Chapter 2

Like many workplace newbies during their first week, Lisa felt she was too inexperienced and too inexpert. As soon as she completed her training in the first week, she was able to perform her Job as an Assistant directed by Peter effectively.

Peter was the CEO of the company with a team of five assistants or assistant managers, and he was an educated, amiable and decent man. Lisa found that all the team members were lovely and humorous after getting along with them for several days.

Despite what had happened in the first day, Lisa considered Ella a good friend and a dependable companion. Ella's job was somewhere between a secretary and a personal assistant.

The executive office was next to the Finance Department, so they shared a tea room in the top floor; which was a small room had tea making facilities and other refreshment facilities but was not furnished with tables and chairs as a common room.

It was a typical working day; Lisa was going to the tea room to get a cup of refreshing drink during lunch break, then she heard the conversation.

"Have you heard that Joseph had broken up with Marry last week?"

"I am not shocked; do you know which one is Marry?"

"The fifth or the forth, maybe, that we know of. He is such a playboy."

"It seems that Joseph can't keep a girl for more than three months."

"let's take a wild guess who will be the next one, I am thinking of Alice from Sales Department."

"No way. Alice is a smart girl and she already has a boyfriend."

There were three ladies couldn't be stopping gossiping and laughing with cups on their hands in the tea room, Lisa recognized two of them from the accounting as soon as she came in, but she could not remember their names.

The ladies paused and looked at Lisa while she was drinking.

"Good afternoon." Lisa greeted them with a wave and a broad smile.

"Good afternoon, Lisa." Said the taller one who had long fair hair with a violent pink dress, greeting her courteously.

"What is so funny?" Lisa could not care less about the gossip; but she also knew that people on the job often develop close relationships with coworkers as they came to share gripes, jokes, gossip and satisfactions.

As a newbie she needed to tried to cultivate good relations with her colleagues. Perhaps her expectations of lunch conversations and water-cooler gossip were a legacy of the last time she was in that kind of office environment.

She pretended to be interested in the conversation although she was not.

"Have you met with Joseph yet? He is the head of the cell-project department right now." said the one next to Lisa who was as tall as Lisa; and her long black hair was swept back in a ponytail with casual clothes.

"I'd only met him once in the meeting room; What's with him?" Lisa asked.

Upon the utterance of this sentence, the three ladies exchanged a quick and meaningful look.

Soon the taller one took a slurp from her cup of water,it was like she had a huge announcement;since she leaned forward, whispering conspiratorially to Lisa.

"He is very famous at our company because he loves to date coworkers and breaks their hearts. And he only hooks up with the incredibly beautiful ones. You know what I mean, right?"

"Office romance, are we not allowed to date someone in the office?" Lisa asked rhetorically.

"It is not against the company's regulations, but the ladies he had dated would depart their job because they cannot handle seeing him every day when the relationship goes south."

"Did Joseph ask them to leave the office?" Lisa was curious.

"I don't think so, He just dumped them and broke their hearts."

Lisa soon learnt about the intrigues and scandals that went on in the company, Joseph played an important role in these dirty stories since he was a ladies' man or a player. People lived in this small city for their whole lives were old-fashioned about relationships and marriage, but they had an insatiable appetite for affairs about the famous.

"Is he rich?" Lisa finally got to the point.

"It was said that he owned several prosperities here and abroad, and his family owned a company was worth billions of dollars; but his staff revealed that he was very stingy and hated spending money."

"The richer,the meaner; it seems that he is a notorious guy." Lisa made a conclusion.

"Lisa, you are pretty and in good shape. You must have a boyfriend." the lady remained silent quickly change the subject.

This was the first time Lisa had met her, she was very nice-looking with short hair, wearing a long floral skirt which was nothing more fashion than it. There was a great deal of her sincerity and earnest in her soul that Lisa could not resist to tell her about everything.

"Not yet, but I've never thought about dating anyone with who I worked." Lisa added: "Sorry, who you are?"

"Jenny, I am an accountant from the Finance too.What a pity, a smart guy was asking about you." Jenny Said significantly.

"Thank you, but I am not interested."

Lunch break was over during their entertaining chitchat, Lisa said her farewells and left. What a relief! She was deeply concerned that there would be rumors about her due to what happened at the first day in the meeting room; maybe someone would spread tales about her in an attempt to devalue her work; but it was not mentioned ever since.

She could breathe a collective sigh of relief and went back to her desk.

There was no admittance without a security pass, she put her key-card that gave her access to the office. There were five desks in the office for them and a separate office for Peter that people were allowed inside with Peter's permission, each individual office had been provided with a terrace garden which became its private, informal breakout zone.

Lisa passed near Ella's desk, Ella was dressed in a white, tight-fitting shirt which looked great on her, she was the same age as Lisa so they had a great deal in common to talk over.Lisa stopped for a small chat with Ella.

And she finally knew the name of the ladies who were talking in the tea room; afterwards they arranged to meet after work to do some sports. Both of them spent most of their working days sitting in a cubicle behind a desk.

It was time to work out, Lisa was finishing her work on schedule and she was about to go straight to the nearby gym with Ella, when Peter came out of his room followed by Alex.

"Lisa, could you please help Alex to update all the statistics to the latest?" Peter called her.

"Sure, it won't be long." Lisa reseated on her chair, she knew Peter was talking about the report that she had sent to him earlier.

Alex was an assistant manager with experience and seniority among the five of them, he had a formidable list of qualifications which commanded authority. He was an outgoing person, not so shy with people and worked well with coworkers, that others could pick his brain to deal with intractable moments. And his cubicle was next to Ella's, Lisa was thankful that she was so lucky to have such easygoing company.

Lisa texted Ella to go first and she would see her at the gym later, it was getting dark and late when Lisa completed the files, Alex took over the file so she went to the gym in a hurry. The gym was in the other building which one passage could take them to, it was about ten minutes' walk.

In order to get to the gym as soon as possible, she cut through the small park so that it would help her to save some time.

There was no story without coincidences, a small crowd had gathered around in the park under the streetlight. They stood there blocking her way so Lisa went to watch out of curiosity, then she saw that an elongated familiar shadow was drawled under the direction of the light.

It was Joseph, he was fighting aloud with a lady, it must be Marry.

"Marry, we are splitting up and we are not getting back together. please leave me alone." Joseph's voice was calm and emotionless.

"But I love you, I just wish someday and somehow we can be back together." The girl was bowing her head and weeping. She was wearing a long red skirt which her size was camouflaged, she was trying to hug him, but the skirt restricted her movements.

"I hate to part on such bad terms. But It's over." Joseph turned his back, leaving the crying lady behind.

It was like watching an old-fashioned break-up scene in a TV drama. Lisa decided that she should just slink away, even though there was barely time for her to escape unseen.

Joseph was going to leave when he saw Lisa in the crowd, Lisa paced with her hand covering her face, not knowing what to do, presumably to stifle his noticing. He gave her a significant glance and walked straight towards her.

"Lisa, what a surprise. Are you going to the gym? I want to go there too, I thought maybe we could go together." Joseph acted like nothing had happened.

You bet!

He must be a member of the gym too. If you enroll at a gym that's miles away, you won't be visiting it as often as you should.

"look, I am sorry, I didn't mean to spy. I need to go."

Then Lisa took to her heels without any delay and soon out of sight in the darkness, if this was a hoax, it was one that Joseph was fully blindsided by. Lisa ran like hell and kept going forward, thinking nothing and sweating until she arrived at the gym building.

To this day, Lisa still could not understand why she did it.