JENNIE
Jennie leans back in her office chair and look out at the skyline behind her. She taps her pen to her lips and thinks about Lalisa for the thousandth time that day. She suddenly sits up angrily and throws her pen on the desk. "I can't work like this."
"Everything all right, Ms. Kim?" Marie's voice, that she never had a problem with before, is now grating on her nerves with every syllable her assistant speaks. How did she not notice it until Lalisa pointed it out?
"Fine, Marie. Please close the door on your way out."
"Actually I was coming in to let you know I made reservations at Dolce Vita if you're ready to call it a day."
That was unusual. Jennie doesn't eat out at restaurants unless it's unavoidable. For some reason, Marie's presumptuous statement irritates her.
She looks down at her watch and see that it's seven fifteen. Jennie can't bring herself to go home and see Lalisa yet. Her note said seven, but she's taking the coward's way out and waiting until Lisa's asleep.
The darker secret, the one she's not willing to admit to herself, is she's waiting until Lisa's asleep so she can sneak in and lie beside the Thai again like last night.
"No, thank you. Please feel free to enjoy the reservation yourself if you want to. I'll be here a bit longer." The CEO doesn't have the mental energy to deal with Marie that moment, so she let it go. With that she turn back around and faced the city.
She hears the door closes behind her, and if her ears are not mistaken Marie says something under her breath. Jennie doesn't know what it was, but for some reason she feels like it has to do with Lisa. Although every thought she's had today has been of the gorgeous barista. She can't get the woman out of her head, and she's about ready to scream with frustration. She can't go thirty seconds without wondering what Lisa's doing in their place. 'Their' place? My God. She turns around to her desk and put her head in her hands.
She got it so bad.
Jennie pulls out her phone and check the tracker again for the tenth time in that day. She did something bad, she should feel the guilt anytime soon. She knew it was invasion of Lisa's privacy but she did it anyway. She attached a GPS tracker in Lisa's phone. She keeps telling herself that was to keep the Thai safe. But she knows, it's her obsession.
1
Jennie saw Lisa leave that morning, but the Thai only went to her old motel and then ran a few errands. The CEO kept waiting for her to return home, and only when Lisa finally did, could she breathe a sigh of relief. That still didn't keep her from obsessing about the Thai all day, in fact Jennie thinks it made it worse. Knowing Lisa is in her home and around her things should give her anxiety in the worst way, but all it does was makes Jennie excited to think Lisa's becoming settled there.
Jennie always had lots of anxiety about keeping a schedule and to-do lists. It's her mind's way of keeping control, and something she's always needed. Growing up, she had very loving parents, and the CEO always knew her father loved her mother very much, but she never understood the depth of it.
Jennie was seven years old the first time she caught on. Her mother wanted to go to the store to buy some chocolate chips to make little Jennie pancakes but her father refused. She remembered thinking that was really strange. Why couldn't her mom go to the store? Her father wouldn't let Mrs. Kim leave the house. Instead, he made Mrs. Kim kiss him and say over and over that she loved him.
