From Now On by Louise Brooks Read Free Book Online Page A

run from her as he had on Friday.
                  She really was an idiot.
                  Jo exhaled heavily as she wet a cloth and began to scrub the makeup from her face. Why did she have to be something she wasn’t to make a man notice her? Was this really the way it worked?
                  If he really wanted her, he would take her as his. Wouldn’t he?
                  And what about Kathleen? Jo had tried hard to ignore Becca’s words, to stop hearing her suggestion that Mark and Kathleen were having a work place romance. Jo thought of the way he had touched her, the way he had seemed so close to kissing her…she was so confused that if her head had begun to spin like a top she would not have been surprised.
                  Jo gathered her shorter, curlier hair into a ponytail and headed for the door. Once again she was rushing, late for work. And, of course, the taxi wasn’t there when she walked out of her apartment building.
                  Jo rushed into the office, voiced a breathless hello to Sandy, her loyal secretary, as she rushed to her desk. Sandy followed behind. “Your mom called.”
                  “Already?”
                  “Yes. Twice.”
                  Jo glanced up. “Sorry,” she said, aware of how little Sandy suffered fools.
                  Sandy shrugged. “She wants you to go with Emily to meet with some band they want to play at her reception.”              
                  Jo nodded, distracted by an email from Kathleen on her computer screen.
                  “Can I ask you something?” Sandy asked as she quietly closed the door behind her.
                  “Sure.”
                  “Is it true that Kurt’s gone and Kathleen is going to pick you or Becca for his job?”
                  “That’s the rumor,” Jo said, looking up from reading her email. In fact, it was no longer a rumor. Kathleen had said as much in the message sent this morning.
                  “If Becca gets the job,” Sandy rolled her eyes, indicating how ridiculous she thought the idea was. “I’ll be praying to the job gods for you.”
                  Jo glanced back at the email. “We’ll just have to wait and see.”
                  “We will. You should be out there fighting.”
                  “How?” Jo asked, genuinely curious. She would love to get this job, would love the increase in pay and the possibility of even further advancement. But she honestly had no clue how to play the political games that so many of her coworkers, Becca included, seemed to excel at.
                  “Fight,” Sandy said simply. “If you don’t fight for yourself, who will?”
     
     
                  Jo kept thinking about Sandy’s words as the day progressed. She saw Becca go into Kathleen’s office after the staff meeting that morning, saw them laughing together as though they were old friends even though a month ago Becca had always been the first to spread ugly gossip about Kathleen behind her back. That sort of deception had always left Jo sick to her stomach. It’s one thing to lobby for a job, but another to openly lie to someone just to get what you want.
                  Jo knew Sandy was right and she should go to Kathleen to talk about Kurt’s job, but each time she ran through the possible conversation in her mind, she could not come up with the right words to convince Kathleen that she was the best candidate without making herself sound like she was begging. Or what her father had called brown nosing. Her father had always hated brown nosers.
                  Maybe that’s why he spent his entire career in an entry level position.
                  Jo was still wrestling with the conundrum