Gillian's Do-Over

Gillian’s Do-Over

Kate Vale

A delightful light-hearted treatment of what so many women today experience when they go online to make new friends! Realistic and fun a
ll rolled up into one. – Elaine D.

Chapter 1

Gillian Griffiths, executive vice president at Talmadge Property Management, looked up at the knock on her office door. “Come in.”

She sighed and ran
her fingers through her sun-streaked brown hair, not looking forward to what she had to say to Shelley.

Little Shelley
Kramer.
Her newest employee. Youngest, too. Petite, shy almost to the point of never speaking, always looking down. But Shelley was a whiz at the computer and had quickly learned her job maintaining computer files. The other employees loved Shelley and how well she’d fit in. She’d even identified errors in two association bookkeeping reports, errors she’d shared with Gillian. Too bad the boss, Nicholas Talmadge, wasn’t as appreciative when Gillian had brought them to his attention.

Shelley must have been beaten down in her previous job.
But her employee file now included glowing reports from the association officers. Gillian forced herself to smile as the young woman sidled in, her blond hair shining in the sun streaming through the window behind Gillian’s desk.

“You wanted to see me,
Ms. Griffiths?” Shelley’s voice was barely above a whisper.

“Thank you for coming in. You know how pleased we’ve been with your work here, don’t you?”

Shelley nodded, her eyes downcast. “I try hard.”

“Shelley, could you look at me, please?” Gillian said kindly, even though she felt like a mother in quiet reprimand mood. How could she fire Shelley without feeling heartless? “
The company has made some recent personnel changes. I’m afraid we’re going to have to—”

A small gasp from Shelley interrupted Gillian’s words. Two huge tears slowly
slid beneath Shelley’s lashes and wandered down to her chin, elongating there before finally dropping into space. “I’m fired? Like Georgia and Russ? But I just moved to Seattle.”

Gillian stood, walked around her desk and placed her hands on Shelley’s shaking shoulders. “
I’m sorry, Shelley. I know how much our decision must hurt. If there was any way I could make things easier, I would. I’ve prepared a letter of recommendation for you. Feel free to make as many copies of it as you like. And I’m more than happy to speak on your behalf to
any
prospective employer you contact. In glowing terms.”

Shelley sat, quiet as a stone, eyes
still downcast. Only the continued slide of tears down her cheeks acknowledged Gillian’s words.

Gillian
placed the letter of recommendation on the desk in front of the young woman. “Why don’t you look it over? If you prefer that I say something else, please tell me. I want to make this as easy for you as I can.” She ached for Shelley, who’d been so enthusiastic when she’d joined them only four months earlier.

The blinking
light on Gillian’s phone preceded an angry buzz—
Nick the buzzing bee.

She
chose to ignore it.

After several minutes
Shelley cleared her throat. “This … uh … this letter is so nice, Ms. Griffiths. You don’t need to change a word.”

“Good. Mr.
Talmadge would like you to clear out your desk as soon as possible. I know this is difficult. If you want to go home early today, I understand.”

“At least I wasn’t the first.” The look on Shelley’s face seemed somehow wistful when
Gillian handed the young woman her severance packet.

And you won’t be the last.
“No. You’ve been a wonderful addition to the team. If the economy weren’t so bad, I know you would have had a long-term home with us.”

Shelley nodded. “Can I look at all these papers tomorrow
?” she asked, her voice catching. “I think I’ll just go home now.”

Gillian returned to her desk. “Of course.
You can take up any questions you have with Mr. Talmadge.”
Nicholas the coward.
“Or me, if you’d prefer.”

The young woman nodded and closed the door softly, but not so quickly that her
departing sob didn’t clutch at Gillian’s heart.
She’s so like me when I first started working.
Maybe that’s why having to let Shelley go hurt so much more than the other employees with whom she’d had similar conversations in the past several weeks. Too many releases to count.

Ten minutes later Nick buzzed her again. Gillian walked down the hall and entered his office. He handed her two employee files. “Time to let them go, Gillian.”

“Why must I do this, Nick? You know I hate it.” Gillian resisted her desire to toss the employee files
back in her employer’s face. Instead, she smoothed down her charcoal gray pencil skirt, determined to remain calm.

Her boss seemed to be smiling to himself before he raised his bald head enough to look her in the eye. “You do it so much better than I ever could. Two of them actually thanked you last week. You told me that. They hate me when I have to tell them.” His crooked little smirk rankled her. “And you’re easier to look at.”

Her son, Quinn, would say, “Told you,” if he were here. For years, he’d been saying that Nick was attracted to Gillian, one reason—the only reason?—he’d hired her. That Nick had a short man complex, liked women taller than he, “so he can rest his head on your boobs, Mom.” Not that she’d given him any reason to think she was attracted in him. She wasn’t all that tall, a shade over five feet six, only an inch or two taller than Nick. She silently harrumphed.

If you dressed like an owner instead of someone who’d just hauled himself out of bed,
she mused. The man had no style sense—no sense at all, as far as she could tell when it came to running a business. Maybe that was why they’d had so little success securing new homeowners association customers recently. Over the last two years, she’d sensed that expenses were edging out income. Not like when she’d joined the company after her divorce, slightly more than twenty years before, when Nick had been interested in securing new business. She’d walked into the office in response to an ad her neighbor had mentioned. A secretarial spot. Now she was second-in-command. “Executive Vice President,” a fancy title Nick had bestowed on her last year in lieu of a raise, a grudging acknowledgement that she was running most day-to-day operations so Nick could while away his time on the golf course.

S
he glanced down at the employee files he had handed her. “Was there anything else?”

Nick leaned back in his chair and propped one down-at-the-heel loafer on the edge of the desk. “Why have you been asking
Taylor about the two condo associations near the lake—The Shores, and Sunrise Rays?”

“He
was off the day Shelley showed me the discrepancy between their reserve funds and what I saw on the bank statements. When I checked the special assessment account, after Shelley pointed out to me that the numbers looked wrong, I—”

“You can stop worrying about that. I’m
taking care of those accounts now. Taylor’ll take care of the reports.” His feet reconnected with the floor with a one-two thump.

“But—”

“That girl probably entered things wrong. Misplaced a column or something. Don’t worry about it. If Taylor missed something, I’ll get back to him. As comptroller, he’s in charge of the books. I’ll tell him to double-check, redo the numbers.” Nick swiveled his chair in her direction, dots of perspiration gleaming above his bushy eyebrows.

“This is so difficult. Firing good employees. Why can’t you do it? You own the company.
You should take this responsibility, explain things to them.” She left the files on his desk and prepared to leave.

“
Explanations aren’t necessary.” He leaned forward and handed the files to her. “Just get rid of them.” He stood up. “I’m late for my tee time.” His expression turned icy as he edged past her. “We have to cut out the deadwood. Unless you want to be among them.”

He sta
lked out of the office, his words as chilling as that sidelong look he’d given her.

She picked up the files, returned to her office and shut the door. Her hanging plants formed a green background along the side wall, enabling her to soak up the sun from the window, providing the illusion that she was working in a garden whenever she entered the small space she’d made her own.

What to do now? Hiring and managing the other employees was something she’d always enjoyed. But she hated having to fire
someone without good reason.

Gillian picked up her blinking phone and listened to voice mail. The first message was from Lauren asking about dinner on the weekend, something she and her neighbor shared once a month. The second from Quinn, telling her
that Bianca had finally agreed to move to Seattle. What was that about? Maybe her son was telling her he and Bianca had set a wedding date.

Gillian
needed a break before talking with the two employees Nick wanted fired. She tried not to make eye contact as she passed by the employee cubicles on her way out the main door. Across the street from her office was a pocket park tucked between the downtown Seattle high-rises. She spotted an empty bench near the bobbing daffodils, barely hearing the children’s squeals as they played on the swings. She settled herself on the bench, not caring that her skirt slid above her knees. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back, the better to feel the sun on her face, the light breeze against her cheeks. She sighed and tried to think about the beauty of the unseasonably warm spring day, not the unpleasantness that awaited her on her return to the office.

Several minutes later, something left a path of cool moisture across her ankle. Gillian opened her eyes and glanced down. A small dog with curly white fur gave her ankle another kiss before turning its face upward,
its pink tongue lolling in a friendly canine smile.

“Adelaide!” A man’s deep voice sounded from several feet away. “There you are.”

Gillian turned slightly in her seat. A tall man. His dark hair, with streaks of silver at his temples, was tousled by the light breeze as he trotted in her direction. He reached down to retrieve the leash attached to the small dog’s collar before the animal could dash away.

“I hope she wasn’t bothering you,” he said after catching his breath.

“Not at all. She’s cute.” Gillian reached down to pet the dog, whose coat shone in the sun. “What kind is she?”

The man chuckled. “I’m not sure. She’s my niece’s dog. I’m taking care of her while Heather is
out of town. Assuming I can keep her under control. Not lose her on walks.”

“I guess that makes Adelaide your
granddog or something,” Gillian replied. She stood up. “Feel free to take my spot. I was just taking a breather.” She clamped a hand over the buzzing in her jacket pocket. “Duty calls.”

The man’s eyes seemed to sparkle at her from under his dark eyebrows. “No need to go just because I’m here.
You work nearby?”

Gillian pointed in the general direction of the office buildings lining the street. “
Talmadge Property Management.”

“What do you do?”

“I’m the office manager. We oversee homeowners associations, mostly condos.” Sort of a glorified girl Friday these days, it seemed, now that Nick was asking her to do so much more than general supervision.

“It must feel good to have a job. So many people don’t these days.”

She nodded and sighed as she resumed her seat.
I wish I could agree
. These days, her job felt like a chore
.
“I suppose.” The man fumbled in his shirt pocket for sunglasses as he squinted into the sun. She detected a hint of gray stubble on his cheeks. Well-worn jeans hugged his long legs. “What about you? You’re retired?”

Tiny smile lines radiated out from the corners near his gilt-flecked
gray eyes. Eyes that reflected a quiet sadness in the afternoon light. “Not really. I took the afternoon off to walk Adelaide.” He chuckled and settled the sunglasses on his nose.

She nodded. “It must be nice to have a day off in the middle of the week.”

His grin broadened. “Not something I do very often.” He reached down and brushed his hand down the dog’s back. The little creature rewarded him with a quick swipe of her tongue and a wiggling of her hindquarters. “Do you have a dog? Maybe that’s why Addie here made a beeline for you.”

“No dog. I have a son. He lives in California at the moment.”

The man settled onto the bench, seemingly content to remain silent. When Gillian remained where she was, he finally added, “You don’t seem all that eager to get back to work.”

I’ll never see him again, so why not share?
“I have to let some people go. A chore I detest. I left the office to clear my head. But sitting here is putting off the inevitable.” She sighed heavily. “I better face the music and get it over with.”

His long fingers stroked the top of Adelaide’s head when the dog placed her front paws on the edge of the seat and rested her chin on the man’s knee. “You do have a choice, you know.”

Gillian’s gaze slid back from the little dog to the man’s angular face.

“You could tell your boss to do it,” he explained.