What was said and not said July 14, 2012

  

Her text came as always with a demand: “Call me now!”

The voice mail message was much more confusing: “I never said anything to him. What the fuck did you say to him?”

I texted her back: “I’m at the vet. I call you when I’m done.”

I wanted to stall for time.

As it was, I had scheduled a meeting with the male owner to talk about my possibly coming back to the main office and working one of the beats that had opened up there, an idea I realized too late my email to her had ruined.

I do stupid things for stupid reasons.

A month after throwing myself under her bus, I still haven’t learned not to, and still tended to blame her. I still feel hurt by how easily she trickled up, and still believe our former temporary boss lied to me about her, though in truth, there is no way to tell if he did or not, though I fully understand why he would need to maintain the fiction even with me.

I can’t get over the look of panic in his eyes when he finally heard what I had to say in the park.

Maybe we both bit too deeply into that apple, only I’m less shy about admitting it.

I don’t know exactly what gets said between those two, and perhaps that’s half the reason I sent the email, to stir the pot, to see what floats to the top.

Unfortunately, he knows damned well I betrayed him. And he is cunning.

Stalling for as long as I could, I finally got out to my car and made the call to her.

She was apparently in meeting room at the main office and was instantly hysterical when she answered my call.

“Why did you do this to me?” she screamed. “Why are you ruining it for me?”

She didn’t define what exactly she meant by ‘ruining it,” but she went on to say, “I’ve tried to be professional with you, not personal.”

I tried to respond. But the line went dead.

I don’t know exactly what happened. Maybe he heard her screeching voice and came into the meeting room to find out what transpired. Maybe he was there even when I called, possibly discussing the email I had sent, and encouraged her to hang up when our conversation veered in an uncomfortable direction.

I drove home with my cat and called the owner when I got there and had the discussion I had hoped to have with him at the office.

Then she texted me asking again why I had done what I had done. She referred to me as a stalker. I said I was not.

But I have an ugly feeling about the whole thing, though I still don’t know what transpired between her and our former temporary boss.  I drove to the annex and tried to call him from there. He did not reply and later when he did, he said he was at his public desk and didn’t want to discuss it then and there. But he said she had called him demanding to know what I had told him about her. He said we had talked about her writing. Then he asked, how much I had told her about our conversation. He apparently had not seen the email after all and she had not disclosed the details of the contents.

I told him what I said.

“I’ll get back to you,” he said, then hung up.

 

 

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