The rest of my day passed in a blur. I took myself to the doctor and got my arms looked at. Both my hands had hairline fractures and they would need to be bound for a while so they healed. I got messages from a number of people, including Mark and Lina, but I didn’t respond to any of them. I ended up heading to bed that night not having any idea if I did anything that day other than stare at the TV and go to the doctor.
The next day was Monday, and I headed into the office at the usual time. My usual routine first thing was to run through emails from Friday as well as anything that came in over the weekend, then prep for a 9:00am team meeting to plan for everyone’s actions throughout the week. I had a team of fifteen people and, for the most, part we did good work.
About eight-thirty, my office admin, an older lady in her fifties by the name of Colleen, came into the office, took one look at me, pulled out a chair and sat down.
“That bad of a weekend, eh?” she asked, looking at the bindings over my hands and arms.
I had never said a harsh word to her in the three years we had worked together, but when I glared at her, she gulped.
“Gregory, I’m sorry, it must have been bad, what happened,” she asked.
I sighed and stared at my screen for a moment before taking my hands off the keyboard and turning to face my office admin.
“Jillian left me for her true love,” I admitted in a very expressionless voice.
“WHAT!” Collen exploded. “No, you’re making this up, seriously Gregory, don’t…”
I held up my bandaged hands as I felt my eyes tear up. I shook my head.
“It’s true,” I told her. “Friday night we had that informal class reunion. It felt like all her classmates knew it was going to happen, that included Mark and Lina. They all knew that Jillian and loverboy had been fucking behind my back for months. They all just chose to ambush me with the fact Friday night.”
With that, I broke down and cried. For the first time since we met, Colleen came around the desk and hugged me. As she did, I could feel her own tears begin to fall on my shoulders.
I told her how Saturday I got drunk and in a wild rage, destroyed most of the furniture in the house, putting holes in the walls of at least half the house. I told her how I took myself to the doctor yesterday to get my hands bandaged, all the while nursing the hangover of the ages.
By the time our morning stand-up came around, both of us had tried to dry our eyes as much as possible. Collen ushered everyone into our big meeting room on time, and once they were seated, I came in and sat down.
“I hope that everyone had a good weekend,” I said, getting a number of nods around the room, but everyone was trying not to look at my bandages.
“This week…” I started to say, and Colleen interrupted, this time putting her hand up to stop us.
“Sorry Gregory, but I can’t let this stand. After what happened to you this past weekend, you can’t pretend like everything is normal,” Collen stated. I hesitated for a moment and then nodded. Colleen looked at me again. The look told me she wanted to bring everyone into the loop, at least about the basics. After a moment’s thought, I nodded permission, knowing that she would only share that which would be helpful.
“Everyone, this past weekend, Gregory was betrayed by his wife and a number of friends. Jillian has been cheating on him for the last few months and decided to leave him in one of the most callous and disgusting ways possible. By humiliating him in front of a group of people, several of whom were supposed to be friends.”
Colleen stopped for a moment to let that sink in, then focused down on one person sitting, almost hiding on the other side of the table.
“Isn’t that right James?” Colleen asked.
James Colson was one of our CPA’s. He was also one of Jillian’s classmates. And, I realized for the first time that both he and his wife had been there Friday night witnessing the scene unfold. James hadn’t said much to anyone since coming into the office, but when he saw me, he tried to be as inconspicuous as possible. When Colleen started talking he paled. When she called him out, he tried to melt into the seat he was sitting in as every head in the room swivelled to focus on him
“um…” he said.
“James,” Colleen retorted in a stern grandmotherly voice. “Were you or were you not there on Friday night?”
“Yes, but…” James tried to say.
“And did you, or did you not know that your employer’s wife was having an affair with someone from your class?” Colleen asked firmly. James swallowed. “Be honest James.”
James looked down at the table in front of him, “I did.” He said very quietly.
For a moment no one said anything. The air in the room was palpable. Until today I would have thought everyone in the room had each other’s back. Almost everyone in the room was bristling, an angry undertone directed at James.
“All right then James,” Collen said after a few moments. “Right now, I think you need to leave the room. I think you need to think about your future with this firm because if we find out that you supported Jillian at all in the events of this past weekend, you will be fired for cause. Do you understand?”
He swallowed again, then stood. “I understand.” And tried to walk out of the room as quietly as possible.
No one said anything. For the most part, I had forgotten that James was part of the room on Friday. As everything happened, I hardly noticed anyone except the major players that were ruining my life.
I cleared my throat.
“Everyone,” I said trying to bring us back to the moment. “I’m not going to lie, my personal life sucks, and you can all guess that my weekend was not enjoyable.”
I held up my hands to emphasise the point.
“But we all have a job to do and clients to look after. This week I’m just going to trust that you all have each other’s backs and if you need anything specific, let Colleen know. I’ll be here, but if we’re all real about what’s happening, I’m going to be a mess. So please bear with me.”
I almost cried again as everyone around the room poured out sympathy and words of support.
“Lastly,” I said. “This one is hard for me to say, but don’t crucify James yet. I get that you’re all angry and James is an easy scapegoat. But let’s spend some time and get the full story before we execute one of our own.”
I got a number of mumbles, but everyone agreed.
Colleen ran the rest of the meeting for me. Then breaking the meeting up, I headed back to my office and stared out the window. A few minutes later, Colleen knocked. Turning to the doorway, I saw her standing and waiting, a very chastened James standing right behind her. I ushered them in and James appropriately closed the door behind him before taking the seat that Colleen pointed him to.
“I think you and James need to have a chat, Gregory,” she said simply.
I nodded, sitting down in my chair as James sat down on the other side of my desk. I kept staring out of my office window, my mind still a whirl of emotions. It was not even ten in the morning, and I could do with a drink.
James cleared his throat. I turned my eyes to him, and he looked down.