Player Haters (5 page)

Monday morning I went to work early to look over the previous week’s sales figures for my department. It turned out that leaving work early on Friday hadn’t been the good idea I’d thought. First of all, I would’ve missed that whole stupid fight with Diane if I’d kept my behind at work. And secondly, I could’ve gotten the sales reports that are issued every Friday afternoon. I needed those reports so I could know who to chew out during my sales meeting later this morning. So instead of sleeping until seven, I got up at five and dragged my ass into the office to read the reports before the meeting. I’d been going at it, taking notes for over two hours when I heard a knock on my office door.

“Come in,” I shouted.

I never looked up from my reports. I figured it was just my secretary Marge letting me know that she was at her desk if I needed her.

“Wil, you got a minute?” I took off my reading glasses and looked up from my reports. It was Jeanie Brown, the assistant director of human resources. The only black person working on the executive floor, other than a couple of secretaries.

“Hey, Jeanie? What’s up?” I smiled.

Jeanie and I were friendly, but I still didn’t like it when any of the big honchos from upstairs popped up at my door unannounced. It usually meant that someone was gonna lose their job. The last time Jeanie showed up at my door unexpectedly she arrived with pink slips and laid off ten percent of my staff. So I was pretty concerned when she didn’t smile back at me.

“Wil, I’ve got a little bad news.” Jeanie’s cocoa brown lips curled into a frown.

I sat back in my chair, nonchalantly wiping away the sweat that was beginning to form on my brow. I gestured for Jeanie to have a seat and when she declined, I braced myself for the worst. I was no longer worried about her laying off some of my staff. I was concerned about being fired myself. Not that it should come as a shock if it happened. My department had missed our sales quota the last two months. Not by much, but we still missed and as the sales manager, the black sales manager I might add, that meant my head was the one that was gonna roll. The funny thing is, I’d been expecting bad news all weekend. I just never expected it would be losing my job.

“Okay…what kind of bad news, Jeanie?” I was trying to keep it together, not let my emotions get involved. It wasn’t easy. I had a family to take care of.

“Well, Wil, I really don’t know how to tell you this. Especially since I know how much you hate change, but…”

I stopped her because she was beating around the bush and that annoyed me. It was bad enough that the boys upstairs sent the lone sister to do their dirty work instead of coming to see me face to face like they do when a white manager is fired.

“Just spit it out, Jeanie. I’m a man. I can take it.”

“Okay. Marge fell in the parking lot on Friday and broke her arm. It looks like she’s gonna be out five to six weeks minimum. So I—”

“Hold up,” I interrupted. “That’s the bad news you had to tell me?”

“Yeah, what’d you think I came down here to do, fire you?” She let out a laugh but stopped it abruptly when I didn’t join in.

“That’s exactly what I thought.” I gave her a serious look. “Jesus Christ, Jeanie, you know my department’s sales are down. You scared the shit outta me.”

“I’m sorry, Wil. But you don’t have anything to worry about. The way things are going, your department’s doing better than everyone else.” She gave me an encouraging smile. “Have you seen the figures on Jonathan Goldsmith’s department? If anyone needs to get fired, it’s him. If you know what I’m saying.”

We both laughed, because Jonathan Goldsmith was one of the executive vice president’s sons and we both knew he would never be fired. Transferred maybe, but never fired.

“I’m not here to fire you. I’m just here to give you the bad news about Marge.”

Her words finally sunk in, and I realized how important Marge, my secretary of five years, was to me. I’d been so damn paranoid when Jeanie first started talking I’d barely even thought about her real message. Poor Marge. She was in her early sixties, and I knew a broken bone was no joke for someone that age.

“Is she okay?” I asked.

“From what I could tell over the phone, she’s fine.”

“All right. I’m gonna have to give her a call after my sales meeting. See if there’s anything she needs.” I glanced at my watch, then shuffled all my reports into a folder. I walked around my desk and asked Jeanie, “So in the meantime, what am I gonna do for a secretary? You gonna transfer somebody over from another department?”

I gestured toward the door and we headed out of my office.

“Sorry, Wil. No one’s available right now. We’re gonna give you a temp until Marge gets back.”

“A temp?” I stopped at the door and stared at her. “I don’t have time to break in a temp. We’re getting ready to go into the busy season. Why don’t you transfer somebody from another division?”

“Wil, we just had a ten percent reduction of staff in every department. There is nobody we can transfer. You’re just gonna have to make do with a temp.”

She walked out of my office. I followed, about to protest, but that’s when I noticed the large, very attractive sister sitting at Marge’s desk. She smiled at me, and I straightened my tie self-consciously. If her work was as good as her looks, my department was going to be in good shape, ’cause this woman was fine.

“Wil Duncan, I’d like to introduce you to Maxine Graves. Maxine is going to be your secretary until Marge returns.”

Maxine stood up, offering me a cup of coffee and a brownie. “Here you go, Mr. Duncan, light with three sugars, just the way you like it.” I took a sip of the coffee and smiled at her.

“How’d you…?”

“I hope you don’t mind,” she answered before I could even finish my question, “but I took the liberty of calling Marge. I asked her to give me a few hints on how to make our transition as smooth as possible. I may only be a temp, but I take pride in my work. Now you need to run along or you’re gonna be late for your sales meeting.” She motioned with her hand like a mother shuffling her kids off to school. I glanced at Jeanie, who was grinning from ear to ear.

“You heard the woman, Wil. You need to get going.” Jeanie picked up a brownie from the box on Maxine’s desk and laughed. So did I as I headed for my meeting. Ms. Maxine was going to do just fine.

By the time I finished my sales meeting, it was just about lunchtime. I didn’t have any plans for lunch so I decided to grab a newspaper and head on over to one of the local restaurants. I liked to get away from the office crowd every once in a while, especially after tense sales meetings.

“Maxine, I’m going to lu—” I never finished my sentence, because when I walked out of my office, I was too mesmerized by the shapely beauty of Maxine’s backside. She was bent over, picking up a file, and her tight black skirt was stretched across one of the finest asses I’d seen in years.

“Did you say something, Mr. Duncan?” Maxine quickly stood to face me. When we made eye contact, my high-yellow face turned bright red. I’m sure she knew why I was blushing, too, because she tugged at her skirt, grinning as she sat down at her desk. “Is there anything I can do for you, Mr. Duncan?”

“Ah, no. I just wanted to let you know I was going to lunch. I’ll be back in about an hour.”

“Okay. Well, you enjoy your lunch. I’m about to have lunch myself.” She smiled, unwrapping what looked like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

“Maxine, is that what you’re having for lunch? Peanut butter and jelly?” I eyed the sandwich as she picked it up.

“Yeah, that’s what I’m having. I like peanut butter and jelly.” She took a bite of the sandwich, then dropped it on her desk. “Oh, who the hell am I fooling? To be honest, Mr. Duncan, my son is probably sitting at day care eating tuna salad and drinking Diet Coke right now.” She reached in her lunch bag and pulled out a container of chocolate milk with a disgusted look on her face. I couldn’t help but laugh.

“It’s not funny.” She pouted. “I was in such a rush to get to work on time I must have mixed up our lunches.”

“Look, don’t get upset. Why don’t you have lunch with me? My treat. It’ll give us a chance to go over your responsibilities.”

“But what about the phones? Who’s gonna answer them?”

“We’ll forward them to voice mail. Come on. You don’t have to work nine hours straight. You’re entitled to a lunch.”

She smiled, pushing the childish meal into a trash can beside her desk. “All right, let’s go.”

Maxine and I ended up having lunch at Marino’s Italian restaurant in the Village. We spent most of our lunch going over her responsibilities and my expectations for her job. It was busy season, and I wanted her to know that we’d be doing quite a bit of overtime in the next few weeks. She didn’t seem to mind, and things were going remarkably well until she got up to go to the restroom. After that, things became a little uncomfortable. I had to struggle to keep my eyes from wandering down to her breasts. Don’t get me wrong. She was dressed very professionally. It’s just that a couple of the buttons on her blouse seemed to come loose after her trip to the potty, and from that point on, her cleavage was just begging me to take a peek. Thank God the conversation had moved from business to personal, because it was getting hard to concentrate.

“I really wanna thank you for buying me lunch, Mr. Duncan.” Maxine smiled as she stabbed her salad with her fork.

“No, problem,” I told her between bites of my lasagna. “So you said you have a son. Are you married?”

“Who, me?” She shook her head and laughed. “No. I think I’m destined to be an eternal bridesmaid.”

“Why is that? You’re a very attractive woman.”

“Thank you.” She lowered her head and blushed. “But if you’ll excuse the expression,
these niggas out here ain’t worth it.
Every decent man I’ve run into is gay, married or white.”

“Wow, you sound just like my sister. She made almost the same comment the other day.” I added, “So what about your son’s father? No future there?”

“Let’s not even talk about his sorry ass. He spends more time in jail than he does at home. And when he’s home, he’s drunk, and even worse, he’s…” Maxine bit her lip and covered her face with her hands. When she looked back up at me, she had composed herself. “I’m sorry, Mr. Duncan. You don’t need to hear about my problems.”

“It’s perfectly all right, Maxine.” I patted her hand. “I’m surprised Marge didn’t tell you that about me. I like to keep things pretty informal with my secretary. I find it makes for a more comfortable work environment.”

“Really?” Her eyes lit up. “That’s nice. I’ve never had a boss treat me as much more than a servant.”

I’m sure she was exaggerating, but I meant what I’d said. I knew a few guys in my office who were real assholes when it came to their secretaries. I’d learned a long time ago that the better you treat them, the better work they do. So if Maxine wanted to talk to me about her man problems, I didn’t mind listening for a while.

“So, your son’s father, he’s not abusive or anything, is he?”

“Very.”
Maxine’s eyes reflected her anger and hurt, and she abruptly changed the subject. “So, what about you, Mr. Duncan, are you married?”

I should be ashamed to admit this, but instead of just telling her,
Yes, I’m married,
I silently avoided the question. Unfortunately, as I remained silent, Maxine leaned a little closer, waiting for my answer. And the closer she leaned, the larger and more mesmerizing her breasts seemed to get.

“Mr. Duncan, you still there?”

“Ah, yeah. I’m still here.” I forced myself to lift my eyes from her breasts to her face as I continued to avoid her marriage question. “Maxine, can you do me a favor? If we’re gonna work together, don’t call me Mr. Duncan. Everyone at the office calls me Wil.”

“Okay, Wil, but everyone calls me Mimi.”

“All right. Mimi it is.” We both smiled and got back to our meals. For the time being, the issue of my marriage remained an unanswered question. That is, until my wandering eyes got me in trouble again.

“Um, Wil, is something wrong with my blouse? Do I have a spot on it or something? ’Cause you keep staring at it pretty hard.” She reached up and closed the top two buttons of her blouse. My face immediately turned bright red, and it took a few seconds before I could reply.

“Ah, no, actually I was
admiring
your blouse,” I lied, hoping that a compliment might defuse the situation. “I’d love to pick up something like that for
my wife.
You have excellent taste in clothes.”

“You think so?” Now she was blushing, but the smirk on her face said,
I knew you were married.
“I picked this up at Ashley Stewart’s in Green Acres Mall. They have the most phenomenal plus-size clothes in there. A girl could go broke in there.” She stopped herself. “Oh, my goodness. I’m sorry.
Your wife
is probably a size six. I don’t even know why I mentioned a plus-size shop.”

“Size six,” I laughed. “What would make you think that? For your information,
my wife
is a size sixteen, and she’s been big ever since I met her,” I stated with pride.

“Sixteen! That’s my size.” Mimi was grinning like she’d hit the lottery. “I must say, Wil, I’m impressed. Usually handsome men like you aren’t attracted to us big-boned women. Y’all usually want them toothpick sisters that are always showing off their stomachs.”

“Please, ain’t nothin’ a skinny woman can do for me but introduce me to her big friend,” I joked. “I’m two hundred and seventy-three pounds, Mimi. How I look getting on top of somebody a hundred and twenty pounds? I might kill her ass. I need a woman with some meat on her bones.”

Mimi waved her hand, grinning from ear to ear. “Wil, you are a mess. So how long you been married?”

“Ten years in three months,” I finally confessed.

Mimi seemed to straighten up in her chair when she heard that.

“Wow, ten years with the same woman. These days, that’s impressive. So, do you cheat?” The words came out her mouth so nonchalantly I wasn’t sure if it was an invitation to fool around or an honest question.