Chapter 02 - Lunch with Grace

It’s no surprise that I miss Grace before she heads out in the morning. Yeah, my alarm woke me up at five AM with just enough time to catch her before she left, but that snooze button was too easy to hit. Three times. By the time I drag myself out of bed, Grace has gotten ready, taken the train, and been in her office for a couple hours. It serves me well enough as I have time to shit shower and shave and even get a load of laundry in before calling her and seeing if she wants to meet up for lunch. It’s always funny to hear Grace hem and haw and try to get out of meeting up until I tell her that lunch is on me. Then she’s all over it telling me to meet her at Stocks and Blondes, the sports bar near her office.

There are plenty of times that I hate living right next to the Pink line. Having the loud ass train go by every ten minutes or so sounded cool when watching the Blues Brothers but they lied… the train goes by so often that you DO notice. But today isn’t one of those days. Between me stumbling across the street just after the bar closed last night and me stepping outside this morning, the Windy City decided to drop four inches of heavy white snow and that perpetual wind kept it whipping and moving around the street. With the station right next to the apartment though and Grace’s office just steps away from the station in The Loop, I’m hardly outside at all.

Just as the cute bartender is delivering my beer, I catch Grace’s eye when she walks in. As always, she’s dressed as the consummate professional. Even in this weather she’s wearing her ‘professional’ heels that look more like stilettos to me. Her legs look great in those dark stockings while her tight red skirt, silk blouse, and red suit jacket all make her look like a manager or banker or lawyer or some other fancy professional. Even her long tan coat fits her nice and tight, showing off her curves.

We get some strange stares as we meet at a table. I’m sure people are comparing her power look to my beyond casual style of jeans, t-shirt, sneakers, and a ripped-up denim jacket that’s far not nearly warm enough for a Chicago February and wondering if I’m her low rent brother or ex con boyfriend. The fact that Grace is a couple inches taller than me before her heels give her another three inches and the fact that even as svelte as she is, she still has me by like five pounds all give her the look of power in our dynamic.

It would probably shock everybody to realize that we were both in the same piss poor financial position. Sure, we came to our positions in completely different ways, but at the end of the month we both had trouble making rent. We each came into the ‘too poor to afford an apartment of our own’ situation in our own ways. Mine was simple. A young photographer trying to start a career in the windy city spending most of his money on equipment and studio space. Grace was a little better off but still had to pay her massive student loans. She’d taken the job at K Edison Global’s Chicago headquarters because they promised to pay her loans. Like my ditzy models though, she didn’t read the contract. She was locked into a five-year deal, and they’d only pay up AFTER the contract was satisfied. Normal student loans are bad, but she graduated with an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and owed like a quarter of a million dollars even with all the scholarships and grants that she got. Grace’s monthly loan payment was about seventy percent of her net income.

Basically, I don’t make much money where almost all of Grace’s considerable salary goes to her student loans. She had steady money where mine came and went in unpredictable patterns. We actually met at that stupid speed dating event. Technically we shouldn’t have been there as we neither of us read the fine print. I didn’t read that it was for GAY men while Grace didn’t read that it was for gay MEN. We both showed up looking for women and were sorely disappointed in the extensive selection of limp wristed guys. We ended up bonding over the experience of striking out so horribly. When she told me about her apartment just down from my studio and her roommate moving out I jumped at the chance to move in. I’d been evicted from my own apartment three months previous and had been ducking the landlord as I slept in my studio.

We surprised each other by becoming good friends. We had the same sense of justice, the same taste in movies and culture, and had roughly the same sense of humor. We even had the same taste in women and could be each other’s wingman when needed.

As she sits down and orders a sparkling water, I can see that she’s already in a bad mood. I swear, if Grace didn’t have bad luck, she wouldn’t have any luck at all. Therefore, I always try to cheer her up as much as I can. “Hey, I can wipe that grimace off your face. Not only is lunch on me…” I pull out the roll of bills and set it on the table “…I got rent this month. That’ll make up for you covering my half last month!”

Grace picks up the roll of bills and whistles quietly through her teeth in surprise, “Damn Jamie, what bank did you rob?”

Snatching the roll back, I slip it into my pocket, “Hey I make money too! It just so happens that I had three different model shoots this week and one paid full price!

While waving for the waitress Grace huffs and adds, “So in other words you had sex with two of them while one paid full price to NOT have sex with you.”

I’d complain that Grace’s humor hurts sometimes but honestly, it’s the same kind of joke I’d make at her expense if I could. So, I did. “Yes. I had sex with two up and coming fashion models. How was your sex life this week?”

Grace’s glare both said that she hadn’t had any sex this week AND that she was holding back laughter from my barb.

As we ate, Grace enjoying her salad with no dressing, me enjoying my burger, both of us enjoying my fries, Grace told me what was bothering her today. It seems the newest rumor was that someone at her company was embezzling, and not just a little bit. There was a full investigation going on, meaning they all had to make time for interviews. The fact that everybody knew about Grace’s financial difficulties made it so that she was already interviewed twice and could expect a third and probably fourth go soon.

“It’s just not fair. I work harder than most of the women there and harder than ALL the men and yet I still get looked at just because I can’t afford a car or an apartment of my own. I mean, if I was embezzling half the money they talked about, I could afford a condo downtown! They didn’t even bother talking to that guy I told you about, Mr. Orpheus. He’s always in trouble. But since it’s for taking advantage of his secretaries and not financial, they let him pass on this.”

She’d told me about this guy on several occasions, and he just sounded like a grade A jerk. Sexist, misogynist, and all-around arrogant prick. Looking up at the bar I see a woman stride in and am immediately reminded of how he supposedly treats those that work for him since I can’t take my eyes away from her ass. Her skirt looks like it’s straight up painted on as I can see every muscle move and jiggle. Without my eyes leaving this blonde, big tittied, woman, I say, “He’s the one that’s always making his secretary’s dress up like sex objects, right? Is that his secretary over there?”

I can tell Grace looks up and then follows my gaze even though I never stop looking at the hottie. She laughs though while saying, “Her? No, she’s the secretary in HR. I forget her name, but evidently her boss doesn’t make her dress like that, she just likes being eye candy and having everyone gawk at her. I considered asking her out once, but found out that while she likes women just fine she also likes men and had just started seeing her boyfriend seriously. No, Mr. Orpheus’ secretary was just as sexy looking as her, but she was actually smart this time. Inky black hair, big curves, wearing those clothes that show her off to anybody that’s looking. Me and her were hitting it off and I was planning on asking her over to our place sometime soon when Mr. Orpheus screwed it up with another sexual harassment charge. He evidently forcibly kissed her and grabbed her ass or something. She tried to put up a fuss, but the next day she was like every other problem under the Director of Mergers and Acquisitions. She signed an NDA and was gone with I assume a sizable severance package. Or you know, whatever they call hush money now a days.”

I take another swig of beer as my gaze stays on curvy blonde and beautiful while she shimmies her fine ass back out into the cold. When I turn back to Grace and see her equally attracted and annoyed look I turn my attention back to her day. “Hey, I know I’m not part of that whole business life, but why don’t these girls make more of a fuss? I mean, HR at a big firm like yours, even a private one, has to take sexual harassment seriously, right? I’d think that if he’s making them dress up like…” I gesture outside where the HR secretary just left “…that, that alone would be enough to get him fired.”

Grace shakes her head and looks downward, letting her shorter hair fall forward and obscure everything except for her grin, “Paris Jamie Beaufort, you simple simple boy. Yeah, HR takes complaints like that seriously, but the poor girls still have to put their jobs on the line and these guys are true Alphas. They’re like tigers out in the wild without anything stopping them from acting any way they want. Orpheus in particular is like he’s from the 50s and made from Teflon. Nothing sticks to him. I imagine the executives like the fact that he’s all business in that he brings in millions in new accounts. He’s on the fast track to be an exec himself in a few short years. And while this is all pure water cooler gossip, I hear that he’s as vindictive as they come. When one girl came forward with an actual criminal case against him, he showed video of her messing around in his files and got her brought up on corporate espionage. Yeah, they eventually dropped the charges and just fired her outright for cause, but it made her sexual harassment charge look like a petty lie to cover up her bigger problem.”

Grace takes another of my fries and eats half of it as if that’s the saving grace of her diet, “As for making them dress that way, that’s just the corporate culture at K Edison Global. They have a big stake in several fashion houses, so style is a big thing. Technically they can’t **** a dress code like that, but individual managers, directors, and executives can set the tone for their direct subordinates. Orpheus’ department is small but all the guys under him wear nothing but designer suits and come in with multi hundred-dollar haircuts. And yes, his secretaries have to be dressed up to what HE considers to be stylish. Tight skirts, tight blouses, very high heels, big hair. It’s like they’re straight out of Mad Men. I swear, I think that he and several of the executives keep that salon you hate in business. They send their girls there on the corporate card and get their hair styled regularly. I mean, I wouldn’t mind getting that treatment, but I know damned well some of the girls don’t want that high maintenance hair.”

I sit back in my seat, shocked. “You mean Lovely Locks? THAT salon? Damn, yeah I know that place. I used to work with the owner, Katrina Warren. I took some head shots of the girls she worked on and even sent some models to her salon when she first opened up. But she didn’t listen to her clientele and insisted that HER style was the only style. I guess I can see why it’d be popular with your jerk executives though as it’s all about big stylish sexy hair. God, she even colored that one model’s hair… Millie? Yeah, poor Millie. She got a contract specifically because of her deep dark black hair and Katrina ruined it by putting in purple and blue highlights. She billed her almost a thousand dollars for the work even though she cost Millie several hundred in lost income.”

Grace huffs in exasperation, “Well you probably should have sent her our way. She’d have been popular. But seriously, that’s the culture there. The girls in the secretarial pool work HARD to look good for their bosses. Some of these girls won’t ever have a real career and they can earn really good money at K Edison Global, but their entire job is dependent on their boss’s approval. So, if a girl wants to make good money and happens to be assigned to the Director of Acquisitions and Mergers, one Mr. Malachi Orpheus, she’d better tart it up or find work elsewhere.”

Grace checks her watch and sighs before gathering up her purse and putting on her coat. “Thanks for lunch Jamie and thanks for catching rent. I could have covered it again, but this will help since I need to buy some new clothes for the office. Even as a manager I have to tart it up since I got a new boss last week. Hey, not that I mind you coming downtown to visit, but what brings you down in this weather? I know it can’t be for an overpriced burger and salad.”

I shrug into my jacket and fish out my phone to input the walking directions to my next stop. “Well, I’d gladly come down to spend time with my roomie. But you’re right, I have an appointment down here. Remember me talking about my buddy Dr. Gold?”

Grace slips a final fry into her mouth and nods, “Yeah, Steve Gold, right? You guys grew up together or something?”

“Stephen. He doesn’t like Steve. But yes, he’s Dr. Stephen Gold and has been a friend of the family since we were kids. He’s about seven years older than me, though we always palled around. Anyway, he got hired into that cosmetic surgery clinic down here and invited me in for a tour and to talk about that problem I have. I doubt I can afford to get it fixed, but it’s nice to at least hear what he has to say.”

Grace and I hug before parting ways. She only has to step down the street to get to her big corporate tower while I have to traverse a dozen blocks in what’s turning out to be a real winter storm.