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So I wanted to post something up here after reading so many fantastic stories. After getting over my massive stage fright (which I still suffer from, mind you), I decided to post a story. Tell me what you think but as Erykah Badu said "now keep in mind that I'm an artist and I'm sensitive about my shit" (who am I kidding, I'm not artist). Enjoy.

Disclaimer: All the characters are figments of my imagination as well as the story. All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners and no infringment was intended.

 





Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.


 

What's the one thing that could ruin a good evening? Well, besides your boss calling you to come into work while you're on a date. My guess? Finding your boss slumped over in her chair, dead.

Yeah, that could be a problem.

I'm a writer that is completely devoted to her craft.  A writer who gets stimulation from everywhere, but when your column and soon to be novel is about relationships and you're not in one, that's kinda hard to pull off. I haven't been in one of those in months, let alone a date. I've been busy working (don't judge me). So much in fact, I hardly have time to talk to my mother and best friend, who never let me forget, mind you. So I don't have time for dates, social calls, hell booty calls. Nor do I have time to find dead bodies. But all that changed today. Just today.

"Maxie Baker?" I was nose deep into working on my daily column, "The Grind" for the Chicago Day Times, when a man's voice interrupted my thoughts.  I looked up and saw a tall, handsome Latin man standing in front of me.  He was gorgeous, with dark hair, honey brown eyes and the cutest smile I have ever seen. Who is this? The only person I know that would call me Maxie is...

"Chris? Chris Martinez? Oh my God!" I shot out of my seat and gave him a huge hug. "What are you doing here?" And when did you get so muscular?

"I just moved back from San Antonio. I was working for an entertainment magazine down there and I had to get out. I put some feelers out to see where I could go; the Day Times offered me a gig and while I was doing some research, guess whose name came up. You're looking good girl. What's it been, 10 years?"

Chris and I go back to college when we were journalism majors at Columbia. But he did not look like this the last time I saw him. Time has been very good to him.

"So what's going on with you Baker? I read your column. Still mad at the world, huh?" I laughed as he continued. "And I hear your writing a book. Is it out yet?"

"Not yet; the kinks are still being worked out.  But I can't believe you are in Chicago, let alone working at my paper.  Hey, you remember Theresa Lee?"

"Yeah, the Jay to your Silent Bob. How's she doing?"

"She's doing well. Right now, she's in real estate, selling abnormally large homes to the filthy rich and making more than I've seen in a year." Chris and I continue talking until I noticed our editor in chief, Claudia Ellis, storm out of her office. I hoped she wasn't heading over here; please be getting ready to hop on your broom and fly out of here. We watched her stomp by and head into our sports editor, Angelo Diaz's office. I could tell all kinds of hell was about to break loose (especially today. It's Tuesday and usually on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Claudia is the biggest bitch on the planet. Don't know why those days; that's just how she rolls).

As soon as she closed his office door, the bullpen got silent to listen to the shouting match.

"Why would you do that?! Do you know how that would make me look?!"

"Like I give a shit how you look. You work for me and I will do whatever the hell I please. Nobody asked you to do what you did, or did they? I wonder what you're wife would think of that?"

"BITCH I WILL KILL YOU! YOU DON'T EVER MENTION MY WIFE, YOU HEAR ME? You even try and contact my family..."

"Don't worry, Angelo. You keep doing what you're doing for me and she'll never know. And you will do as you're told."

Claudia stormed out as everyone tried to make it look like they weren't eavesdropping. She almost made it past me, but she glanced over and saw Chris sitting there. Her whole demeanor suddenly changed once she laid eyes on him.

"Chris! I have been looking all over for you!" I'm sure. She then realized who he was sitting with and acknowledged me as she always does; with complete disdain. She looked at me like I was the hired help, but I will not stoop to her level.

"Hey Claudia!" I said with the sweetest, phony smile I could muster. She rolled her eyes.

"Baker." Claudia then turned her attention back to Chris, "Why don't you come into my office so we can discuss your future here." She grabbed his arm and he mouthed ‘help' while she had her back turned. All I could do was shrug my shoulders.

I shouldn't hate my boss. As a matter of fact, I don't. Sure, I can't stand the woman, but I don't hate her. She, on the other hand, hates my guts. I can tell when she looks at me. Just because she's short, round (and not in a jolly way), wears clothes for a 13 year old girl that clearly don't fit her fat, tiny body, has bad frizzy 80s hair and a chip on her shoulder the size of Alaska gives her no right to hate me. Like I said, I don't hate her; but there are quite a few people that do. Besides Angelo, Monica Clarke, our resident gossip columnist, probably does because Claudia goes through each of her columns and chops them to practically nothing, claiming that it (and she) is completely unnecessary. David Neumann, the editor of our Entertainment section, hates her (or he should) because of the utterly embarrassing way she outed him at last year's Holiday party. I don't want to get into specifics, but let's just say personal photo slide show and RuPaul's ‘Supermodel' playing in the background.  Even Betty Morgan, the nicest woman on the planet, hates her and she doesn't hate anything or anyone (that I know of. Who knows what the woman does on her weekends). She our researcher, administrator, all around does everything kind of job and has been doing it longer than I've been alive. Betty makes the smallest mistake in her 30-plus year tenure and Claudia flipped the fuck out. She yelled and berated her in front of everyone like a child. But if I had to single out the one person that totally and honestly hates this woman, I would have to say Eric Davis, our assistant editor in chief.  Eric is smart, compassionate, easy going, loves to listen to people, loves to sit with you and laugh and can still get his work done. But because of something Claudia did or said, not only did he not become the editor in chief, his whole journalism career was in jeopardy. I still don't know what she did, but there are different stories about it that have passed throughout the Chicago journalism community. People still talk about it to this day and that was 15 years ago. So I would think he may have a bone to pick with her.

By the end of the day, I got a lot accomplished. My column was done earlier than usual, Chris and I were having dinner tonight to catch up, and I didn't get bitched out by anyone. I even spoke to my mother and Theresa. I headed home to get ready and make sure my house wasn't torn up out of spite. When I got inside, a warm fuzzy body came up and rubbed my ankles.

"Good, you not pissed about earlier, Chubbs." I walked into the kitchen to feed my cat, Chubb Rock, or Chubbs for short. "I'm going to have to wean you off this food for a while." He meowed in protest.

"Fine, stay fat." After he was taken care of, I checked my messages.

"Max, I can't believe Chris Martinez is in Chicago. Does he still have the glasses? Call me when you get back from dinner."

BEEP. (Yeah, I have an old school answering machine. So?)

"Maxine, its Aunt Dee. I just wanted to remind you about dinner on Sunday honey. Call me back when you get a chance. Love you."

BEEP.

"Max! It's Margot, you know, your favorite person in the world, believe me. Great news; I have a release date and some artwork for your cover. It's almost time to get your book out there. Aren't you excited! I know you are. Call me!"

Oh snap, I am about to be a published novelist. And I have a date, which I should be getting ready for. Shit!

About 7:45, I was almost ready when my buzzer rang.

"Speak."

Deep chuckle, then "It's Chris." Still early for everything, I see. I have always liked that about him. I buzzed him up and continued looking for my shoe. I finally found it just as he knocked on my door.

I opened it and was pleasantly surprised. Damn if the man didn't look good; black button down shirt, dark jeans and loafers. Did he look this good in college? If so, was I blind?
"Hey Maxie." I watched as he gave me a very slow once over. I did a goofy twirl to take my mind off the way he was looking at me.

"Damn Chris, if you stare any harder, I might suddenly go up in flames. Come inside already." He laughed as I led him into the front room. "Let me grab a couple of things and we can go."

I took off in a quick sprint to my bedroom, grabbed my purse and glasses and headed back up front. When I got up there, Chris was sitting with Chubbs on his lap. He read the tag on Chubbs' neck and looked at me.

"Did you really name the cat Chubb Rock?"

"I did. What? ‘Treat ‘em right' was a great song and you know it. Besides, look at him; you can't tell me the name doesn't fit. But that's enough playtime.  Let's go because I'm starving." He put the cat down, I lint rolled him and we left. Once we got downtown, Chris parked and we started walking toward the restaurant.

"So what made you come back to Chicago and work?"  He asked as we walked up State St.

"Family. As corny as it sounds, I missed them, especially my mom. I was in Virginia, New Mexico and Montana, which was horrible by the way and realized how much I wanted to be here working. What brought you to the Chi, besides me of course?"

"Oh of course. I wanted to go to New York, but Chicago offered me a gig first. Mainly, I had to get out of Texas. Once I found out you would be working at the same publication, I jumped on the chance to come here."

"Well, I for one am glad you did." We continued walking. "Chris can I tell you one thing?" He nodded.

"Don't get offended, but I do not remember you looking this good. You are crazy handsome."

"Thank you. You're looking very good yourself." He leaned in to whisper, "But I remember you looking this good."

I could feel the blush creep up on my face. Damn me being light skinned. 

"Whatever.  The one thing I clearly remember about you was your giant, 80s Run DMC style glasses that you insisted on wearing everywhere."

"I still have those glasses, but I though contacts might be a better route."

"Why doesn't it surprise me you still have them." I was going to ask something else when I felt my purse start vibrating.

"Standby, it might be Theresa. Hello?"

"Maxine! Where are you!"
"Claudia? I'm on my personal time, as most people do when they leave work."

"Well I need you to come in and fix your column."

"Excuse me? Fix what with my column? What is possibly wrong with it?" I know I shouldn't cop an attitude with her, but I couldn't punk out in front of Chris. He shook his head as I listened to Claudia bitch me out. And I was doing so well today.

"Well Claudia, what do you want me to do?"

"Come in and fix it obviously!"

"What, come in right now?" Chris shook his head no. "I can't; I'm busy. I can come in later on tonight."

"Fine, whatever. Just get here." And with that, she hung up. All I could do was stare at the phone. Chris spoke and shook me out of my venomous thoughts about our boss.

"She wants you to fix it? I read it and thought it was hilarious."

"That's just how she is. Welcome to the Day Times. But damn that; I haven't seen you in years. She can wait a couple, two three hours. And look at that, we're here."

He and I ended up at Osa Saki Sushi for dinner. As we ate and talked, I realized that I have not had such a funny, witty, intelligent conversation with a man that I'm not related to in a long time. Then the relationship questions came up.

"So Maxie, where's your boyfriend? I know there's a man somewhere in Chicago that must be mad you're here with me."

"Nope. The only men in my life are my granddaddy, my brother and Chubbs; no boyfriends or nothing. What about you? Any girlfriends, wives, ex-wives, baby mamas?"

"None of the above. I'm still questioning myself about the last relationship I just got out of. The girl was dumber than a box of rocks."

"So she served her purpose in different ways?" I said as I stole the last Tempura shrimp. He laughed.

"You could say that. And you're lucky you're cute or else we would be fighting for that shrimp Baker."

"Aww, you think I'm cute? I knew it; dinner was just a ruse to get into my pants, wasn't it?"

"Yep." He answered with a smirk, so I hit him with my napkin. I guessed he was joking but let's be real; if he offered, I would definitely take him up on it. As I sat and tried to not get all hot and bothered by Chris, my purse started vibrating again.

"Shit, it's Claudia again. Hello?" I heard nothing. "Hello? Claudia, are you there?" Still nothing, just a weird sound like faint gurgling. "Claudia are you prank calling me? I'll be there soon, damn." While I was talking to thin air, I didn't notice Chris paying for dinner.

"Punk I would have paid half." I said as we got up.

"A gentleman doesn't go out and have his date go dutch." We got outside. "You want me to go with you to the office?"

"You don't have to. I'll just go by and listen to her bitch me out. But thank you for dinner."

 I gave him a peck on the cheek and started heading toward the office. He stood there giving me the sad puppy dog look.

"Okay, stop with the face. Come on." He ran up to me and put his arm out for me to take it. We got to our building and headed up to the Day Times offices. While we were in the elevator, I couldn't help but notice the faint smell of his cologne filing the car. Damn, has it been that long since I've been close to a straight, attractive man? I was so lost in thought that I didn't even know we got to our floor. Chris got out, but I didn't.

"Maxie, you coming?"

"What? Oh, my bad."  Lost in my own world due to his sexy ass. Where did that come from?

"I'm going to grab my notes. I'll meet you back at your desk, okay?" I nodded and headed to Claudia's office. I'm glad I had a couple of drinks to deal with her.  I walked into the office.

"Claudia?" Her chair was facing the window, away from the door. How is she going to ignore me?  "Claudia", I said with a little more force. "I'm here now. What could possibly be wrong?" I got no response so I walked over to her desk. I'll be damned if she fell asleep.

"Claudia, wake up." I said as I spun her chair around to face me. That and screaming was the last thing I remember.






Chapter End Notes:
If I can figure it out, characters are next on the list..






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Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.