When God Closes a Door

Once again, I'd like to thank "Bill" for his thoughts, help, and support.

*

Sitting in jail gives you a lot of time to reflect on your own stupidity. However, I wasn't reflecting on anything except hatred. I was focused on the hatred I had for my boss, my soon-to-be ex-wife Carol, and the hatred for myself for being so fucking stupid.

My name is Michael Arnold. And when I say I was stupid, I mean stupid with a capital S. I was stupid as in the clueless husband who didn't know that his wife was cheating on him. And she was cheating on him with the man I hated most in my life, my boss, Jacob Sanders. I was also stupid because I didn't know that the cheating bitch was pregnant with his child. Stupid me thought the baby was mine.

I guess my wife being pregnant is what precipitated the "honey we need to talk" speech. I suppose I should back up a bit and do a little explaining. Strange as it may seem, my current problems actually started in the first grade.

I first came to know and eventually hate Jacob Sanders when we both entered the first grade together. We have been enemies since he made fun of my freckles. That was the first of many fights. That one ended in a draw as a teacher dragged us apart. I had a bloody nose, and he had a black eye. Over the first eight years of school, Jacob and I averaged about three fights a year, with the third grade being the worst; we had seven fights. However, in the eighth grade, we only had one for a good reason. I kicked the shit out of him.

I didn't want anything to do with Jacob, and I tried to stay away from him, but he wouldn't leave me alone. For some reason, he was jealous of me and was constantly trying to outdo me. He tried to get better grades than me in each of our classes. He was better at science and literature. I was better at math and history. The rest of the subjects, we were about the same. In sports, Jacob was a pretty good athlete, but I was a little better. Nevertheless, if I went out for a sport, Jacob went out for the same one and tried to outdo me.

The fights stopped, as I mentioned, after eighth-grade when Jacob realized that he couldn't beat me. Then he started trying to embarrass me or get me in trouble. He almost got me expelled and arrested while we were in high school. It was in our sophomore year when someone broke into the school and graffitied the hallways. The authorities found my student ID next to an empty spray can in the dumpster. The only thing that saved me was the fact that I'd noticed my ID was missing out of my wallet the day before and reported it.

I knew it had to be Jacob because I had seen him walking away from my locker after practice one day when I came out of the shower. I figured he was up to no good, so I checked everything in the locker. When I got to my wallet, I checked my cash first and then went through the rest of it. That's when I noticed my ID was gone. I went immediately to the front office and reported it.

One time, Jacob had a fart noisemaker. He had put the device in the desk I was sitting at and triggered it. The fart sound blasted through the class, and then Jacob began holding his nose and waving his hand.

"Mike, what did you have for lunch?" he chortled.

The class laughed, but I used the old standby. "He who smelt it dealt it."

The class exploded with renewed laughter, which brought a warning from Miss Wormwood that if Jacob and I continued to disrupt the class, we'd be spending time in detention. Being laughed at and then chastised by our teacher infuriated Jacob. He turned bright red but said nothing.

Besides attempting to get me expelled and perhaps even arrested, Jacob's efforts were more annoying than anything. For the majority of things, I didn't care if he was better than me. Outside of the normal teenage insecurities, I was pretty comfortable with who I was. However, there was one area that I did care about, and that was girls.

Both of us were reasonably good-looking. However, Jacob's family was wealthy, which gave him the edge with the girls in school. He had his own car in the eleventh grade, and it wasn't an old clunker. His parents bought him a BMW Z4, which was a fifty-thousand-dollar car. How could I compete with that?

As it turned out, I was good-looking enough to get my fair share of dates. On the other hand, Jacob was dating the cheerleaders and the girls in the "in-crowd." I figured they were out of my league anyway, so I didn't care. However, he wasn't satisfied with his rarified success with the girls. He had to try to rub my nose in his success. If I dated a girl more than once, Jacob would swoop in and start dating that girl. And it didn't take long for her to drop me.

Even there, for the most part, I didn't care. I wasn't going steady with any of the girls, so if they wanted to date Jacob, it was no skin off my nose. Yet, there was one girl that I really did like. Her name was Sandy Springer, and she was smart, funny, and pretty. So, when I started dating her, I took her to out-of-the-way places so that Jacob wouldn't know that I was interested. After a couple of months of dating, we decided to go steady. I thought if Sandy was wearing my class ring, I was safe. Remember when I mentioned that I was stupid. I was stupid all the way back then too.

With the senior prom coming up, I just assumed that Sandy and I would be going together. I should have asked her right away, but I'm not sure that would have done any good. Anyway, after I purchased the tickets, I mentioned it to Sandy at lunch. She got red and said that she had accepted an invitation from Jacob to go with him. I demanded and got my ring back. Then I left Sandy sobbing in the cafeteria. I never spoke to her again.

I was so pissed at Sandy that I was looking to rip someone's head off. Instead, I saw Pam Taylor, the captain of the cheerleader's squad, and Jacob's supposed girlfriend. Under normal circumstances, I would never have dared approach her.

"Hey, Pam," I said cheerfully, "how are you doing?"

"I'm doing good. How about you, Michael?" She responded. Pam was gorgeous, but she wasn't stuck up.

"I'm doing okay," I said, figuring that I had nothing to lose. "Say, would you like to go to the prom with me?"

"That's very sweet of you to ask," she said kindly, "but I'm going with Jacob."

"Oh," I feigned ignorance. "I must have misunderstood because I just heard that Jacob asked Sandy Springer. I must have got it wrong. Yeah, forget I said I said anything. I'm sure I heard it wrong."

I left Pam flustered and talking to herself. I heard later that she and Jacob had a huge blowup. Maybe he had stolen Sandy from me, but I had messed up his romance with Pam. It wasn't totally satisfying, but it was better than nothing. But later that afternoon, it got a whole lot better.

"Michael," Pam called to me as I was leaving school.

"Hey, Pam," I continued playing innocent. "I'm sorry about upsetting you earlier."

"Cut the crap, Michael," Pam's eyes narrowed. "I found out that you were going steady with Sandy, and that creep, Jacob, stole your girlfriend."

My ears burned red. I had been busted. "Yeah, I'm sorry. I was just trying to get back at Jacob. I'm sorry you got caught in the crossfire."

"Were you serious about taking me to the prom?"

"Do bears," I started to say, "never mind. Yes, I would be thrilled if I could escort you to the prom."

"Good, because I want payback," Pam said. "And if you play your cards right, it could be a very memorable night."

The prom turned out the be a true highlight for me. Not only did I get to take the best-looking girl in school to the prom, but she made me feel like a prince. Pam was all over me. I reveled in the looks on the other guy's faces. They couldn't believe that she was there with me. And Jacob, I don't know what he thought was going to happen, but it definitely wasn't having his girlfriend out on a date with me. I think Jacob thought Pam might go to the prom as one of the football players' date but certainly not me. His eyes almost popped out of his head when he saw us come into the gym.

Throughout the night, he tried to insert himself between Pam and me. He tried to get her to leave me and sit at his table. Pam shut him down. He asked her to dance numerous times, but Pam wouldn't give him the time of day. I really felt sorry for Sandy because she realized that Jacob had used her. Sandy finally broke down crying and had her parents pick her up. I still feel a little bad about that even now, but she made her choice and had to live with it.

After the prom, Jacob still tried to get Pam away from me. I was smart enough to know that I was playing the part of Cinderella, and by tomorrow, Pam would probably be back with Jacob. But for tonight, I was going to play my part as far as it would go. And it led to a local motel where I had sex with the best-looking girl in school.

When I dropped Pam off, she kissed me deeply and told me what a great guy I was. I went home floating on a cloud. But as I expected, by the following Monday, Pam and Jacob were a couple again. Still, I would smirk at Jacob whenever we passed in the hall.

Graduation came, and most of us scattered to our college of choice. I was sorry to be leaving my hometown and scared about the unknown, but I wasn't sorry to be parting ways with Jacob forever, or at least I thought so. I had been accepted at Georgia Tech while Jacob was going to Harvard. Of course, he was going to Harvard. His grandfather had a building named after him there.

I did well at Georgia Tech, majoring in software design. And it was at a mixer during my junior year at Tech that I met Carol. I'm not going to bore you with the details of how we courted, fell in love, and got married. Well, in truth, I think at the beginning we were more really good friends than truly in love. Needless to say, our story wasn't that memorable, and it's all irrelevant now anyway.

I will say this about Carol; she was smart. She was a business major at the University of Georgia. I liked her because she was not only smart, she was also funny and very friendly. However, Carol wasn't super-hot-looking. She was pretty in the girl next door kind of look. In truth, Carol couldn't hold a candle to Pam, but she was about as pretty as Sandy. For whatever reason, we clicked.

We got married three months after we graduated, and for our five years of marriage, I thought we were pretty happy. Even though we were more friends than lovers when we got married, by the third year of our union, I was totally in love with Carol, and I believe she was equally in love with me. We were even talking about starting a family. Little did I know that my wife had kind of jumped the gun on that and started one without me.

Right out of school, I got a job with Zabba Security Software, a small start-up company. I had graduated at the top of my class, so I had my choice of jobs. The two brothers at Zabba sold me a bill of goods about being on the ground floor and making a fortune. However, don't get me wrong, the company did very well. The firm prospered, and we turned out quality work for some very large companies. I was also paid a tidy six-figure salary. Our job was to find holes in the company's software security and plug them. Our reputation was growing, but then the brothers decided to cash out. Surprisingly to me, we were acquired by a firm roughly the same size as Zabba, and that's when my problems began.

About three years after I started working for Zabba, Carol wanted to find a new job. As it happened, Zabba was looking for an office manager. So, Carol applied and was hired. I was a little worried about both of us working for the same company, but it turned out fine at first. We used to carpool and have lunch together. We were in completely different departments and areas, so we rarely saw each other during the day. We drove to work together, gave each other a kiss, and went to our departments. If we were both free, which was most days, we ate lunch together and then carpooled home at the end of the day. It worked well for us until it all went to shit.

Before I tell you about the acquisition, let me tell you about my department. I was the senior programmer, which meant that I worked on projects myself and oversaw the work schedule for the other eight programmers that reported to me. But my main responsibility was to troubleshoot any problems that my team couldn't handle by themselves. Fortunately, those were few, which meant our customers were very satisfied.

Our workspace was about the size of half a basketball court. We called it the "bullpen," and we worked mostly at standup desks. The room was filled with all kinds of computers, servers, interfaces, and printers. We had just about all the computer hardware you could ever want. We took pride in making our customer's systems as safe as possible. In the five years I've worked for the company, we've only had one complaint where a customer's system was hacked. But we traced the hack back to one of the company's employees. He had disabled much of the software we had installed. The employee wasn't very clever, but he did cause us a sleepless night.

In addition to the nine of us, we had an administrative assistant, Kimberly. She was like our "Girl Friday." She prepared any correspondence or memos we needed. She kept track of our supplies and made sure we never ran out of anything. Kimberly also prepared our monthly reports and kept track of our billing hours. Strange as it may seem, much of our work was done, initially, with pencil and paper. This gave the programmer an overview before he started entering anything into the computer. Somehow, Kimberly was able to decipher everyone's handwriting and typed up the notes for our files. Even though it wasn't part of her job description, Kimberly made the best damn coffee for us every morning.

Kimberly was about twenty-three or four, I would guess. She had short blonde hair, deep hazel eyes, a very pretty face, but she was about fifty pounds overweight. When you consider that Kimberly was only five foot five, that was a lot of weight for her to carry. Even though she had a beautiful face, her large stomach and rear end immediately destroyed the image. I knew that Kimberly was sensitive about her weight because she always talked about how fat she was. I cringed every time she did that, but I understood it was just her defense mechanism. All I cared about was that Kimberly was damn good at her job and an asset to my team.

The fact that Zabba had been acquired came out of the blue. The two Zabba brothers didn't even have the courage to tell the employees in person. They had their lawyer make the announcement. I was pissed because all the stock options that the brothers had promised when they went public went up in smoke with the announcement. Aside from that, I didn't know what to make of the change. Carol was as upset and confused by the news as I was, but she was the one who convinced me to stay the course until we saw what the new owners would do.

They sent a Senior Vice President in to supervise the transition. He concentrated in the main office at the beginning. Zabba had grown from five employees when I joined the firm to over a hundred and fifty. From what I heard, the man from the new corporate headquarters would start in the accounting department. Then he was going to work his way through the entire company. It wasn't the second day that I learned that the VP reviewing Zabba Security Software was none other than Jacob Sanders.

However, at the same time, I learned that Jacob was heading up the transition; I also learned that to bring our pay scales in line with the parent company. My pay would be raised by thirty-five thousand dollars, and Carol's was going up fifteen thousand dollars. My internal alarm told me to run, not walk to the nearest exit. However, Carol convinced me we'd be foolish to walk away from our present jobs, especially after the pay increases. Besides, she pointed out, Jacob would only be there six months at the most, and then he'd be gone.

The first change came when four new programmers were hired and assigned to the "bullpen." Of course, they were all Harvard men, but none of them was a tenth as good as anyone on my existing team. Not only were they subpar programmers, but they were arrogant and had a sense of entitlement.

The four of them immediately started harassing Kimberly. Sometimes it was sexual harassment, and sometimes it was just plain meanness. I tried to counsel them and point out that their behavior was unacceptable. However, they didn't stop. Instead, they just harassed Kimberly when they thought I wasn't around. I finally called all four into a conference room and read them the riot act. They paid lip service to me, but I could tell they weren't going to stop. Aside from their harassment of Kimberly, all four of them were a pain in the ass. Nobody on my team liked them, and they did more harm than good when it came to their work. I finally decided I wanted them gone. Unfortunately, I didn't have the authority to fire them because Jacob had hired them. I knew if I demanded that he dismiss them, Jacob would just ignore me.

I knew that Kimberly got in early each day to make the coffee and get the office ready. Ever since I chewed the four dickheads out for their treatment of Kimberly, I noticed they all started coming in early. I finally figure out that they were using the time before I arrived to torment the poor girl. I knew that Kimberly was getting to the point where she was going to quit. I also knew that she liked working at Zabba and needed the job. So, I decided to get in early and catch them at it.

Hiding in the supply cabinet just off our little kitchen, I had my cellphone ready. As I expected, Kimberly arrived and began preparing the coffee. Minutes later, the four of them arrived, and the tormenting began.

"Hey, butterball," Ted, the ringleader, smirked at Kimberly, "show us your tits."

Fred, another of the four, added, "I want to see that big fat ass of yours. I'm going to pull your panties down and fuck it."

"Yeah," the other two said, "we'll even help take your clothes off."

I saw the tears rolling down Kimberly's face, and I couldn't take any more. I had more than enough evidence, so I stepped out of the closet. "You four, gather your stuff and leave. You guys are done."

"You don't have the authority to fire us," Fred shot back. "Mr. Sanders hired us, and he said that only he can fire us."

"That's true," I said with a nasty smile on my face. "However, I've got proof that you sexually assaulted Kimberly. So, let me explain what your options are. You four can either resign immediately, or I will turn this video over to the police. So, the choice is yours. You either resign, or I call the cops. I'll give you fifteen minutes to decide. You can even run to Jacob if you want, but I'm sure that he isn't going to put his ass in a sling to protect you scum."

Fifteen minutes later, I had all four resignations, and the four were gone. The look on Kimberly's face was one of utter relief and gratitude.

"Kimberly," I called her over to my desk after the four were gone. "I apologize for what those four put you through. I should have acted sooner. If anything like this ever happens again, promise me that you'll come to me immediately. You're a beautiful person, and those four are just assholes."

Kimberly let out a small sob and thanked me for protecting her. I told her that was part of my job, but I didn't do a very good job because she had to suffer at the hands of those assholes for far too long.

"Mr. Arnold, you don't know how much this means to me," she said as she fought back more tears. "I was going to quit, but I didn't know what I was going to do without this job. I didn't know if I could get another job as good."