Good Karma (21 page)

“Gawd!” Jolene sighed and rolled her eyes as
if Karma were the stupidest person on the planet. “I thought you
could multitask, Karma. But if it’s too much for your little brain
to handle, I’ll just tell Jake—”

“No. Just give me a second.” Karma minimized
the expense report application and opened the folder of
quarterlies.

Old memories of Jolene picking on her at
school crept into her mind, along with all the old feelings of
inadequacy, failure, and shame. Karma may have gotten a haircut,
she might be wearing new clothes, and for the first time in her
life a hot man wanted to go out with her, but that didn’t mean that
everything had changed just-like-that. She couldn’t expect to snap
her fingers and let go of the past as easily as she’d let go of six
inches of hair and a bad wardrobe. Some pains ran too deep to
dismiss without a fight, and right now, Karma’s miserable childhood
memories were definitely fighting back. As if no matter what she
did, she couldn’t shed the past, or the sinking feelings of
inadequacy. Her younger self cowered in her mind against Jolene’s
vicious onslaught. Would Karma ever be able to let go of the past
and set her bruised, younger ego free?

“Today would be nice,” Jolene quipped then
huffed out an exasperated sigh.

Karma dug up the soft copies of the last
batch of quarterly reports then pulled a hard copy from her files.
“Here.” She handed the spiral-bound booklet to Jo without looking
at her. If she did, Jo would see the tears stinging the backs of
her eyes and tease her even more. “I’ll e-mail you the soft
copies.”

“Good.” Jo snatched the booklet out of
Karma’s hand and strutted away.

After Jo was gone, Karma pushed away from her
desk and darted to the bathroom, where she spent the next five
minutes huddled in the handicapped stall crying. Damn it! Just…DAMN
IT! She knocked the side of her fist against the wall. Why did she
let Jolene get to her? If Jolene would do her own damn work, she
wouldn’t need to come and interrupt Karma’s day and turn her inside
out. That’s what Karma should have said to Jo. She should have
gotten in Jo’s face and told her that from now on, she could do
those damn quarterly reports herself. Who did Jo think she was,
getting snarky with Karma when running quarterlies wasn’t
technically Karma’s job? If anyone had a right to be angry, it was
Karma. She did her job and she did Jo’s, but did she get any thanks
for saving Jo’s ass on an almost daily basis. Hell no.

God, when was she going to put her foot down
and tell Jo to do her own damn job if she wasn’t grateful for the
help?

Karma frowned and batted the tears off her
cheeks.

And what business was it of Jolene’s whether
or not she got Mark’s coffee? Why did Jo even care? It wasn’t like
Mark was asking Jo to get his coffee. No, he asked her to do that.
And she was fine doing so, especially since it gave her a chance to
flirt. So, Jo could go screw her—

The bathroom door squeaked open, and the lava
flow of thoughts shut off in Karma’s head as if someone had closed
a spigot.

“Karma?” It was Lisa. “You in here?”

Karma sighed. “Yes.” Before she could stop
herself, she sniffled then immediately closed her eyes and cringed.
Great. Lisa would know something was wrong.

“You okay?”

The jig was up. No sense lying. “No.” She
reluctantly opened the stall door and stepped out, certain that her
face was blotchy from crying.

“What happened?” Concern washed over Lisa’s
face.

“Jolene happened.” She whipped a paper towel
out of the dispenser and blotted away her tears before looking in
the mirror. Her eyes and nose were red, and she had cried away some
of her mascara and under-eye concealer. “How did you know I was in
here, anyway?” She ran cold water over the towel, wrung it out, and
pressed it under her puffy eyes.

“I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for ten
minutes,” Lisa said. “Mark called me and asked if I knew where you
were.”

How long had she been in the bathroom? She
checked her watch. Oh God. She had been in here for almost twenty
minutes. “Mark called you?” Mark knew she and Lisa were friends and
that she had told Lisa what was going on. He’d been a little
concerned at first, but then Karma reassured him Lisa wouldn’t rat
them out.

Lisa nodded. “I figured if he was calling me,
something was wrong, so I came looking for you.”

Great. Not only was she a big crying baby,
but now Mark would ask her where she’d disappeared to the next time
he had a chance. And she wouldn’t be able to lie. Karma turned and
plopped her butt against the counter.

Lisa touched Karma’s arm and nodded toward
the door. “Come on. Let’s go to lunch, and you can tell me what
happened with Jo.”

Karma cringed and shook her head. “I don’t
want him to see me like this.”

“He and Don left for lunch about five minutes
ago.” Lisa gestured toward the door. “So come on. I’ll take you to
Olive Garden and feed you garlic bread and salad and get you good
and happy again. He’ll never know. We can chalk it up to feminine
mystique.” She smiled cautiously.

Thank God for Lisa and her glass-half-f
mentality, because Karma really needed to talk. Lisa had always
been her sounding board, and between what was happening with Mark
and how Jolene had taken to bullying her again, Karma’s ends were
frayed.

Karma smiled tightly and followed Lisa out of
the bathroom.

On the drive to Olive Garden, Karma relayed
what had happened with Jolene. By the time they were seated at a
table, Lisa was cussing Jolene’s name.

“As a member of Human Resources,” Lisa said,
“I want to tell you to file a complaint against that bitch.” She
nabbed a warm breadstick from the basket. “But as your friend, I
know it’s not that simple. I know you don’t want to do that.”

“No, I don’t.” Karma picked off a piece of
her breadstick and popped it in her mouth. “I don’t want to cause
any more problems than there are already, and filing a complaint
will just make Jo more crafty.”

“And this all started the day you said she
asked Mark to drinks and he said no? And paid you more attention
than he paid her, I might add.” As an afterthought, Lisa added,
“Good for him.” Then she held her hands up innocently. “I mean, at
least from what you’ve told me, that’s how it sounded.”

“Yeah. So?”

“It sounds like Jolene’s jealous.”

Karma let that sink in for a moment.
“Jealous? Of what?”

“Not what,” Lisa said. “
Who
.”

The waiter brought their salad and two bowls
of Pasta e Fagioli. He grated Parmesan over the top of Karma’s then
departed.

Karma leaned forward. “Are you saying that
Jolene is jealous? Of me?”

Lisa dipped her head to one side as if the
answer was obvious. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“Oh come on. Look at me. What does Jolene
have to be jealous of?”

Lisa set her spoon down and frowned.
“Seriously, Karma?” With a huff, she wiped her hands and sat
forward. “Yes, let’s look at you for a second. Have you looked in a
mirror lately? You’re stunning. Ever since you got your hair cut
and started wearing makeup and girl clothes, you’ve been turning
heads all over the office. You haven’t just caught Mark’s eye.
You’ve caught the eye of every available man in the office…as well
as the eye of a few of the unavailable ones. Haven’t you
noticed?”

Dumbfounded, Karma could only shake her
head.

Lisa smiled patiently. “Karma, Karma, Karma.
Sweet little innocent Karma. You need to open your eyes and look
around.”

“I don’t get it. I—”

“There’s nothing to ‘get,’ Karma. You’re
finally embracing your sexuality, and men are taking notice. That’s
why Jolene is jealous. She’s no longer the hottest commodity on the
market, so of course she feels threatened by you. You’re disrupting
the natural order of things, and she’ll do whatever she has to do
to put you back in your place. At least, in the place where
she
thinks you belong. Are you going to let her do that to
you? If you want this new you that you’ve discovered, you have to
own it, and you have to let Jolene know you’re owning it.” Lisa
snapped her fingers.

Karma had never been in the spotlight or
considered a “hot commodity,” so she couldn’t wrap her mind around
what Lisa was telling her. “I do want to own it,” she said with a
nod. “I don’t want to let Jo bring me down, but I don’t know how to
stop her.”

“Stand up to her.” Lisa whooshed her hand
into the air then dropped it back to the table. “Don’t let her push
you around. Tell her to do her own damn job if she doesn’t like
having to ask you for those stupid quarterlies. She’s only asking
you for them to get under your skin. Ten to one she doesn’t even
need them and only uses them as an excuse to harass you.” Lisa
lifted her spoon and pointed it at Karma to add emphasis. “Mark my
words, she’s just going to keep being a bitch until you put her in
her place.”

Karma stirred her soup with a breadstick.
“This just sucks. Why does life have to be so hard?”

“Hey, nobody said changing was going to be
easy. In fact, it never is.” She stabbed her fork into a black
olive on her salad plate and briefly pointed it at Karma before
popping it in her mouth. “Any time you try to change, forces push
back. They don’t call them growing pains for nothing. As you grow
and change, it hurts more, because you’re putting out a new message
that those around you aren’t used to. They’ve grown accustomed to
seeing you a certain way, and now you’re trying to show them
something else. Some will embrace it, and others, like Jo, will
fight it. She doesn’t want you getting stronger. She doesn’t want
you to break out of the mold she’s put you in, because then that
means she’ll have to face the fact that she’s still the same bitch
she’s always been and that she no longer has control over you,
which will shine a spotlight on how incredibly lonely and
inadequate she is.” Lisa bobbed her head. “Think of it that way and
you kind of feel sorry for her.”

Karma thought about what Lisa had said for a
second then shook her head. “Nah. I still don’t feel sorry for
her.”

Lisa laughed. “That’s the spirit. Now you’re
coming around.”

What Lisa said had merit. Jolene was one big
spotlight hog. If Karma was, in fact, taking that spotlight away,
Jolene’s recent behavior made a lot more sense.

“I didn’t ask for this,” Karma said. “I
didn’t ask for the guys in the office to notice me more than her.”
That still baffled Karma, but if Lisa said it was true, then who
was Karma to question her. Lisa had her finger on the pulse of the
office better than Karma did. If something was going on, Lisa knew
about it.

“Of course you didn’t,” Lisa said. “You’re
too busy being a good employee. Karma, the ‘worker bee.’” Lisa
tucked the handle of her spoon into the palm of her hand and made
air quotes with her fingers. “But that doesn’t change the facts.
You’ve turned heads, and now you’re a threat. You’re pretty. You’re
smart. And you’ve got Mark’s attention, which Jo wants. True, she
may not know exactly how much you’ve got Mark’s attention, but in
the office, you’re with him all day. Jo would kill to get that kind
of time with him, and you’re the one who has it. So, not only are
you stealing the spotlight, but you’re also the ‘lucky bitch’—Jo’s
words, not mine—who gets to be around Mark.”

“Wait. What? Are you saying she said that?”
Karma scowled at what sounded like evidence that Jo had been
talking about her around the office.

Lisa held up her hand. “Not to me, but I
overheard her talking to Nancy earlier this week.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“I didn’t want to upset you. I’m sorry. Maybe
I should have told you sooner, but I didn’t want to ruin how happy
you’ve been.”

A weak smile played over Karma’s mouth as she
thought about Mark, the source of all her happiness. “It’s just
hard to hear, that’s all. I don’t like being talked about.”

“Who does? But take it as a good sign she’s
treating you like this, Karma. It means she sees you as a threat.
And if she sees you as a threat, then you’re moving in the right
direction. You’re moving forward. But like I said, change isn’t
easy, and the way Jo’s acting is proof of that. You just have to
ignore her as best as you can, stand up to her when given the
opportunity, and understand that her behavior is more about her,
not you. It’s about
her
insecurities,
her
feelings of
inadequacy. Isn’t that the truth of all bullies?”

Karma nodded and smiled. “You always know how
to make me feel better.”

“That’s because I’m awesome,” Lisa joked,
finishing the last bite of her soup. “And because I’m your friend,”
she said more seriously.

“And I love you for it.”

“And I love you.” Lisa reached across the
table and patted her hand. “I love seeing you finally spreading
your wings, Karma. You deserve to be happy more than anyone I
know.”

Karma blushed and looked away, never good
with compliments.

Lisa snagged the last breadstick. “And I’m
glad you decided to see Mark outside the office. He’s really good
for you.” She bit off the end before aiming the rest at Karma like
a wand. “But don’t forget, you have to tell me
everything
.”

With a laugh, Karma shook her head. “How can
I forget? You won’t let me.”

* * *

At four thirty, Mark’s last meeting of the
day finished as Karma was putting the final touches on a
presentation for Don. Thankfully, Mark hadn’t asked where she had
been earlier. She really wanted to get through the rest of the day
without thinking about what happened with Jolene.

Her phone vibrated on the desk, and she
checked the screen.

Mark.
You and me? Dinner tonight?