Chapter 55: Announcements

When I finally got around to getting into work on Thursday, Mary, the admin, pounced. “Are you alright?” she asked. With those words, I felt a little guilty. We had gotten into the habit of sharing a cup of coffee in the mornings, and I didn’t let her know I’d be late.

“Yeah, sorry, I had something to do this morning,” I said, and showed her my hand.

“Oh my God!” she exclaimed, grabbing my hand. “It’s beautiful.” She pulled me into a hug. “Congratulations!”

“Thanks,” I said grinning. “I’m pretty excited myself.” I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face, and between that and the incredible grapevine in this office, in no time, everyone knew I was getting married. I needed to call my boss before he got the word via email. I shut myself into my office, and dialed.

“This is Andrew,” his voice said.

“It’s Hath,” I said.

“What’s up? Things still on track for you to come home this weekend?”

“Yeah, but I need to talk to you.”

“Everything OK?”

“Everything’s wonderful,” I said, “but sort of life-changing.” He didn’t say anything, he just waited for me to finish. “I’m getting married.”

“Hath, that’s wonderful! When?”

“I don’t know. David’s on tour through the spring, and we haven’t figured it out yet.” I swallowed. “There’s more.”

“I thought there might be,” Andrew said wryly.

“I’m about six weeks pregnant, and I’m moving to New Jersey.”

There was dead silence on the other end of the phone. “Wow,” he finally said. “You sure don’t do anything halfway.”

I laughed. “Nope. I’m a whole-hog kind of girl. I haven’t told the team yet, but it’s all over the office here, so it’s just a matter of time before the rumor mill goes nuts. Plus,” I was blushing when I said this next bit, “it’ll probably be in the papers at some point.”

“Yeah, my wife saw a picture of you from New Year’s in one of the tabloids. ‘Unnamed woman’ is what you were then.”

“Yeah, well,” I said, “the press tends to leave David alone for the most part. Apparently,” I laughed, “he isn’t as interesting as Jon or Richie.”

“So, what is the timeline here?”

I sighed. “I don’t really know. I know we’ve got that project going in at the end of the quarter, and I’d really like to see that through. After that, I’ve got to seriously get started packing for the move, and I guess find a job out here.”

Andrew interrupted me. “Do you want to stay with the company?”

“Yeah, I do,” I answered.

“Let me make some calls,” he said, “and I’ll call you back later.”

So, apparently not only does the grapevine move quickly, but my boss does too. Within the hour, I was in the SVPs office here, and he was talking to me about a position here in this office, setting up an Operations division. Me. They want to make me a director, and will pretty much give me carte blanche to set things up the way I want them.

While I was in the SVPs office, my blackberry started ringing. “We are the Champions” started blaring out and I looked at it, and saw it was Jon. What the hell does he want? I sent him to voicemail, apologized, and got back into the conversation. He called again, and again, I sent him to voicemail.

“Everything OK?” Gene, the SVP, asked me.

“Probably,” I said. “Sorry about that, I’m helping a friend with wedding plans…”

He nodded. “Say no more,” he said, so I didn’t.

Queen blared again from the little speaker and Gene laughed. “Go, take care of your friend. I think we know enough about you.”

“Sorry about that,” I said mortified. I clicked the little button on my Berry. “What?” I hissed at him. “What the hell is so goddamned important that you can’t give me a break? I’m in a fucking meeting with the SVP here, dammit.;”

“Sorry, sorry, but Jesus, Jeeves, Ang said she isn’t coming to Chicago. You have to get her to change her mind. She’s supposed to photograph the wedding, and I’m all comfortable with that, and don’t want to have to go and get all comfortable with…”

I cut him off. “Hold it, HOLD IT there Kidd,” I said. Eavesdroppers, you know. I had made my way to my borrowed office and logged onto the board. I burst out laughing, and Jon was ready to reach through the phone and strangle me.

“What the fuck is so funny? You have to fix this,” he said.

“There’s nothing to fix,” I answered. “Did you bother getting on the board? Ang is just kidding because all the lovey-dovey talk is making her vomit.” That got a startled chuckle from Jon.

“Are you sure?”

“Jesus,” I said. “Hang on.” He heard me rattle off a message on the computer, typing at full speed.

“Shit, there’s Sam,” he said, and hung up. I sat back in my chair, and laughed at the absurdity of this last half hour. One of the most together, in-control people I had ever met was acting like an idiot. I fired off my message to Ang, begging her to post on the board she was coming, and sent a message to Jon telling him to unclench and relax. Jesus.

Sam pinged me later, asking me what was up with Jon. Well shit, I didn’t expect that. She knows something is up, but doesn’t know what. I made up something about Ang coming to photograph my servitude (which she said she was going to do anyway, the bitch) and she didn’t buy it, but is letting it skate. I let Jon know, sat back and sighed.