Toto and the Boys I: Jackie

Chapter 9

“Uh… the meeting…” Jackie uttered, her hands clumsily fumbling through her note. “It happened in uh…Bar 21 and uh…Mr. uh…”

“Miss Ramos,” Dean Gamboa called her attention. She looked up and saw that everyone was looking at her with amusement except their boss. “Everyone doesn’t care where the meeting was held. And it was not Mr. Uh. It was Mr. Kho and Dolosa.”

“Uh, right! Mr. Kho and Dolosa. They uh…we uh…discussed some things that are very essential for the project…” she flipped through her notes as she said it.

Dean Gamboa cleared his throat.

“Okay, I found it!” she almost shouted when she saw the scribbles she made yesterday. “So we talked about the different contacts. The food, the tables, the venue, etcetera. They both agreed to the Sugarland Hotel venue because of the food. And…” she peered at her note. Why didn’t she write it legibly? “The theme is yet to be discount…ted?” She didn’t really read ‘discounted’. She just added the ‘-ed’ because it sounded grammatically correct at the moment.

Dean Gamboa was now frowning. “Discussed.”

“Uh, yes, the theme for the event is yet to be discussed. Since it is happening this April, I thought it would be great if we suggest--”

“What you think was not discussed during the meeting, Miss Ramos. You should have raised it yesterday.”

“Well, sir, I thought it was not right of me to discuss it with Mr. uh…”

“Kho and Dolosa.” Their boss’ tone was more weighed and everyone shifted in their seats like they had an itch.

“Yes, of course, Mr. Kho and Dolosa was more concerned on the budget and their own suggestions that I thought it was not necessary--”

“Thank you, Miss Ramos,” Dean Gamboa said, cutting her sentence short. “I expected you to at least remember the important details of the meeting. But since you obviously can’t, let me do the job.”

Karen looked at her with sympathy. The others tried to avoid eye contact. They all knew what it felt like to be treated that way by the boss.

As Dean Gamboa continued the report like nothing happened, Jackie silently vowed for vengeance.

  *****

“I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!” she cried through her clenched teeth as she kicked the vending machine standing by the elevator doors. “Why can’t you give me the Coke? Why? Every freakin’ time!” she asked the machine, clutching the Pepsi can in her hand. “I punched the red button, not the blue one, you idiot!” she added as she gave it one last kick.

She whirled around to see Karen gaping at her.

“It always gives me the Pepsi!” she explained.

Karen frowned. “That’s odd. It always gives me the right kind.”

“Then it is stupid!” she answered, glancing over her shoulder to throw the vending machine a furious look.

“Anyway, I will be going out tonight. They said Anon will be playing some songs. Would you like to come with?” her friend asked as she fed the machine a fifty-peso bill.

“No, I can’t,” Jackie answered, scanning her phone, specifically Dean Gamboa’s fake Facebook page. “I don’t have Toto today. George has him and she wants to go to Sanders tonight. And we’ve been to Art yesterday.”

“So, you heard Anon?”

She looked at her friend. “Yeah.”

“They’re great, right?”