Diary of A. . . (15 page)

“You’re right,” he agreed a little bit
stiffly, but honestly. “I’m really sorry and thanks, Sheryl. I knew
you’d help me through this shit.”

I relaxed, feeling his sincerity. “It’s all
forgiven. Now why do you have an itch to cheat? That’s not like
you, even with the circumstances.”

“I don’t know, other than her coming out of
her shell and acting differently like she’s got a new lease on
life. Besides that, lately I just feel like I’m missing out on
something and…well, marriage is getting in the way.” He started on
his second drink the waiter brought out for him.

I pushed away the feeling that somehow my
Rick had also changed. That he wasn’t the same guy from the past.
But then when I looked into his eyes, I felt that old Rick and so I
wasn’t too worried.

This was just a phase, I convinced myself.
Sometimes life could beat the hell out of a person, but we’re all
strong enough to take it, get up and start over again. I truly
believed Rick would overcome all this frustration he was feeling
and continue to be with his wife and make her happy.

He changed the subject. “Still working for
that same company, aren’t you, Sheryl?”

“Yeah.” I smiled, because I was proud I had
longevity. A lot of my fellow college graduates couldn’t say the
same.

“Why you never left? That’s a long time to
work for one company.”

I shrugged. “I guess it’s comfortable. I
honestly enjoy my job and whenever I receive offers from other
companies, my supervisors usually give me a raise to keep me. Plus,
with me really never having a constant personal life, I guess I
needed to have a constant business life. Although recently there
have been talks of big changes in the wind at work.”

“I don’t think you have anything to worry
about, Sheryl,” he assured me.

“Thanks for your vote of confidence, Rick.
When I’m jobless and homeless I know who to come to for money,” I
teased.

He chuckled. “You ever thought about owning
your own business? You’d make more money as a consultant than
working for someone else.”

It had crossed my mind once or twice – a
month, but I never examined what it would really take to pull it
off. And I didn’t know if I would have enough clientele to sustain
the comfortable life I was living now. Yeah, that was a sad excuse
not to start my own business.

Rick’s statement really made sense to me
now. Especially since things were changing at our company.

Hell, I could get so big, that I could
possibly take over Earl’s company and buy him out. Then I would
kick him out for being so damn trifling and sleeping with his
employees.

Still, I answered Rick coolly. I really
didn’t want him to know how worried I was about losing my job.
“Doesn’t everyone think about going out on their own and starting
their own business. Plus, I’m seriously thinking about how to get
my current supervisor’s job. She’s VP of eastern operations.”

“That sounds nice. I’m sure you’ll get
it.”

Curiously, I asked, “And how do you know
that, Rick?”

“Cause you’re Sheryl Banks. You know what
you want and you get what you want.”

I liked that! And he was so right.

Entry Twenty-Five

I know this sounds real silly – even though
I am writing this down in my own journal, but I actually make sure
I do a thousand inner muscles tightenings a day. I like to know
that whenever a man has the pleasure of my company or an invitation
between my thighs, no matter what size he is, it will always feel
like a snug fit.

I think I did double the amount while going
back and forth to New York because I was thinking about Theo, about
how his size really differed from Mack’s.

I was so glad to get home. I called Mack as
soon as I entered the door, because he’d sent a thoughtful card
about missing me in the mail, along with a dinner invitation.

After I called to accept his invite, he
said, “I’m sending a car to pick you up at seven-thirty.”

“Can you send it to my job?” I questioned.
“I need to go in and check some things out.”

“Aww, Sheryl, they aren’t expecting you back
until tomorrow,” he cajoled. “Take this as a much needed vacation
and let me pamper you. I could even send the car early and have you
taken to a full care spa, get your hair done and pamper you to
death until dinnertime. All my treat.”

As wonderful as that sounded, I knew I had
to take a rain check. I wanted to make sure things at work were not
going awry and that I could get this client information to
Cassandra personally before she left for the day.

“I’ll take you up on that offer another
time,” I promised.

“Fine,” Mack said, sounding very
disappointed. “But remember what all work and no play does.”

I chuckled and added, “Makes a rich
bitch.”

Mack burst out in laughter, loving my sense
of humor.

A knock on the door ended our conversation.
Chris smiled brightly as I said, “Hello,” when I opened the
door.

“You’re looking well,” I said.

“Thanks,” he said blushing. “L-Last time I
was here, I noticed your cabinets were loose.”

I wanted to add that wasn’t all he noticed,
but I didn’t say anything. I just moved out the way so he could
enter.

Knowing I was seeing Mack tonight, I knew I
couldn’t entice the maintenance man to do some work on me. So I
just followed him, knowing I was making him feel uncomfortable.

“H-How was your trip?” Chris questioned.

“It went well,” I said casually. “Did you
want anything to drink?”

“Sure,” he answered.

I looked in the refrigerator, forgetting
what had been in there before my trip. “I have water, apple juice…”
I leaned down to look in the back of the refrigerator. “Milk and
Vernors.” Looking over my shoulder, I saw Chris staring at my ass.
“Chris,” I called sharply.

He acted like he was slapped. “Oh, um…no, I
haven’t.”

Was he going crazy?

“Drink Chris,” I reminded him. “Did you want
something to drink?”

“No. I’m not thirsty.” He shook himself and
started looking at the drawers in the kitchen.

I closed the refrigerator and excused myself
from the kitchen to prepare to go back to the office. I packed an
overnight bag and a change of clothes for dinner. Before leaving, I
left a couple of dollars on the dining room table for Chris to
cover the cost of any repairs.

Arriving at work, I went straight to my
office where Cassandra was sitting at her desk.

“I thought you wouldn’t be in until
tomorrow. Aren’t you exhausted?” she asked worried.

I was touched by her concern. “I am, but I
wanted to get you going on what I need because I know tomorrow
you’ve requested to leave early.”

“Aww, Ms. Banks,” she said teasingly.
“You’re too thoughtful.” The she gripped my arm and pulled me into
my office, closing the door and locking it behind her. There was a
sense of urgency to her movements. “Have a seat. We have to
talk.”

I sat behind my desk and noticed how
everything looked out of place. “Has someone been in my
office?”

“We’ll get to that.” Cassandra had been
carrying a legal pad and a manila envelope, which she laid on her
lap as she sat in front of the desk.

Good lawd, the woman had a list!

She started casually. “Everyone thinks
you’re the saving grace around here after what Mr. Howard
announced.”

“I’m not a hero to anyone or anything. I’m
here to do my job and I just happen to do it well. I’m not going to
be worried about that.”

“Well, just be on your toes, because I heard
that Erin was finding reasons to get rid of people.”

I was shocked that Cassandra was indulging
in office fodder. “So now you’re listening to the grapevine?”

“I don’t want to be the last one to know I’m
unemployed again. And I don’t want to see you like that, either. In
my opinion, and this is just between us, you could run this ship by
yourself.”

I teased, “Why don’t I do so well that Earl
might actually want to retire.”

She laughed with me, but said seriously, “I
think you could really do it, too.” Looking down at her notepad,
she crossed some things out. “Number two, Erin came in your office
this morning and did some things on your computer.”

“Again?”

Frowning confused, Cassandra asked, “What do
you mean by again?”

I relayed to her what happened before I left
concerning Erin and my computer. She already knew about the post-it
notes situation.

“She did ask me if I had left some notes for
you about three times since you’ve been gone,” Cassandra confided.
“I was so pissed off and tired of being asked the same thing over
and over again that when she asked the last time, I said no real
sharply.”

“What did she do on my computer?” I
inquired.

“Well, since you ordered ITS to give me PC
Anywhere to access your computer while you were gone, I watched as
she did a search on Sroban.” She passed me a post-it note with the
company’s name on it.

I remembered that funny name from the Debner
file. Those notes meant more to Erin than she wanted to let on.
Maybe I should take a good look at them again.

“Number three,” Cassandra continued. “Earl
Howard and Erin requested your video meeting tapes to be copied and
delivered to them. Erin made her request with Mr. Howard’s request.
She said she wanted them by five. I have tech support getting those
to them. Erin also requested the typed transcripts.” She handed me
a copy. “I looked them over and other than that snide remark about
you running the office by Ms. Newsome, I wouldn’t worry too
much.”

I wasn’t and was glad I had kept the meeting
very professional.

“What’s next?” I asked.

She looked over her notes again. “Nothing
business wise, unless you have some things for me before we
continue.”

I told her the duties I needed her to do
from my own list of things to do. She was a little confused about
the Debner file notes though.

“Is this a proposal?” she questioned.

“I was thinking of how we could improve the
communications between our clients. I felt that if I wrote up a
proposal to ITS to see if their director would be interested in
implementing this, then it would cut a lot of time and headache off
a lot of people’s heads. Of course it would consist of extra
duties, but after a while I feel our whole system could be changed
if we implemented this as soon as possible.”

“Did you look up the research all ready?”
She pulled up information I had downloaded while I was at the
hotel.

Since I don’t sleep much, I stayed up all
night after getting back from dinner at the Sanchez’s. I think
better in the middle of the night.

“Some of it. I also contacted someone at
Microsoft who says they could look into sending our ITS conversions
on how to implement the system. No use reinventing the wheel when
there’s already a software program out there that could –” I
paused. “What?” I asked because Cassandra suddenly had this weird
look on her face.

“You are just amazing. I don’t see why Earl
Howard just won’t retire and give you the company.”

“Maybe when he pink slips us all, I’ll open
up my own and hire the best damn assistant in the world.”

“You better,” she teased.

“Okay, is that it for the business?”

She nodded and then put the manila envelope
she was carrying on my desk. “It’s about your father.”

I sighed in disappointment. I was so ready
to call off anything that Cassandra was researching on a personal
level for me, because the whole thing was really getting on my
nerves.

“The death is certain,” Cassandra said. “I
did the investigation myself.”

I opened the envelope to pull out a
newspaper clipping and a hospital report from Tampa General. The
newspaper clipping said that E. Heasley of Detroit, Michigan lost
control of his car while on a high speed chase with Hillsborough
Sheriff and ended up driving into a swamp. He had duped investors
by setting up a phony business in Tampa and getting people’s money.
The driver arrived at Tampa General D.O.A. Only two million of the
seven million dollars that was stolen was found in the car.

I remembered what my sister had said about
Nina having money, but that was ridiculous to think that my mother
had sat on five million dollars all this time. Really
ridiculous.

Yet…I started thinking about things that had
happened a couple of years after Uncle E died. We moved into a
nicer house, even though Nina was still working as a nursing
assistant. She was suddenly able to finish off her Bachelors to
become a nurse. Then the scholarship came for me right after she
finished her degree.

At the time I thought it was strange that
she had gone out and applied for a scholarship for me to go to
school, but I didn’t make a big deal about it. I just assumed my
mother was the best thing since sliced bread. Lauren had gotten a
scholarship, too, but she had declined it.

Whenever I asked my mother about the
scholarship, she just said that I had nothing to worry about and to
just concentrate on getting good grades so I wouldn’t lose it.

I did and I never thought anything more
about it. When I needed money, I would just call my mother and she
would send me what I required. Of course I never asked for any
ridiculous amount because all my schooling was being paid for and
my student card was always filled with money. I had assumed the
scholarship was depositing the payments.

“Five million dollars is a lot to hide,
Cassandra,” I said quietly.

“A good financial lawyer can do it easily,”
she said nonchalantly. “Throw it at some businesses and some trust
funds and you’ve easily hidden something that didn’t want to be
found.”

I tried my hardest to think about the name
of the scholarship. When it wouldn’t come to me right off, I called
a friend who still worked in the admission’s office of my alma
mater. While I waited for a call back, I asked Cassandra, “Do you
think I should ask my mother flat out if he’s alive?”