Everyone stares at me to see if I run. Jane looks poised to sprint if necessary.
I know it was short notice, but I wrote a speech for this. It goes like this, “Oh.”
Yeah, not so good. I take small steps to the table, set down my coffee, notepad, and my pen. I always take notes. I try to sit there calm, knowing the two-timing bitch is there.
Mom grabs my hand, making me immediately look her in the eyes with contempt. She knows my hate for this woman. She can see how mad I am. Now mom is nervous. She shouldn’t be doing this.
Mom does all the talking, “Honey, calm down. You’re breathing too quickly, and your heart rate is off the charts. Nobody will hurt you. Nobody can hurt you here.”
I beg to differ, “Someone here already has hurt me. Being here now is hurting me. Try a different approach.”
Mom sighs.
Jane takes over, “The work you have done with our companies has been outstanding. Your leadership and personal touch have made a significant difference to all our companies. Costs are down across the board. When you went into hiding a while ago, mom worked with Sophia to find you. Her daughter was unconscious and then in a medical coma. She helped the people that were looking for you. She helped with that exceptional commercial. You, in turn, helped her understand what happened to her daughter at the FBI interview.
“This isn’t about what she did to you, how you feel about her, or what happened. That was long ago. I’m not going to discount that, but it’s in the past. Everyone has moved on. Mom and Sophia were forced to work together. They became friends. It was never mentioned around you … well, for obvious reasons.
“Anyways, mom was bragging about the incredible work you have done, and she explained some of the details. I don’t know if you knew, but Sophia also has a substantial holding company like we do. She immediately realized that our model would also work for her companies. She has a major problem. She doesn’t have you. She is like mom, Vickie is kind of like me, other than the ch… well, we’re different.
“Sophia wants to hire you as a consultant for big money, to do for her what you did for us last year. Because that should be easy for you to do, they also want to buy and sell from our companies at a volume discount. She needs you to work with them to find compatibilities between our companies. In the back of your head, plan for a possible merging where we share IT, engineering, and R&D between all our companies to get even better efficiencies.”
Sophia adds, “We would be co-owners of the R&D, engineering, and IT parts. I would like to add in accounting, shipping, and management overview.”
With a monotone voice, “Let me guess. You both know the perfect person on Sophia’s side to work with me. Right?” Nobody will look me in the eyes. “So, this has nothing to do with real work. You manufactured a reason to get us back together. That boat has sailed. The amount of pain and humiliation still causes me nightmares. Fine, you guys do what you want to do. Let me know how this works out.”
I get up even as mom tries to grab my hand. I leave the room, the building, and I walk out onto the streets. I walk over to Central Park, a few blocks away, sit on a bench, and cry. The pain and humiliation is back and fresh in my mind at seeing her. Why are they doing this to me? We’re done, over, there is no going back after what she did to me and what I saw her doing to those men.
+++++
Back in the conference room:
Mom says, “Well. That went better than I expected. Vickie. Do you see what you did to my son? I have some video I want you to see.”