Chapter 8
l
JASE
Reply From: dancing_guy@
To: Aunt Macie
RE: RE: RE: how to meet a guy
Dear Aunt Macie,
Thank you so much for the private dance lessons. I appreciate it. You can send the voucher to Lucas Morton, 46 Chuckleberry Rd, Cremorne.
Yours, Dance_newbie
*****
What the fuck?
I stared at the email in disbelief.
"Emilio must have lost his fucking mind!" I swore, to no-one in particular. There were only a few people in the office at this hour and none of them were near me, which was perhaps fortunate since I was close to losing my mind.
Any good the six week holiday to Europe had done for me was fast flying out the window as I discovered the mess my stand-in had made with my Aunt Macie role.
There were a couple of things that, sure, were my fault and I was going to have to update the procedures for next time.
Because there would be a next time - I sure wasn't giving up on going away now I had a loving partner in my life.
Filing of emails and tying expenses back to the specific cases, which was an admin requirement of my job, hadn't been done.
And the appropriate recording and receipting of expenses hadn't been done either.
The later was probably the reason for my current problem.
Emilio had taken the budget for 'extras' - gifts we gave the correspondents to help them with whatever their issue was - and literally run away with it, running miles over budget.
And now, here in my inbox was another commitment he'd made, which we couldn't fulfill, because my boss was refusing to authorise any further expenditure for at least another month, in an effort to recover from Emilio's spending spree.
Frustrated, I pulled out my phone and called Eddy.
"Hey, handsome!" Eddy's cheerful voice normally made me smile but tonight my frustration seeped through into my voice.
"Hey, Eddy."
"He-e-y, what's up?"
I sighed.
"Fucking Emilio, that's what's up. He ran over budget on the Aunt Macie thing like it was not even a speedbump in the highway.
He's been giving out vouchers and flower arrangements like his mission was to raise GDP all by himself!
Hell, he even shouted a couple to a super expensive weekend in a hotel down on the harbor! "
Eddy laughed - which I didn't appreciate, "Yeah, he's a pretty generous guy."
"With my money, or at least my budget," I retorted.
"Okay, but he's not doing it any more, so what's the problem? You can just stop giving out freebies until you catch up, right?"
"Yeah, well. Pete - my boss - said no more until the end of next month, but I've received an email from someone Emilio promised private dance lessons!
But they haven't been sent the voucher for them yet.
Private lessons! How fucking expensive would that be?
And now I'm going to have to write back and tell him we can't do it after all. Ugh, I hate this!"
"Hold on," Eddy said. I knew him so well, I could tell he was thinking his way through the problem, just from the way he spoke. "What sort of dance is it?"
"I dunno. Dance is... isn't it all the same?"
Eddy snort-laughed. "Noooo, babe. There's a whole world outside of bump and grind, you know. Didn't you ever watch that TV show with the dancers learning all sorts of fancy shit?"
"Er, no."
"Oh well. Look, there are all kinds of dances. Does it tell you anywhere in the email which one it is?"
I went back to the email. And here was another example of Emilio not following the rules. One and done, I'd told him, but no, there was a chain of at least four emails - which was why we were now in this mess.
"It's... bachata?" I said, after scanning all the emails.
"Oh, right! Cool."
"You've heard of it?"
"Yeah! Of course. It's latin dancing. Emilio does it. He might even teach it. Not sure about that though. I'm gonna call him right now. I'll call you back."
Eddy was gone, hung up before I could even reply.
I drummed my fingers on the desk, irritated beyond measure.
I could literally feel the anger simmering in my veins.
It was probably clogging up my arteries and giving me blood pressure.
I didn't need this shit. Closing my eyes and sucking in a deep breath, I tried to find my inner calm, pushing thoughts of Emilio and dance lessons and overblown budgets to the back of my mind.
There were other emails to answer, other people who needed advice. Other people I could help.
I opened my eyes and got to work.
There was a request for some ideas for a first date - that was easy: a hike in the Blue Mountains was always good and could be combined with lunch and some touristy shopping in the beautiful town of Leura, a couple of cafés in the city that I knew to be good, the art gallery - which was free, a walk along the harbor foreshore - also free, or iceskating.
Of course, there were many other suitable options, but this selection covered a range of personality types without paralyzing them with choices.
Another email asked whether it was acceptable to break up with his boyfriend by text.
While at first glance that might seem like a 'no' except if in-person might be dangerous, I knew it was more complex than that.
The correspondant hadn't given any circumstances surrounding their situation, so I added additional situations where I thought it might be okay to text - where the other person might become confrontational or not accept the rejection, any kind of danger, long distance relationships (though a phone call might be kinder), very short term casual relationships, and a few other scenarios that came to mind.
There weren't really many hard and fast rules with this one (except where danger could be involved), and it also came down a bit to the generation of the people involved.
I stressed that it depended on the particular circumstances of any given situation and to always be safe.
I was still working when Eddy rang back.
"Hey, lover," he chirped happily. "You are so going to love me."
"I already love you, you idiot," I said.
"Well you're gonna love me even more," he said. "Emilio said he'll give the lessons himself, for free. I've got the phone number of the studio where he works part-time. He said to tell the guy - Lucas? - to call and schedule the first lesson and he'll take it from there."
I breathed a sigh of relief. I would've hated to let this dancing guy down. I hated letting any of these 'lonely hearts' down.
"Thanks, Eddy, you're a savior."
"You can thank me in person tonight," replied Eddy, and I could tell from the way he spoke what he was thinking.
"You're insatiable!" I told him.
"Pfft, I don't know why you say that. You've got a dirty mind!"
"Oh, I see. My mistake. If you don't want to..."
"Of course, I want to, you dirty fucker. Just come home early, okay? You've made me go hard," he whined.
"I'll leave the office as soon as I send this email off," I told him. "What's the phone number of this studio?"
"Oh, right, yeah. Forgot about that. You distracted me." Eddy rattled off the studio name and phone number. "He's to tell them he has an arrangement with Emilio, and to book an hour's lesson."
"Done!" I told him, moments later. "I'm packing up now."
A few more flirty comments slowed down the end of the call, but it gave me time to pack up the laptop and lock it away. Moments later, I was in the elevator, planning all the things I'd do to Eddy when I got home.