Chapter 3: Ride with The Boss

Rain spatters the windshield of my blue Honda CR-V as we drive, slightly faster, towards work. I fiddle with the temperature control to prevent those little fog patches from forming at the base of the window and so far, I am successful.

CR-V stands for “Comfortable Runabout Vehicle”, if you were curious. I Googled it.

Where there is usually easy listening on the radio (Danielle’s preference), instead there is only silence. I take furtive glances at Danielle, pretending to check for surrounding traffic to see if the face she’s making with her pursed lips that look like a cat’s anus are for my benefit, or is in response to the email she’s texting out on her phone to her now ex-husband, Roy.

I know this because I hear her mutter words like ‘…asshole…dipshit…asshat…’ every few seconds, which are words I’ve only ever heard used to describe him.

Or, it could be that I was late and not ’10-15 minutes early’, or that, when loading one of the boxes of desserts, I accidentally stepped in one of the many potholes of our lovely apartment complex and nearly dropped the box. Neither of us had the heart to see if the little cupcakes had all tipped over, their frosting now smeared against the walls of the cardboard box.

“Just. Let’s go.” Was all she said with a pained expression (spoiler: they were smeared but still tasted great).

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“Hey, did you get a new cologne? Something smells different.” Said Danielle, looking up from her phone and replacing it into her Louis Vuitton purse, her mood suddenly bright again.

I look over, “something good, or something bad?”

“No, good.” She leans slightly forward in her seat, chin jutting out and nose in the air like a bloodhound as she pivots her neck to and froe, comically, for my benefit.

“Well, that’s a relief.” I laugh, genuinely. The smell she’s noticed is my newest cologne, Mystique.

I, like most of my generation am a subscription whore. You name it, I’m probably paying for it.

Television, check. Music, check. Daily news, check. Online gaming, double-triple check. But recently, I’ve been dabbling in those ‘bespoke’ companies that mail you monthly clothing and beauty products. I don’t know why, but appearance seems really important to me at the moment. Ever since my last relationship ended, I’ve been more conscious of how I present myself to the world. From the way my skin looks (I really think the night creams are taking some of the redness out of my cheeks, which would be helped faster if I also cleaned up my diet). To the way I smell (I’m like everyone else in that department where a daily shower is more than sufficient, but a spritz of something fun gives me, I dunno, more confidence?). To the way I dress (I really like how today’s fabrics have that extra stretch to accommodate more of you without necessarily having to go up in size). But I could do without the tchotchke accessories they seem to throw in, almost as an afterthought. I mean, really, leather bracelets? That’s so 2010.

My reverie of monthly spending is suddenly interrupted by the smell of breakfast, which fills my nostrils. I look over and see that
Danielle has a partially unwrapped bacon, egg and cheese wrap (cut on the diagonal because of something she saw on the Food Network) with avocado and tomato poking out. My mouth waters.

I look down at my shirt, then back up to the road as I remember my hastily prepared breakfast of toast with butter. Did you know that cold butter does not spread on toast easily? In fact, it’s nearly impossible. Zero spread-ability factor and 100% pain the ass factor.

Surreptitiously, I run a hand across my chest, touching my belly under the guise of adjusting my seatbelt. Touching over the spot on my button-up shirt from where I had, in my haste of swapping cold butter for peanut butter and honey to spread on my toast, managed to leave a stain I had no time of getting out.

Fact: did you know honey runs like lava over hot toast? And nut butters, too? And did you know that when you try to eat said combo while walking around your apartment to get your work bag ready, that said lava runs off the toast and only onto things you don’t want it to land on? Like, your dress clothes instead of into your mouth? Yeah, this guy.

“Love the v-neck and button-up combo today, Theo.” said Danielle.

“Thanks Danielle, I picked up the tip from HGTV. I’m thinking of trying it out at work for a bit.” Her genuineness leaves me wondering. Was she reading my mind about throwing on a sweater to cover up the food stain, or was she just being nice? Danielle had that uncanny knack of knowing shit like that without knowing shit like that. I double check my stomach where the stain is concealed to see of some of the oil from the nut butter has bled through, but my sweater hides its secret.

“Oh, and eat this before we go in.” Reaching into her day bag, she’s grabbed a second wrap, wrapped in foil and before I can even protest, she's unfolded it and given me half with the wrapper around the bottom to prevent drips.

“Danielle, what’s this? You didn’t have to.”

“I know I didn’t have to, but I know you, Theo. You probably grabbed a Pop Tart or a piece of toast or something before picking me up. Here, before it gets too cold.”

Then she reaches across and places a disposable napkin between the seatbelt and my clothes, where food would normally land. I have been known to be a tad of a sloppy eater at times, but between the napkin and Danielle’s superior foil wrapping skills (another Food Network gem she learned), I know it won’t.

“Sorry, habit.” She says, waving a hand in the air and smiling. She does this when she’s trying to cover up her mom energy (in addition to being a divorcee, she’s also a recent empty nester with her only son now at college), which I have always found endearing and one of the many reasons why we still commute together. She’s also a great Friday night drinking buddy.

Shh, don’t tell HR.

"Well, thanks." I say and take a bite of the breakfast sandwich. It is, of course, fucking delicious. The eggs are perfectly fluffy and the bacon crisp without being too chewy or salty. The avocado and tomato are creamy smooth and provide the right amount of moisture, respectively.

And wait. Those spices?... Chef’s kiss.

“Mmm, wow.” I can’t help but hide my grin as I look over at Danielle, but she’s already grinning.

“I know, right?!” Then she dashes on about the recipe that she’s learned from her tv husband, Bobby Flay.

“That man certainly knows the way around a human palate.” I say, chewing and swallowing the first half of the wrap. Danielle holds out her hand and I pass her the finished wrapper, as she hands me the second half of the breakfast wrap. Like a racing team, we are flawless in the handoff.

The second half of the wrap somehow tastes even better than the first.
How is this possible? I think, as I feel the warmth creep into my body, that has nothing to do with the heater blowing inside the car and rising to make my cheeks flush. That’s my tell, by the way. When I’ve gone a while without eating, or else haven’t had enough to eat. They turn red like stop signs and everybody knows it.

“Cheeks.” Is all Danielle has to say with a sideways smirk as she glances my way and returns to finishing the first half of her wrap.
A few minutes later, she’s back on her phone, texting.

“Damn, the meeting at 2:00 has been pushed to 3:45. Fuck. That’s going to really screw with my afternoon.” She says, mainly to herself as she lets out a huff and blows air at the ceiling. Having her afternoon screwed with means that my afternoon has just become turbulent as well.

At our office, she and I work as a tandem managing several big commercial accounts. The meeting Danielle has been rescheduled for will be a big windfall for the company and certainly mean a bonus for her. She’s a fair boss and lets the spoils run downhill to the rest of us (i.e. comp time, surprise ‘thank you’ lunches), and me, as we are literally hand-in-glove at work. We do have three other accountants that work alongside us, but I don’t connect with them the way I do with her. She’s literally the only reason I haven’t looked for another job elsewhere.
Plus, I’d have to move as she’d never let me hear the end of it.

I hear a ‘pop’ and look over. She’s taken out a tube of lipstick from her purse and adjusts my passenger-side sun flap. The built-in automatic light from the flap flatters her features, but also my eyes catch the reflection against the aluminum foil of what I know to be the second half of her wrap, sitting upright in her day bag. My stomach grumbles low and inaudibly, though it’s already had coffee, miserable lava toast and two halves of a wrap.

“Theo babes, would you like the second part of my wrap? I must have swapped the wraps this morning and gave you mine and eaten the one I had made for you on accident. It’s so filling.”

And without waiting for a reply, in my hand, she’s placed the wrap.

The grumble from my stomach subsides and I hold it up like a glass of beer, “Cheers, thanks Danielle.”

In truth, Danielle is trying to lose weight, not that she needs to. And make herself more presentable, which is ridiculous as she’s stunning; hence the lipstick, which she rarely wore before. It’s a muted color and one might mistake it for a lip gloss, but I know better.


Personally, I’d say it’s a little bit of an insecurity thing, which is a shame because she’s amazing. Plus, who am I to talk, aren't we all a little (okay a lot) insecure? She’s confided in me (those Friday evening drinks) that she’s spied in on her ex-husband on Instagram and Facebook and he’s “taken up and tarted around” with “the woman”, who was also his private secretary.

So, in her haste to remedy her loneliness as well as win the moral high ground, she’s taken very seriously in her appearance. Danielle’s about a foot taller than me with black-brown hair that she usually has styled back or in a low ponytail that very much suits her, has an aquiline nose and proud cheekbones that you’d see on a Native American, though she swears she has no ancestry there. She has a softer, though athletic build with broad shoulders, medium bust and a narrow, but not flat waist.

It can be a touchy subject for her at times (especially when the wine is not flowing), so I drop my internal comment of wanting to compliment her on today’s shade of lipstick slide past. Instead, I pour my comments into the sandwich, which mollifies her. “You’re really missing out on this wrap. Pity you didn’t want it, but I am sure you have an epic lunch that you’re looking forward to later today.”

“Guilty.” She says in a sing-song voice, smiling with a tilt of her head.

Three traffic lights to go. Three bites left.

Two traffic lights to go. One bite left.

We have arrived.

The parking lot is nearly full, but we have assigned parking. Occasionally, we get screwed over by a contractor whose parked his pick-up truck or panel van in our office spaces, but today we are fortunate.

“Hey, look. The rain has eased up.” Danielle says, opening the door and making to refold her umbrella.

I nod in agreement as I reach to open the back hatch.

Mercifully, the cake and cupcakes have not shifted much during our commute, aided by my gym bag and messenger bag which I used as wedges. I sling my messenger bag over and across my body, feeling it sink into my softer body which I attribute to the soft sweater, and nudge the gym bag back. I haven’t used it in weeks. Okay, months. Is that a layer of dust on it? I can’t tell. I can feel it judging me as I push it back to grab the large sheet cake. ‘Oh, you’ll grab the cake, but not me, tubby,’ I hear the bag say.

“I’ve got the door.” Says Danielle, as she makes to grab the box of cupcakes.

I stare down at the large, rectangular cake. It’s in a white cardboard box two feet by one foot, the words “We’ll Miss You Earl!” Spelt out in purple frosting through the large plastic window. It looks professional grade, though everyone in the office will know Danielle’s made it. “I think in your next career, you should be a baker, you’ve got a real eye for this stuff.”

“Don’t think I haven’t thought about it. With the way this economy is going, we’ll all need second jobs soon.”

She says this for my benefit, as she makes well into the 6-figures, but it’s meant with love.

“So true. I’ve thought about taking up professional gaming, E-gaming.” I say mock-sarcastically, catching her eye, which has one penciled eyebrow raised.

“I’ll never understand your generation, Theo.” And she shakes her head with a laugh.

And together, we walk through the parking lot, up the walkway and into Mert-Peterson-Berg Accounting LLC.

“I’m going to miss calling this place ‘MPB’,” I say, catching the door with my toe, Danielle having propped it open for me, “MP just doesn’t have the same ring. Earl Berg. What a legend.”

“Oh, this company is too cheap to replace the signage and stationery, you just watch.” Danielle says with a wink. We’re in the lobby now and she presses a button for the elevator. It’s only a three-floor building, and we could have easily taken the stairs. But on Monday’s the elevator ride up is a must.

With the whir of descending metal and a ding later, the doors open. We are the only two in the lobby and together, food laden, we get in to begin our day.

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