What Stays in Vegas (25 page)

On Monday morning I was not only worried about me and Chris, but I was also beginning to get a bit worried about Kendra.  I hadn’t heard a word from her all weekend - she didn’t answer any of my calls or return any of my emails.  I was becoming highly suspicious that her father had gone completely nuts and locked her up in some kind of Flamhauser family dungeon set aside for thieves and family members who wished to leave the engineering profession.  So I was more than a little relieved when I pulled into the parking lot after lunch and saw the familiar blue BMW parked once again in its reserved spot. 

I practically ran up to the office, but stopped short outside of Kendra’s door as my stomach did a few nervous back flips.  This was it!  By this time tomorrow I could very well be on a plane back to Massachusetts, no longer an employee of Flamhauser-Geist.  I imagined myself sneaking into the office to pack up my things and bumping into Nick, or worse yet, my boss Tom Skeeter.  I would have to explain to him how in a few short months I had contributed to my entire team being fired, and how I was involved in the biggest scandal ever to hit Flamhauser-Geist.  I never in my wildest dreams could have imagined my boring administrative career ending in such a way.  Tom’s bouncy curls would probably keel over and die when they heard the news.  God I would feel terrible.

I knocked timidly on Kendra’s door and poked my head inside.  There in front of me was not the typical boss I was used to greeting on Monday morning.   She was not spread out on the floor working on plans, or barking orders into the phone wearing one expensive suit or another.  But she was not the new Kendra that I expected to see either - tear-streaked and depressed, lamenting her mistakes.  No, this was a third Kendra, one dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, hair in a ponytail, looking rather relaxed and happy.  She was, however, packing.  

“Hey you,” the third Kendra said, smiling at me over her shoulder as she removed a painting from the wall.

“Hey,” I said.  I glanced around the office and my face fell as I took in the number of cardboard boxes everywhere.  “You’re packing.”

“That is correct,” she said, wrapping the painting in newspaper and adding it to one of the boxes.  “I would have called you but I got in really late last night. It was just so relaxing down there.  I didn’t want to leave, you know?”

I didn’t quite know.  Relaxing wasn't something I'd experienced in quite some time.  I sat down on the white leather couch and watched her putter around.  “Um, so you got disowned and fired, yet you had a really nice weekend?”  I asked.  “Stop packing for a sec and come talk to me.”

Kendra stopped what she was doing and sat down behind her desk, mostly hidden behind packing boxes.  “He’s my dad," she said.  "He didn’t fire me."

“But you’re packing,” I repeated. 

“Well, he didn’t fire me, but he strongly suggested that I voluntarily step down from my position.”  She could barely keep the smile off of her face.  “I tell you, Tessa, as soon as he said those words to me everything I’ve been bottling up all these years just came pouring out.  I told him how unhappy I am being an engineer, and how I wished I had never let him and mom convince me to give up art.  And for once he actually listened!”  She spun around in her chair to face the wall of windows overlooking The Strip.  “There was just something about his little girl getting up on stage at The Jiggly Kitty that made him open his eyes.”

“That’ll do it,” I said.

She spun back around to face me.  “I just feel like maybe this whole thing with Todd leaving, and with Jasper Quick, maybe it was all leading to this.  Maybe it was supposed to happen this way.  Maybe this was my only way out, I don’t know.  But I just feel so relieved, so ready for what’s next!” 

“That’s awesome,” I said, wishing she would hurry up and inform the rest of us of what was next.  “I was really worried about you this weekend - Chris and I both were.  Well, when we weren’t working on his resume -”

“Oh, I’m so sorry Tessa, I should have called you guys about that!  Tell Chris not to worry for even a second longer!  My dad knows he was only defending me when he punched Rob.  And he also knows
everything
about Rob.”

“Everything?” I asked, thinking of his little match-making scheme with Jasper.

“
Everything,
” said Kendra.  “I had to tell him, I mean he was dialing the number to give Chris his walking papers when I blurted it all out.”  She buried her face in her hands and shook her head back and forth.  “Believe me, I never want to have that conversation with my dad ever again.  But it was a necessary evil.”

I cringed at the thought.  “You’re a brave girl, Kendra Stoltz.”

“
Flamhauser,
” Kendra corrected me.

“Ah, Kendra
Flamhauser
, sorry.”  I smiled at this reinvented Kendra Flamhauser in her Mickey Mouse t-shirt, who suddenly looked ten years younger.  “Chris will be very happy to hear what you did.”

“But I didn’t even tell you the best part yet!  As soon as I told him everything, my dad got on the phone, called Rob, and told him
exactly
what he thought of him!  I have never heard so many swear words come out of my dad’s mouth, Tessa.  It was incredible!  I wish I had taken a video and put it up on YouTube.  I mean, anybody who has ever dealt with Rob Dorfman would die to have witnessed what I did.”

I was truly happy for her, I really was.  I was ecstatic that Rob Dorfman had gotten what he deserved.  And I was thrilled that Kendra was getting out of the business that had made her so unhappy.  But a small, jealous, part of me that I don’t like to acknowledge was suddenly fighting back tears.  Kendra was going to go off and fulfill her dreams of becoming an artist and I would be stuck here, or worse yet, stuck in freezing cold Massachusetts, forever typing letters and sending faxes.  Where was
my
way out?  Son of a -

“So, what now?” I asked, plastering a smile back onto my face.

“Well,” said Kendra, “I actually have a little surprise for you.” 

“For me?” I brightened up a bit.

“Yes for you!”  She was still beaming.  “Hold on.”  She leaned down, pulled a three ring binder from her purse, and plunked it down in front of me.  The words
Golden Opportunity, LLC
were printed on the cover over a logo of two long-haired heads with a martini glass between them.  “You’ve been such a good friend to me, Tess.  I mean, since the moment I met you at the Christmas party and through all my meltdowns these past few months, you’ve been nothing but wonderful.  So I wanted to do something for you, for me too, but mostly for you.  You deserve a chance to get out of here.”

A chance to get out of here. 
My heart beat a little quicker as I opened the cover of the binder. 

Mission Statement of Golden Opportunity, LLC

“I thought you’d get a kick out of the name,” said Kendra, watching me intently as I continued to read.

To provide joy to the dwellers of offices, nursing homes, hospitals, detention centers, and other creatively restrictive facilities, through art lessons, projects, and the encouragement to discover and embrace their artistic talents.

“So what do you think?” she asked.  “I ran it past my dad and he’s willing to help us out financially at first - keep us on the Flamhauser payroll until we get going.  Parents are cool sometimes.”  She watched my face for a reaction, but I was in shock.  I flipped through page after page of research that she had done on opening a small business, and the pages of ideas she had for potential clients and projects.  No wonder she didn’t have time to call me.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked, finally looking up at her.  “I mean, with me?”

“Come on, Tessa, who else?  Rob Dorfman? I said that everything happened for a reason, didn't I?  So don't tell me that a fellow art lover landing herself in Las Vegas, equally miserable with her job, wasn't fate." 

"Hmm," I said, rolling my eyes.  "I think somebody else may have mentioned that once before."

"Yeah, yeah," said Kendra.  "I'm sorry about that, I just wasn't quite ready back then.  But I'm ready now.  This is all, of course, assuming you were planning to stay here in Vegas.  With you and Chris, I just kind of figured -”

“I’m staying,” I interrupted, more certain of it now than ever.  “I’m staying.”

Kendra clapped her hands and gave an excited little bounce in her chair.  She spun around again to look out the windows.

“I’m sure going to miss this view though,” she said.

“I’m going to miss boots.”

“Boots?”

“Winter boots,” I said.  “And sweaters.  And  maybe even snow, but just a little bit.” 

“You can still wear boots,” she said.  “I saw a guy this morning wearing plastic rain boots, a mini skirt, and a coconut bra.  Swear to God.  Anything goes around here.” 

“True,” I laughed.  “What’s not to love about this city?”

“Let’s not waste another minute then, shall we?”

Kendra reached through the narrow space between two boxes, and we shook on the deal.

Epilogue

“Do you find it ironic, at all,” said Chris, pouring us two glasses of champagne, “that we're celebrating our anniversary by watching something collapse?”

We were relaxing in our hotel suite, preparing to watch the implosion of a neighboring hotel at 2:30 in the morning.  It also happened to be the one year anniversary of the day that Chris and I met, and a much needed break from my relentless wedding planning.   Yes, you heard me correctly.  On my fantastically
last
day of work as an administrative assistant, Chris asked me to marry him. 

Well, to be completely accurate, first he asked me to fetch him a file.  I called him quite a few names in my head as I walked to the filing cabinets that morning.  I mean, I love the guy and all, but that one last act of administrative slavery really ticked me off.  He should have brought me flowers, or some kind of departing gift, not sent me off on an assignment!  Did something happen to his legs that I did not know about? 

Of course it was then, as I angrily wrenched the file from the drawer, that I  found the most beautiful 3/4 carat diamond ring tied to the front of the folder with a note attached asking me to turn around.  I followed the instructions, only to find the nerd already down on one knee behind me.  A thousand heads popped out of their cubicles to see what was going on.  And that was it. 

He asked me right there, in front of all of our coworkers and one amused photocopier repairman.  True, we had only been dating a matter of months, but when you know you know.  No additional amount of months or years was necessary to confirm that with Chris, I knew.  And if there is a city in the world notorious for marrying somebody you haven’t known very long, well, we were in it.

“No, it’s perfect,” I said from my chair by the window.  With my feet up on the radiator I watched his reflection in the glass as he walked toward me.  “Could you turn off the lamp?”  Our reflections disappeared with a flick of the switch, and then nothing but night sky and the bright lights of Vegas lay before us.

Chris still works at Flamhauser-Geist.  And when Kendra stepped down, Tom Skeeter, with his personnel file full of rejected Vegas transfer requests, was offered her position.  Let’s just say that Sean Flamhauser felt he owed me a small favor for sticking by his daughter. 

Loose Cannons took over as one of Flamhauser-Geist's biggest clients, and lucky for Chris, Dan, and the rest of the team, Jimmy Cannon turned out to be one of the nicest people on the face of the earth.  The only downside was that Tom Skeeter frowned upon playing video games in the office, forcing Chris and Dan to sell their system and their gaming chairs to a local twelve year old.  Though they later agreed that without the constant abuse of Rob Dorfman, the stress relief of Mortal Kombat was virtually unnecessary.

“I’m pretty excited about this,” said Chris, settling into the chair beside me.  “I’ve never seen one of these before.”

“Me neither.  Oh look, there it goes.”  At precisely 2:30 a.m., with a few flashes of light and a deep rumble, the hotel began to fall.

“Kaboom,” said Chris.

“Kaboom.”

I watched as the hotel came down from left to right, folding in on itself and forming an enormous cloud of dust and debris that covered our view of the ground.  When the dust settles there will be a vacant lot ready and waiting for the construction of something bigger, something better. 

Something that maybe, just maybe, nobody ever saw coming.

Beth Labonte
was born in Salem, Massachusetts and received a B.A. in Sociology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.  She is currently an administrative assistant by day, and a bored, frustrated, aspiring writer, also by day.  By night she complains about going back to work in the morning. 

Beth resides in
Upton, Massachusetts with her husband, son, and two cats.

Visit my website:  www.secretary4life.com