All In My Head Ch. 06

There was a group of 10 people, I think the main Kelloggs team. There was more talking about how great Scott was, and toasts to congratulate him, and a lot of gossip about work. I felt like a complete third wheel.

At one point Jen announced to everyone my Sapphire project had launched. "Oh yeah, how's that going bro?" Scott said, not sounding very interested.

There wasn't a lot I could say. I mean, Sapphire wasn't something sexy like the Facebook IPO. Sapphire worked in the background, slowly at first, and my projections didn't have it showing any results for a few weeks.

I stumbled over my answer. Everyone gave me a half-hearted toast, and then their attention quickly returned to Scott and office gossip. Jen squeezed my hand and whispered "I'll make it up to you." But she quickly returned to their group discussion too, focusing a lot of her attention again on Scott.

I went to the bathroom. Passing the bar, I glanced at the TV. Anderson Cooper on CNN was doing a short blurb on this new investment vehicle called Sapphire. It made me feel a little better.

The dinner wound down and people started to leave. Scott whispered something to Jen. She whispered something back, shaking her head. They whispered some more.

She came over to me. I expected her to tell me she wanted to go home with Scott. That's what she would have done during the Ricky thing. But instead she took my arm and said "Ready freddie?"

I was quiet on the taxi ride home. I felt really hurt, this was my big day. Okay, it was Scott's big day too, but who was her husband?

"Sorry about that," she said. She squeezed my hand.

"Don't worry about it," I said. I didn't pull my hand away, but I didn't squeeze back.

"I guess I got caught up with being with everyone," she tried to explain. "We haven't gone out as a group in a while."

"Sure," I said. I pulled my hand away and looked out the window. We rode the rest of the way in silence.

In our apartment I gave her the silent treatment. Sure, it was childish, but it gave me some satisfaction.

"Mike, I'm sorry," she said. When I didn't respond, she said frustrated "Will you talk to me?"

I took a few deep breaths to calm myself. Then I looked at her. "You know what I've figured out?" I said. "You may love me. But you're completely infatuated with him. So if it's a choice between him and me, you always pick him."

"That's not true Mike. He wanted me to go home with him but I told him no."

I stared at her in amazement. "He asked you, today of all days?" I asked. "Yeah, he's really a nice guy Jen."

"Mike the point is--"

I held up my hand, interrupting her. "I don't care Jen. Don't do me any favors. If you want to be with him tonight, then go. I have to work anyway."

I walked into the home office. I was hurt, jealous, and angry. To do something, I accessed the Sapphire server and ran through the logs and diagnostics. I raised an eyebrow at some of the numbers. It looked kind of strange. Not a big deal, but a little off. An anomaly.

Jen came in. She wedged herself between me and the computer. "I want to be here, with you," she said rubbing her stockinged leg against my hand. "I'm sorry about tonight. You know Callie and Val, right? They were there tonight? They've been in London since last year, and just got reassigned here last week. I guess I was excited to see them, but we should've gone to dinner ourselves, I was wrong." She rubbed her knee against my hand again. "It's your day baby. Let me make it up to you."

All my hurt, jealousy and anxiety came out. "It's my day unless Scott's around, right?" I said in a cold bitter voice. "Then it's his big day."

Her shoulders fell, as if in frustration, and maybe a little panic. She was used to getting her way using her pretty face and sexy body. "Mike, what do I have to do to convince you I love you?" Frustration and impatience were in her voice. "Okay, I admit, I was happy about Scott's promotion. But Scott's my friend, I have a lot of guy friends, it's never bothered you before."

I shook my head incredulously. How could she not see the difference? "You weren't fucking those guys Jen," I said glaring at her.

She looked distressed, like my words were a physical blow. "I told you I'd break it off with him," she said.

"Yeah, like that worked with Ricky," I said to her sarcastically. We were silent for a few moments. In a more reasonable tone I said, "It's not your fault, I wanted this as much as you. But this thing between you and him just has to work its way through. Sometimes though, you're not going to be able to make it better for me. I'll just have to deal with it."

A little later in bed she reached for me, like she wanted makeup sex. I pushed her away, saying "I'm really tired and tomorrow's going to be a long day," I told her.

"Okay," she said resigned. She rolled over on her side. I rolled over the other way.

By silent agreement we called a truce after that. For a while she stopped hooking up with Scott, but then she started up again. Not as much as before, every other week maybe. Things got better between us, I guess. We talked and made love, but I felt my birthday was the high point of our closeness since before Ricky. We felt disconnected, a rift between us.

Or maybe it was me. I guess I was scared. I was afraid she was getting tired of my insecurity, my back-and-forth between jealousy and excitement, my weakness, my moodiness. On the one hand she had me, with all those many faults. On the other she had Scott, who was handsome, charming, charismatic, a karaoke-god and "freaking brilliant." Why not cut her loses with me and move over to the winning team? We didn't have kids. We owned our apartment but we could easily sell it. She made a lot of money in her job. It was clear Scott wanted her, not just her body, but all of her. Why not cut me loose and go with someone who rocked her world?

I figured she wouldn't ask for a divorce right away. She'd tell me we needed some time apart. Maybe she'd pitch it like it was for my benefit, to give me space to concentrate on Sapphire. She'd let me stay in the apartment to make it easy on me, and she'd move in with Allie. Maybe she'd suggest we have dinner a few times a week, to stay connected. She'd see Scott of course, so she could work out her feelings for him. But really, what did she have to work out? It was clear she wanted him more than me. She'd shown that.

One night Jen excited told me Johnny (her boss) had assigned her to lead a new project. They were going to pitch for Google's on-line advertising work. This was way bigger than Kelloggs, it was so big 3 directors would manage it. Jen would lead the team, and Allie would be her second.

"Johnny put Scott on my team too," she told me, a little hesitantly.

Of course, I thought to myself. Now they'd be spending even more time together. But I put on a brave face and didn't show my anxiety. "Baby I'm so proud of you!" I said. And I really was proud of her. I took her to a really nice dinner to celebrate. But inside I felt even more anxiety.

A few weeks later, on Saturday, I had to go into the office to work on Sapphire. Jen was okay with that because she had to work on Google for a while. We agreed to meet later that afternoon.

I met with Steve, Brian and Elaine. The anomaly was still in the Sapphire numbers, and I wanted to brainstorm to figure out what it was and what it could mean. The number crunchers in SF had noticed the anomaly too, and they were analyzing it. I wanted to figure out what it was before anyone else.

We made some progress. We decided to go to lunch and then call it a day. After all, it was probably no big deal. Sapphire was starting to make money. In fact its performance was running very close to my projections. So we decided to go to lunch for a little celebration.

The trendy mid-town restaurant was busy. As we waited in line, my heart jumped when I saw Jen ahead of us, also waiting for a table. Scott was with her.

She looked super hot. She wore cutoff jean shorts that barely covered her tight butt and showed off her shapely legs. She wore a snug short sleeve top that buttoned up the front. She finished the outfit with ankle high boots, which emphasized how long her legs were. She looked extremely cute and very sexy too.

As they waited in line, she and Scott were talking and laughing in a very relaxed familiar way. His hand moved to her back while they spoke. Then he curled a finger in her back pocket to bring her closer to him, and said something to her. She smiled and said something back. She didn't make him take his finger out of her pocket. The way they acted was the way a boyfriend and girlfriend would act.

I looked nervously at my team. Steve and Brian both knew Jen. Luckily they weren't looking that way.

Jen was laughing at something Scott said, and she turned my way. Her laugh caught as she saw me. Scott looked where she was looking and saw me. He scowled. The asshole scowled at me! Jen subtlety removed Scott's hand from her ass.

She came to me and gave me a kiss. "What a great surprise!" she said hugging me. She gave hello hugs to Steve and Brian, who she knew. I introduced her to Elaine. She smiled at Elaine and gave her a hug too, but there was wariness there.

We got a big table for all of us. At first Scott was the life of the party again as usual, telling interesting stories. But then Jen asked my team about Sapphire. They were so excited they talked over each other. They talked about how Sapphire was a brilliant idea, how it would not only make a lot of money for us and our clients, but also make the market more transparent and predictable that the public would trust Wall Street again.

Scott looked bored. Jen squeezed my hand, proud of me.

"I'm sorry for the touchy-feely thing," Jen said when we were alone after lunch. "They didn't see did they?"

"I thought you were working on Google," I said.

"I did – he's on my team, remember?"

"You don't look dressed for work," I said looking at her short shorts and sexy boots.

"I dressed for you!" she said.

"Does he always touch you like that in public?"

"No – I guess he was frisky today."

"It's not like you stopped him," I accused her.

"Mike, stop," she said grabbing me. "We've both been so busy. Let's not fight okay?"

I took a deep breath. "You're right, I'm sorry." I hugged her. "I guess I'm stressed about work."

"Is everything alright?"

I thought of the anomaly. But I said, "Yeah, just a lot to do."

We had a nice day and we made love that night, but still everything wasn't right between us.

We hardly saw each other because of our jobs, and when we did it felt like we were both walking on egg shells. Each time I saw her I was afraid she'd say something like, "Mike, we need to talk, this isn't working for me, I'm not feeling it ..."

A week later Jen told me she had to go to Vegas that weekend. Google execs were at a big tradeshow at the Venetian and this was a good chance for networking. "Allie and Scott will be going with me," she said.

"Okay," I said, feeling my stomach tighten up.

Then she delivered the bombshell. "It's Scott's birthday this weekend. I'd like to ... hang out with him."

When had "hang out" become "fuck his brains out"?

"Okay," I said again, feeling numb. What else could I say? They'd be together all weekend, they'd do it no matter what I said.

She rubbed my arm. "Are you okay? I won't if you don't want me to, it's not a big deal."

I shrugged. "I'm okay with it," I lied. What was the point?

She eyed me. "You look upset. Good upset? Bad upset?"

I forced a smile. "I'm not upset at all," I said lying again.

That night she tried to seduce me. That's how I started thinking of it. Seduce me to make me feel better, so she wouldn't feel guilty being with Scott. Deep down I knew it was unfair, but I couldn't help thinking it, I was hurting too much.

I gave her the "I'm too tired excuse" again. In bed she rolled her way and I rolled mine.

Then on Thursday the shit hit the fan.

We got the latest performance data on Sapphire. Its return was lower than my projection. Not a lot, but moving down. It didn't make sense.

Then Brian, Steve and Elaine came into my office. Their faces looked like death. "What's wrong?" I asked.

"The brainiacs just called about the anomaly," Elaine said.

"Okay, what?" I asked.

Just then Eric burst in. "Mike, my office, now!" he practically shouted.

Eric closed the door as we walked into his office. Old man Jacob and three other powerful partners were there, Moe, Larry, and Curly (that wasn't really their names, but everyone called them that behind their back). The number crunchers were there via video conference. So were partners in Chicago and London. This did not look good.

"Have you seen the anomaly analysis?" Moe demanded.

I shook my head. "We just received it."

"Well let us enlighten you!" Larry yelled. "Sapphire doesn't fucking work!"

"This is a disaster," Curly said putting his head in his hands. "A fucking disaster."

The number crunchers said the fundamentals of Sapphire were all wrong. That was the reason for the anomaly. The brainiacs said the problem was with the alpha progression, it was all wrong, a major fuck up. But it was clear the brainiacs didn't know what they were talking about. They hadn't figure out what was wrong. I hadn't either so I couldn't defend myself.

"This is a fucking nightmare!" a Chicago partner yelled. "This is worse than Enron, worse than the home mortgage scam, worse than the auto bailout!"

A partner from London said "Sapphire is a farce. Our clients will lose everything – tens, hundreds of millions. Expect law suits gentlemen."

Always the pessimist, Curly nodded his head, resigned. "People are going to jail over this."

Jacob held up his hand, and everyone stopped talking. "Calm down," he said. "This can be managed, as long as we are proactive. Mike, who is in charge of the alpha progression?"

"It's a team effort," I said immediately.

Jacob frowned at my answer. One of the brainiacs said, "Brian is in charge of Alpha, and Steve assisted."

Larry knew where Jacob was going. "Fire Brian right now," Larry ordered me.

A Chicago partner said, "That won't be enough. Steve needs to go too."

"You're right," Larry said nodding. "Mike, fire Brian and Steve right now, today," he ordered me. "Fire that kid too, the blonde with the big tits, what's her name, Elaine?"

"I worked on Alpha too," I said.

"Mike, your job is safe," Eric said reassuringly. "Everyone still believes Sapphire was a brilliant idea. You still have a great future here."

All the partners nodded, agreeing with Eric. Old man Jacob nodded too, and said "It's not your fault. Your team let you down Mike. Brian, Steve and Elaine need to go."

I thought of Brian and Steve, guys I'd worked with for years. They were my friends. Their careers would be severely damaged if they were fired over this. I thought of Brain's 2 kids, his wife pregnant with their third. How would he support them? And Elaine was just starting out in her career. Could she recover from something like this?

I looked Jacob in the eye. "No sir," I said.

"What did you say?" Jacob said in a low dangerous voice.

"That's not the way to do it sir," I said. "I can fix Sapphire. But I need my entire team to do that."

"It can't be fixed," one of the brainiacs said.

"Fire them right now!" Larry growled.

I stared down the brainiac, somehow maintaining my cool. "You looked at Sapphire weeks ago and blessed it. You say Sapphire is broken but you can't explain why. Why aren't you being fired?"

Then I glared at Larry, but I still managed to keep my voice level. "I'm team leader. Fire me if you want. Only cowards look for scapegoats to save their own skin. "

There was a gasp in the room. No one talked to partners like that. I knew my career was over no matter what happened with Sapphire.

Old man Jacob eyed me, an amused interested look. He said "You have until Monday morning, before the markets open." Then he added "If Sapphire is not fixed by then there will be dire consequences." It wasn't a threat, more like a statement of fact.

"Yes sir," I said. I turned and left. As I did Eric was shaking his head. I went into my office and closed the door. My hands were shaking and I found it hard to breath. I felt the world crashing down on me.

There was a knock, and my team walked in. "How it go?" Brian asked.

I needed to see Jen. She was flying to Vegas tonight. We'd kissed goodbye that morning, but she planned to stop by our apartment on the way to the airport.

"I'll be back in an hour," I told Brian. "Be here when I get back, all of you."

Jen was finishing packing when I got home. "This is a surprise," she said kissing me.

I hugged her. I had an urge to pack a bag and take her away, fly to Europe or something, away from Scott, away from Sapphire. But I had to stay. I had to fix Sapphire, if only for Brian, Steve and Elaine.

"Are you okay?" she said worried, looking into my face.

"Yeah," I lied. "I just wanted to see you before you left."

"I'm glad you did," she said smiling running her hand up my chest. Looking at my face she frowned again. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine," I lied.

"You know, about Scott--"

I interrupted her. "It's okay, it's his birthday, I'm good with it."

She was about to say something when my cell rang. It was Eric. "Mike, where the hell are you?" he said sounding panicked.

"Jen's going to Vegas for work," I explained.

"Then give her a kiss goodbye and get your ass back here!" he said the panic rising.

"I've got to get back," I told her.

"Okay," she said. "It'll wait until I get back. I'll be home Sunday night." She looked at me concerned. "Is everything alright at work?"

"Yeah, everything's fine," I lied. I kissed her and then hugged her really tight. I didn't want to let her go. Then her taxi arrived and we broke way.

"See you Sunday baby," she said kissing me. "I'll call you okay?"

"Okay," I agreed, forcing a smile.

In the taxi back to the office, I imagined the next few days. I'd probably get fired no matter what happened with Sapphire. But hopefully I could save Steve, Brian and Elaine's jobs, and make back some of the money for our clients so they wouldn't be financially ruined.

Would Jen stay with me if I got fired? I'd have a hard time finding another job with the Sapphire fiasco. Why wouldn't she jump ship to Scott? She clearly had feelings for him. He was better looking, a better lover, and he'd have a good job and bright future, unlike me. I'd be damaged goods. Why would a girl as beautiful as Jen want to stay with a loser like me?

My team and I worked all evening, and then again Friday. It didn't make sense. Everything worked. We checked and re-checked. We couldn't find any bugs. Yes, the anomaly was there, and it seemed to be coming from the Alpha module, but we couldn't figure out why. I personally went through the Alpha software line by line and couldn't see any bugs. What the hell was going on?

Jen called Thursday night. She was surprised I was still at the office. I was still there when she called Friday morning. "Is everything okay?" she asked.

"Yeah," I lied. I didn't want to tell her what was going on. If she told Scott and Allie, they'd use this failure as another way to belittle me in her eyes. I'd wait to tell her when she was back home.

There was always a lot of background noise when she called, a lot of partying. It was Vegas after all. I heard Scott in the background, talking over me as I tried to talk to her. More than once Jen giggled and said on the phone to me, "I've got to go honey, call you later."

I imagined her tossing the phone into her purse, me already forgotten. She'd walk off laughing with him, looking into his eyes, his arm around her or holding his hand, getting closer and closer to him.