but I felt robbed of my life.  You were strong enough to leave
your bad marriage behind, and you have a wonderful career.  One day you’re
going to meet the man of your dreams.  Then you’ll have the kind of marriage
I’ve only been able to dream about.  Whatever you do, don’t waste this special
life that you have.  I don’t want you to miss out because you are waiting on a
man that doesn’t have the good sense to realize what a prize you are.”

My tears were flowing now.  All I
could manage to say at the moment was, “I love you, Mama.”   But as we walked
to my car, I turned to her and said, “I want you to know that I am happy.  I
have a good life.  Even if I never find the right man, I’ve experienced love
and I’ve been loved.  My life is very complete.  Somehow, you and Daddy brought
me up to be strong and secure.  I can never thank you enough for that.  I’m
just glad I have the chance to tell you.”

I left Mom’s house not only with a
carload of fresh vegetables from her garden, but also with a better
understanding of my mother.  She had lived a hard life, and she wanted better
for her daughter.  Until today, she hadn’t known how to tell me that.  Or maybe
I had never really listened before.