They should live long charmed lives, filled with days and nights of hard work, steamy sex and lots of jokes. They must laugh out loud, as often as possible. Breathlessly, with dry lips and sweaty brows, and happy tears streaming down their faces. They also need to talk, seriously talk, a lot, and share their innermost secrets. They need to cry, too, not uncontrollable sobs, mind you, but sorrowfully, yet unashamed. If they can’t do that, what good are they?
Dr. Clifford Reynolds had done everything Chrissie asked, except for the not dying part. A microbiologist and president of Chicago’s largest privately owned science laboratory, he was driven and intelligent and respected by the world’s most prestigious authorities in quantum physics and the evolution of dark matter evolution.
Chrissie stared out the window of her 36th floor office, a half-smile on her face. Back then, like now she was an overachiever. Graduated with two doctorates and a few other degrees from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School, Cal Tech and MIT, all by the time she’d turned eleven. Before her first day at the Labriniyth, she’d been working for more than a decade.
Hired as senior vice president in charge of the laboratory’s research and development department, she'd bumped into Clifford in the hallway. He was ten years her senior and on his way to his first Nobel Prize. Tall, dark and handsome and outrageously wealthy, his lusty thoughts filled her mind, spilling over into every pore in her body. Three weeks later, Chrissie Matthews, the petite, caramel-skinned, whiz kid with green eyes and amble breasts, had jumped on board his bandwagon, figuratively and literally.
Fairy tale romance was what her friends called it. They fell in love hard and fast with their work and with each other. Right up until the day, nine years after their storybook wedding, Clifford dropped dead at the age of forty, they never looked back.
Turning from the window, Chrissie sighed. It was a massive coronary, some kind of undetected value defect, she barely remembered what the doctors said, or how badly her throat ached when she couldn’t stop crying.
Five years later, there were still days she feared she would lose it completely because she'd never hear him laugh or sing or cry ever again.
Chrissie jammed her finger on the call button of the telephone system. "Dolores, can you come in here please?” She put the papers back in the desk drawer and pushed it shut. She then grabbed the 100-page bound proposal resting on top of her desk. She’d glanced through it an hour before. “Did you see this?” She asked as Dolores walked into the office.
Dolores stopped and looked at Maxine over the rims of her style-conscious glasses hanging on the edge of her nose. A notepad in her hand, she pulled a pen from her mop of dyed blonde hair and waited.
Chrissie waved the Trinity document in front of her face. “There are at least 10 typos and god knows how many grammatical errors in this proposal.”
“Chrissie, it’s a draft,” Dolores said.
“A what?”
“Draft. Not ready for the client as explained to you at the meeting yesterday afternoon. Ginger said it wasn’t ready. You insisted that she give you the dirty copy. No one has had a chance to make any changes or edits since yesterday’s meeting.”
Chrissie slammed the report down on top of her desk. “We’ve been working on this proposal for three months. It should be perfect by now.” “Didn’t you hear me?” Dolores asked softly.
Chrissie looked up at her. “Yes, you said this is a draft?”
no subject
Husbands shouldn’t die.
They should live long charmed lives, filled with days and nights of hard work, steamy sex and lots of jokes. They must laugh out loud, as often as possible. Breathlessly, with dry lips and sweaty brows, and happy tears streaming down their faces. They also need to talk, seriously talk, a lot, and share their innermost secrets. They need to cry, too, not uncontrollable sobs, mind you, but sorrowfully, yet unashamed. If they can’t do that, what good are they?
Dr. Clifford Reynolds had done everything Chrissie asked, except for the not dying part. A microbiologist and president of Chicago’s largest privately owned science laboratory, he was driven and intelligent and respected by the world’s most prestigious authorities in quantum physics and the evolution of dark matter evolution.
Chrissie stared out the window of her 36th floor office, a half-smile on her face. Back then, like now she was an overachiever. Graduated with two doctorates and a few other degrees from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School, Cal Tech and MIT, all by the time she’d turned eleven. Before her first day at the Labriniyth, she’d been working for more than a decade.
Hired as senior vice president in charge of the laboratory’s research and development department, she'd bumped into Clifford in the hallway. He was ten years her senior and on his way to his first Nobel Prize. Tall, dark and handsome and outrageously wealthy, his lusty thoughts filled her mind, spilling over into every pore in her body. Three weeks later, Chrissie Matthews, the petite, caramel-skinned, whiz kid with green eyes and amble breasts, had jumped on board his bandwagon, figuratively and literally.
Fairy tale romance was what her friends called it. They fell in love hard and fast with their work and with each other. Right up until the day, nine years after their storybook wedding, Clifford dropped dead at the age of forty, they never looked back.
Turning from the window, Chrissie sighed. It was a massive coronary, some kind of undetected value defect, she barely remembered what the doctors said, or how badly her throat ached when she couldn’t stop crying.
Five years later, there were still days she feared she would lose it completely because she'd never hear him laugh or sing or cry ever again.
Chrissie jammed her finger on the call button of the telephone system. "Dolores, can you come in here please?” She put the papers back in the desk drawer and pushed it shut. She then grabbed the 100-page bound proposal resting on top of her desk. She’d glanced through it an hour before. “Did you see this?” She asked as Dolores walked into the office.
Dolores stopped and looked at Maxine over the rims of her style-conscious glasses hanging on the edge of her nose. A notepad in her hand, she pulled a pen from her mop of dyed blonde hair and waited.
Chrissie waved the Trinity document in front of her face. “There are at least 10 typos and god knows how many grammatical errors in this proposal.”
“Chrissie, it’s a draft,” Dolores said.
“A what?”
“Draft. Not ready for the client as explained to you at the meeting yesterday afternoon. Ginger said it wasn’t ready. You insisted that she give you the dirty copy. No one has had a chance to make any changes or edits since yesterday’s meeting.”
Chrissie slammed the report down on top of her desk. “We’ve been working on this proposal for three months. It should be perfect by now.”
“Didn’t you hear me?” Dolores asked softly.
Chrissie looked up at her. “Yes, you said this is a draft?”
"That's right."