Don’t you sabotage this....Don't do that.
William rested his hands on my shoulders. His dark brown eyes stared hard into my tear-filled ones.
The mind can wander off so quickly. I considered that word, sabotage, and my brain took a stroll to another time.
I once had a boss, a wicked young woman who took pleasure in humiliating her staff in front of clients. Specifically, she enjoyed singling me out. I was a struggling actress in New York City, teaching four aerobic classes a day in her exercise studio. One afternoon, I crawled out from under her microscopic glare at the end of a class and entered her tiny office for another ream-out scream-out for — I suppose — not teaching to her specifics or using music she didn't care for or — God knows what —
Are you trying to savotage me?
Savotage? Did she really say that?
I couldn't resist and whispered, I don't know what you mean.
Really?
She widened her baby blues and tossed her highlighted blond tresses with such an abrupt jerk I feared for her neck.
You're supposed to be some kind of great, educated actress and you don't know what savotage means?
For months I'd allowed myself to be terrorized publicly and privately by...an idiot. As I taught a room of jumping students, my boss cruised the outer edges, shouting out criticisms. And why do we keep our heels pressed down, Mel? Explain why, please!
This please was never used how please is supposed to be used.
Are you trying to savotage me? How was I to answer a superior who was so clearly stupid, but owned me because I needed the job?
The irony of her ignorance landed on me like a gift from heaven. I didn't run out the door that particular day because there were bills to pay, but I was no longer in her grip. Freed by the knowledge that she had so little of it, a few months later when I did quit, I bit my tongue, hard. I wanted to scream savotage, savotage into her pale, pinched face but held myself back.
Lo, many years later, I lifted my wet eyes to William's serene surety. Would I really savotage this gift? Would I be that stupid?
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