Page 2 of September
“Well, shit,” Juliet said and tried to refocus on her computer. “Who’s taking over for her?”
“No one yet. Maybe you.”
“Me?”
“Why not? You’ve been here for years. It’s your turn.”
“It doesn’t work like that. I’m sure they’ll do the whole position posting and interview thing.”
“Maybe. But they need to fill the role soon, and all that takes time. They might just promote someone into it.”
“Do you know something I don’t?”
“I know some things because I was in the meeting where they talked about it, but nothing is official yet. They didn’t name names or anything. It was more a discussion about how they wanted to proceed, with Jordana leaving so abruptly.”
“She must have really screwed up if they just fired her,” Juliet noted.
“Let’s just say… Jordana and someone from one of the stores were a littletooclose.”
“What?” Juliet’s eyes widened. “She was sleeping with someone at a store?”
“Not just that,” Molly said, leaning in. “She’s pregnant with his kid, and he’s married. The soon-to-be ex-wife found out andcaused a huge problem in the store, including some damage, too. Jordana was there when it happened. The woman keyed her car, which was a company car, and it was a whole big thing.”
“Jesus! I had no idea,” she said.
Jordana had been Juliet’s boss for over a year, having inherited the spot from her predecessor, who had held the position for the first three years Juliet had worked at Southern Roastery, the popular coffee chain in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. They were expanding into Georgia and Florida soon, too, with plans to move into Texas and Arkansas within the next three years and Tennessee the year after that. Juliet had joined the company after they’d established a corporate office. Before that, for over a decade, there had been three and then five locations, but gradually, the company had expanded and managed to compete with Starbucks and the other more well-known chains. This one had been started by a woman, which was one of the things that had attracted Juliet to the company in the first place.
She had graduated from college with her degree in HR administration and had a few handy certifications under her belt from her first job as an HR coordinator. She had stopped to grab a cup of coffee on her way to work one day and read the story of the company’s founding on the wall of the café. That night, she had looked them up to see if they were hiring, and while they hadn’t had anything in her discipline specifically, they had had a role in training, which meant she’d still be in human resources. It also meant that she would be responsible for the new-hire training at all of the stores, as well as the training for any new stores they opened in her district. With the corporate office located in her hometown of New Orleans, instead of working on-site at one of the stores, as they called them, she had gotten a desk across from Molly at the office, which gave her exposure to things other trainers didn’t get.
Since then, Juliet had been training those new hires. No new locations had popped up in her district because they had already been built prior to her arrival, but she’d covered for a trainer twice to handle their openings, and she had liked doing it. It had broken up the monotony of doing new-hire orientations. Recently, the company had also started offering sales training for the first time, and Juliet had been selected earlier that year to pilot the program she’d helped develop with Jordana, who had a sales background. She loved doing that, too, teaching the roasters, as they called the people who worked in the stores, how to upsell and offer customers items that they didn’t even know they would want. It was fun for Juliet. All the training was classroom-based and had her using the faux roastery they had in the corporate office, which allowed them to practice in a real-life setting without customers present. She had been enjoying that and had hopes that the program would expand further, and she would be able to keep doing it.
Outside of that one bright moment, though, this year had been a not-so-good one for Juliet. Her girlfriend of two years had left her unexpectedly after telling her that she couldn’t do it anymore, apparently. She hadn’t been in love with Juliet. Her bags had already been packed when she had given Juliet that news. Prior to that, their relationship had gone how most relationships did. First, they’d made things official. Next, they had gone on vacation together. Then, they’d made the trip to IKEA to see if they would come out of it still intact and had laughed about it on the way home. After that, they’d started living together at Juliet’s place, and their next step, since her ex hadn’t wanted to get married, had been to get a dog. The plan had been dog first and then moving into an apartment they picked out together while they saved up and looked for a house to buy. Then, they had planned to move in there and either get another pet or start talking about kids.
Juliet hadn’t needed the marriage thing. She had always told herself that if she met a woman who wanted to get married, she would get married, but it wasn’t a requirement. Shedidknow that she wanted kids, though, maybe one or two at most, and they had agreed on that. They’d gotten to the dog and the apartment step practically at the same time, but then, suddenly, her girlfriend hadn’t been in love with her anymore and needed to leave. She’d acted like she couldn’t even stand the sight of Juliet for another minute, so she had moved in with a friend of hers and had agreed to pay rent on the apartment until the lease was up or Juliet found a roommate.
That was right at the beginning of the year. Now, Juliet had a dog, whom she loved more than life, an apartment that she never would have rented on her own, and a job that she liked most of the time. With Jordana’s departure, though, she was worried about the sales training program she had wanted to continue working on and her possible new boss, who might come in and suggest she work on something else.
“Hey, Molly?”
Juliet looked up and, seeing Finley standing at Molly’s desk, she rolled her eyes and smiled because she knew exactly what was about to happen. Molly’s eyes widened, her cheeks flushed, and she slowly looked up at Finley.
“Oh. Hey, Finley. I didn’t know you were here,” Molly lied.
“Yeah, hey. So, I was wondering…” Finley ran a hand through her short black hair, which was always just slightly messy. “Have you had a chance to install that update I asked you about last week?”
“Oh, no. Sorry. It just takes, like, three hours, so I always put it off.”
“I know. And I know you’re busy. Maybe you could do it tonight for me? Or, I can take your laptop with me and run it tonight for you. I’ll put it back before you get here in themorning,” Finley offered. “I wouldn’t bug you about it, but it’s a mandatory thing, with some security updates, and it’s been a few weeks now.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry,” Molly said. “I’ll take care of it tonight. You don’t need to do it for me.”
“Thanks,” Finley replied. “Hey, Jules.”
“Hey, Fin,” she said with a smile. “Going to the Saints’ game this weekend?”
“Yeah. Nosebleeds. You?”
“Not this one. Just going to watch at home,” she replied.
