Chapter 5
“Good
morning, Gennie! How was your
weekend?” Hal chirped, way too
cheerfully for a Monday morning.
Gennie
suspected by his sunny disposition on this foggy morning that he had ulterior
motives. “Fine, Hal.
How was yours?”
“Could’ve
been better. I take it you’re
well rested?”
Now
she knew something was up.
“Um,
I spent yesterday afternoon helping Stacey clean up Barbie birthday party debris
from her living room. It may take
me a few days to recover,” she joked. The
guilt of making her best friend face the wonderful world of Barbie alone with a
gaggle of six-year-old girls had gotten the best of her yesterday.
When she knew the last of the partygoers would be gone, she had made her
way over to Stacey’s house to make herself useful.
“Well,
I’m sorry to say that you won’t have an easy day to do that,” said Hal
apologetically.
Gennie
took a deep breath. “What have
you got?” she glanced at the calendar, noted the date and wondered if this was
an April Fool’s joke.
“I
just got a call from upstairs and it seems that Jim Parker has some nasty case
of stomach flu and won’t be able to attend the conference in Cincinnati on
Friday.”
“Yeah,
and…” she said, concerned with how this would affect her.
“And,
he was supposed to do a big presentation. Now
I’m doing it. And, lucky you, you
get to help me put the whole thing together!”
“Oh
boy.” Jim had looked like he
wasn’t feeling too well on Friday. She
realized that this probably wasn’t a joke.
“Gennie,
I’m really sorry to dump this on you at the last minute, but this is a really
important deal for us. You’ll
have to put everything else on the back burner for a few days, OK?”
“Sure.
When do you need this?”
“I’m
leaving on Thursday afternoon. I’m
really sorry, but this may require a few lunches at your desk this week.
But I promise I’ll make it up to you.
I know this is unexpected for both of us…at least they aren’t making
you go on the trip!” He seemed a
little nervous about this.
“No
problem, Hal. I’ll get you set
up,” she assured him. “I’ll
call Janet, his secretary, to get the information.
Who knows, maybe she’s made some progress and it won’t be as hard as
we think! You’ll do great”
“Thank
you Gennie. You’re a peach!” He
filled his cup with coffee, walked back into his office and hunkered down.
Now
Gennie would have to cancel on Stacey. She
figured Stace would think she’d planned it this way. But she picked up the
phone and dialed her extension.
“Stacey,
did you hear about Jim and his flu?”
“Yeah,”
she sighed, “And I heard
they’re sending Hal in his place. I
wondered when you’d be calling.”
“So
you’re not mad at me are you?”
“Gen,
of course I’m not mad. How could
I be, after you bailed me out of my Barbie hell yesterday? Thanks again for that. Seriously,
this presentation is going to be a bitch for you for a few days- sorry, but it
is. But that’s why they pay you
to be here. We’ll get together
afterwards.” She smiled with a
conspiratorial laugh in her voice, “You got lucky this time, but I haven’t
forgotten.”
“Thanks,
sweetie. I’ve gotta go now.
Think of me while you’re enjoying a leisurely lunch in some lovely
restaurant, far from this office.”
“Oh,
believe me, I will. Good luck,
Gen.”
Now
Gennie had to get to the business at hand.
She called Janet to get all the stuff for the presentation.
Unfortunately, Janet wasn’t feeling so good herself, and had not gotten
very far. It was turning out to be
the worst April Fool’s joke ever- one that there was no letting up on.
This one was for real. Besides
missing lunches, it looked like a few late evenings at her desk as well.
By
the end of the week, she’d prepared documents, statistics, graphics, facts,
files, figures, a slide presentation, and even threw in a few jokes to put Hal
at ease. It was a long
first week of April and she was relieved to say the least when Hal left for the
airport on Thursday afternoon. He
had thanked her for her hard work and told her not to bother coming in on
Friday. He was sure she’d put in
more than her forty hours already this week.
She
slept in on Friday and just lounged around in her PJ’s all day doing nothing.
This was the way she liked to spend her hard earned days off.
After she finished her breakfast, she picked up the phone and called Eric
at work to discuss their plans for the evening.
She waited for the receptionist to connect her call.
“Hi,
Gen. What’s up? You enjoying your
day off? You certainly earned it,
babe.”
“I
am, actually.” She admitted
cheerily. “I was wondering what
you wanted to do this evening.”
“Well,
I’ve been needing to call you all day, actually.”
“To
discuss tonight? You have big
plans?”
“Oh,
no, no. Tonight…uh, I don’t
care. You wanna see a movie?”
“Sure.
I’ll pick this time though.”
“OK,
cool. No, what I need to talk to
you about is next weekend. See, I
talked to my mom this morning and she said my sister Laurie is getting married
next weekend- don’t ask, it’s a long story.
So, she wants to know if we can come visit for Easter?”
He said, hoping she would be OK with the idea.
They weren’t really that serious, but he wanted her to go with him.
He and his sister didn’t get along especially well, and his parents
tended to get on his nerves. Having
Gennie there would take some of the pressure off of him.
“We…uh,
well…I guess so.” She stammered. This
was kind of unexpected. Plus, who
was paying for airline tickets? They
certainly weren’t driving to Wisconsin. This was going to be expensive on just
a few days notice!
“
I really appreciate this. I’ll
tell you all about it tonight. You
really are a great friend, Gennie.”
“Thanks.
You too. I guess you owe me,
now. I’m picking where we eat,
too. Come over after work.
Maybe we’ll still be able to make the earlier show.”
“Cool.
See you in a few.”
They
disconnected and Gennie pondered what this strange trip could mean.
She didn’t have any big plans with her family for Easter, just dinner,
and she didn’t think it would be a problem to get out of that.
A
little before five, she jumped in the shower, and started getting ready.
She’d decided to let him off easy.
They were having pizza at Mario’s, and then she was making him take her
to the new Adam Sandler movie. She
could have been much tougher on him than this.
Over
pizza, Eric told her how he really needed her to go along because if she
didn’t, his parents would drive him nuts.
He wasn’t expecting anything out of this. He knew they were great friends and he wanted her to meet his
old friends that he grew up with. They
would all be at Laurie’s wedding, which was going to be in his parent’s
living room on Saturday. Then on
Sunday, his mom was cooking an Easter feast for everyone to enjoy.
They would be flying in on Friday, which was a day off for both of them,
and returning home on Monday. It
would require using one day of vacation, which he hoped would be all right with
Gennie. And, he would buy her
ticket. If she would really do this
for him, she would have his undying gratitude.
After
their movie, they’d made the early one fortunately; he drove Gennie back to
her house.
“Sorry,
I know I’m calling it an early evening, but I’ve got to get those plane
tickets bought. If I wait till
tomorrow, I won’t have seven days advance and it’ll cost lots more.”
“That’s
OK.” Gennie smiled. She’d made
reservations at work lots of times and she knew it would be well worth it to
shop early.
“I
mean it, Gennie. You really are
terrific. I think we’ll have a
great time.” He grinned as he pulled in to her driveway.
“I
hope so. I’d better let you go.
Bye Eric. Thanks for an…interesting evening.”
She leaned over and gave him a kiss.
He
smiled at her as he turned to face her; his left arm atop the steering wheel.
“Thanks for going easy on me. I
gotta tell ya, when you said I owed you, I was kind of expecting a dinner of
quiche in some tea room and a chick flick.”
She
rolled her eyes and smiled cocking her head to the side.
“You know I’m not like that. I
would never do that to you. I
would never do that to me!” She
laughed and leaned in for one more quick kiss.
And with that, she was gone.
Eric
was glad that he had someone like Gennie. She
didn’t put pressure on him to be a couple. But
she was always there when he needed her. A guy couldn’t ask for more.
He just hoped that she didn’t want something more.
He knew she’d had plenty of boyfriends in the past, even a brief
marriage. She was pretty, and fun,
and she loved to laugh. But for
some reason, there just wasn’t that spark there.
He thought she felt the same; like they were waiting for a spark to be
ignited from somewhere else.