Business Before Pleasure MxM (Staten Krown)

1

Is it better to say "How do I?" or "How can I?"

It has nothing to do with semantics. It's just a simple request for information that all has to do with implication. Implication is the key word. I'm single at 35, with no kids, stuck in a job that I hate and it's not until Clarence Clapper stands up that I understand the implication of it all.

I'm single at 35 and nothing seems like it's changing.

"How can I do that" can be taken to mean that you didn't know you could do that, which can be asked rhetorically to imply that doing something is so against one's nature they do not believe it possible. "How do I do that" implies that the speaker knows or believes it is possible, but simply lacks instruction as to procedure.

"How do I do that?" Clapper asks.

The room gets quiet. Clapper literally interrupts Waverly Kingston to say that. Waverly Kingston is a bitch. There aren't many other ways to describe it. On paper, she's a success story. The kind of woman that little girls aspire to be. She's attractive, successful and extremely thorough. She's the CEO of her own business consulting firm and married to one of the richest men in Philadelphia. Don't let the fake smiles at fundraisers fool you though. Waverly Kingston was a bitch. Maybe it had to do with being a woman in a male-dominated industry. She felt like she had to overcompensate for her vagina and heat flashes that everyone's start to notice happen more and more often. Maybe it had to do with the secret that her husband was having an affair. A secret that spread like wildfire across the office.

"You should figure it out," she tells him, "That's what we pay you for right."

I hadn't even been paying attention until that moment really. My head jolts forward as if I just took a shot of espresso. I'd been pretending to take notes on the computer, hitting a key in the boardroom every few minutes.

Clapper was my best friend. We'd gone to college together. He'd found me this job. He'd been working here for 10 years. 10 long years. You would think Waverly Kingston would at least know him by his name but she resolved to just call him, "You..."

"I'm not taking that for an answer," Clapper responds.

"Oh you aren't?"

The room gets quiet. All the senior members of the consulting team all of a sudden look uncomfortable. People didn't stand up to Waverly. Not ever.

I give Clapper a look. The kind of look that tells my friend, "What the fuck are you doing, dumb ass" without actually saying it. The kind of look that tells him he needs to cool the fuck out before he does something he'll regret.

"It was a smart question."

She smiles, "Funny how people here don't have degrees but all of a sudden have smart mouths."

It's a dig. Clapper had gone to school with me, but he never finished. Halfway through he had his kid and never had the opportunity to go back.

"I didn't disrespect you. You're not going to disrespect me."

"What you going to do about it?"

"I quit."

That's when it happens. That's when Clapper gets up and walks out of the room. I don't realize it at that moment but it changes my life forever when he leaves. Waverly doesn't give a fuck. I can see it in her eyes. 10 years down the drain. Just like that.

I'm single at 35...and nothing seems like it's changing.

~

I go to Clapper's office after the meeting. The meeting doesn't last for an hour. I don't see him. His entire office is cleared out. I get to my own office right after and shut the door. When I get to the desk I see a note there.