At last ‘A life’
By Julie D Cole
Chapter 20 Broken friendships

I was taken aback to find that Jessica had told Sally that she had a new tenant who wanted to move in quickly so had she finalized anything yet. Sally had got angry and told Jessica she was stupid and jealous and had no right to kick her out. How on earth could she be expected to just up and move.

It had then turned into a big argument and Mary Jo, their flatmate, had had to intervene. Sally had smashed some plates on the floor and thrown a cup of cold cocoa at her that went over Jessicas best jumper so Jessica had flown at her in a rage before Mary Jo pulled them apart. But not before she’d scratched Sallys face and drawn blood.

So Sally had decided to leave and stay out of her way. She had immediately started packing her belongings ready to leave today or tomorrow and decided to look for some temporary accommodation. She’d just had an offer to stay in a B&B or as an alternative she could still return home if necessary. As a last resort she could ask me!!

Poor Sally. I felt like scratching out Jessicas eyes. Why was she so awful to a friend after all this time together? Sally was remarkedly calm and I felt that this was because Jessica was such a bully. I realized that I had to help Sally and sooner rather than later.
I did tell Sally my feelings. I wanted to scratch out Jessicas eyes but she just said to calm down since after a while she realized she couldn’t do anything about it so her words were ‘let’s not get mad, let’s get even.’ This calmed me down a lot because she’d not been deeply upset but I still felt angry with Jessica. I wanted to slap her face when I saw her next and tell her she is the most cruel person to do this at a time when Sally is still vulnerable and frightened to be alone.

Then Sally asked me if I’d thought about why I’d made an impression on Kate Harper and why she’d offered me a job as her temporary PA. I said ‘Just right place and right time I suppose’. She laughed and said ‘I don’t think so Chrissy Taylor, her real reason I mean even though it’s true you were right place right time.’

‘Do you think she might fancy you? Did she ever say anything or do anything that suggests she does or did someone persuade her or recommend you to her? Think who might have done that.’ She said I seemed to have a good relationship with Kate so if we could find the reason then we might take the opportunity to sort out Jessica who had seemed to change her personality since she got promoted.

She said I should develop my relationship with Kate and then as she finds out about Jessica I might be put in charge of the department once she realized that Jessica wasn’t a good Manager. I just wasn’t sure since I liked working for Kate and it was early days so I didn’t want to go back to the office environment if I could avoid it even though I liked the girls.

But it did make me think about when I’d helped Kate that first time. She had smiled at me and looked at me closely. Maybe she liked women that explained her strategy to use female management in key positions. I wondered if she had a relationship with anybody and if I’d just attracted her because of my apparent femininity. Maybe she likes masculine women or maybe she just likes to demasculate men. I felt that I had to get to know Kate a lot more before I could talk openly to her.

I said to Sally that maybe Kate and Jessica had a close relationship or maybe even a friendship. It was a surprise to me that we’d gone to the gay bar in Birmingham so did she think that Jessica liked women and if so why was she apparently interested in me or in spoiling the friendship between Sally and I.

Sally thought that Jessica had relationships before with several women and a closeness to Mary Jo. She said that it was difficult to believe that Kate would waste time with her and I shouldn’t worry about that. ‘Jessica is too working class’ she said. ‘Kate will be interested in somebody at a much higher level.’

So Sally set me thinking and I agreed to talk later to share our thoughts some more. She agreed to let me know how she went on with accommodation and I said she should come to my house and stay until she found something and that mum wouldn’t mind since we have a guestroom with a sofa bed. She said she would text me to let me know so I could call her if I had chance to talk.

When we finished I decided to call Anne to check the arrangements for that evening and to find out if Jessica was still going. She said we were all meeting at 5-45pm at ‘Harry’s Bar’ about 5 minutes from the office and that Jessica was going. Anne said she’d walk with me if I liked that I liked very much. Anne is so nice and gave me confidence in myself the previous weekend and in the office. I felt she was the real reason why Jessica had managed to run the office because Anne had more people skills and more maturity. She asked me if I was OK and if I was enjoying myself working upstairs. I couldn’t express my true feelings since I had been floating on air all week.

I just said that Kate was wonderful and that I wanted to improve and show that I could do this job. I felt like I could be myself because there weren’t too many people watching me so if I made any mistakes there was no risk of rude remarks and no prejudice.

When Kate came back from lunch she brought me another gift. She said she’d found a spare Gucci handbag in her apartment the night before and collected it from her car. She wanted me to have it if I didn’t mind because it had been a gift that she didn’t need. Did I mind to have a second hand bag? I was so pleased since this was much better quality than the ones I had bought and I just said ‘thanks Ms Harper. She laughed and said ‘You are welcome Ms Taylor but my name is Kate to you’. She looked into my eyes and all I could think of was what Sally said and if Kate giving me these gifts for friendship or to improve my image. Either way I liked it since Chris never got any gifts.

Then Kate asked me to come into her office because she wanted to talk to me since she’d had a call from the local newspaper.office whilst at lunch .

To be continued…..