Anchor Line (21 page)

             
‘Hey girl what are you doing.” Talia eyed Addie.

             
Addie looked up at her friend and wanted to cry.  “I screwed up.” She said.

             
“All that happened was you got a dining room set and we had drinks.When I dropped you off we were having a great time.  What happened between the time I dropped you off and now? “Talia asked.

             
Sighing heavily, as she looked up at her friend. “Conrad came over and I asked him to spend the night.”

             
“More than that should be a good thing shouldn’t?” Talia offered.

             
“It was up until this morning when we were having a moment and I told him that he could jerk off to Susan’s pictures on his cell phone.” Addy explained.

             
“Wait…whoa whoa stop.”  Talia put her hands up. “Who the hell is Susan and why is she sending him naked pictures?”

             
“Conrad and I went to lunch at the sandwich shop a couple days ago, and Susan...is some big… boobed… blonde who he fucks every now and again. He goes to the Messo and apparently picks up submissives.”

             
“He goes to the Messo?”  Talia asked.

             
“Oh, he goes to the Messo.”

             
“I’m so sorry girl.”

             
“Nah, its okay I’ll get through it I just screwed up.” Addie scrunched her face at her friend, then gave a stiff smile and shrugged her shoulders

             
The sight of Mr. Claymore coming down the aisle toward them, silently told Addie that they’d talk later and went back to her cubicle. Addie logged into her computer and turned around to see Mr. Claymore stopped in front of her doorway.  She really dreaded this guy. He was dressed in jeans and a polo and some Nike sneakers. This was never any way that he had dressed before.

             
What in the hell...was going on?

             
“Ms. Marshall, I need to see you in my office please.” Mr. Claymore turned around and lead in the way into his office.

             
Addie followed him into his office.

             
“Please close the door.” He said quietly.

             
“I may as well tell you so that you know...I’ve been let go.” Mr. Claymore sat at his desk folding his hands. “You’ll be finishing some management classes for the rest of the week probably until Thursday. At which point you will be able to move into my office, because I will no longer be here. Today is my last day, I’ve been asked to clear my stuff out.”

             
Addie was floored, she didn’t know what to say. “I… I’m so sorry Mr. Claymore. I don’t know what to say.”

             
“You don’t have to say anything.” Mr. Claymore answered. “I hope that you do well in your new position. I have always had great expectations for you.”

             
“Well thank you very much Mr. Claymore, I’m…I’m sorry to hear that you’re leaving.”

             
“Think nothing of it. Your first supervisory meeting is in an hour, I would suggest that you get a pen and notepaper and make yourself comfortable upstairs in room 205.”  Mr. Claymore said with finality.

             
Not knowing what else to say, Addie nodded her head, said thank you, opened the door, then left. Closing the door behind her. She was stunned, she didn’t know what to think about what Mr. Claymore had told her. She stood there for another minute with three or four of the employees looking at her, so she walked into her cubicle and sat down. Talia and a few of the other girls that saw her standing outside of Mr. Claymore’s door came over into the entryway of her cubicle.

             
“What the fuck just happened?”  Talia whispered. “You look like someone told you to take the puppy you just bought back to the store.”             

             
“I don’t know if I can tell you this early.”   Addie whispered back, looking at her friend still in shock.

             
“What do you mean you don’t know what just happened?” One of the other girls said.

             
“I don’t know if he’s going to tell you or if I should.” Addie said.

             
“Tell us what?” Another girl said.

             
“Today’s Mr. Claymore’s last day.” Addie whispered even more quiet.

             
It was said with such finality that everybody was stunned and nobody said anything.

             
“So does that mean you’re taking over?” Jessica quietly asked excitedly.

             
Addie looked at her not knowing she snuck up. “I… I suppose it does. Mr. Claymore said I’ll be in management classes and learning his job until Thursday” Addie explained.             

             
“This is so exciting!”  Talia smiled, clapping her hands quietly. “I mean, I feel sorry for the misogynistic bastard and all. But, I think we all saw this coming sooner or later.”

             
“I guess so.” Addie smiled. “But for now, let’s just keep this all on the download until a formal announcement is made.”

             
Everyone was all smiles as they walked back to their desks.  Turning around, she logged into her email, and took a few minutes to check it before she got ready for her meeting upstairs. Not wanting to be late, she left a half an hour early, going up to room 205 for her first supervisory meeting.  Sitting in a leather chair before a large oval desk, Addie was extremely nervous. She watched as the other supervisors and bosses walked in and took a seat chatting amongst themselves. Finally looking up at the clock on the wall, Addie noticed the time that it was five minutes until the hour when Mr. Moore walked in and closed the doors setting his notebook on the table in front of him. He did not sit down.

             
He looked around the room with a smile, “Good morning everyone. We have a new supervisor amongst us. I’d like to introduce you to Miss Addy Marshall, who will incidentally be replacing Mr. Claymore.” Mr. Moore extended his hand toward Addie and brought the other one up to clap his hands in congratulations. The rest of the supervisors and managers smiled and clapped along. After a short enthusiastic welcome, the meeting commenced.

             
After about two hours, Addie was in information overload. As everyone was getting up to leave, some of them came over and shook her hand as she stood to congratulate her personally. It was heartwarming. Before she could move another inch though, Mrs. Jenkins, a short, thick woman with purple glasses that were her trademark, came over and stretched a hand out to Addie’s seat, silently asking her to sit back down.

             
“I know that this is all very sudden. I’ll be training you in Mr. Claymo...in your new position Addie. May I call you Addie?” Mrs. Jenkins corrected herself.

             
“Yes, please.”

             
“Good, now that, that is all sorted, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty.”

             
Addie listened to Mrs. Jenkins give her the lowdown on her new position while she took notes.  There just seemed so much to take in, but she was willing to take it on if it meant a huge pay raise.  A bigger pay raise than she got being moved to a team lead position.  They moved over to Mrs. Jenkins’s office and she watched as she opened the different applications and explained the things that she would need to do her job and forwarded the emails containing the spreadsheets and reports to her.  Next thing they both knew, it was well after two thirty and that would explain why they were both hungry.  Not realizing they’d worked through lunch Mrs. Jenkins called it a day and said to come up tomorrow at eight when she got in. 

             
“Before I leave, who will be taking care of the employees downstairs and records until I’m in place to help?” Addie asked at the doorway.

             
“Why my dear, you are the new supervisor. What other way to get your feet wet than to jump right in. Mrs. Jenkins explained. “Just leave them my number so if there are any issues, you are reachable. You’ll get your blackberry tomorrow.” She smiled.

             
Addie smiled and nodded and made her way out of Mrs. Jenkins’s office and down to the front desk and stopped in front of Jessica who is finishing up a phone call. The waiting room was empty nothing going but Fox News on low, so Addie leaned on the counter with her head in her hands.

             
“Was it that bad?”  Jess asked.

             
“I wouldn’t say it was bad. Let me just say there’s a lot more to it than I realized.” Addie explained rubbing her face was both of her hands.  “And the whole time I’m sitting there trying not to wonder what in the hell Claymore did to get fired so quickly.”

             
“Rumor on the street has it, that he was doing a girl or getting it on with the soldier while his wife was at home playing Holly homemaker. But then again you never know.” Jess pursed her lips.

             
“God just the thought of one person fucking that guy is enough. I can’t imagine somebody else would want to do it to.” Addie sighed. “I’m going to go grab my lunch. Has Claymore made it out of the office yet?”

             
“He lugged the last of his boxes out of his office about half an hour ago.” Jess’s eyes got as round as saucers. “And was escorted by two MPs through the building with Mr. Moore.  It was all very undramatic.”  Jess almost looked like she was pouting now.

             
“Wow. An escort with MPs. I imagine will find out soon enough, they’ll be some kind of training on it.”  Addy’s sighed.

             
“Go get your lunch girl. We’ll talk later. You can tell me all about Renner.”

             
Addie had turned to leave when Jess dropped the Renner bomb.  She knew exactly who had told her.

             
“I plead the fifth.” And she smiled as she walked down the hallway to her cubicle.

             
The rest of the day went quietly. Addie had moved all of her stuff out of her cubicle and into her new office. Which wasn’t very much. She had several emails from the IT folks saying that they were going to hook up her computer and switch all of her programs over etc. etc. So now all she had to do was wait.  Getting up from her desk, she went to stand in front of the window that was in her now new office. Looking up at the gray skies, her first thought was of Conrad. Was he in the field now? Did he take care of his soldier’s issue? The last two nights surely caught her up in a tailspin of emotion and thoughts. She wasn’t really sure what the next month before he left for Pennsylvania was going to hold. She felt that she most certainly ruined everything with her comment this morning about Susan and the naked pictures on his phone. But she couldn’t take back what she had said, so she’d have to do damage control to fix it.

             
That night she walked in her apartment with a sub sandwich and tea in hand, looking around her new digs. Turning on the living room and dining room lights, she put her dinner on the bar in the kitchen. Slipping out of her shoes, she grabbed them and walked down the hallway to her room. Spying Conrad’s t-shirt on the bed, she walked into her closet and slipped out of her her sweater and slacks putting her shoes up on the shelf, she slid her bra off tossing it in the top dresser drawer. Then she walked over to the bed and pulled Conrad’s t-shirt on. Closing her eyes she took a deep breath and immediately all images of Conrad fucking her or Conrad laughing at her, filled her head.

             
  Instant regret filled her as she walked down the hallway and picked up her sandwich and tea and took them over and sat on her sofa. Turning on the TV to bring some noise into the apartment, she ate dinner and sat back pulling the blanket over her legs until it was time to go to bed. No text messages, no phone calls, no voicemails from Conrad while he’s in the field or before he left. She figured he must’ve really been upset. Or, well hell, he was in the field. Even Charles would text her or phone her for a few minutes. But Conrad wasn’t her boyfriend. He did smile at her when she told him to be careful before he left. Looking at the time on the cable box, it was only seven forty-five. Deciding to call it a night, she turned off the TV, folded the blanket and put it up on the sofa, turned off all the lights, made sure the door was locked and walked back to her bedroom. Sliding under the blankets and laying on the pillow that Conrad had used, again she took a deep breath, feeling surrounded by all that was Conrad. She thought she was going to go crazy when she decided to turn on ESPN, so that she could just go to sleep.

             
The ding of her phone made her realize that she had fallen asleep. Reaching over to the night table, she picked it up and saw the text message icon. Swiping her phone she saw that it was from Conrad.

            
 
CONRAD: r u sleeping in my shirt???