Part Two

A few weeks pass and Cat and Nick are still sending messages back and forth. Every morning before work she logs on to her Facebook account hoping to get a message from him, and to her disbelief more often than not its there. She sneaks away at lunch and runs to the gym. While she’s on the treadmill she listens to songs she hasn’t heard since college and can’t wait to tell Nick. Her friends tease her about her Facebook “boyfriend” but she doesn’t mind. She shrugs off their jokes because she really likes talking to him. Well, they haven’t talked but they send messages back and forth all day long, and it feels like their having a conversation. She hurries back to work after the gym, her hair still wet from her post-work out shower. She sees the post-it on her computer and rolls her eyes wondering what her boss Ozzie wants.

See me immediately!

She wads up the post-it and throws it in the trash. Cat grabs a note pad and a pen and hurries down the hall to Ozzie’s oversized office. He’s on the phone and motions for her to sit down with his finger, but does not get off the phone. He talks for five more minutes while she patiently waits. In her mind she’s composing a message to Nick.

He’s such a self important jerk. You should see the clothes he makes his secretary take to the dry cleaners. I think he changes the labels on his pants so no one knows his real size.

It takes a moment for Cat to realize Ozzie is speaking to her. She tilts her head to the side and tries to catch up with the conversation, he obviously has no idea she’s missed any of it. A slight chill hits her back and she knows Mary’s entered the room. She’s had more than fifty meetings with Mary, but Mary still behaves as though she has no idea who Cat is, or what she does for her company. Oh no, my hair! Cat knows Mary won’t like that it’s wet.

“Just getting to work, now, are we,” Mary says as she sits down next to Cat, “I’m Mary Stouffer, how do you do.” She offers her slender hand to Cat.

“I’m Cat Green, Mrs. Stouffer, I work in new media, we’ve met before.”

Mary nods,” nice to see you.” She turns her attention to Ozzie. “So Oz,” she holds the z in her mouth like a piece of candy, “when did your employees start coming to work with wet hair?”

“I’m sorry, I just rushed back from the gym,” Cat offers but Mary holds a hand up in her direction.

“Mary,” he begins, “we’ve got this great new page on our website and it’s attracting tons of visitors. I wanted to bring it to your attention. We’ve successfully integrated a few big advertisers into the page and I wanted to give you an update,” he tugged at his expensive cuff waiting for Mary’s praise.

“How did you come up with this idea Oz?” Mary asks.

“I did a ton of research and with the help of our team, Cat here included,” Oz points at her, “ we decided to try and bring the young working woman into the Mary Stouffer universe. I thought it would be a great way to introduce them to our products,” he does not miss a beat or blink an eye. Cat thinks she might cry. It had been her idea; and her hard work over the last six months that had built the new section of the website. Ozzie had nothing to do with it and here he was taking all the credit.

“What do you think of it, Ms. Green, you seem to be pretty close to our target demographic,” Mary looks down at Cat’s shoes and examines her closely until she reaches her face.

Cat clears her throat, “I think this is the best tool we have to reach younger consumers,” she began and spends the next ten minutes explaining each piece of her plan to Mary.

When she finishes Mary turns to Ozzie and congratulates him on a job well done and then she leaves. Cat can hardly bring herself to look at Ozzie. When she finally raises her eyes he isn’t even looking at her, he’s lost in a sea of emails. She shows herself out.

Mark is waiting at her desk, “so,” he asks.

“I hate him,” she says. They sneak downstairs for a coffee and she tells him everything. Cat cries on the walk home. She feels sorry for herself as she eats dinner alone with a glass of wine. It isn’t until a message pops up from Nick that the work day begins to leave her.

I had the worst day

She waits for his response.

Tell me about it

She relishes his attention and lets her bad day float away on a cloud of his jokes.