Blow Me: Chapter 7 Excerpt

           By the end of the week, Skye understood why Howard had hired the Hefner Twins. She had often expressed to him how overburdened she was by her job, and he finally listened. The new girls would infuse more life into the office, something she had been trying to do since Day One. It had been a losing battle with nobody on her side, but now she had allies. And since they were new, they would be kissing her ass while they learned the ropes. She would be able to take all sorts of liberties. Extended lunches for a quick polish change or brow tweeze. The possibilities were endless. Maybe she could arrange to have Fridays off. Why not! She had been there a decade. She had seniority. She should get a gold watch, for Christ’s sake. With the new girls on board, it was the perfect time to cash in on some vacation days, so Skye put in a request for a weeklong vacation in March and IMed Dawn:

            How was lunch with the Architect?

            Pretty good.

            2^nd date???

            Dawn waited a few minutes, took a phone call, and checked her e-mail before responding. She knew the suspense would kill Skye.

            Yes! Definitely, she finally replied.

            It was Friday morning, and Dawn had a lot of work to do, so she kept her answers short to discourage Skye from a flurry of IMs.

            Deets?

            What happened to no IMing during biz hours?

            Bored. Hefner Twins doing all the work. C’mon, tell me!!!!!

            Skye over-punctuated her texts and IMs—everything was urgent and important.           

            Not now.

            C’mon. Name? Occupation? Age???

            Jake Simon, Architect. 48

            Skye promptly Googled his name and found several articles. Donated to the Democratic Party. Good. Involved with some kind of eco building something. Had a conscience. Good. Set longest record for heliskiing in Alaska last June by skiing for twenty-four hours. Impressive! She located his company Web site and read the list of projects he had designed, all massive casino-hotel projects. Successful! Nice. She looked for images and found a photo of Jake standing next to Steve Wynn and Donald Trump at a charity event and another photo of him in an orange construction vest and hardhat at some construction site. Orange was definitely not his color.

            OMG!!! Have u Googled him?!?!?!?!

            Don’t tell me anything! Dawn replied. Unless he’s a serial killer.

            Def not serial killer. Successful. And cute. Saw foto.

            Gotta go … Dawn lied. She didn’t want to talk about Jake with anyone yet. They barely had one date, and although she liked him, she had no idea where it was going. Dawn had been disappointed too many times to invest a lot of emotion in something before it was something. Creating a bunch of wouldn’t it be nice scenarios and planning their perfect life together would only make her feel worse if things didn’t work out. To borrow the expression of a Buddhist yoga instructor she studied with prior to discovering Pilates, everything unfolds as it should.

            Wait. Have 2 ask U something.

            What!!! Dawn adopted Skye’s punctuation habit for a moment and employed three exclamation points to convey that she was getting a little annoyed with the IMing.

            Wanna go 2 Cabo in March?

            Why Cabo?

            Y not! U hv 2 come. Say yes.

            I have to ask my boss.

            Puh-leaassse, Skye whined in her IM bubble.

            Will see, Dawn replied and logged off IM, leaving Skye online with no other worthy IM candidates.