Worst Week Ever (A Long Road to Love)

By

Liza
O’Connor

Liza O'Conner writes books that speak to
my soul. Carrie is a character you will not soon forget.
—Rebecca Royce,
author of The Warrior series.

Note from Author

Long ago when colonists
of the New World got their first printing press, it was evidently a piece of
crap. To make the wooden blocks fit better, the operator of the printing press
decided all fragile punctuation (periods and commas) would remain within the
tall dialogue tags for ease of printing. And thus began the U.S. illogical
punctuation rule. Convenience ruled over logic. I understand.

What I don't
understand is why, in the digital world, we cling to this archaic illogical
rule instead of returning to the logical British rule that decides the location
of dialogue tags by where they should logically resides.

I'm happy to
say, some U.S. e-publishers are returning to the British rule of logic in this
matter, and so shall I. Here forth, logical dialogue punctuation will be
willfully and purposefully used in Worst Week Ever. It's not a mistake or
ignorance on my part. It's a rebellion against illogical rules of the past. I
encourage all authors and publishers to overthrow silly habits of the past and
allow logic to rule once again.

All rights reserved.

Any reproduction of this work in whole or in part in any form by any
electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including xerography, photocopying, electronic copying, or recording is
forbidden without the written permission of the author.

All characters in this book come from the imagination of the author and
have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names, titles or
professions. They are not based on or inspired by any known individual and any
resemblance to a person living or dead is purely coincidental.

Trent
Lancaster wanted last month’s sales report. That’s all. As CEO and owner of
Lancaster’s Chairs, getting financial information about his company should be
his inalienable right.

First, he
called head of Sales.

“We’re doing fine,
Trent. Don’t worry about it,” Hal said.

A woman’s
giggle followed the assurance, setting off Trent’s temper. “Where are you and
who are you with?”

“I’m at
Brittle Bottles, trying to pitch them our premium line of chairs. Only you’ve
interrupted my pitch mid-stream to discuss a mythical sales report, so if the
deal falls through, it’s on your shoulders. And you’ll owe me the commission I
would’ve made if you’d just let me do my job.”

Before Trent
could challenge him on several of his statements, not to mention the giggling
woman, Hal hung up.

Outraged,
Trent buzzed his assistant. “Carrie, get Hal back on the phone.”

A sharp angry
voice replied from his speakerphone, “I’ve told you a billion times, my name
isn’t Carrie. I’m Liza. L. I. Z. A. And I don’t know any Hal.”

Trent gripped
his head and growled. “He’s the head of Sales. Get him on the phone
now
!”

“Last name?”

“What?”

“What. Is.
His. Last. Name? The employee phone list is sorted by last name.”

“I don’t care
about the phone list. Just do your job and get Hal on the phone.” He leaned
back and stared at the ceiling. “Idiot girl!”

An angry voice
spoke from his box. “I’m the idiot? I may not know this Hal’s last name, but
then I’m just a temp. What’s your excuse?”

Before Trent
could gather a reply, the red light on the direct line went out, indicating the
girl had hung up on him. Seconds later, her angry voice came through the
company intercom system.

“Attention please.
If someone named Hal has the misfortune to work here, could you please visit
the asshole in the corner office? He evidently cannot remember your last name.”

A moment
later, even through his closed door, he heard the muted cheers and applause
from his worthless employees in the main workroom.

 Trent stormed
into the outer office, intending to yell at his mutinous employees. First, he planned
to have a few words with Miss L. I. Z. A. only the little coward had run off. He
entered the main room, to find his employees sitting on desks and laughing
rather than working.

Upon sight of
him, their cheeriness diminished. With further glares on his part, they
scurried back to their desks and at least pretended to work. Satisfied they
knew who was boss, he returned to his office.

Still lacking
the sales report, he called the head of IT. “Where’s last month’s sales
report.”

“Who’s this?” the
irritated male voice replied.

“Trent
Lancaster. Your boss.”

“Oh…You want
what?”

“My Sales
Report.”

Bob replied slowly
as if talking to a moron. “Have you asked Sales?”

“Just send me
the report, now!” Trent yelled and hung up the phone. He should’ve never let
Carrie go. For the last two years, she’d been the buffer between him and his
ungrateful, wretched employees. He’d forgotten how much he hated the whole sorry
lot.

His phone
rang. He waited for the temp to answer it but, after the tenth ring, realized
she must still be MIA.

“What?” he
lifted the receiver and demanded, annoyed he couldn’t even find a temp who
would work.

“It’s in your
email,” a gruff male voice snapped.

“What is?”
Lancaster demanded.

The caller
huffed and hung up.

Why did
everyone keep hanging up on him? God, he missed Carrie. She filtered out these
cretins and only put people through who actually wanted to talk to him.

Curious as to
what resided in his email, he opened his laptop and pressed the ‘on’ button.
And waited…

And waited.

God, this
machine was as slow and worthless as his employees.

Nothing
worked without Carrie. She’s single-handedly turned running his father’s
business from an act of torture to an interesting challenge.

As he waited
for his computer to show some spark of life, he pictured the heart and soul of
his business, with her charming smile and beautiful green eyes. He desperately
needed her positive ‘can do’ attitude back.

His laptop
still refused to come alive. He buzzed his temp. “I need a tech guy.”

The lack of a
reply didn’t necessarily mean L.I.Z.A. hadn’t heard him. His employees were
infamous for giving him the silent treatment. To determine if he had an
attitude or absence problem, he stepped into the outer office only to find an
unoccupied desk that used to hold Carrie.

Losing
patience, he decided to try the non-working temp’s technique. While it hadn’t
worked on Hal, maybe it would on a tech guy. He walked to an archaic microphone
and pushed the ‘All Bulletin’ button. “This is Trent Lancaster. I need a tech
guy up here now. That means right now.”

A fat old
woman, wearing hideous cat-woman glasses, glared at him from her desk directly
on the other side of the glass wall. God, how could Carrie bear to stare at the
hag all day? Just a single glance caused a chill to run down his spine. He retreated
to his office. “Please God, don’t make her my tech guy.”

Without
knocking, the horrid woman stormed into his office. “My chair is crippling me.”

He had no clue
how to even respond to such a stupid statement, so he decided to ignore her, in
hopes she’d leave of her own volition.

His computer still
refused to do its job, so he pushed the on button again. And again. Nothing.

Perhaps he
should just throw the damn thing out the window and be done wi
—

The sound of a
clearing throat caught his attention.

Apparently
Miss Schnell hadn’t taken the hint—or had chosen to ignore it—and continued to
loom belligerently in front of his desk. He tried another tactic. “I’m rather
busy right now.”

She snorted.

Her blatant
disrespect was the last straw. “If you and your chair don’t get along, I fail
to see how it’s my problem. I am the CEO of Lancasters, not a god damn chair
therapist.”

A young man, who
looked a bit like Scooby-doo’s pal, entered his office. “You need tech
support?”

“Yes.” He
shoved his laptop across his desk. “Piece of crap refuses to turn on.”

Scooby grabbed
the laptop and made several ‘hmmm’s before laughing. “Found the problem.” He
held up a plug, then pushed it into the wall socket.

“It’s a
laptop. Since when do laptops require tethering to a socket?”

“Since the
battery drained,” the young man
said, and then flinched as if expecting
to be hit.

Trent vaguely
remembered Carrie telling him something about leaving his laptop plugged in
when at the office. The kid might be right. He’d never had to worry about
stupid stuff like battery recharging for the last two years. Carrie always made
sure his laptop worked.

As Scooby
headed to the door, Trent’s screen remained black. “Hold on! It’s still dead.”

The young man
hurried to the laptop and pushed the ‘on’ button, and to Trent’s surprise, it
came alive.

The kid
attempted to leave again, but now Miss Schnell stood in the doorframe.

“I can’t help
you, Mrs. Schnell,” Trent growled.

“It’s Miss,
and as my employer, you’d better help me, or I’m going to sue for disability.”

God Almighty!
Did his employees memorize the disability statutes? “How can I solve this?”

“I want a
better chair…like the one your temp has. I’ve worked here for thirty years. But
does that count for anything? Not at all! You buy these pretty girls the best
of everything, but me? I’m sitting on crap that was crap when I arrived here
thirty years ago.”

Trent just
wanted to read his sales report. Why wouldn’t these people get the hell out of
his office? “Take this up with Carrie, when she returns.”

“I’ll be
crippled by then.”

“I don’t know
how to solve your problem,” Trent stated in exasperation.

“The hell you
don’t. You have a chair right there that no one’s using. You could solve this
problem if you wanted to. You just don’t care about my back, but you will when
I sue you—“

“If you want the
god awful purple chair, take it. Just leave so I can get back to work.”

With a
self-satisfied smirk, the old hag returned to the outer office and wheeled the
ugly purple chair away.

Once she no
longer blocked the door, Scooby-Doo-Boy scampered out. Trent would’ve liked it
better had the fellow closed the door behind him, but at least Trent had his
office to himself. God, he hated his employees.

Except for
Carrie. She actually made his life better. Or had before he’d let her run off.
Every day since had been pure misery. If he’d known how horrible life would be
without her, he would’ve refused to let her go. He wished he had. He really
couldn’t last much longer without her.

He stared at
the symbols at the bottom of the screen, trying to find one that would give him
his emails. Spotting the big blue ‘e’ he clicked on it. A ‘Bad Dress’ picture
article of a starlet popped up. He cursed and almost closed out, but then
spotted the word email.

However, when
he selected the link instead of getting his emails, a blue box appeared asking
for his password.

Frustrated, he
wrote,
None of your business

The machine
responded with an annoying message.

Please
verify your password.

Nothing about
this seemed right, certainly not that badly dressed woman. Convinced this was
not his company email account, he searched again. By systematically opening
every symbol on the bottom of his screen, he finally found another email account…that
also wanted a password.

He wrote,
I
am in hell
.

It answered,
INVALID PASSWORD.

Then he tried,
I need Carrie
.

INVALID
PASSWORD

Life is not
worth living.

INVALID
PASSWORD

Without
Carrie

He stopped
typing as the truth hit home.

His happiness
and his business depended upon the near proximity of his beautiful
four-foot-six Executive Assistant.

If she were
here, she’d hand him a copy of the sales report then in a pleasant, cheery
voice mention the key things he needed to see in the data.

He stepped
away from his uncooperative laptop before he really did toss it. Why didn’t he
get the tech’s name so he could call him on the phone. God, he felt like a fool
communicating by the ancient intercom system his father had used, but he had no
other way to get the kid back to help him.

Storming into
the outer office, he spoke into the microphone. “Tech guy, come back. You
didn’t finish your job.”

As he returned
to his office, guilt chewed at his conscience. The kid
had
done his job,
and Trent had actually appreciated him leaving at once. Much better than
staying to bitch about a chair. However, he didn’t want the whole office to
know just how crappy his day progressed. He’d be damned if he’d give them the
satisfaction.

Scooby-doo
arrived, out of breath. “I saw the system locked you out. I’ve cleared it and
given you a temporary password.” He handed Trent a sticky note with gibberish
written on it.
Hlc8ws09

“Are you nuts?
I can’t remember that! I am a busy executive, or would be if I could read my
emails.”

Scooby-doo
knelt in front of Trent’s laptop and typed a bit then turned the laptop toward
Trent. “Type in whatever password you want. Then retype it in the block below.”

Trent wrote
Carrie
twice and hit enter. Angry red letters declared his password rejected.

“You screwed
something up. It won’t take my password.”

Scooby chewed
his bottom lip. “What did you type?”

Why would he
share his password with Scooby-doo? “I’m not telling you.”

“Did it have
numbers in it?”

“No.”

“Well that’s
why it rejected your password. It must have at least one number.”

“I own this
company. I should not have to cater to a computer. The computer should cater to
me.”

Scooby chewed
his bottom lip some more.

Losing
patience, Trent yelled, “Fix it!”

“Okay… but if
I do, every hacker in the world, even the crappy ones, will be able to hack our
system. Or, you could just change a letter, let’s say turn I into a one, and
leave your system safe from five-year-old hackers.”

Trent did not
want five-year-olds in his system. He typed in his new password and this time
the system accepted it and gave him his email… Thousands of them, written over
the last month that Carrie had been gone. Several marked ‘urgent.’

One titled
FINAL NOTICE.

“Crap!” Scooby-doo
said and made that one disappear.

“Hold on, if a
bill hasn’t been paid, I need to know about it.”

“It’s a Trojan
horse. If you had opened it, twenty viruses would’ve downloaded onto your
computer. One of which steals all your email addresses so it can send the virus
to everyone on your mailing list. Which means all the stupid people in our
company who clicked on it the first seven times would do it again, and then my
nightmare will never end.”

Trent didn’t
understand the first half of his explanation, but he, better than anyone,
understood nightmares that never end.

“Had a tough
day too, huh?”

“More like a
month. Any idea when Carrie’s coming back?”

Trent tensed.
“Carrie? Why do you care?”

“Because
nothing works in this place without her.”

“That’s the
truth,” Trent muttered and refocused on the endless emails. “I told Bob Ott to
send me a sales report. Can you find it?”