Still Needs Work by Ellen Barker

Author:Ellen Barker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: She Writes Press

CHAPTER 37

The next week, I’m telling Henry how easy it was to install the sister joists when I get a text from Sharon, my old boss: “You working?”

I start typing yes when her next message arrives: “Or still looking?”

It takes me a few seconds to realize that she wouldn’t consider my hardware store job “working,” so I delete the “yes” and type, “Still looking” instead.

“Call me,” she replies.

I check the time. “In about an hour?”

“Sure.”

I float home, excited—this must mean that they have realized their mistake at last and are ready to rehire me. I’ll demand more salary and a bigger budget. I picture myself picking up the threads and saving the day. Then I have a sort of flashback to my old life—eight hours or more of conference calls every day, late nights catching up on reports and emails, middle-of-the-night calls with staff on the other side of the globe. Airports, hotel rooms. Same meetings, same topics, same arguments. Same train wreck looming. On the other hand, the money will be nice, as will the health insurance. I can get someone else to figure out the tile, install the shower, sister any future joists. Or I can move to a normal house with a normal bathroom that already has a shower and tile. But then Josie won’t live next door to that house. By the time I get home, I’ve deflated and have to drag myself up the steps to the front door. They probably only want me back for a week to explain things to someone they’ve hired, at a VP level of course, to do my old job, which they now call something completely different so they don’t have to actually rehire me.

I eat a banana and tell myself to get over myself. I sign into LinkedIn and make sure that Sharon is still at the same job. Then I call her.

“Sharon, what’s up?” I try to sound cool and casual and busy all at once.

“Hey, listen, I’ve got a call in fifteen minutes. You remember Deanna, right? Deanna Bailey?”

“Of course.” How could I not? She was CEO before our last acquisition.

“I talked to her this morning. She’s got a new gig. She’s CEO of a startup; they just got funding.”

“Cool—what is it, where is it?”

“Chicago. I told her I didn’t know if you’d want to move but you’d probably be willing to telecommute. I just put that out there so she could think about it. You could move if you want.”

“But what is it?”

“The company is called Magetech or something like that. I’m not sure. It involves a lot of data, so she was looking for you.”

“What kind of data? Did she say?”

“Hell, I don’t know. Data. Everyone wants data these days. Look, I gotta go. Just call her.”

I want to ask a lot of questions, but I don’t think Sharon has the answers. And she sounds rushed and uninterested in small talk. So I thank her and tell her I’ll call Deanna right away.

“Good to talk to you,” Sharon says.

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