I was at a crossroads.  I wasn’t sure how to react to this situation.  Me, Jen – alone together in a small, locked room.  Perhaps not the best situation – for her.  But she obviously trusted that I wasn’t going to go apeshit and beat her half to death.  I was trembling.  I had to hold myself so that my shaking hands wouldn’t make it so obvious.

Once the door closes behind us, she turns around.  Her face is a bit pained, which surprised me.  Then I realized: I’m getting fired.  Why would she want a potential problem child with an axe to grind giving her grief right out of the gate of her new job?  Hey, I wouldn’t either.  So I braced myself while the wheels turned: I hope Dollhouse is okay.  I’m not anorexic enough to work across the street at Mons Venus so it’ll have to do.  This sucks.

I didn’t get fired.  But she could have handled this one of two ways: apologized, cleared the air and set the stage for us to move forward – or – she could play a hard ass.  She chose the latter.

Are we going to have a problem here?  Wow.  It’s like that?  To be honest, I was relieved she hadn’t fired me on the spot.  To be even more honest, this bitch was going to try me and I wasn’t sure how I was going to respond.  So I didn’t.  I was speechless.

I don’t want to fire you, but I will have to if there’s still an issue between us.  An issue?  If I had gotten over everything, was shitting rainbows and ponies out my ass, with no qualms with her as my manager whatsoever, this moment would have undone all of it completely.  The fact that I still had some unresolved anger only heightened the tension brewing in my body.  How dare she come in here, wielding threats like she didn’t have some responsibility in this matter?  As if I weren’t due some form of an apology?

I pulled off as much of a smile as I could muster, which wasn’t so much a smile as a grimace.  No.  There’s no problem.

And at that moment, she took a very deep and noticeable breath – and gave herself away.  She was trying to assert her dominance without revealing the real issue: she was nervous.  Now, if the nervousness was because she was alone with me or if it was just because it was her first night managing a new club, I don’t know.  But that breath gave me the strength to accept the situation and her as she was.  At least for the moment.  She was stubborn as hell and so was I.  I decided to stick it out.  I had no intention of giving her the easy way out by quitting.

My very presence was making her uncomfortable and I was enjoying it.  This might be fun.

I had to tread lightly, but I was going to get my fucking apology.