Home at Last

All the men in the office would turn and stare at her legs and butt as she passed them. That and she wore tight tops that clung to her toned upper body and full breasts. Her cheek bones were the kind Hollywood actresses pay lots of money for and her eyes were a deep rich green. I couldn't tell if she was even aware of the way the men stalked her with their eyes. She seemed carelessly oblivious to it all.

A couple of weeks after she started, my boss called me into his office and told me he wanted to give me a promotion. Needless to say, I was very happy about that, because I was bored to death with answering the phone and making coffee for clients. And I could use any extra money.

"Christina needs an assistant and she asked for you," he said.

I was a little taken aback at first. Why would she pick me? But I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. "When do I start?" I asked.

"Tomorrow," he said. "I've got a temp coming in to take the front desk. I need you to train her, then you can move your stuff down to the office next to Christina's."

"Great!" I said. "Thanks!"

"Don't thank me," he said. "Christina was the one who made this happen. Thank her."

"I will," I said and floated out of his office.

Christina returned to the office later that day from a client and as soon as she came in, she came to my desk and asked if my boss had had a chance to talk to me yet?

"He sure has," I said. "Thank you so much."

She smiled at me then. It was a warm genuine smile that made her eyes crinkle in a happy way. "Maybe we could go out for a drink tonight to celebrate?"

My face fell. My son had a baseball tournament game that night and there was no way I could miss it. It was his first time on the all-star team. I explained my conflict to her, but instead of looking disappointed, she just smiled more broadly.

"Check your kids' calendars when you get home tonight then and pick an evening when we can go out. My calendar is wide open except for next Thursday."

"Okay, great," I said, trying not to sound like I was sixteen.

The next few days were a hectic swirl of learning a new job and fitting in with Christina's style of work, which was very intense. I was happy to learn that she wanted me to be a real assistant, not just a secretary with a fancy title, and this included participating in work with clients, something I hadn't had a chance to do before.

I'd managed to clear my family calendar for the following Monday so Christina and I went out for dinner and drinks right after work. The restaurant she'd chosen was one I'd heard about but figured I'd never eat in, given my meager salary and Paul's even more meager child support payments. The food was pan-Asian and delicious. I tried not to look too happy, but it was hard.

During dinner we talked mostly about my kids, Christina asking lots of questions and listening patiently as I gushed on about them. Somewhere around the time we ordered dessert and coffee, I realized I'd been blathering on for close to an hour and she was probably bored senseless.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I've totally monopolized the conversation. You're such a patient audience, I kind of got carried away." Then I laughed and said, "Never ask a mother about her kids unless you want to know way more than you bargained for."

Christina smiled that pretty smile of hers and said, "That's why I asked. If we're going to work together for the long run, I want to know all about you. And that means your kids as well as you."

"Thanks," I replied. "You're nice to say so. But what about you? You're so beautiful, so successful. But you haven't mentioned boyfriends or husbands."

As soon as I said it I wanted to clap my hand over my mouth. What a thing to say! But Christina saved me.

"Nope, no men," she said. "I guess you could say I'm not the marrying kind."

Grateful to be rescued from my faux pas, I nodded like I understood.

"Well, you'd certainly have your pick from the guys in the office," I giggled. "I'm sure you know they all stop whatever they're doing when you walk by."

"Yes," she said, nodding just a little bit. "I know. They're so, well, predictable."

"That's one way to put it," I said.

Then Christina laughed lightly, "Or you could say they let their dicks do most of their thinking for them."

I joined her laughter, "No doubt. No doubt."

The waiter brought our dessert then. I couldn't help but notice how his eyes played over Christina. As he walked away, I said, "Like him."

She nodded and took a bite of her Crème Brulé. It was killing me to see her eating it—my favorite dessert—but I'd banned all such things from my life. I was having a bowl of fresh raspberries. Plus, she ate it like she was having sex with it, each bite sensual and slow. I realized I was staring and so went back to my berries.

"Here," she said, extending her arm and offering me a spoonful. I was about to protest, but decided the better of it.

God it tasted good. I couldn't remember the last time I'd had any chocolate, much less something as sinful as this. I rolled it around in my mouth for a second, savoring the moment, before swallowing.

When I opened my eyes, Christina was looking at me with a peculiar look in her eye.

"Good, isn't it?"

"Almost better than sex," I said without even thinking. Then I really did clap my hand over my mouth. I felt my cheeks burning and a flush spread up my neck.

Christina just smiled and said, "That all depends on the sex, don't you think?"

"Yes," was all I could think of to say.

The rest of the evening was a lot less exciting. We finished up our coffee, chatted a bit more about our families, and called it a night. When I got home, I lay in bed thinking about the glow that suffused me. I couldn't remember when I'd had a more enjoyable evening.

Within six months Christina had become almost a part of our family. It started innocently enough, with me inviting her over for a multi-family bar-b-que to celebrate the last day of school for my kids. She showed up before the rest of the guests, wearing cut off jeans and a Banzai Pipeline t-shirt. As soon as he saw her shirt, my son wanted to know if she'd really been to the North Shore of Hawaii.

"Yes," she said. "I've been a couple of times and I've surfed on and off since I was a teenager. I grew up near Malibu."

"Did you surf the Pipeline?" he asked, adulation in his eyes. This was just too way cool for words.

"No," she said, shaking her head and chuckling. "I want to live a little longer. I'm strictly a small wave gal."

His face fell, but then recovered. "How big are the waves, really? You know, in the Pipeline?"

Christina took him by the arm and led him out into the yard and started pointing to various branches in the trees along our fence line. I couldn't hear them any more, but I was impressed with her ease with a twelve-year old boy she'd never met. It made me happy to see them getting along from the very beginning and I realized that I really wanted her to like my family. And I wanted my kids to like her.

I needn't have worried. At various points during the evening I spotted Christina and each of my children doing something together, sitting quietly and talking, or laughing over some joke. I also noticed several of the dads who were there trying to get an eyeful of her without being caught staring by their wives. She did look amazing in those cutoffs.

At the end of the party Christina and I were in the kitchen cleaning up the last of the mess. I'd tried to get her to sit while I loaded the dishwasher, but she wouldn't let me treat her like a guest or a boss.

"I can't remember when I've had such a nice time," she said as she found room for one more plate in the lower rack. "You have such a wonderful family."

"Thanks," I said, beaming. "They really are good kids."

"That's because you're their mother."

I felt a blush starting on my cheeks, so I turned to look out the window for a second. My son was throwing a baseball with his best friend in the light cast from the spots over the deck. I felt so content at that moment.

"That's a very nice thing of you to say," I said turning to look at my boss. She had straightened up and was looking at me in a way I'd never seen from her. Usually she's so intense, but at that moment she looked almost like she was going to cry.

"Are you okay?" I asked her.

She smiled then, a very broad smile, her teeth flashing. "I've never been better."

Suddenly, I felt flustered. I couldn't say why, exactly, but I was definitely flustered. To cover it up, I had to say something, so like I often do, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "You were so great with the kids. They took to you right away."

"And that's a very nice thing of you to say," she said. "I can see why you love them so much. They're really wonderful."

That just made my blush worse, but that seemed okay at that moment. I had an overwhelming urge to hug Christina, but she was my boss, after all. So instead I said, "We'd like to have you over again soon."

"I'd like that very much," she replied. Maybe I was imagining things, or maybe it was just the way the light was hitting her eyes, but it did look like her eyes were welling up.

She turned away from me then and picked up a few stray glasses on the kitchen table and loaded them into the dishwasher, closed it up and pressed the start button. The noise it made forced us to retreat to the deck. I was about to say something else, but she spoke first.

"I've got to go now. I had such a wonderful evening. Thanks so much for inviting me."

"I meant what I said about you coming over again soon," I said, suddenly unwilling for her to leave.

"And I meant what I said about wanting to."

Before long Christina was at our house almost every other week for some event or other—dinner, a backyard picnic, a pool party—and began to attend some of the children's events with me—Jillian's dance recital, Mark's swim meet, the play Alison's summer camp put on. It was obvious that she enjoyed being part of our lives and the children all loved having her around, especially Jillian who saw in Christina the glamorous professional woman that her mother would never be.

At first I was a little nervous about my boss spending so much time with us. What would happen if something went wrong at work and it carried over into my personal life? Or vice versa? But from the first week when I became her assistant, Christina had treated me more as a partner than as an assistant and by the time the summer wound down she was even taking me out to call on clients. This made me feel very secure about my job anyway.

The biggest surprise I'd had in a year happened one evening in early September while I was sitting at my computer balancing my checkbook. When I logged into my bank's online system, there was a $4,000 deposit in my account.

Apparently the bank had made some sort of mistake, so the next morning when I got to the office I called my local branch to tell them about the error. The assistant manager looked at my account and said, "Um, that deposit was made by your employer. Maybe you should check with your payroll office to see what happened."

So I did. When I called downstairs, the woman I spoke with said, "No. That wasn't a mistake. That was your commission from the Sanders account."

"But I don't work on commission," I protested.

"Well, it's a commission payment," she said. "Check with Ms. Carlson. She's the one who authorized it."

So, I got up and went into Christina's office. She was on the phone, but motioned me to sit, holding up one finger. Sure enough, she was winding up the call, so I didn't' have to wait long.

"Good morning," she said. "What's up?"

"Well," I began. "There's been some sort of payroll error involving me. A couple of days ago the company deposited $4,000 in my checking account and Payroll says it's a commission from the Sanders account."

"That's right," Christina said, her green eyes twinkling. "I wondered how long it would take you to notice."

"But..."

"No buts Megan," she said. "You worked hard for that sale and so it seemed only fair that you get part of the commission."

"But..."

She held up her hand. "I mean it. Don't argue with me."

A wave of pleasure rolled over me then, starting at the top of my head and sending tingles all the way down to my toes. I really needed the money and I had worked hard for that new account.

"Christina," I said. "Thank you. Thank you very much."

"No," she said. "Thank you for all the hard work you put into that account. From now on, you'll be participating in my commissions. We're a team now Megan."

I stood up. What I really wanted to do was hug her, but that didn't seem professional, so I just put my hand out to shake hers. She seemed nonplussed for some reason. It was the first time I could remember seeing her look that way at work. Then her hand closed on mine and we shared a warm handshake, our eyes locked. Again the urge to hug her surged through me, but I fought it off and broke the contact. Then I waltzed out of her office. Commission!

That night I took the kids out to their favorite restaurant and told them they could order anything they wanted, that Mom was loaded, at least for one night. Then I told them all about my commission. They were almost as excited as I was, because maybe it meant we wouldn't be pinching pennies every week of the year. I felt like a million bucks.

With school started back up my life got much busier again. But we still invited Christina over at least a couple of times a month and she insisted on being invited to the kid's events. Mark was playing JV football for the first time and I was very nervous that he was going to get hurt, but Christina soothed me, telling me all about her older brothers and their experiences in football and how neither of them ever got more than a serious bruise. And when his first game rolled around, Christina, the girls and I were all there in the stand cheering him on.

We might have continued that way forever if it hadn't been for Jillian, my oldest. It was a Friday night in early November and I was sitting up in the living room reading, waiting for her to come home from a party. I'd had a couple of glasses of wine while I waited and was feeling relaxed, despite the fact that she had missed her midnight curfew. When she came in ten minutes past midnight, I scowled at her in mock anger, but she knew me too well to take it seriously.

"Sorry Mom," she said, trying to sound exasperated as she shook her mop of dark curly hair. "Billy was driving and he gets lost all the time. I swear, he needs to leave a trail of breadcrumbs behind him when he leaves home."

"Uh-huh," I said, not buying it. Billy was one of only two kids in Jillian's group of friends who had a car he could drive when he wanted to, so he was very popular. But I hadn't ever heard that he had a bad sense of direction.

Jillian came and sat down next to me on the couch then, put her hand on my shoulder and said, "Mom, can I talk to you about something kind of serious?"

"Sure sweetie," I said, turning to face her and tucking one foot under my other leg. "What is it?"

"Actually, it's about you," she said. "You and Christina, I mean."

"Okay," I said, wondering where this was going. I was sure Jillian idolized Christina and so couldn't figure out what could be wrong. Because it was obvious that she was nervous.

"I hate to be the one to break this to you Mom, but if I don't, I'm afraid you'll never figure it out on your own. I mean, you're being pretty thick, you know."

"What?" I asked. "Just say it."

"Okay," she said, smirking just a little. "In case you haven't noticed, Christina is in love with you."

At that moment, you could have knocked me over with a feather. I know my face must have shown my surprise, because Jillian started to giggle.

"Don't worry," she said. "I haven't told anyone. But think about it for a minute. Think about the way she looks at you, the way she wants to just sit with you when we're all doing things together, the way she lights up when you walk into the room. I'm telling you Mom, she's in love with you."

"I seriously doubt it," I said. But my protest was more for form's sake than anything else. As Jillian had been talking it was like a veil had lifted from my eyes. Everything that had happened the past six months seemed so clear to me now. Christina did love me. I knew it the way you know that your children love you. It was there, a powerful and wonderful thing, and I'd been oblivious to it.

"No you don't," she said. "You're just embarrassed to admit it. Mom, it's okay. There's nothing wrong with women loving each other, you know."

"I know," I stammered. "It's just that..."

"Yeah," she giggled again. "You never thought of yourself as being a lesbian, right?"

That word pulled me up short. "I most certainly am not a lesbian," I protested.

And what was my wonderful daughter's response to my protest? She snorted at me. "Uh-huh."

"Now wait a minute. What do you mean by that?" I asked.

"Mom. Get real. I can see can't I? I already told you Christina loves you. And, to be perfectly honest, I can also see that you're in love with her."

"How?"

"The same way I can see it in her. Whenever she's coming over, you get all excited, kind of the way I do before a date. And when she's here, you seem so much happier than you do normally—not that you aren't happy normally, just happier, you know? And I've watched the way the two of you sit at Mark's games. Did you realize you sit with your hips touching?"

"Those bleachers don't have enough room for..."

"Yes they do. You two just touch each other. I know she likes it and I'm betting you do too."

"But..."

"And when was the last time you were in bed with a man anyway Mom?"

"I don't think that's any of your business," I huffed, trying to sound like a mother again.

"Uh-huh. Think about it. The last time you had a date was just before you started working for Christina. Why do you think that is?"

I had to stop then and think about everything my daughter had just said to me. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized she was right. I did love Christina and, if I was honest with myself, I could see the signs that she was attracted to me. Love? I wasn't sure. But attraction without a doubt.

"So?" Jillian asked, finally breaking into my reverie. "Am I right?"

I turned back to face her again and slowly nodded my head. As I did, a big smile broke across her face and before I knew it, I was smiling too, then laughing, and then we were hugging each other. And as my daughter held me in her arms, tears began to leak from my eyes. The first tears of joy I'd cried since Alison first called me "momma."

When we'd acted like two teenagers instead of just one for several minutes, I broke the clench and said to her, "Now what do I do?"

"Hey, don't ask me." She said. "I've never dated a girl before."

I punched her then. "Some help you are."

"Just think of me as a facilitator," she said. "The rest is up to you."

I hugged her again and whispered in her ear. "I love you Jillian and I'm the luckiest mom in the world."

She hugged me back, very tightly. She didn't need to answer with words.

At work on Monday, I was so nervous I thought I might explode. I'd worn what I thought was my best looking outfit and while Christina and I sipped our morning coffee and went over the schedule for the week ahead I was so distracted I could hardly keep track of what she was saying. When we got to Friday, I interrupted her and said, "I was wondering if you'd like to have dinner on Friday."

I'd meant to say "come over for dinner" but somehow, it came out as "have dinner" which sounded a lot more like I was asking her out on a date. Christina looked up from her calendar and our eyes locked in a way they never had before. She saw it in my eyes and I saw it in hers. We both knew. And what did we do? We both welled up.