How I Ended Up Listening To My Coworker Have Phone Sex

Day 2

The next day, I opened my eyes to Ashley’s back, smoke billowing to the side of her as she enjoyed another secret cigarette. I looked at my phone. 5:30 a.m. We were supposed to be downstairs for breakfast by 8, so I decided to get in the shower. By the time I was out, Ashley was still lolly gagging around the room, talking on the phone, watching television. Anything and everything but getting ready. I watched the clock. Finally, she got in the shower at 7:30. But before she did so, she told me to wait for her so we could go down to eat breakfast together. Trying to be nice, I did wait. And by the time she was finished, we’d missed breakfast.

After a day full of conference events, I listened to Ashley argue with her 70-year-old boyfriend, whom she would only call by his first initial: “D,”  for 20 minutes about whether or not he should clean the carpet by himself or if he should wait for her to get back into town so they could do it together.

If the conversation were more interesting, I would have snooped but since it wasn’t, I turned my back to her and watched Plies videos on my computer.

It wasn’t long before, out of nowhere, I felt the bed sink and someone up against my back. I turned to see Ashley on my bed, leaning eagerly and dangerously close to my face.

“So girl, what do you think about him?” 

“Ashley…you’re touching me right now and you know how I feel about that.” 

“I thought about that…but not until after I landed.” 

At least she thought about it.

Even though Ashley had failed to respect my boundaries, I still tried to offer some type of advice.

“Do you ever think maybe you might talk too much?” 

Later that day we had a meeting for the new sales reps. And I struck up a conversation with our product manager, Brenton.* And being new to the company, I was asking him questions.

When we got back to our room, Ashley, with genuine concern in her eyes, sat on her bed and said:

“I feel like I bore you.” 

I thought to myself did  I unknowingly enter into a lesbian relationship within the past two days?

She continued: “When you talk to other people you seem invested and engaged. But not with me. I think because I don’t talk about techy/smart stuff .”

She was both right and wrong. I was more interested and engaged talking to other people. But it wasn’t because we were talking about techy/smart stuff. Just that morning, in an effort to speak to someone who didn’t irritate the hell out of me, I had a rather pleasant conversation with the cleaning lady.

I told her, “Ashley, I was watching Plies videos earlier today. I’m not an elitist.” 

She nodded solemnly before revealing yet another one of her secrets.

“Don’t get mad but I was thinking about hooking you up with Brenton. You all seem to really bounce ideas well off of each other.” 

When I looked back at her with a deadpan face, she added: “…but I don’t know if you’re into White guys.” 

I reminded her of the conversation we’d had the night before where I told her that no, I wasn’t particularly into White guys and that I would never date a coworker.

That night, as I was on my computer typing, Ashley told me that she felt like I was studying behind her back. I assured her I wasn’t.

Then, in one of our last conversations before we went to bed she told me, in a manner that can only be described as ‘single, Black, female” “I watch you more than you know…because you help me.”