I froze, and let my head drop back in frustration. That could only mean one thing. Marcus and Clara were fighting. Again. Sometimes my job required wearing another hat. Referee.
I could hear them shouting as I approached the office.
“Clara. Fucking. Bateman.” Clara seethed. “It’s clear as day on the envelope.”
“You are the one that assigned me the duties of opening the mail,” Marcus argued.
“Yes,” she hissed. “Sky High mail. Not my mail!”
As I entered the office, they both turned their heads to look at me. “Morning, all,” I gushed cheerily. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?”
They both stared at me, seemingly wishing they could kill me with their eyes.
“Why yes, Paul,” I answered myself, imitating Clara in a feminine voice. “It is a lovely day.”
“Hey, Paul.” I moved on to imitating Marcus. “How are you?”
“I’m good, man,” I answered myself. “Thanks for asking.”
I got nothing. Neither of them even cracked a smile. Letting out a long sigh, I pulled one of the folding chairs from the wall and flopped down on it. “What is it this time?”
“I accidentally opened Clara’s mail and she’s lost her shit about it.”
“It had my name on it! He had no right to open it.”
“Okay,” I replied, unsure of how to fix this. Clara looked so mad, she might cry. “I’m sure it was just an accident. It probably got mixed in with the other mail.”
“He had to sign for it, Paul,” she sneered.
I closed my eyes. Fucking Marcus. I knew Clara could be a giant pain in the ass, but he was hell-bent on making our work environment miserable by being a dick to her every chance he got.
Clara yanked an envelope off her desk and chucked it at me, hitting me in the chest. “Might as well read it, Paul. Marcus pinned it to the front board so everyone else has.”
I cut him an exhausted look that said, really? Opening the envelope, I pulled out the thin stack of papers and read the top of the first page.
Separation Decree.
I couldn’t look at him after that. He was in the wrong. There was no way for me to defend him this time. Playing jokes on her was one thing, but this was her personal business.
His mouth turned into a frown as he shrugged. “I wanted to make sure she found it and that it didn’t get lost.”
Letting out a long grunt, I sat forward and tossed the envelope back on the desk. This was kids’ shit.
“And all this because we took February away,” she whined dramatically. And she was right. Every December through February, we closed down. The weather was too cold and sales dropped dramatically with the holidays. But Clara did some research and found that other skydiving businesses were opening back up February 1st each year. It didn’t take her much to convince me when she showed me the numbers. But Marcus wasn’t as open to it as I was.
“That was a month off that I look forward to every year.” His face was getting red.
“And you are welcome to still take it off. You just won’t get paid for it,” she told him calmly.
“I count on that money,” he argued. “You didn’t even talk to us about it,” Marcus yelled.
Clara grinned at him with disbelief and disdain. “Why would I talk to you about it?”
“Because I work here.”
“Yes, that’s right. You work here, for me. And for Paul. We make the decisions. Not you.”
She couldn’t have known the effect her words would have on Marcus. She didn’t know the history. She didn’t know that though Marcus never told me, I knew deep down he’d been deeply hurt when Dennis didn’t leave him part of the business. After all, he was Dennis’s adopted son. Marcus took it as being slighted, and wondered if maybe Dennis hadn’t felt the same. But all the same, Clara’s words might as well have been like a whip to the face.
“This was my father’s business,” Marcus scoffed.
Clara blinked a few times as she absorbed that information. She never knew. “And I’m sorry if I don’t agree to his whore coming in here and trying to take over the place.”
Clara’s eyes practically bulged out of her head as I propped my head in my hand. I needed to intervene. I should have intervened. Marcus had gone off the deep end. But I didn’t at that moment, because he was digging into her about how she was affiliated with Dennis. And I wanted to know just as badly as he did why he’d left her half of his business. She looked at me, and I knew she was waiting for me to speak up, to reprimand Marcus, but I didn’t. Clara dropped her head as if seeking a moment to calm herself.
“Sorry to disappoint you. I wasn’t his whore.”
“Then the daughter from his whore?” Marcus fished. Dude! He wasn’t giving up.
“From what I understand, he was single. Why would he have a whore or a mistress? You’re a fucking idiot.” She said the insult slowly, her voice certain. “And no. I’m not his daughter.”
“Then who are you?” he shouted. “Why did he leave you half of a business he spent most of his life building?”