"Whaddya mean you don't have any! Roses are the biggest money making pieces that...yes I know what today is! Why the fuck do you think I'm calling you for? Listen, fuck it, what do you have left?....fine, fine, I'll take a hundred bucks of that then and I'll pick it up in half an hour...yeah, screw you too, asshole," Dean slammed the phone back down into its cradle that sat on his desk. He put his hands to his face, pushed his chair back and leaned towards the desk, resting his elbows on the desk and mumbled through his palms, "I hate this fucking day, you know that? I really hate it."
I smiled. It was four in the afternoon on February fourteenth, Valentines Day. The significance of the day had been lost on my boss until he was at lunch and one of his buddies had shown him the diamond necklace he had gotten for his wife. So instead of going over the sales projections this afternoon with me as we had scheduled, he spent the first two hours attempting and failing to get reservations at any resturant in town and then the last hour phoning florists.
"You do know what 'baby's breath' is, right?" I asked.
Dean spread his fingers apart so I could see the blood shot and tired eyes that the afternoon's exertions had brought. "Why? If it's something that's not going to get my nuts cut off, what do I care?"
I stood up and coming around to his side. I typed in the search bar and pressed enter. Dean had been married for eighteen years, I had been working for him for twelve. In those years he had never forgotten a birthday, anniversary or Valentines Day; mainly because he had one hell of a personal assistant that made sure he was always covered. She had retired in early December and Dean was forced to hire someone new to fill her shoes. Unfortunately, that person was you, and you didn't think that the president of a company needed a babysitter so as a result Dean had already spent most of Christmas Eve shopping and now....yeah he was fucked. Dean hired you because of your exceptional abilities, but I had to keep on telling him that having a personality should have been on his list, but he wouldn't fire you even though I knew that you didn't take the job to be his personal assistant; you took it so you get my job -- vice president. In the short time you had been with the company, you had never missed an opportunity to tell Dean your qualifications and why they were superior to mine. You even had gone out of your way, in small unnoticeable ways to everyone but me, to sabotage some of the projects I was working on, not enough to make the company lose any money, but enough that you could whisper and plant the seeds of doubt in Dean's head. You would have probably have it too if you hadn't already shown that you were a femi-nazi and weren't going to play to Dean's ego but earn it on merit. Fortunately I understood that if a person wanted to earn the big bucks, it still meant you'd have to unclog a toilet or two.
"Ah, there we go," I said as a picture of 'baby's breath' popped up on the screen.
Dean's hands dropped from his face which turned white. He looked at image flickering on the monitor and groaned, "I just bought a hundred smackers of fucking weeds? Belinda's going to fucking kill me." His forehead hit the desk...hard.
I gave him a pat on the shoulder. "Well, this wouldn't be the case if you didn't have such a cunt for a P.A."
Dean's eye opened and looked up at me, "I just don't understand why you don't liker her. You're single, she's single. You're a big prick and if she's what you say she is, I would have thought it'd be natural for you two to get together."
"I still say she has an adam's apple," I retorted. I had never told Dean that you and I had several heart to black heart talks and you had made your intentions clear: by May you expected to see me pushing a shopping cart down the street from where you sat -- what used to be my office.
The ringer on the door went off, someone was coming up the stairs from the outside to our second story office space. I looked at my watch and smiled, Dean looked at me and asked, "What the fuck did you do?"
"Nothing, just bringing a little love into the life of one who knows not of such things," I replied. We heard you talking to the delivery man for a second and then the jiggle of the office ringer as he left. Dean was silent, glaring at me, as we heard the loud sounds of wrapping paper being torn off. There was a gasp and then you screamed.
Less that two seconds later you were marching into Dean's office, a penis shaped box of chocolates in one hand and a teddy bear with the strap-on dildo with a banner than hung from it with "Happy Valentines Day" written on it .
"You are a fucking dead man," you snarled.
"Moi?" I said shocked, and looked at Dean, "I do believe she's not happy that I tried to play match maker..." I gave a sniff and wiped away a non-existent tear, "...I'm just trying to bring some joy to her life."
"Prick!"
"Cunt!"
Dean's face turned red. "That's enough! Both of you are acting like a couple of vultures after a dead mouse!" We both stared at Dean.
"I don't think that vultures feast on...." I started to say but Dean cut me off.
"That's not the point!" He huffed and glared at us. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "This is what's going to happen. I am going to leave and take my darling wife her bouquet of..." he sighed, "baby's breath. You two aren't leaving this office until your little bitch slapping contest is resolved and then tomorrow morning we're going to be one big fucking happy family, got it.?"
I looked at you, you looked at me.
"I'm taking your silence as an agreement," Dean said through gritted teeth as he straightened his tie. Without another word he walked into the reception area and down the stairs to the door, with the actual intention of leaving us in an empty office...alone...with letter openers and staplers within easy reach. We heard the door close and we looked at each other.
"Well," you asked snidely, "What now?"
I took out a deck of cards and grabbed a bottle of rye from Dean's stock in the cabinet underneath the water cooler and gave you a wink, "Wanna play poker?" An hour went by quickly. You were pretty cocky -- I was down three hundred bucks and had to open another bottle of rye. You looked at me as I poured us a couple more drinks.