her.
“Oh, I’m in the ladies room. It’s the only place where I can have some semblance of privacy at this place.”
Leaning against the cold drink dispenser, I can’t argue with that. “You know as much as I do. We went back and forth e-mailing this morning. She was asking if her job offer was still available. She wouldn’t answer any of my questions about Stephan. I guess we’ll need to wait to hear about it when she gets back.”
I try to remember back to when Juliette was breaking up with Chris. Was she one of those friends who was tight lipped, or did she regal us on every detail? All I can remember is her frustration that the only thing he ever talked about was gaming.
At lunch I tell Kami and Caroline about Juliette while Caroline tells us about this guy she met, Jeremy. Of course she jumped into the sack with him right away, and now she’s starting on her cyber stalking routine and sending him too many texts, sexts, and e-mails.
“Caroline, have you ever thought that maybe you should give the guy some room? Let him contact you,” I say.
She looks at me annoyed before responding, “Then he might not follow up.”
“Then you dodged a bullet, since he’s not that into you.”
Angrily she spits back, “We slept together, he was very interested in me.”
“Maybe you should wait until he shows more interest before you sleep with him.”
She purses her lips before responding, “You have too many old fashioned Indian notions.”
Thinking back to my encounter with Gray last year, I figure it’s not worth getting into a ridiculous argument. I drop it, wondering when she’s going to wise up.
Chapter 28 - Thor
A week or so later, Savi Skyps me with a big smile on her face all excited about her romantic honeymoon in the Virgin Islands. She actually says, “They’re not virgin anymore.” Not wanting any more details than that, since I didn’t think she was a virgin to start off with, I make a quick exit off the call.
***
Juliette flies back to the Bay Area and starts working a couple of days later. After so many years as my study partner, I hope Roger eventually puts us on the same project. Juliette fits right in. She joins Kami, Caroline, and me for lunch. Our lunch group soon expands again as we meet Jessica at one of our corporate meetings, and Juliette invites her to join us at lunch. Jessica is responsible for ordering and managing all our corporate apparel. I’m hoping that knowing her will help influence some of the free stuff we get. I’m getting tired of guy sized T-shirts and polo shirts, though I get a lot of use out of the hoodies, and my favorite swag to date is my cycling helmet. Jessica invites Megan, a funky web designer she rides with on the bus down from San Francisco, to join us at lunch. They round out our lunch group bringing in some alternative points of view and experiences.
A big bug hits our product. Roger assigns the two most recent hires to support Jim and Mark, the senior guys tasked with fixing the bug. I silently cheer that Juliette is now in the group since I have more seniority and am not stuck running their stupid test suites. Impressively, Juliette maneuvers the situation so Rajive has to work with Jim, an insufferably arrogant guy, while she gets to work with mellow Mark. Working with Mark sporadically pulls Juliette out of the lunch group.
On a day when Juliette’s locked in a conference room with Mark, Terri walks by. Megan’s eyes narrows as she says, “I hate that bitch.”
Kami responds, “Strong feelings or what?”
Shooting Kami a narrow look she continues, “I was friendly with Samantha. She worked in finance. There was this guy. I’m not kidding, his name was Thor, and he was this gorgeous, tall, blond Scandinavian guy. We all called him Eric Northman, though I don’t know why we needed to give him a different hot Scandinavian name since Thor is a rather hot Scandinavian name on its own.”
Kami breaks in, “Megan, you lost me, what does Thor and Samantha have to do with Terri?”
Megan grinds her teeth before answering, “Samantha was nice, real cute, olive complexion, dark hair, Greek, or maybe Italian heritage.”
Kami starts rolling her hands. “And this is pertinent to Terri how?”
Megan refocuses. “Okay, well, Thor had this thing for Samantha, but it turns out that Terri had her eye on Thor.