Authors: J.J. Murray

I'll Be Your Everything (35 page)

BOOK: I'll Be Your Everything

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I nod. Almost every woman in the crowd nods, too.

“Shari Nance ...” He laughs. “Man, I’d
really
rather tell you later tonight.” He steps in and whispers, “We have a deadline here, right?”

“Say your piece then, man,” I whisper.

Tom steps back. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he calls out in a loud voice, and I even jump a little. Big man, big voice. “I have before me the sweetest, kindest, smartest, most sensual, and definitely most stubborn woman I have ever met in my life. And as God is my witness, I want her more than anything I have ever wanted in my life. I want you, Shari Nance. Just you.”

Wow. And he’s supposed to be so shy. My goose bumps don’t go away as the applause gets louder and louder. I stare at my boots. I have to top that?

A woman a few feet from me says, “Go on, girl. Do your thing.”

I slide on his ring, and I have to twist it to get it over his knuckle. “All right,” I say loudly. “Ladies and gentlemen, I have before me the sweetest ... No. I don’t want to bite off him. This has to be original.”

Some laughter.

“Tom, I can’t say that I’ve been waiting for you all my life.” I can’t. Fantasies like this hardly ever come true. “I have been waiting on your butt for five years, though, and that’s a very long time to keep a Brooklyn girl waiting. Am I right?”

The cheers tell me I’m right. I’ll bet some of these men watching are going to get badgered to death by their Brooklyn girlfriends tonight.

“But now that we’re here on the greatest bridge in the world, and now that we’re about to become man and wife, I have a few things I’d like to tell you.” On a whim, I pull out Tom’s watch and check the time.

More laughter.

I put the watch back in my pocket. “I promise to listen only to you. I promise to fuss only with you. I promise to ...” I thought I was out of tears, and here they come. “I promise to love only you for the rest of my life.” I turn to Reverend Wilder. “I’m done.”

Reverend Wilder blinks. “You sure?”

“I’ve said all that needs to be said,” I say.

Reverend Wilder raises his hands over us. “By the power vested in me by the state of New York, almighty God, and the great city of Brooklyn, I now pronounce you man and wife.”

And then we kiss to thunderous applause.

I know we’ll be on YouTube.

Why?

Because we’re setting the world’s record for the longest kiss ever given and received on the Brooklyn Bridge, and on a Monday, no less, and there must be a hundred cell phones held in the air around us.

Tom pulls back first. “Hi, Shari.”

“Hi, Tom.” I hug him. “And that’s how we began.”

“Yeah.”

I look up at my
husband
for the first time. “Now what?”

He winks. “Answer your phone the next time it buzzes.”

Right. “Details, right?”

He nods. “Always.”

Chapter 35

A
s if on cue, my phone buzzes while we get even more hugs and handshakes and even a few high fives from our “invitees.” Our wedding guest book would contain at least two hundred names. I hug Carl and Tia, and then I answer the phone.

“Hello?”

“Shari!” Corrine yells. “Thank goodness!”

I kiss my man loudly. I’m sure Corrine heard it. “What’s up, Corrine?” No more of that “Miss Cross” business. I am more than her equal now.

“Why haven’t you answered your phone, Shari? I’ve been calling for hours.”

She sounds hopelessly desperate. I smile. “Are you in the office, Corrine?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’ve been getting married. If you look out the window, you’ll see our wedding party on the Brooklyn Bridge. I’m the one waving. I don’t know if you can see me.”

When I start waving, everyone around me starts waving. Corrine
has
to see us now.

“You ... you just
married
Tom?”

“Yep. What do you want, Corinne? I have a honeymoon to go on.” Just not today. Sigh.

“Shari, I really need you.”

It’s my turn, wench. “Go on ...”

“And I’m ... I’m sorry for using you the way I have. It’s this business. You understand. It’s just business.”

I roll my eyes. “No, I don’t understand, and I never will. And it isn’t the business, Corrine. It’s you. I’ll never understand you.”

“Well, um, I’m sorry, okay?”

Tom and I start pushing the bike back to Manhattan, several bouncing Coke and Sprite cans tied to the rear fork. I need a picture of this! “Okay, Corrine. What do you want?”

“Look,” she says. “I know you have everything memorized, and I haven’t filed the paperwork for your firing.”

How nice. But she’s never done any paperwork before! I probably would have had to fill out my own termination notice!

“So could you ... could you come back?” she pleads. “Please, Shari. I can’t do this without you.”

Tom’s plan is running according to schedule, but I have to tweak it a little. “I’m going on my honeymoon, Corrine, but ...”

“But what?”

“But we’re not leaving until Thursday.”

I hear Corrine sigh. “Well, that’s good.”

For you. “But I refuse to do an all-nighter.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t ask you to do that, Shari,” Corrine says. “I just need the information.”

I wink at Tom.

Tom smiles.

I smile.

We have an all-nighter of our own to do.

“Um, Corrine, there’s just one more stipulation,” I say.

“Name it.”

I’m about to, wench. “I must be allowed to go to the meeting with Mr. Peterson.”

“But you can’t,” she says way too quickly.

I shrug. “Oh well. Enjoy unemployment, Corrine. I hear the lines can get long for unemployment benefits, so get there when they open and bring some bottled water. I wouldn’t want you to dehydrate.”

“Wait.”

I don’t. I keep pushing the bike and listening to the little tumbling cans.

“Administrative assistants have never been allowed in those meetings since I’ve been at MultiCorp,” she says.

“There’s always a first time,” I say. “Let’s set a precedent.”

“It’s just not done, Shari. Mr. Dunn only wants qualified people he believes in and trusts in those meetings.”

I got your qualifications, wench. “From all the times you texted me and called me, you weren’t all that qualified to be in there either.”

Ah. Now she’s breathing heavily. “It gets very intense in there, and I just needed confirmation from you for what I already knew.”

“That is some serious bullshit right there.” Please forgive me, God. I should have only said “BS.” But abbreviations don’t have the same effect as the actual word.

“What did you just say, Shari?”

The BS queen doesn’t recognize BS when she hears it, probably because she hears it coming out of her mouth so often. “Qualified or not, you didn’t want me in those meetings because you didn’t want your assistant to sound more intelligent than you are. After all, I’m LIU, Brooklyn, not Harvard. You were afraid I would show you up.”

“I was never afraid that you would
ever
show me up, Shari.”

Pride goeth before a fall, wench. “Prove it. Let me into that meeting.”

“It’s not the proper protocol, Shari.”

I sigh. “Okay, I’ll just call Mr. Dunn and ask him for permission.”

“No!” she yells. “Um, perhaps we can make an exception for this meeting.”

Gotcha, wench. “I knew you’d see it my way. You know, you see just about everything my way, don’t you?” We’re almost to the end of the bridge. “If you weren’t such a bad boss, we wouldn’t be in this position, Corrine.”

“I haven’t been a bad boss, Shari,” she says quickly. “I could have fired you on numerous occasions.”

And she wants me to come back today? “Name
one
.”

“When you ... when you let me fly out to LA unprepared.”

I mimic her stance and voice and say, “It’s a line of designer clothes. What could be more perfect for me?”

Tom cringes. Yeah, I should have warned him.

“You should have warned me,” she says. “It’s your job to take care of me.”

Yeah. I’ll take care of you good tomorrow. “And now it’s your turn to take care of me. If I don’t get a guarantee that I’ll be part of that meeting tomorrow, you don’t get any information today.”

“Is that all you want?” she asks.

It’s all I need. “Oh, your respect would be nice, too, but actually—no. Getting your respect would diminish me. I just want to be in the mix for the first time, maybe even share some of the credit that is rightfully mine.”

“I see,” she says.

She doesn’t.

“I’m beginning to understand,” she says.

No you aren’t, and you never will.

“You just want some of the glory. I understand that perfectly, Shari. It is an
awesome
feeling when you win an account. Oh, you poor dear girl. You probably haven’t had many triumphs in your life because of your upbringing.”

Lord, is there a special place in hell for her? And if so, can she go there now and can I watch her in torment? Just asking.

“Please get back here as soon as you can, Shari,” she says. “I have a production team on standby.”

On standby to produce what? “I have to ask my husband.” I cover the phone. “I don’t want to go.” I pout.

He rubs my back. “Go for it.”

I sigh. “Oh, all right.” I uncover my phone. “Tom says I have to be home by six o’clock and not a second later.”

“Okay. Fine. Just ... get here.”

Click.

The nerve! She needs me, and she hangs up on me.

I kiss Tom. “I’ll miss you.” I pull him to me. “Where will you be?”

“I’ll be at Hairy Ads stealthily cleaning out the office I never use,” he says. “It shouldn’t take Carl, Tia, and me very long.”

I look at Tia. “You’re going to Hairy Ads with them?”

She hooks her arm into Carl’s. “Carl promised to take me to Sylvia’s, and Tom is our ride back to Carl’s taxi.”

I like the way this is working out. Just like the movies.

Tom drops me off once more, but I don’t want to get out of the car. “I really don’t want to go back in there. They all saw me leave in a blaze of glory, and now they’ll see me coming back in.”

“The sooner you get in there,” he whispers in my ear, “the sooner we can get back to—”

I don’t let him finish, opening my door, jumping out, and closing the door. I even run inside and push my way into the elevator. And when I enter the office, I already have my jacket off by the time I hit my chair.

“I’m going to talk, and you’re going to take notes,” I say to Corrine, who is, strangely, sitting at
my
desk, my notes mysteriously absent. “Agreed?”

“It might be easier if you—”

“No negotiations,” I interrupt. “I talk, you take notes. Agreed?”

She nods.

And then for the next three hours, I sit on the edge of Corrine’s desk laying it on so thick that I almost start laughing, especially when she asks me to repeat my last lie. I tell her the goofiest ideas, and she drinks them in and even agrees with me, nodding her head and saying, “Oh, that’s good, that’s very good.” I keep talking right up to 4 p.m., and she has filled an entire legal pad with notes.

“Your insights into this company are insightful,” Corrine says.

How freaking redundant. “Now we’re going to talk about Tom,” I say with a smile. I just need a little more insurance for tomorrow. “Tom has been using your tail for years just to get to
my
ideas.”

“No, he hasn’t.”

Time to bust her out. “Corrine, he’s been using your booty. Sex.” I let that sink in. “Let’s see, how did he say it? Oh. He just listed your
needs
.”

She doesn’t speak. I have her complete attention.

“Let’s see if I remember them all, um ... rope, was it?”

Her lips are so tight I can see veins!

“Um, one-use drawers. Toys?” I nod and smile, slapping my desk hard. Ow, my hand. “Does that sound familiar?”

Corrine’s eyes drop. “He told you all that?”

“Hey, don’t sweat it,” I say. “It almost makes you human. So because of your needs, you revealed a few of my ideas to Tom.”

She still doesn’t look up. “I may have let a few things slip.”

Time to seal the deal. “And what you let slip was privileged, proprietary information, wasn’t it? Those ideas were MultiCorp’s ideas, right?” I put my nose a millimeter from hers. “If you try to screw me out of going to that meeting tomorrow now that you have all this information, I will have my husband, a
very
well-respected ad executive from Harrison Hersey and Boulder, come talk to Mr. Dunn about your indiscretions and improprieties.” I’ll bet she didn’t know I knew those words. “You hearing me, wench?”

“I hear you,” she whispers, looking around. “I’ll get you into that meeting.”

I stand. “Well, I gotta go.”

Corrine stands. “Um, just make sure you leave your cell on.”

I shake my head. “Uh-uh.” On my wedding night? Is she serious? “No way. Go with what you have. I am a married woman now. I have to tend to my man.”

“Well, uh, be here at your regular time so we can go over the presentation.”

I wouldn’t miss it. “I’ll try, but I’m going to have a
very
busy night. You understand. See you tomorrow.” I turn to leave then remember my graduation pen. I snap it out of its holder and put it in my tote bag.

That’s right. I’ve graduated.

I give Tom a call, he meets me at the curb on William Street, and he whisks me off to the apartment. I’m just about to throw
him
up on my kitchen table, when he hands me my phone.

“Who am I supposed to call now?” I ask.

“Your parents,” he says. “After we win tomorrow, I want to meet them.” He sits on the couch and picks up the remote control, clicking and turning on the TV. He won’t even look at me. Hey, yo, over here. Look at your blushing bride!

He flips through a few channels.

I stare at my phone. “I can tell them some other time, can’t I? This is our wedding night.”

He turns down the volume. “And we’ll have one, but you have to let them know you’re married, and soon. We may be all over the Internet by now. Did you see all the cell phones in the air?”

I did. Wow. I’ll have to collect all the footage so I can see my own wedding sometime.

“You wouldn’t want your parents to find out that way, would you?” he asks.

He has a point. I shake my head. “I’ll, um, I’ll be in the bedroom. Where
we
should be.”

He smiles. “We’ll be in there in a moment.”

I go into the bedroom and slump onto my bed. I know this is necessary. I know I owe them this vital information. I know I owe them much more than I’ve given to them. Man, I feel so prodigal all of a sudden. I dial a number I haven’t dialed in years.

“Hello?” Mama says.

“Hey, Mama. It’s me, Shari.”

“Charles!” Mama yells. She never covers the receiver. “Shari’s on!”

BOOK: I'll Be Your Everything

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