"And then the bills kept piling up. So I went to work as a waitress at an all-night café. I stayed with Mom during the day while Dad worked and he stayed with her at night while I worked." She sat up straighter and lifted her chin. "As Mom got worse, I had to nurse her."
"I’ll bet you were a good nurse," Derek said.
"Unfortunately, not good enough. Mom died." She couldn’t choke back the tears.
He pulled her to his side and put his arm around her shoulders. "I’m sorry, Lori." He reached over and wiped a tear from her face. "I understand the pain of losing someone you love. I lost my father a few years ago."
Lori’s eyes overflowed with tears. She sniffed and wiped them away. Derek pulled her head down to his shoulder. She wasn’t sure if he was saying words or just making soothing sounds, but his gentle voice comforted her and his arm around her shoulder felt just right. He pulled his shirt out of his pants and wiped her eyes with his shirttail.
She didn’t know how long they sat like that, but finally she had no more tears to shed.
Derek said, "I’m glad to see you’re human. You’re always in such control I’ve wondered if you have any feelings at all."
Did she have feelings? Right now, she felt a warm tingle everywhere Derek touched her. Her stomach felt fluttery. She wondered if her heart would beat right out of her body. Oh, she had feelings, all right — feelings that a secretary shouldn’t feel for a boss who’d already warned her he didn’t want a personal relationship.
She’d managed to hide these feelings for months on the job, but she couldn’t control her emotions in this situation. The two of them seemed to be alone in the world. There were no sounds except the sound of their voices. There was no motion except their own limited movements. There were no other people and no other activities. Nothing to do but think and feel.
"Talk to me, Lori. Tell me how you went from being the caretaker for your family to being the caretaker of this disorganized sales manager." He squeezed her shoulder.
"After Mom died, there were still a lot of bills to pay." She sighed and sniffed. "So I kept my waitress job at night and got a job as a nurse’s aid during the day. My dad also took a second job, and my little brother even got a job delivering pizzas. It took us over three years, but we finally paid off all the bills."
"Did you work both jobs all that time?"
He looked at her like … like she didn’t know what. She did know that look made her feel all fluttery inside.
"Of course. We’d never have paid the bills otherwise."
"But you were on your feet all the time on both jobs. How could you keep doing it year after year?" Derek asked.
Lori shrugged and looked at the closed door. "I didn’t have any choice."
"Of course, you had a choice. Many people would have just declared bankruptcy. You weren’t responsible for your mother’s bills," Derek said.
"My family was responsible for the bills, and I’m part of my family. We believe in paying our debts." She tried to pull away from Derek’s light embrace, but his arm tightened on her shoulder.
He said, "You are the most remarkable woman I’ve ever met."
"I just did what I had to do," Lori said. His praise embarrassed her.
"Well, don’t leave me in suspense. How did you finish your education and get your secretarial training?" he asked.
Lori took a deep breath and pulled away. This time Derek dropped his arm from her shoulder and leaned back against the wall.
"After we paid the bills, I gave up the hospital job and kept waitressing."
Derek interrupted. "Why did you give up the full-time job and keep the part-time job?"
"With tips, I could make more in thirty hours as a waitress than I could in forty hours as an aid. And that left me time to take GED classes," she added.
"So you got your GED and went on to secretarial school." Derek shook his head. "You’re so good I thought you must have taken office classes in high school and worked in offices ever since high school."
"That’s why I was so scared . . ." She didn’t mean to tell Derek she had been afraid to go to work for Consolidated Electronics. She’d felt like an outsider. Everyone else had probably graduated from high school on a normal schedule and worked in an office for years.
"Why you were so scared about what?" Derek asked.
"Never mind." She shook her head.
"Oh, no. You’re not stopping now. Keep talking," Derek said. "You said, ‘That’s why I was so scared . . . ‘"