Leslie and I had a good working relationship. I respected her and she respected me. She was twice my age, but we treated each other as equals. This is probably why she seemed so upset when I gave her my notice, but also why we were able to remain in touch after I quit to go back to school.
I'd worked at the framing shop Leslie owned and ran with her husband. He took care of the store downtown and she took care of the workshop in the west end. Whenever they were in the same together they fought and apparently he basically lived in the basement at home. I started working there when I was 21 so I guess she would have been around 46. Thinking back twenty-five years later, I guess she looked a bit older than her age. She had partied a lot in the 70s and 80s and still smoked and drank regularly, but she knew how to carry herself, and how to flirt.
She was petite, maybe 5'5", with a bit of a tummy and a small chest. She wore black jeans that really sculpted her hips and butt. Her black hair was thick and curly and her skin was a dark olive complexion. She went to a tanning salon in the winter, but I don't think she overdid it.
At a picture framing shop there's a lot of bending over and reaching and I learned when to look for the best view. She might have caught me peeking now and then but she never said anything. I never saw much anyway. Maybe the waist of her panties poking up over her jeans or the edge of her bra as she reached to grab a pencil, nothing too exciting, but enough to keep my fantasies about her going.
Over the years we developed a good rapport and I began to sense a real affection towards me. Her daughter was entering into those horrible teenage years and Leslie told me she was waiting for her to be old enough before she would divorce her dad. I'm not sure that was the best course of action, but the fact she confided this in me made me feel like we had a connection.
I was her best worker by a long shot and our conversations sometimes seemed to keep her sane after a big stupid fight with her husband. On my last day she gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek and said good luck. She held my shoulders and looked up into my eyes. I thought she was going to cry. She was fifty years old and I was 25 but I really felt like there was something more than a boss/employee relationship there.
I'd dropped out of college when I was 19 and took some time to find myself or whatever. When I went back, I actually felt ready to learn and had an amazing first year. I met a lot of new friends, got along great with my professors and my grades were better than anything I'd seen in high school. But, as the summer came around I was having a lot of trouble finding a job related to my field of study, so I called Leslie to see if she needed help at the shop. She was overjoyed. They'd actually just had someone quit to go backpacking and were about to post an ad.
That weekend I showed up for work and she gave me such a warm hug. When she finally stepped back and looked at me, I swear there was something else in her eyes. There was something in my eyes too, she looked hot. She was wearing strappy short heels, showing off a fresh pedicure, white capri pants, a white button-up shirt, unbuttoned to about halfway down with a white tank top under it. She had a chunky necklace with matching earrings and bracelet. I drank in the view and after a moment she walked me through some of the work in progress she needed me to finish off.
The day went great, from my perspective anyway. There was a lot of backlog to get through and not very many customers. We chatted about the past year and I heard all about the various little dramas with her daughter and husband and the staff person they hired to replace me. Around three o'clock she took a call from her daughter in the back office and I could hear Leslie lecturing her about courtesy and letting her know when things came up further in advance. I got the whole story after she hung up. Leslie had been planning to take Ally to the opera that night, but meanwhile her husband had bought her tickets to see a concert at the arena. Obviously, the teenager much preferred to go to the concert with her friends, so that left Leslie with an extra ticket to the opera. Of course, she asked me if I wanted to come.
She picked me up in her little green sports car and drove through the city like she was delivering a donor organ. I would have taken the subway and met her there, but she insisted on picking me up.. She wore a leather skirt and jacket and preferred to drive barefoot. Every time she put in the clutch and shifted gears her skirt rose up a little bit more.
The opera was amazing, but it was difficult to keep my mind off my boss in the seat next to me. Every time she leaned over to whisper a comment to me she placed her hand on my thigh, and I felt like her lips were closer to my ear than they really needed to be. I started to fantasize about where that evening might go, and tried to think of a reason to invite her into my apartment, but my apartment was a dump in a basement accessed through an alleyway. I was resigned to the fact I would probably be taking care of myself that night and did my best to remember every detail of how she looked for later.
On the way out of the theatre Leslie couldn't stop talking about the production and the performances. She compared it to other operas she had seen and asked me if I was familiar with them. I wasn't and she acted like I'd never heard of the Beatles.
"Oh, you have to hear Der Rosenkavalier!" she said, with a reasonable German accent. I said I'd check it out and she wanted to know about my stereo. I had a discman and a pair of earbuds, which apparently was not good enough. About halfway to my place I realized she wasn't heading to my place, she was taking me home.
"Uh, shouldn't we turn up that way?" I asked as we passed my street.
"No, you need to hear Tosca on a proper hi-fi sound system." she said.
"Okay." I said, "I don't have any other plans."
As we pulled into her driveway I noticed a For Sale sign in the year. That was news to me, but I didn't mention it. I guess they felt like Ally was old enough for her parents to split up.
She led me inside and the house looked pristine. I'd been over for a BBQ before and it had never looked like this. We left our shoes by the front door and Leslie led me into the kitchen, padding barefoot on the tiled floor. Without asking she pulled two martini glasses from the cupboard and began to make us some drinks.
"So," I ventured, "the house is for sale?"
"Oh, yes! Didn't I tell you?" she said. "I bought a condo last year and it's almost done so Ron and I are finally moving on."
"That's great, good for you!"
Leslie handed me the martini and we clinked glasses. It was stronger than I expected it to be, but pretty tasty.
"The condo is going to be gorgeous. Floor to ceiling windows, south facing, towards the lake, twenty storeys up. Finally! A place of my own!"
"Did you do all this staging yourself?" I asked.
"Oh god no, the agent did this." she said, "isn't it wild? This house has never looked this good. She made us take out all kinds of furniture that didn't suit this style, but..."
She picked up her glass and started walking towards her bedroom.
"I told them they had to leave the stereo." she said, "Come on, you have to hear Tosca on this system."
I followed behind as her bare feet made smick-smack sounds on the tiles and her hips swayed from side to side. Her bedroom was immaculate. The king sized bed was made, the carpet looked freshly vacuumed and every surface was perfectly dust free. The stereo was set up on a cabinet with hundreds of CDs and two big speakers on either side. She put down her drink and tossed her leather jacket onto the bed, then knelt down in front of me to look through her collection for the Der Rosenkavalier CDs.
I sipped my drink and stood awkwardly to the side. There was nowhere to sit, except for the bed. From where I was standing I could see down her half-open blouse and tank top. I might have been staring, because I didn't catch anything she said about the recording she was about to play for me.
