Going Down (11 page)

“Great, just fuckin’ great! I’m sorry, Jackie, I didn’t mean to curse at you. When CJ comes back, have her call me, please. Tell her it’s important.”

CJ finally called back an hour later. By that time, not only was James breathing down my neck, but by then Ivan had showed up, making a pest of himself. CJ rattled off commands for me to try. None of which worked. “I need to get into the system, Chris. I’ll be over there.”

I was glad to have CJ on board. If I could ever stabilize this account, I could pursue some new business and I’d be on my way. But as happy as I was about it, I was still a little leery about working with a married woman that I am in love with.

An hour and a half later, I was in the parking lot pacing back and forth, when CJ zoomed into the parking lot and ran toward the building. “Sorry I’m late, Chris. Traffic was murder coming through downtown.”

“As long as you’re here,” I said as we entered the building. When we got to the door of the office, I noticed a bruise on CJ’s left cheek. “What happened to you?”

“I walked into a door the other night,” she answered quickly and went inside.

“Did the door have a name?”

CJ didn’t answer.

A half-hour after that, she was able to get the system back online, but it was two o’clock by then. She could offer no explanation why the system appeared to be online when it wasn’t. I spent the rest of the day trying to explain it to Ivan and generating reports; printing logs and going over them carefully, looking for the cause. Once we were done, CJ and I headed out the building. As we approached the lobby, Ivan
DeVito
called me into his office. “It will only take a minute,” Ivan promised.

I looked over at CJ. “Don’t leave.”

“I won’t. Remember, meals are included in my deal and I’m hungry.”

Once we were in his office, Ivan told me how pleased he and the other managers were with the way CJ handled the situation. “I just wanted to let you know that I really have a good feeling about the way things are going.”

“Thank you.”

“I made some notes and I’d like to go over them with you. That is, if you have time.”

I looked at my watch.

“It should only take a few minutes,” Ivan promised.

It was nearly an hour before Ivan stopped talking and let me out of his office. I walked out to the parking lot to find CJ waiting patiently in her car. She looked at her watch. “What happened to this ‘will only take a minute’?” she asked.

“Old Ivan had other ideas. He made some notes.”

“What, he didn’t like the way I resolved the problem?”

“No, as a matter of fact, he loved you. Said you were absolutely extraordinary.”

“That sounds more like something you would say.”

“You’re right, I did think you were absolutely extraordinary today. He did say you were fantastic. It was just questions he had, procedures he wants to put in place.”

I looked at CJ. Even with the black eye, she still looked good to me.
“What’s up with that?” I asked and pointed to her eye.

“I told already told you what happened, Chris. I walked into a door.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, we can talk about all that later. I’m hungry. Come on ride with me.”

“That’s okay, I’ll drive my own car. I hate being a passenger.”

“No, you just hate being taken for a ride,” I said as I walked to my car.

CJ started her car. “You just don’t know how much!”

CJ followed me to Huey’s on Peachtree. Along the way I painted several elaborate scenarios about how she got the black eye. Each ended with the same conclusion. There was no doubt in my mind that her husband, Manny, hit her. I only needed to hear why.

Once we got inside, CJ proceeded to talk about everything but what happened. We talked about the day and the agenda for the morning. Then she forced me to go back to the car to get the notes I took during my meeting with Ivan. CJ continued to focus on how important this was to us.

“We can’t mess this up,” CJ said.

I sat back in my chair and rubbed my beard. “I’ve been noticing something about you today, CJ.”

“Something other than my eye I hope.”

“Nah. Your eye ain’t that bad. I just wanna know what happened. But that’s not what I been noticing. All day you have been talking up this we thing. You tryin’ to tell me something?”

“Yes, but you want to know what happened, don’t you?”

“The thought had occurred to me.”

“Me and Manny got into it on the way home the other night.” CJ let out a little laugh. “The parking lot really.”

“What’d y’all get into it about?”

“He’s been drinking a lot lately. Anyway. He was drunk, again. Too drunk to drive and that’s what started it. I didn’t want him to drive home. Some guy walked up while we were arguing. It was getting pretty ugly by then. I don’t know who he was, but he finally convinced Manny to let me drive. He passed out in the car on the way home. But when we got home, we got right back into it. Chris, now you know I don’t like to argue.”

“I know. You keep it all to yourself.”

“Not that night. Chris, I went off.”

“You, CJ, went off? Say it ain’t so.”

“Every complaint I ever had with him, I threw it at him.”

“Get outta here.”

“I told him I was tired of him drinking so much and him embarrassing me in public was getting real old. I told him I was tired of carrying all the weight financially. That he needs to get off his ass and start making some money. I’m losing respect for him, Chris. And that’s not good.”

“I thought he got a new job and a big raise?”

“Big raise, my big ass. You know they aren’t paying any money out there, Chris. That’s why we left. You know that. Even with the raise, I still make twice what he’s making. He makes enough to pay for that Acura he didn’t need and his high-ass insurance. He can handle a bill every now and then. He’s always crying broke, but he always got money to buy a bottle or hang out with drunk-ass friends. But when I bring up his drinking or that car, he gets annoyed.”

“I’m sorry, CJ. I knew he was an oilman, but I didn’t know it had gotten that bad.”

“I keep stuff to myself, remember.” CJ took a sip of her drink and dropped her head.

“Why do you stay with him?”

“I still kind of love him. And when he’s not drunk, he’s nice and he promises to do better. He’ll stop drinking for a day or two. Maybe even a week. Most of the time I think it’s ’cause he’s broke. One time last year, he stopped drinking for a month. I was shocked. Started looking in the paper on Sunday and whatnot. But he never would see anything he felt like going for. It had to be the right opportunity, he’d say, and it’s not to be taken lightly.”

“So what happened to your eye?”

“Oh yeah, well, after a while I stopped fussing and went to bed, he gets in bed and starts rubbing on me. I say stop, ’cause I really don’t feel like being bothered with his drunk ass. But he keeps on, trying to force himself on me. So I get out of bed; I was going to sleep in the other room.”

“That’s when he hit you.”

“He didn’t hit me,” she said, but I could tell by the look in hers eyes that she was lying. “He gets out of bed and starts following me, but he’s so drunk that he tripped and he pulled me into the door.”

“That’s what happened?” I looked at her in a way that showed my disbelief. “You ran into a door? That’s it?”

“That my story and I’m sticking to it.”

The waitress brought us our food and we ate in silence for a few minutes. I thought about pushing the issue, but I knew CJ wasn’t going to back off her story. I never knew what CJ saw in Manny. She could do much better than that.

Me for instance.

I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs that she should leave him. I never really liked Manny, even before he and CJ started dating. It wasn’t my fault that Manny was loud, country, and drank too much. Or that he was lazy and was probably beating her. That wouldn’t be interfering, I thought. I would just be pointing out what she should already know. But I promised myself that I would never be the cause of their marriage breaking up.

CJ, on the other hand, was perfectly content to let it die right there. I figured she’d appreciate me not pushing it, so I let it go. The truth was that I knew that Manny hit her and it wasn’t the first time. CJ still felt something for Manny and she wanted to help him to get through this. She thought she should be there for him. Be supportive of him, not run out on him because he was going through a bad time. But Manny isn’t even trying to do better. Be supportive, not support him, and that’s what was happening.

“Hey, you.” CJ looked at me and smiled. “Thanks for not pushing it.”

“Yeah, right,” I spit out, but quickly changed my attitude. “You’ll tell me when you’re ready and I’ll be here to listen. That’s what friends are for, right?”

“Right.” CJ smiled. “But there is something I do wanna talk to you about.”

“What’s that?”

“You were gonna to pay me five thousand dollars for training, and another five to be retainer for a year.”

“That’s what you agreed on.”

“Well, I have a counter offer. I have been thinking about this for a long time. Even before this came up. I don’t wanna be on retainer. I’ve got five thousand dollars I saved. I was gonna let you invest it for me, but I changed my mind. I wanna take that money plus the five thousand you’re paying me for training. With that fifteen, I wanna buy into your business. For us to be partners. I have a lot of skills to offer and you know we can work together.” CJ looked at me, waiting for me to say something. “Well, say something. What do you think?”

“You talking about quitting your job?”

“No. Not for at least another year. There’s a lot of training available for me. I’ve been going over the brochures and there are classes I want to take that are being offered through next July. I figure I’ll be ready financially by then. By then, we should be generating enough business to carry me.”

“What does Manny think about this?”

“I haven’t told him about it yet.”

“Don’t you think you should? I mean, this is a big step you’re talking about. Quitting your job and investing y’all’s savings. Not to mention working with me.”

“Let me explain something to you. This is my money. Manny hasn’t saved a nickel since we got married. He doesn’t know I got it and has no say in what I do with it. I’m not going to let him get in the way of an excellent opportunity. And this is such a good opportunity for me, for us, to build a strong business. We have so much talent between the two of us. With the influx of capital, you can expand what you have. And with the two of us seeking new business, we can do this. And if he don’t like it, he can get the fuck on.”

“CJ, your language,” I said, shaking my finger. I couldn’t believe I heard her say it. From the look on her face, she probably couldn’t believe it either.

“I’m serious, Chris. I wanna be with you. I mean, I wanna be your partner.”

“I know what you meant, CJ.” But it felt good to hear it anyway. “Give me some time to think about it.” I took another bite of my food, finished my drink and motioned for our waitress. “You want another drink?”

“No.”

I could tell she was disappointed that I didn’t seem to share her enthusiasm for our partnership. Actually, I was jumping for joy inside, but I couldn’t let her know that.