Where Would I Be Without You - By CJ Hawk Page 0,102
seemed rather inquisitive. I hoped the rest of the town was not as nosey, as I really wanted to get over my recent failure and setback as I was internally calling it. Trying to figure out the next step in my career was rather foggy as I didn’t see myself moving back to Utah to live with my mom and working in Denver, in property lawsuits, might run me into Mr. Hugh Finley, the hoodwink.
Nope, pulling out the US map after drinking the two hundred bottle of wine, I snuck out of Finley’s finest liquor cabinet, held only for his best paying clients, felt like the right thing to do. When I covered my hand over my eyes and used my other hand to roll circles over the map, I counted to ten with a pointed finger and landed on Hope Springs Falls, WY. After several minutes of drunken giggles, I pulled the city up on-line and found a real estate agent that lived in the next town over. Now I was miles from nowhere and renting from the local prom queen. Somehow, I felt more alive than I had in a long time.
With the rapid succession of Mr. Walker’s questions, I answered as few as possible with the least amount of information. I had better spend some time getting a story together while I was here otherwise my stay might be the talk of the town.
‘Newcomer to Hope Springs Falls finds her boss bopping his secretary just after he promised her partnership when he last bopped her, more at nine.’ I could envision the local news now. My friggin life, for all to chat about, while I wallow in tears of pity.
I never imagined I would be in this type of predicament, but hightailing it away from Hugh was my best option. Because something about him made me feel secure and comfortable until he dropped the bombshell idea that he marries miss quite contrary, but that I stay on and make partner, and be his mistress. At some point, I even considered myself in love with that man. However, at the drop of his offer that all changed. I was just afraid that if I stayed anywhere close to him; I might actually consider committing a crime I might not want to pay for.
Three days of packing and planning and I started to see the light. How I always fell for the smooth talkers, the handsome men who could lead me astray from my independent ways. Now I was not going to make that mistake again. At the early age of thirty, I could easily rebuild my career elsewhere and think about marriage and kids much later. A lot of women my age were doing it more and more. For me, it only made sense.
I wanted kids, but I wanted a career first and having kids without a good-paying career under foot was not an option for me. I watched my mom, scrimp, save and work three jobs to make ends meet. As far as my father went, I only knew him as a man who made a mistake. It was not until my thirtieth birthday that my mother took the time to explain the rape and physical damage the man left on my mom. That what kept my mom alive all those days in the hospital recovering, was the fact that she found out she was pregnant. With that fact, my mother told me that hope had sprung within her, and that she had decided from the moment she found out, if her baby was a girl, she would name her Hope. Knowing this was a sign from an angel that sometimes good can come from the bad.
Right now, I was hoping the fact that my fancy manicured nail landed right on this Mayberry town and sharing its name meant one thing, there was hope for my future.
Now I could only put all the facts of my hard-lived life together six months ago and oddly enough, that was when my affair with my boss began. I wondered if it was a way for me to escape the horror that my biological father was a monster, or if I felt the need to create some roots of my own. In either case, I now knew that Hugh Finley was definitely not fathering material, and I was going to heal my soul and make the best of a bad situation by creating a plan to move on.