Riding the Corporate Ladder (Indigo) (19 page)

* * *

Back at her work station, she still couldn’t hide her elation.

“Hey, Miss Newman,” Karen called from her desk. “What are you so happy about?”

“Come here.”

Karen followed her into the office, and Deena instructed her to close the door. Today the secretary wore black slacks with a green blouse. Her shoes didn’t match the blouse, and her belt didn’t match anything.

Deena was jittery. She forced herself to take a seat, and Karen took the chair across from her.

“What is it, Miss Newman?” She had a big, sweet smile. Deena envied that innocence.

“I just left Mr. Murray’s office,” she said. “Guess what he told me.”

Karen had no idea.

“You remember that junior partner position we were talking about?” Deena asked. “They’ve narrowed it down to ten distinguished individuals, and I’m on the list!”

Karen was definitely shocked. “Wow, Miss Newman. That’s great.”

“Junior partner,” Deena mused. “Do you know how much freaking money that is?”

Karen did have a clue. “Miss Newman, that’s awesome! You do a great job, but I would’ve thought you were too young.”

“I owe a lot of it to you,” Deena said. “All the work we did this year played a big part in this. When I get the job, I’m gonna buy you something nice. What do you want? A car? A wardrobe?”

Karen looked away sheepishly. “Miss Newman, I don’t need any gifts. I’m just doing my job.”

“Suit yourself,” Deena said. She knew a good business deal when she heard one.

“So you think you’re going to get the job?”

“Mr. Murray says it’s a long shot, but yeah. I think I can pull it off. They still have two months before they make a decision. I just need to rub shoulders with the right people in the meantime.”

Karen gave her a knowing look. “The right people like who?”

“Some of the other directors,” Deena said. “Or the partners. If I can get in good with a few more higher-ups, I’ll be a shoe-in.”

“I thought you already were in good with the partners.”

“I did go out with Tom,” Deena reflected. “But that old fart’s in love with those escort services. He’s got a different girl on his arm at every party. I doubt if he even remembers our date.”

“Well, why don’t you go out with Mr. Markham?” the secretary kidded. “Then you’ll have two directors on your side.”

It was a joke, but Deena didn’t see the humor in it. As a matter of fact, that made a lot of sense. Not only was David Markham the only unmarried director at the firm, but he was also relatively young; just forty two years of age. Deena never considered him romantically because he was light-skinned, notoriously anal, and rumor had it he was as dull as the Dewey Decimal System.

But she could tolerate dull if it got her the junior partner position. With that job, she would never have to sleep around again. She would put up with almost anything to get to that point.

Karen read her expression and started to shake her head. “Miss Newman, I hope you’re not—”

“Go get me some coffee,” Deena said. She already knew what the secretary would say, and she had no need for naysayers at a time like this.

Karen got up and left the office, and Deena turned on her computer. She logged onto the firm’s mainframe, and right away she saw something she took as confirmation. There were over fifty new emails in her inbox, and one of them was from David Markham himself. The message was short and sweet, but it couldn’t have brought Deena more joy if he offered her a million dollars.

Mrs. Newman, You’ve been doing an outstanding job.

Could you stop by my office if you have time today?

No need to rush.

David Markham

Deena played it cool. She waited until after lunch before she paid him a visit, even though she felt like a junkie waiting on a hit in the interim.

* * *

Mr. David Markham had an office way up on the twenty-eighth floor. Just taking the elevator up that high was a thrill in itself. When Deena first got on, it was filled with the common riff-raff: lawyers, paralegals and secretaries. But the higher up she went, the less people stayed on. And that felt good. She felt important, and when she stepped off she held her head high.

Mr. Markham’s secretary was a big black woman with an air of superiority Deena found infuriating. She stared at Deena like a disheveled vagrant was approaching her desk.

“Can I help you?” She actually had a sneer on her face. Deena couldn’t believe it.

“Hi. I’m here to see Mr. Markham.”

The woman looked from her visitor to her appointment schedule, her bad attitude growing by the second. “Who are you? You don’t have an appointment?”

“I’m Deena Newman. He’s expecting me.”

She checked her book again. “If he’s expecting you, then you would have an appointment.”

Deena wanted to slap some humility into her. “Could you maybe call him, and ask if he wants to see me?”

The secretary let out a big sigh like that was going beyond her job duties. “Just a minute.” She made the call and apparently heard something she didn’t like. When she looked up at Deena again she was even more snippy. “You can go right in.”

Deena rolled her eyes at her on the way by. Some people turned into utter fools when you gave them a little authority. Deena hoped she wouldn’t turn out that way when her ship finally came in.

* * *

Mr. Markham had another one of those coveted corner offices, but his set-up put Mr. Murray’s place to shame. They must have torn down a few walls at some point, because this was the biggest office Deena had ever seen in any building. It was big enough to house the boardroom downstairs and then some.

The lighting was subdued, and all of the furniture was dark pine. Against one wall, there was a huge bookcase that extended from ceiling to floor and wall to wall. The shelves were packed with volume after volume of legal texts, encyclopedias, and ledgers. Some of these manuscripts were old and dusty. Others were fresh off the press, still in mint condition.

Against another wall was a massive aquarium, measuring at least ten feet in length. Deena admired it and then did a double take, thinking she couldn’t be seeing right, but she was. Along with the plastic deep sea diver and live sagittaria plants, he had real sharks swimming around in there—and they weren’t all that little.

There were also large African masks on the walls, a huge globe mounted in a mahogany cradle, and a beautiful ficus tree in one corner. His plasma television was bigger than the one Deena had at home, and he had a bronze nautilus shell sculpture near the center of the room.

There was plenty to stare and ogle at, but Mr. Markham was quite a sight himself. He stood when Deena entered, and the smile that spread across her face was both from admiration and surprise.

Deena didn’t prefer fair-skinned men, but every now and then she met one who changed her tune for a while. Mr. Markham was just over six feet, three inches tall with short hair that was curly on top. His eyes were hazel, and his eyebrows were thick. He wore no moustache or beard.

Deena recognized his suit as an Armani. It was double-breasted and tan-colored, looking good against his skin tone. He wore a white shirt with a designer tie that drew your attention. He stuck out a hand for her to shake, and Deena noticed his manicured nails and his Rolex watch. She noticed his perfect teeth and his snakeskin shoes. She noticed how his traps bulged—even through the suit and that was the biggest surprise of all. Mr. Markham actually had a nice physique. Overall, Deena liked the whole package.

“Hello, Mrs. Newman. Nice to meet you again.”

“Miss Newman,” she said. “I’m not married.”

“Oh, well, Miss Newman, it’s very nice to meet you again.”

“It’s nice to meet you, too,” she said. His hand was soft. His scent was captivating and exotic. Deena couldn’t place the fragrance, but she was very fond of it. “The pleasure is all mine.”

Deena took a call on the way home. It was one of the twins.

“Hello?”

“What’s up, bitch?” That was Natasha. Deena was one of few people who could tell them apart over the phone.

“Nothing,” she said. “Pissed-off; stuck in traffic on 287. These fools don’t seem to realize that I’m the man.”

“You the man?”

“I’m calling ahead of time tomorrow,” Deena said. “They’re going to have to either shut this freeway down or hook me up with one of those police escorts. I’m way too important to be dealing with this riff-raff. I want to squash them like bugs.”

Natasha laughed. “I see you’re feeling all magnanimous today. What happened, you got another raise?”

“Not yet,” Deena said. “But it won’t be long. There’s a junior partner position coming up, and I’m in the running. They say I’m not th—” She blew her horn at a Honda Civic trying to cut her off. “Keep that ugly piece of shit over there!”

“Who you yelling at?”

“Some fool. But anyway, they actually chose me, girl. I didn’t have to push up on this one at all. They chose me!”

“What’s a junior partner? Sounds like some Mickey Mouse shit to me.”

“That’s ’cause all you did today was watch the Disney channel.”

“My stories don’t come on the Disney channel.”

“A junior partner is right under the partners,” Deena informed her. “About half a million a year.”

“Dizamn!” Natasha said, paying a little tribute to the late, great Bernie Mac.

“Dizamn, indeed.”

“You need to go out with us tonight and celebrate.”

Deena laughed. The twins were notorious revelers, always ready for festivities at the drop of a hat. They partied for weddings, break-ups, promotions, and demotions. They even partied after funerals sometimes, depending on the corpse.

“It’s Monday,” Deena said. “I am not going out tonight.”

“Why not?”

Deena had no intentions of arguing. “Where are y’all going, anyway?” she asked.

“Tablisha’s having a party at the Blue Moon.”

Tablisha was another friend from high school, but she was not part of their clique. As a matter of fact, Deena couldn’t stand Tablisha. There were plenty of silly reasons for her disdain, but the fact that Tablisha’s name sounded like a sneeze was pretty high up on the list.

“I’m not going to that girl’s party. I want to be in bed by eleven.”

“Well, can we stop by on our way?” Natasha asked.

Deena had a well-stocked liquor cabinet, and she knew that’s what the twin was after. Before Natasha and Latasha went anywhere, they liked to slip into a mellow inebriation first. Deena had a story to tell this evening, so she didn’t mind being used.

“I’ll be home in twenty minutes.”

“Hell, yeah! We’ll meet your ass there,” Natasha said and disconnected.

* * *

Deena pulled into her driveway at seven-thirty, and the twins showed up just a few minutes later. It was Deena’s preference to have at least an hour of wind-down time to herself, but Latasha came in with take-out boxes from their favorite Chinese restaurant. Deena readily traded her wind-down time for a night with no cooking.

The sisters were dressed identically, and Deena almost regretted her decision not to tag along for the party. She loved to see the look on men’s faces when they encountered these women on one of their wild outings, and, from the looks of it, this night would have plenty of fireworks.

The twins wore matching halter tops with glimmering spandex pants. The halter tops were little more than bras configured for outer wear. They barely contained the sisters’ lusciousness, but the same could be said about those pants. The sisters had full hips and thick thighs, and the fabric stretched over these curves smoothly, with no cellulite dimples or extra flab. Their bare bellies were flat and well-toned, and their asses were out of this world, indecent and beautiful.

Deena took them to the kitchen so they could get started on their drinks while she slipped into the bedroom and changed into jogging pants and a t-shirt. When she got back, the twins had two outrageously strong Long Island iced teas made, and they couldn’t have been happier.

Deena didn’t want to drink tonight, but she eagerly dove into her Pappa Chang’s. She nibbled shrimp fried rice as she told her friends about what might have been the most important meeting of her maturing career.

And unlike Deena, the twins were very big fans of light-skinned gentlemen. From the descriptions Deena gave, they thought Mr. Markham sounded like quite the dreamboat.

“You thought he was fat?” Natasha asked.

“No, I never thought he was fat,” Deena said. “I just didn’t know he had it going on like that. This man has custom-made suits, but he still can’t hide those muscles. I heard he played football in college, but he seems too smart for that.”

“Maybe he did,” Latasha ventured.

Deena shook her head and munched down a spoonful of rice. “He’s ivy league all the way. He graduated from Princeton. I think he was the president of the Chess Club, or something stupid like that. Plus, his hands are too soft. I can’t see him playing sports.”