"What, take a vacation? Jules you have been working here for over ten years and have barely taken a week off for vacation. You deserve this."
"There is a reason for that you know." I said, eyeing my phone. I wanted a vacation but I knew I shouldn't take one. Where would I go anyway. I don't take pleasure in tropic locations and my job lets me travel around the world, so where is there left to go really.
"Go visit your family for God's sake. You haven't spent a month with them in how long?" Angela wasn't going to quit. "Plus, it will give you some time away from Josh. I mean if you stay here you have to see him everyday."
"Thank you for reminding me." Josh was my ex-boyfriend because I had made the mistake of dating a co-worker. I knew it had been a mistake. "I just don't know Ange, I have sacrificed a lot to get where I am, I don't want to lose it."
"You aren't going to lose your position just because you took a vacation." Angela said, rolling her eyes. As I opened my mouth to protest she put her hand up to my mouth and picked up the phone. Dialing she handed me the phone and put her hand over the cradle.
"Mr. Bate's office. This is Marissa speaking. How may I help you?"
"Hi Marissa, it's Julia, is Mr. Bate in?"
"Yes he is, hold while I patch you through"
"Okay, thank you." I said, looking up at Angela again. I couldn't believe that this was happening. I was actually going to take a vacation, my first in five years. That may sound ridiculous but my passport was already full of stamps from various countries.
"So?" Angela said anxiously.
"She's patching me through."
The rest of the conversation went as most probably think it would. I asked Mr. Bate for a vacation and he readily agreed. So here I am, three days later standing at the baggage claim at Newark Airport waiting for my family or luggage, which ever happens to come first. For me, it was my luggage and the biggest pain I have ever experienced.
Standing near me at the next baggage claim over was a tall, somewhat lanky man leaning on a cane and a woman standing next to him, arms crossed and black, tightly curled hair pulled back by a clip. "You know House, if you hadn't been yourself people wouldn't find you such a pain."
"And if you stopped wearing low cut tops people would stop thinking you were a hooker. But we can't always get what we want, now can we." The man said, looking impatiently at his watch and then at the baggage moving at a snails pace. "Can't this thing move any faster?" He impatiently whined, bouncing his cane on the ground.
Thump-thump-thump. It went up and down, rhythmically and quite annoyingly. Normally I wouldn't have said anything but I was stressed and angered that my family hadn't arrived yet. "Excuse me sir, can you please not do that." I asked in the nicest voice I could muster and I flashed him a small smile.
He paused for a moment and turned his head to look at me. "Could you please mind your own business." He snapped back at me before resuming bouncing his cane up and down.
I looked at him and smiled the sweetest I knew how and stepped forward so that I was near enough to make him uncomfortable. "I would mind my own business except for you bagging that piece of wood on the floor is distracting I can't even hear myself think. So how about you stop doing that before I grab it you of your hand and shove it where the sun don't shine. Thank you." Turning around I saw my brother pull up and I headed towards the door. In the background I heard the thumping stop and the stifled laughter of the man's woman companion.
This vacation was already better than I expected.
