Here Today, Gone to Maui (28 page)

 

At that point I was going to say I never wanted to see him again, let him wallow in misery for a couple of weeks, and then decide whether to let him come crawling back.

Unfortunately, the encounter didn’t go as scripted.

 

 

Honestly, stalking him wasn’t so reprehensible. The guy deserved to be castrated. To make things worse, he was fooling around with someone from our office, this tacky girl named Danielle who had just started in accounts receivable. Danielle had dry, bleached hair that she flatironed superstraight, a tiny mouth crowded with crooked teeth, and a closet full of supertight jeans and metallic stiletto heels.

The instant our breakup was official (meaning, as soon as he’d thrown some money on the table—only his half, the cheap bastard—and strode out of the restaurant, making it clear he was leaving because he wanted to, not because I’d told him to get out), he strolled back to the office and over to Danielle’s cubicle, where he said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “Hey, Dani, you and me still on for tonight?”

She was on the phone at the time, but she put the customer on hold and said, “Well, yeah! You get rid of her?”

I did what any woman would do under the circumstances. I screamed, I cried—and then I hacked into his e-mail. It wasn’t hard. I work in human resources, remember. Anyone who thinks that e-mails sent through a company’s internal system are truly private is sadly mistaken. Really, Keith should have known better than to write something like this gem to Danielle, dated two weeks before our breakup:

 

Seriously. If Keith had read his employee handbook—which clearly outlined the potentially public nature of all in-house correspondence—he definitely would have thought twice before writing a message like this:

 

After reading that, it took every ounce of my strength not to shoot back a message saying,
It’s
scene,
not
seen,
you moron
.
And—were you out sick on that day in fourth grade when they taught contractions?

Instead, I checked his in-box. There I discovered that Danielle was not Keith’s first indiscretion. There were several messages from a girl called Lola (for God’s sake):

 

Costumers? Huh? Did Keith have some kind of a Halloween fetish? Then it hit me: Keith wasn’t Lola’s costumer; he was her customer. Which meant that Lola was—oh, shit! I thought AIDS, I thought hepatitis, I thought syphilis, but mostly I thought
whore
—meaning Keith more than Lola.

Staying late at work that night (such a busy bee), I cross-checked Lola’s e-mail dates with Keith’s travel and expense reports. He’d eaten at a place called Bernie’s on the night of each encounter. Maybe Lola was a waitress, I thought with relief. Yeah: that could be it. Responsible as always, I saw my doctor; after all, Keith was promiscuous even if he wasn’t bedding prostitutes. Fortunately, I’d always been a slave to safe sex, and the doctor gave me a clean bill of health and only the smallest of smirks.

Bernie’s was a couple of towns over—a little far to drive during rush hour, but I decided an hour in bumper-to-bumper traffic was worth the peace of mind. There was no restaurant at the address listed on the receipt, though; instead, there was a strip club called the Candy Cane. (Stripper pole = cane, get it?) This discovery wasn’t shocking, really: Keith had told me he went to strip clubs (such an up-front guy). He simply hadn’t mentioned what happened afterward.

At work the next morning, I told Danielle about Lola. I pretended—to both her and myself—that I was trying to protect her, but really, of course, I just wanted to watch her suffer.

Her response? “He was just stepping out on you because you’re such an icy-cold bitch and fucking you was like fucking a table.”

Nice.

 

 

Later, she sent an e-mail to Keith:

I considered going to the CEO, telling him about the strip clubs, getting Keith fired. The thing was, my motives would have been so obvious. Plus, I’d known about the strip clubs all along (just not Lola), and I probably should have mentioned them earlier.

So I followed him (which sounds so much nicer than, “I stalked him”). I took my Civic, my camera, and a whole lot of Starbucks coffee, and I watched as Keith went to his gym, to the grocery store, to Danielle’s. Always to Danielle’s. He spent a lot more time at her place than he ever had at mine. And then he went back to the gym.

Being a sales guy, he was on the road a lot, so it’s not like I was doing this every day. It’s not like I was obsessed. Okay, I was obsessed, but not because I loved him. I hated him! That’s better, right? Eventually, he would grow bored with Danielle and head back to the Candy Cane. I’d get a picture of him going inside—maybe even a shot of Lola. And when Danielle saw the photo? I’d win.

I didn’t win. After about a month and a half of this (during which Keith was mostly gone—honestly), the CEO summoned me into his office. Keith and Danielle were there, as was the president and my boss, the HR manager. For a second, I thought management was on my side, that they were going to chastise Keith and Danielle for being so mean to me. But then I saw Danielle smile, and I knew I was screwed.

Stalking is a serious offense, they said.

Keith went to strip clubs, I blurted out. And paid for it with his company credit card. I’d just been watching out for the bottom line, doing my job, protecting company resources.

Fired, they said.

“Me? But what about him?”

I could tell by the CEO’s expression that he’d known about the strip clubs all along. My boss, the HR manager, looked genuinely shocked, which made me almost sort of like her (but not really).

The CEO gave a fake warning to Keith and then mumbled something about him being “one of our top performers” and “what he does in his free time is his own business.” And then he said that Keith was planning to file a restraining order against me.

“I’ll call all of our customers,” I announced (still talking in “we” terms—such a loyal employee). “And I’ll tell them that the company pays for gentleman’s clubs and sex with strippers. What does that say about our ethics, our corporate culture? Who would want to do business with us?” I’m not sure if I really had the balls to do this—and I’m not sure if it would have worked—but at this point, it was my only ammunition.

“I’ve never paid for sex,” Keith said, less defensive than proud.

“Of course you haven’t,” I shot back. “The company reimbursed you.”

“I propose a revision to the employee handbook,” my boss interjected. “To clarify expectations regarding appropriate use of corporate funds.” My boss was such a weenie.

“Your employment is terminated, effective now,” the CEO said to me. “Assuming you stay away from Keith and Danielle, I see no need to file anything with the police.”

“What about a recommendation?” I asked.

“What about it?”

I held his eyes and spoke slowly. “I’m competent, smart, well versed in human resources. I’ve outgrown my current position, but any company would be lucky to have me. Right?”

The CEO stared at me. I stared back. I was twenty-four years old, remember. And sweating quite profusely. When he didn’t respond, I said, “Because I wouldn’t want to upset the customers if it wasn’t necessary.”

The CEO turned to my boss. “Put together a recommendation and I’ll sign it.”

And that was that.

Except now, apparently, it wasn’t.

So, my past had come back to bite me in the butt. On the plus side—if you can call it that—I was already so miserable that an extra dose of humiliation, no matter how potent, didn’t have that much of an impact. Besides, I got to see a picture of Danielle (she was the one who tipped off the press, naturally), and she’d gotten really fat. There were comments from Keith (“I was frightened for my life”—oh, please) but no recent pictures, which I decided meant that he got fat, as well.

The story finally over, Michael clicked off the TV. “Wow,” he said.

I said something like “urg”; the chef’s knife was still clenched in my sweaty hand, making me look like a major psycho.

“I’m sure it’s all lies,” Michael said.

“Not entirely,” I admitted, my voice squeaking. “I really did follow him. But it wasn’t because I was so in love with him like that bi—” I glared at the TV, which was back to being a painting. “Like Danielle said. He’d treated me really badly, and I was furious. I really wanted to kill him but figured I’d just get him fired instead.”

There was a long, long pause, after which Michael said, “You might not want to use those words when you’re talking to the police.”

I began to shake. “Oh my God.” I dropped the knife on the counter.

“Don’t worry about dinner.” Michael sprang up from his chair. “Why don’t you sit down, have a glass of wine, maybe, and I’ll serve.”

I shook my head. “Not hungry anymore.” I stumbled out of the kitchen and onto the couch.

“At least you have a good job now,” Michael said, trying to make me feel better. “That whole thing that happened—at least it didn’t hurt your career.”

I turned to face him. No. Oh, no.

 

 

I’d turned my phone off after talking to my mother. Now, checking my voice-mail messages, I saw that Lena had called just before five o’clock California time, three o’clock here. When had the stalker story hit the wires? Odds were, it popped up on the Internet hours before I saw it.

“Jane? Hi. I hope you’re okay.” Lena sounded nervous on the message. “Sorry. That’s a stupid thing to say because I know you’re not okay, but I just—well, you know what I mean.” She took a deep, noisy breath. “The thing is? There’s something I need to send you. An e-mail.” And then, the truth: “Mr. Wills had me type up a memo.”

After setting up his laptop on the little table in his bedroom, Michael left me to read in privacy. I sat down carefully on the straight-backed chair, my legs so wobbly I feared I might fall over.

 

 

Just when I thought I couldn’t feel any worse, I felt worse. The place where I worked with Keith and Danielle had had a sheen of sleaziness: padded expenses, questionable tax write-offs, slippery negotiations. Mr. Wills was a big reason I joined the rubber company (most of the other reasons involved being able to afford food and rent). He wasn’t a guy you’d do tequila shots with, but that was the point. He was such a Boy Scout, such a goody-goody. He would never cross a line or tolerate inappropriate behavior.

And now? I was the one who had behaved inappropriately, the one who needed to be banished for the greater good.

 

 

Michael appeared in the doorway, a glass of white wine in his hand. “We can watch Tiara’s YouTube video if it’ll cheer you up,” he said.