Demoted and...

"So here's the deal," She said, lighting her first cigarette in half a decade. "What you have is mine now. Your Mercedes is mine, your office is mine, your freedom, and most importantly," she leaned across the table, smoke easing from the corners of her lips, "your ass is mine. You get to be my secretary now. You know I don't know the first thing about high-impact plastics, so I can't get rid of you. But, I can sit you right outside my office so I can watch every fucking move you make."

Well, this could have gone worse, I thought to myself. She wasn't trying to dump me onto the streets with no house, no money, etc.

"Give me your keys." She said, tossing the keys to her Honda on the table. I reached into my coat pocket and felt the key to my baby - my Mercedes SL500. I dropped them into her hand and she paged through the keys on my ring. "What's what here?" She asked.

I told her which key was my office, which one was for the front door, the master key to the warehouse and the maintenance rooms and which one was our house. I think I may have put a little emphasis on "our" and I hoped that didn't remind her that there was still something else she could take away.

"Oh, and give me your phone. I need your sales contacts." She said. I pulled my Blackberry out of my jacket and set it on the table between us. Thankfully, I thought, my Blackberry was all sales contacts and employee information.

I slept in the spare bedroom that night even though Carrie never came home. I got up a little late and took a shower. For the first time, I wasn't looking forward to going to work.

When I pulled into the Plastech parking lot at 10:30, my Mercedes was sitting in my reserved spot. I'm sorry, Carrie's Mercedes was sitting in her reserved spot. No black Audi to be seen. I wondered how it went down this morning when Andrea showed up for work. I was glad I wasn't there to find out.

I entered through the main lobby and found my new desk covered in boxes of things from my office. Carrie was sitting at what used to be my desk, on the phone with someone and she glanced at me through the windows that separated her office from my new home in Reception. She signaled me into her office and I pulled up a chair as she finished her conversation.