By the time the third pot of coffee had made it's way around the fourth floor Marketing offices of Ledtech Medical Software Inc., the four women inhabiting the crowded work space were finally focused enough to get on with the day's work. The fact that each of them had just endured the same soggy and cold early November morning commute didn't help their collective moods in the least.
"At least we're all here on time," Patricia Kinney proudly chirped between sips of her Maxwell House. "Our department has the best attendance and performance marks in the whole Memphis branch."
"Yeah...so what," the youngest and easily most boisterous of the group, Tamara Rizzoti, interrupted.
"It won't get us a better room while we're down in Tampa at the Conference next weekend will it?" the 24 year old full blooded Italian spitfire added.
"They'll probably give our department a nice plaque at next year's company picnic or something," Patricia cracked in return, admiring Tamara's energy and full bore take on things. "Research and Development gets all the Conference perks and the best setups down there."
"Yep...they're the ones with multiple degrees...and its their ideas we're selling...we're pretty much replaceable," Sarah Miller, the de facto Mother figure of the group, subtly interjected.
Sarah had given up her career 19 years earlier after getting married and having twins, but with both of them off to college, the tuition payments combined with a second mortgage, she had decided to dive back into the professional world. Having been a mother figure and family caretaker for that long however, it humored the other three women in the office just how doting and active Sarah tried to be in their lives.
The fourth member of the group, the one Patricia had the most respect and admiration for, was a 27 year old single Mother named Renee Bellows. Like Patricia, Renee was the only other girl in the group that had been through a divorce and there was a definite kinship between the two, knowing what it took to pull themselves out of that life altering rut.
One of the traits Patricia was especially envious of Renee was her ability to sit and patiently listen to a conversation, dissect it and then come out of nowhere with a clever quip or sensical statement of clarity to put everything in perspective.
"She should be the one running this place," Patricia often caught herself thinking when the burdens of being the interim manager of the department began to wear her down.
Not that Patricia didn't enjoy the step up on the corporate ladder, and the bump in salary that went with it, the problem was in how fast it had came about. Only 29, she envisioned herself stepping into the limelight by the time she was maybe 35, not cast into it less than three years after she joined the company.
Eight months into the elevated position, after the original manager of the department had been sidelined with his second heart attack, Patricia could clearly see how a person could succumb to the stress that came with the responsibility of the job. Still, the position and all the accolades that went with it was something she had earned and she knew if she could string together a couple more years of quality service, she'd be able to write her ticket anywhere she wanted.
Twice divorced, the first time when she was 20 to her high school sweetheart who had promised her the world only to discover that she wasn't at all crazy about his view of that world and her place in it, and the second to an older man who had, on one hand, been the stabilizing panacea to the first marriage but in the end she felt helpless, bored and unchallenged living as the old fashioned and docile wife that her second husband had expected her to be.
Four years after those second divorce papers were signed and sealed, the subsequent confidence, knowledge, and life enriching enlightenment that came from seeking her own niche in the world had served Patricia well and presented itself as a wonderful model to her friends and co-workers as they struggled to find a foothold in life as well.
"You know who's gonna be down at the Tampa conference too... don't you Pat?" Tamara snidely broke the silence of the room.
"Who?" Patricia looked up from her computer screen.
The two relative veterans of the office, Tamara and Renee, each snickered slightly from their boss' response.
"Will," Tamara smugly insinuated, causing Renee to smile and laugh out loud at her desk.
"Who's Will?" Sarah interjected with baited curiosity.
"Oh...that's right," Tamara salaciously drooled. "You weren't here for the last conference were you Sarah...Our willing and faithful leader over there has a one-man fanclub named Will down at the Charleston office."
All three women's eyes brightened and locked like laser pointers onto Patricia as she shook her head at her desk.
"More like a one man nuisance club," Patricia coughed, clearly wanting to divest herself from the conversation.
"What's he a jerk?" Sarah interrogated.
"Yeah...he's a jerk," Tamara howled. "But he's a fucking God!! Muscles on top of muscles... really short jet black hair...tall.....a face like the boy next door with a strippers body...and...."
"...and what?" Sarah begged to know.
"....and well...he's just got this gleam in his eyes and this tone in his voice that he knows how to use ...it," Tamara giggled, now twirling her fingers through long curly hair as if what she was picturing inside of her mind's eye was starting to turn her on.
"...Oh ...I get it," Sarah replied, staring to blush just a bit as the veiled content of what Tamara was trying to imply sunk in. " And he's got the hots for you Patricia...what's wrong with that?"
"You've been married too long," Patricia laughed. "I've been single again going on almost 5 years...every single guy that I meet thinks he's God's Gift...Will's just another guy who's looking for a notch on his bedpost."
"He could pin me up on his bedpost anytime," Tamara replied with saucy effervescence.
"Then why didn't you go after him Tamara?" Sarah quizzed.
"SHE DID...Guys like Will don't like the easy kill," Renee finally spoke up. "He likes to go after the biggest challenge in the room and if he fails at that then he just works his way down the food chain...when he sees somebody like Tamara here fawning all over him...he knows he can always get her as a last resort...and Miss Bosslady here told Loverboy Will "No Thank You" enough times last trip down to totally drive him insane."
"So Renee...would you do him?" Sarah pointedly asked, the word 'do' sounding slightly unusual coming out of her normally buttoned down and proper mouth.
"Humm...,' Renee replied honestly.
"I don't know...I guess a girl could certainly do worse than Will," Renee continued before staring back at Patricia and breaking into sarcasm. "But I don't steal other women's men!"
Which, in turn, elicited a wry smile and extended middle finger from her boss in the process.
* * * * * *
The flight from Memphis down to Tampa had thankfully been uneventful. Patricia had been lucky enough, in fact, not to have anyone seated to her left or right for the whole trip down, giving her ample room to spread out and read two novels she had been neglecting as well as a chance to study the sketched down notes she had made for the two speeches she was scheduled to present at the conference.
Occasionally during the flight, Patricia would steal a glance at the other passengers flying coach, the company had been too cheap to spring for First Class.
In the process of looking around, Patricia couldn't help but be a little envious of Tamara's energy. Seated across the aisle, one seat up to her right, Patricia watched as Tamara bounced around in her seat, humoring an older business man who had the fortunate luck to be stuck next to Tamara for the whole flight to Tampa.
Not that the gentleman seemed to mind being placed next to a very good looking girl that was easily half his age, but it was clear from the expression on his face, and his inability to get a word in edgewise, that he was just a plaything for Tamara to pass the time with.
After seeing the gold band encircling his finger on the way back from the bathroom earlier, Patricia couldn't help but wonder what the gentleman's wife would think when she smelt the residue from Tamara's perfume when she picked him up at the airport, that would be after he stopped at the Airport concession stand, of course, to pick up a package of aspirin from the surefire headache Tamara was currently giving him.
For all of Tamara's obnoxiousness at times, Patricia did adore her nonstop spunk and inquisitiveness. Often times at the office when Patricia's vigor would be waning , all she had to do was look over at Tamara buzzing around the office like a butterfly on crack to get her own second wind. Patricia just knew the men in Tamara's life must have felt like they had been run over by a steamroller after she had finished with them.
Having been on the big-boned side of healthy her whole life, Patricia was also jealous of Tamara's compact stature. The type of girl that could eat one of everything at the buffet and still lose 5 pounds in the process, Tamara always seemed to have a new man in her life, whether it was because none of them could ever seem to keep up with her or she simply tired of them and constantly needed a new challenge, was still a debate that raged inside of Patricia's head.
Sarah, on the other hand, was the complete opposite of Tamara.
Casting a friendly smile back towards Sarah as she sat in the seat behind Tamara, Patricia could see her 43 year old married coworker was just as amused with the antics going on in front of her as she was.
Rather than jumping from one failed relationship to another, as many of Patricia's cohorts had, she especially admired and was more than a little jealous at how easy things seemed for Sarah. She had met the man of her dreams while she was in college, married him and even though she had a marketing degree when she left the University of Tennessee, she gladly gave up her career for the time being when her doctor informed her she was carrying twin boys.
With her two kids off to college now, Sarah kept that long made promise to herself that when the time was right, she would return back to work. It did gnaw at Patricia, as it would any sane and feeling person, how she could have meandered her way through two failed marriages when someone else clicked immediately with their chosen mate as Sarah had with her husband.
Deep down Patricia knew everything wasn't as rosy as it appeared with Sarah and her homelife, but it was certainly more stable and fulfilling than anything she ever experienced.
"What did you say at the office the other day?" Patricia asked across the aisle. "This trip is the first time you and your husband have been apart for more than one night at a time ...in 20 years?"
