Chapter 4

Jennifer saw the email notice, marked ‘High Importance,’ come in under the general distribution on the screen of her workstation.

The message confirmed that the recently-promoted Junior Vice President, Bruce Kunkle, had resigned suddenly the day before and had already cleared out and departed from his office over at the main building and had left the area. No specific reason was given; only the typical press-release-type verbiage about sudden family issues and the move back to Bruce’s hometown of Terre Haute, Indiana, ending with: “The J.A.M. Family will sorely miss Bruce and Joni and wish them well in their future endeavors...” yada, yada, yada.

She moved the message into her archive folder and moved on through the list of incoming message traffic.

Jennifer was updating the record of the fulfilled and recorded invoices from the suppliers when she was startled almost out of her skin.

“OHH!!” Jennifer cried out, and she almost screamed, as she realized that a man had mysteriously materialized right next to her as she worked at her desk. She had neither heard nor seen any movement that might have signaled the man’s approach. He evidently moved as if he were a ghost.

“I’m sorry. I really did not mean to startle you,” the man said softly to her with a smile of understanding. She also saw a touch of mischief in his eyes, almost as if he were just a bit too satisfied with his ability to move so quietly.

“Maynard ... Mr. Keyes ... my floor boss, asked me to check with Mr. Pittman about the scheduled arrival of these items,” the man said, extending a handwritten list to her. As she took the offered piece of paper, Jennifer could not help but notice that the man was in his mid-twenties and was very attractive, in a quiet sort of way. He also had hands that could serve as the subjects of interest for projects in any art class in the country; hands of character.

“Oh, we don’t need to bother Brad with this; I can check that for you, Mr... ?” Jennifer raised an eyebrow.

“Evans,” replied the man with a grin, “Kyle Evans.” The mischievous gleam had remained in his eyes as he had said this in a slightly deeper voice than earlier, and with what sounded like a touch of a put-on Scot’s brogue, sort of rasping his ESS-es.

Jennifer, picking up quickly on this man’s humor, sort of snorted and smiled as she said, “Bond ... James Bond,” remembering that she had heard Sean Connery speak that line many times in movies over the course of his acting career.

They both laughed at this, and Jennifer finally said, “Here, let’s see what we have,” as she turned back to her workstation.

Jennifer was just a little bit on edge a couple of hours later, as she waited anxiously for the meeting in Brad’s office to come to a close. It was not every day that one of the Senior Executives came down to visit the offices in the Fabrication Management Division.

And, right now, none other than the Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Gene Kennedy, was in with Brad. They were being rather hush-hush about whatever it was that they were discussing.

Jennifer had only detected one bit of their conversation shortly after the beginning of their meeting when she had heard what sounded like Brad exclaiming something that sounded close to, “What? Sir, you have got to be shitting...” but she could not be absolutely sure. And the following discussions had been too low in volume for her to pick up.

Jennifer was sorry now that the state-of-the-art inner-office communication system she and Brad used did not allow her to set up the phone unit on her desk to activate the hands-free mic on Brad’s phone remotely so that she could listen in.

Jennifer snorted and chastised herself for being too nosey. Anyway, she was sure that she would know all about what had been said by the end of the day. Brad would surely confide in her about what was transpiring in there; if for no other reason than keeping the wheels from coming off due to the absence of full confidence and passage of information that she and her boss had practiced since they had begun working here together weeks earlier. Fabrication Management Division was one of the model divisions within J.A.M. when it came to productivity. And, while employee morale was not quite up to the level that Brad would like, it was improving gradually.

Jennifer also had access to all of the company gossip by way of her connection with the other secretaries in the company. After all, many of them took breaks and lunch together; and some of them socialized after work for drinks and talk at local places in town before finally heading home.

But, the gathering place where they could all pass along the latest gossip and get it disseminated quickly throughout J.A.M. was actually located in the executive wing. And it was jokingly called the ‘Sex Lounge.’

When Mr. Morris, the Company President, had wanted to change the decorating motif for the executive wing of the main building, he had gotten his son, Michael, a professional interior designer, to develop the new scheme for the place. Part of that scheme included modern signage for the doorways for every space in the building; using coated and layered aluminum placards made from materials coming off the production lines right here at J.A.M.; and all were professionally painted and lettered

The Secretary’s Lounge was a nice retreat for members of the secretarial staff. It contained a microwave, a refrigerator, a nice kitchen table and chair set, a Keurig coffee maker (made by a company with headquarters just an hour’s drive from here in Waterbury, Vermont, even though the coffee makers were manufactured in China), and several very comfortable cushioned chairs and a sofa.

Evidently, in producing the sign for the space designated as the Secretaries’ Lounge, the unidentified sign-maker had coupled space-saving thoughts on the placard with a ribald sense of humor. The sign, just underneath the room number, contained the abbreviated words, ‘Sec’s Lounge.’

A couple of the secretaries had blushed upon first seeing the sign, but it had remained in place anyway. The others had laughed about it and even made their own earthy comments about it.

Most importantly, the Queen Bee herself, Heather, the Senior Executive Secretary for Mr. Morris, had allowed the sign to remain. The rest of the secretaries simply thought, if it was good enough for Heather to allow the sign to remain as it currently read, they were certainly not going to object.

Jennifer was dragged suddenly from her reverie by the opening of Brad’s door and the exit of Mr. Kennedy, with Brad following right behind. Before heading out the side door, opposite the double doors leading into the Fabrication shop spaces themselves, the Chief Financial Officer turned to address Brad one final time.

“Brad, just consider it. The vote was unanimous, by the way. We all – and by ‘all’ I mean Mr. Morris included – thought that you are the right man to take on this responsibility.” Then he gave Brad a rather cagey look and a strange grin to go along with what Jennifer heard him say next.

“We believe that you and Jan are BOTH perfect for this.” Then Mr. Kennedy shook Brad’s hand – with Brad looking a bit lost and simply allowing his somewhat limp hand and arm to be shaken, rather than actively returning the courtesy. The elder man grinned again and turned with a chuckle and left the building.

Brad did not move for a moment; nor did he look at Jennifer. He was evidently thinking hard about something.

“Well,” Jennifer said, breaking the silence. “What was THAT all about?”

Surprising Jennifer beyond anything she might have expected, Brad did not even acknowledge that she had said anything. He seemed to ignore her entirely as he simply turned and re-entered his office. For the first time in the weeks that she had worked for him, Brad actually slammed his door.

‘Well,’ Jennifer thought to herself, ‘that was unusual.’

Jennifer had no frame of reference at that point in her experience for just exactly how unusual Brad’s life had actually become.

A couple of silent hours later, Brad emerged from his office with his briefcase in hand and stopped at Jennifer’s desk. He did not look her in the face and appeared to focus at a spot high on the wall as he spoke. His voice sounded soft, but he appeared to be restraining himself from saying something in anger. Jennifer quietly waited for him to speak.

“Jen,” Brad said, now exhaling in a long sigh that seemed to drain some of the anger from his demeanor, but not all, “I need to get out of here a bit early this afternoon. If anyone asks, I am simply taking some personal time off so that I can take care of a ... family situation.”

“Okay, Brad,” Jennifer responded. Then she remembered something.

“Oh, I am stopping at Mrs. Burton’s house on the way home today. She is hosting a drop-in for some of the secretarial staff, and Heather has asked all of the secretaries to show up and socialize at least for a little while.”

When Brad did not say anything, Jennifer continued. “Evidently, Mr. and Mrs. Burton like to entertain the entire support staff once in a while, and this is one of the ways that they do this. I hear that they even have the chauffeurs for all of the big wigs coming to this one.”

Brad took a deep breath and let it out. Then he forced a smile of politeness and said, “Let me know if you have a good time. I really do hope you enjoy yourself. See you in the morning.” And then he simply walked out the side door.

‘Wow,’ Jennifer thought to herself, ‘I hope he gets his head on straight before tomorrow; he is weirding me out.’

Midge Burton’s place was hopping, with a lot of folks gathered to enjoy a relaxing time after work. Music came through from speakers placed strategically on her back deck.

Midge had hired a caterer to provide a lot of finger food that they kept warm with Sterno warmers along with a bartender for her backyard social for the drivers and secretaries, and even the IT folks who were not on shift. She was encouraging a voluntary two-drink limit on the alcohol; after all, this was a party at the home of one of the big bosses; not an invitation to a DUI arrest on the way home.

Heather, Mr. Morris’ secretary had latched on to Jennifer just after she had arrived and had seemed to be showing an unusual amount of interest in how Jennifer was adapting to her working conditions at J.A.M. in general and working for Brad Pittman specifically.

If Jennifer did not know better, what Heather was doing might have come across as a type of informal employment interview. But that made no sense; Jennifer was already employed – and, evidently, she was working for one of the young management stars here at J.A.M., based on what she was hearing lately about Brad.

This quirky conversation with Heather seemed to be just another strange incident coming right on the heels of that unusual interaction between Brad and Mr. Kennedy that Jennifer had witnessed earlier in the day. As a longtime movie fan, Jennifer could not help but feel something akin to, ‘A Disturbance in The Force.’

As Heather’s inquiries began to wane and her conversation appeared to turn to subjects that were more social, she and Jennifer found themselves being approached by their hostess. Midge Burton was accompanied by a man who appeared to be about the same age range as the two secretaries.