Breathless Page 5
building. He was soon greeted by a round of
applause that he could have done without. He
knew it had been a while for James. He had
avoided the place during his fight with Jean, so as
not to give her more ammunition, but since she was
gone there was no harm in him being
there. James smiled as he made his way to the bar
and ordered a beer from Vickey, the bartender.
"Hey handsome, how are ya," she asked as she
brought the beer to him.
"Fine, you're looking great," he responded with a
crooked smile. Morgan sat beside James smiling at the ongoing
banter. It was no secret to the inner circle that
Vickey and James had had a few dalliances.
"Glad you came, James," said Grayson leaning close
to him and ordered another beer for himself.
"Yeah, well, Jean finally moved out and the house
seemed too quiet."
"Even with those damn horses you call dogs there?"
"Even with them. How long ya'll staying?"
"For a while; Melisa is in Pawling visiting her
mother, so Morgan will be here for a while. Beth
has let Dave out of his cage for a bit too. So we're
here."
"Great, just like old times," smiled James." ”So what do you think of our red-head, James?"
"I try not to. Her and I have been doing nothing
but butting heads for two days now. I don't
understand it.”
Morgan laughed at James and shook his head.
"You're trying too hard, buddy. Relax and be
yourself. She's cozied up to us just fine."
James turned and gave Morgan a hard look, "Well,
we all can't be perfect, can we?"
James stepped off his stool and walked over to the
dart game in progress in the comer. It appeared as
if Joey was winning and Bert Foster, the shop
supervisor, was not happy. Bert who stood six feet one inch and weighed about
290 could have broken Joey in half. James had to
smile at the battle between the two. Poor Joey
was only five feet nine and weighed 125 on a good
day. Bert could break him in half if he wanted
to. James leaned against the wall and watched
Joey beat the pants off Bert three times. The side
betting had been hot and heavy and several of the
guys came out losers as they continued to bet on
Bert. Luckily, James had held onto his money and spent it wisely on beer instead.
Chapter 6
James was with the last group of employees as they
trickled out of the bar around 11:30. By then, Alex
had crawled into her bed and drifted off to
sleep. She had ordered herself not to dream
about James, but that proved impossible. The
dreams came anyway and this time they were
interspersed with visions of Tad and their last night
together.
James thought the alarm clock was a cruel practical
joke as it went off beside his head. He had left the
bar at 11:30 but then went to Grayson's for a little
more partying. He had finally stumbled in about
1:30 a.m. to two angry dogs. His drinking last
night had done little to ease the empty feeling of the house or relieve his growing desire for
Alex. She had floated in and out of his dreams
torturing him with imaginary kisses and touches.
James roused his tired body off the couch and
stumbled upstairs to kick start his mind and body
with a hot shower. He scrubbed down quickly,
trying to not be late for work. He wanted to see
Jeff first thing and tell him about the flowers that
somebody had left Alex last night. By no means,
did he want Alex working late anymore. James
stepped out of the shower and tracked a wet path
to his bedroom. James was drying himself off,
when the phone rang.
"Hello," he answered.
"Morning, bud," said Grayson on the other end. "You're awfully cheerful. "
"Yeah, I know. Listen I can't seem to get my car
started. Can you pick me up?"
"Yeah, sure, I'm on my way out the door. You're
buying coffee though. " Grayson agreed and James
left the house to pick him up and go to work.
"Alex, could you come in here, please," she yelled
from the center office. Francine was waiting for
her at Alex's desk, when she stepped in. She had
just walked in the door and not divested herself of
her coat, when Francine pounced upon her.
"Who are these from," she asked stepping aside to
reveal a vase of yellow and red roses.
"I just came in the door, Francine. How would I
know?" "Well you seem to be so damn popular, I thought
you would know," she remarked acidly.
"Francine, I don't know what your problem with me
is specifically, but I don't appreciate the
attitude. I'm here to work and if that offends you,
I'm sorry. I didn't come here to be popular or play
games. So if you have something you want to get
off your chest, please go right ahead," said Alex
finally. She was tired of the petty demeanor she
got from Francine. Every day was the same thing,
including the afternoon meetings with James that
Jeff seemed to be ignoring.
"You took MY job. I petitioned long and hard to
get the accounting assistant position and here YOU
stand at what should be MY desk doing MY
job. And as for my playing games, it looks like you've found out what the rules are too, because,
I've never received a bouquet like this since I got
here," she declared, stomping out of the room like a
spoiled child.
Alex followed her into the reception area and
waited for her to sit down before opening her
mouth. "Francine, I'm sorry if you didn't get this
job. I didn't realize that you were even in
contention for it. All I know, is that the job was
offered to me and I took it. And for your
information, I haven't done anything to get flowers
like that from anybody here. Just keep that in
mind, I don't play games, I play for keeps. Now,
you and I can work together or against each other,
just remember that we don't have to like each other
to do a good job," Alex retorted. Francine looked up at Alex finally and understood
the immediate attraction that the men in the
factory felt. She appeared on the outside like
everyone's kid sister, but when she wanted to turn
on the charm, she blossomed into a beautiful
woman. Francine felt a twinge of jealousy tweak
her insides. She had always had to fight against
naturally beautiful women to gain a man's
attention. But it was obvious that it came easily to
Alex, to be able to have whomever she set her
sights on.
"So where did the flowers come from, if you didn't
'earn' them," she bit out.
"I don't know," said Alex turning and walking back
to her desk to look over the blooms. The flowers
were held by a simple cut glass vase of no planned design or maker wrapped with a red ribbon and a
card attached to it. Each rose had been sprinkled
/> with glitter to make them as eye catching as
possible. Alex soon discovered that there were six
yellow and six red roses perfectly matched in shape
and size. Alex was reaching for the card when
Francine came back in the office.
"Who delivered them," she asked Francine over her
shoulder.
"I don't know. They were sitting there when I
came in.”
"Did you ask Larry if he saw anyone?" Alex knew
that Larry was the first one in every morning to
open the shops for the employees.”
"He hasn't come in here yet. " Alex took the familiar path from her desk, through
James' office to Larry's door. As she raised her
hand to knock, she caught sight of Dan Reynolds
standing next to the soda machine staring at her.
"Morning, Dan," she said. Dan nodded hello and
walked back to the weld shop without his
soda. Alex shook her head, knocked on the door
and went into Larry's office. "Morning, Larry.”
"Alex, good morning, toast," he asked as it popped
up from the toaster.”
"No thanks," she responded, smiling, "Did you sign
for flowers this morning?"
"Alex, I got here at 6:30. What delivery person in
his right mind is delivering flowers at 6:30 in the
morning?" "Good point. Then did you see who left roses on
my desk?"
"There's roses on your desk?"
"Yeah, I want to know who to thank. "
"Don't look at me. I just opened the doors, came
in here and made some breakfast.” Alex looked
down at his desk and saw the remains of eggs and
bacon on a plate there.
"Thanks, Larry. Have a good breakfast. "
Alex left his office, went to the soda machine and
grabbed a Pepsi. She then went back to her desk
to read the card. Alex had just made her way to
her desk through Francine's office, who for once
wasn't staring at her, when James burst in the door
from his office. "Where did they come from," he asked.
"Don't know. They were here when I came in,
when Francine came in too. And Larry said
nobody delivered them. "
"Great. Did you read the card?"
"Just getting ready to do that now."
Alex removed the stick pin that held card to the
ribbon. She opened the envelope and read the
card aloud, "To my red-haired lady. I hope you've
forgiven me.”
"Have you?"
Alex looked up at James and waited for the
screaming match from last night to resume. "Well, have you," he repeated, "I'm sure that
anyone who sends you roses would be forgiven for
just about anything.”
"James, you’re such an ass," she cursed, "You don't
know anything about me so don't stand there and
assume the worst. Just keep your nose out of it. "
Jeff walked into the center office and found Alex
and James nose to nose with the flowers as a
backdrop.
"What a lovely assortment, Alex. Are they from
your fiancée?"
"They're from the man who attacked me. I also
got a bouquet last night while I was working here.” "Damn, that settles it. For your own protection
Alex, I don't want you working late anymore," he
declared. Jeff saw her ready to argue and
continued on, "If you're too stubborn to be afraid,
let me do it for you. I can't let you do it
anymore. Neither you nor Francine are to be in
the office, after everyone else has left. Do you
understand?"
Alex was prepared to argue but thought better of
it. He had a point and she admitted to herself that
she was slightly scared. "Okay, Jeff. I won't work
late anymore," she conceded reluctantly.
James was stunned at how demure she had become
in that moment. He expected her to rail at him
and Jeff for trying to dictate rules for her to follow. She had certainly fought enough with him
last night when he asked the same thing.
Alex thanked Jeff for his concern, removed the
roses from her desk and walked them to the oil
drum that sat outside of Francine's office door and
served as a garbage can. Alex dumped the roses
into the drum, removed the ribbon from the vase
and took the vase to the glass recycling dumpster
outside. As the vase hit the bottom of the nearly
empty dumpster, it shattered into thousands of
diamond like crystals. Alex watched the pieces
scatter about the dumpster until they had settled
into a final destination, wiped a tear from her cheek
and -walked back to door. Alex took a deep breath
before opening the door to the factory. She
couldn't remember a time when she felt so alone
and so much despair. The next several months crawled slowly for
Alex. She was desperately lonely and missed the
calls from Tad. His calls used to come daily, but
slowly dwindled into weekly, until they had stopped
coming at all. Occasionally, she would read about
him in the national section of the newspaper and
send him congratulatory cards when he won major
battles on the hill. Tad also occasionally sent Alex
cards to remind her of him and sent her a bottle of
champagne on her birthday.
Alex had worked all day on her birthday, not
mentioning the occasion to anyone. Although, she
had made an effort to forget about the incident in
the office, roses appeared often on her desk, on her
chair and even on the hood of her car. Alex picked
out birthday cards for all of the employees as a
special way for her to communicate with them and let them know she was thinking about all of what
had come to be termed "her boys. "
She remembered her first day, when James
mentioned that someday she would adopt them all
and she had. She cared for each of them as if they
were her brothers and the ones who were too old
to be brothers were often called "uncles. " She
refused to call anybody a father figure including
kindly old Bill Jefferson, who was turning 60 in
March.
Christmas had come along with a blizzard that
stacked the snow up to the loading dock door,
making going to work treacherous and
impossible. Hasani had lost three days of
production time that week, not including the
holiday. When the snow melted slightly, it froze with an arctic blast that took hold of the
region. The ice had remained for several days and
the mood in the factory was as somber as the
howling winds. Alex and the rest of the factory
had been able to go to work, but had not been able
to send any products out because of the wind chill
and icy conditions of the trucks. But at least she
had been able to get to work and see all of her
boys. Alex had never seen a winter so bad, and
fortunately had the foresight to buy a car with four
wheel drive and snow tires. Even so, she had put
provisions in her car to prevent her from freezing or
starving if she got stuck someplace.
Alex tried desperately to remove James from her
thoughts, but that proved impossible. Her dreams
of him were becoming all too realistic when she
awoke in the mornings and expected him there beside her. Her body ached to be brought back to
life by the touch of a man and for a while she even
missed Tad. At night when she was alone, she
imagined James there holding and kissing her
lovingly and in the days she fought the urge to rip
Francine's hair out when she went into James'
office.
James had spent Christmas alone. Both Grayson
and Morgan had invited him to their homes, but he
had declined not wanting to be a wet blanket. He
still missed Jean and when the divorce had become
final on Christmas Eve, he drank himself into a
stupor, not wanting to think about it. James had
been moderately successful in shutting Jean out of
his mind, but his thoughts kept drifting to Alex. At
night when the wind moaned, he would sit on his
couch and imagine her there with him, keeping him warm with her touch and her kisses. He
made-believe that he could feel her lips on his and
her body so soft and yielding eagerly to his touch.
He had, against his better judgment, carried on his
affair with Francine. Somehow, it seemed easier
to have sex with her in his office, than reach out to
Alex to heal his bruised heart. He watched as she
became more closely associated with each member
of the factory, no matter how low their
position. She continued to rebuff the advances of
Morgan, Grayson, Dave and several other
employees and dodge innuendos. To him she
looked like a ballet dancer, dancing around props
laid there for her trip over. But James could see
that she was wavering. He could sense her
loneliness growing and her need to feel accepted. Alex for the most part, was able to keep her
distance while still befriending her
co-workers. She accepted dinner invitations from
Jeff and his wife, Nancy, and from Harry Fletcher,
Hasani's lead government relations contact, and his
wife Suzanne. Still, she felt lonely and curious
about what happened when the boys went out to
play.
"Maybe, I will join them," she said to herself while driving home after dinner with the Fletcher's.
Chapter 7
Springtime had come with a blast of warm air and a
thunderstorm, melting all of the remaining snow
from a last minute snowstorm in March. It had