When I was working in the hub… I was meek and shy… I dressed in not odd clothing but I definitely wasn’t sharp Andrade as I try to be… more like warm-ups and kicks Andrade with black or maroon colored hair… I was quite the guitarist and artist… ahh… the old days.
Jillian was the hot sales rep. She always came over to talk to me in my far off cube… I was a system engineer then… but instead of hanging with support like everyone else… I was put in a cube off in the frontier.
But everyday, she would come in, bring me a coffee or her toy from her happy meal… she liked me… something about me reminded me of her, I would come to find out… but not specifically.
One day, an opportunity for an assistant opened up and I asked to be transferred… I remember… it took much for me to get up the confidence to ask.
I was granted it.
As her assistant, we traveled so long and far… all around the country at one point.
I remember she smelled good all the time… even after long days. She would look tired and worn sometimes as if haunted by some demons I would never know… but she always, through the worst, have a smile for me… and she confided in me.
She was older than me… by 4 years.
She dressed well, too. She was a chick, but dressed in nice suits and wore shirts that were nice and like a dude, she would wear these silver elliptical cufflinks. She was so proud and hot… I thought she was invincible.
Through our travels, spending so much time together, we would spend time together out of work at home.
Boston… it was so gorgeous. I remember crashing at her house to go to work the next day… we would take the train in… and she would buy me booze and we would stay up for hours and talk… I got her smoking again… but she gave me a certain gift… a taste for vino.
After awhile, I realized I saw her with friends and such… but never with a dude… she never had a boyfriend… she didn’t trust them… she looked like she had been killed inside by some pain I would never know.
We rocked out… I was on the cusp of my 21st birthday… and we celebrated each day until I turned 21… so much… that when I did… I just had no energy to go out… but I did.
After a bit… her influence… made me change my dress… I took the color out of my hair… I slowly tried to emulate her style… but not fast… my friends at work and home… I didn’t want them to be all like, dude you’re changing for a chick… guys and their pride.
Not without noticing, I began to act more and more like her… I began to assert myself… I began to be funny… not because I wasn’t… but she showed me confidence… she was allowing Andrade… to be Andrade.
That is another gift of hers… it was under her aegis… that I began to refer to myself as Andrade. But I was awkward… I looked different… I dressed different… but I didn’t feel comfortable yet looking like a poster boy for Structure… which later became Express which she shopped at Exclusively.
An ironic twist I never shared with anyone until now.
After a few more ticks of basically living with the girl and working with the girl… she began to become distant… which coincided with my finally coming into my own… and becoming this gorgeous man I am today.
Everyday… I would see her do as she did… cufflinks… or silver watch… last two things she would wear… one or the other not both…
But always looked sharp… I was with her when she’d get like 2 hours sleep… and somehow… she would always look good.
I always asked her if I could ever be her boyfriend… she told me… she was impressed with me… but she was looking for a man friend… we laughed… I appreciated her honesty.
She had quite the temper… it made her formidable at meetings and no one could say no to her… she was inspiring.
One day… I hear through the grape vine… that she had put in her two weeks.
I asked her what she had done.
She explained to me that her brother had passed. And she had to go take care of her family now… the money she made the money she saved… it was not for her… she had to be the family’s strength.
I didn’t understand… but she knew herself so well, what the hell could I say?
I had become so prominent as her assistant… and not realized how great I had become at my job… that I was approached to be her replacement.
Think of it… 21… my own office… my own assistant… my own expense budget… I made it… I was everything I wanted to be then… I didn’t have to work for money… it just came to me… I had become that gregarious… I had become her.
And now she was leaving.
One day, without warning, I got to work, and her boss comes to me and is like… kid, today is that day.
You are the new sales rep for POS systems… I always joked it meant Piece of… but it meant Point of Sale.
I was in.
But my mentor… my love… I never told her that… I thought she was too good to hear that from some dumb ass kid… my bad… perhaps I wasn’t as confident yet as I thought… was gone.
I saw her two days prior and she looked SO relaxed and so poignant… she was strong… and this situation had made her weak… but free.
She didn’t have to be what people expected of her anymore… she was just gonna be a good daughter, a good sister, and a good housewife someday… that’s how they do in South Carolina… the Palmetto State.
There I was… free of things… I was the boss… I was the…
I walk into my office… and it still smelled of her. Soon… it would smell of me.
But right on my laptop… was a post-it note… “Look in the closet.”
I open the closet… new suit… new shirts… 3… and a note that said go to the window.
5th floor… 30 Winter St… Boston… Downtown Crossing… looking out my window… to a brick wall… but the sun was warm… and right at the sill… a box.
I open the box…
“To my defacto boyfriend… I will always love and remember you,
J”
Jillian… she left me her cuff links… and three shirts to wear them with.
Slowly… quietly… and subtly… I knew who I had to be… I was… Andrade.
It is coincidence that my sis lives in SC… but there is more reason to the rhyme that leads me there.
I heard she became a shop owner… a boutique owner… taking over her brother’s shop in SC.
I haven’t seen her since… and I don’t mean to just butt in to her life… I probably won’t go to find her… that was a different life she led when I knew her… but if it brought her salvation…
Perhaps that state will bring it for me, too.
And perhaps I will find again… what has been missing for sometime…
The real Andrade. The one my friends like to love.
Then again… maybe I’ll come back all dressed in black with long hair, some color in it, and a clean shave… and find that it took me all this time… to come full circle.
