Love In The Jungle Read online

  Love In The Jungle

  by

  Ann Walker

  Copyright © 2015 by Ann Walker

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Love In The Jungle

  All rights reserved.

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. No part of this work may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording and faxing, or by any information storage and retrieval system by anyone but the purchaser for their own personal use.

  This book may not be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of Ann Walker, except in the case of a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages for the sake of a review written for inclusions in a magazine, newspaper, or journal—and these cases require written approval from Ann Walker prior to publication. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter One

  “Clara?” My boss’s voice cut through my thoughts, and my cheeks flushed when I realized I’d spaced-out while seated on the other side of his unnecessarily enormous desk. “Do you understand what’s required of you? I thought the email was pretty clear.”

  I swallowed hard, hating the way he talked to me like I was a third grader who didn’t understand a math problem. Sure, the email had been informative in the succinct manner that I was accustomed to from the higher-ups, but that didn’t mean I was okay with the content. I wasn’t spaced out and dreaming about hunks or anything; my mind was a mess with what I’d been tasked with, and I’d found it hard to concentrate on anything since that email found its way into my inbox.

  “I just…” I trailed off with a sigh, then shook my head. “Hal, this is a lot to ask of—”

  I noticed his jaw clench somewhat before he remarked, “It’s your job, Clara.”

  I wasn’t going to say that it was a lot to ask of me. No, it was a lot to ask of the managers I had to break the news to. The company had a very tight year, and it was my responsibility to tell all the in-store managers—who worked hard to push our electronics year-round—that they needed to cut employees, then cut the remaining workers’ hours as much as possible. Too much competition in the market to keep going the way we were, apparently.

  “Time to make some cutbacks. Fire some underlings. Do a bit of restructuring”. I said under my breath.

  It didn’t feel right to me. I’d been one of those sales associates in high school. I’d worked there to finance my university business degree, and the company had been good to me ever since. Hell, I was one of the few women in the senior tiers of the entire company.

  I should have been grateful I wasn’t in here to get fired, I guess. Maybe I should have sent a thank-you email to Hal for not firing me through the computer. But it didn’t sit right with me. I’d rather take a salary cut than lay off hundreds of hardworking people across the country. Our store was nationwide, with major outlets in almost every state except Alaska and Hawaii. In my opinion, we could afford to keep our people.

  But no one wanted to listen to the chief PR executive because I don’t deal with numbers—I give the company a shiny, smiling face for the public, and I make sure my legion of HR folks do their jobs right and don’t get sued by a disgruntled employee.

  Aside from it being a questionable moral decision, letting go of this many workers was going to be a PR nightmare.

  “I’m going to have to think this over,” I insisted after a slight pause.

  His thick eyebrows shot up as he glared at me. We’ have always gotten along, but I felt Hal was looking for ways to replace me with someone who didn’t question his decisions. I mean, who could blame him? Regardless, I figured he needed someone around to question his ethics from time-to-time—like now, for instance.

  “What’s to think over?” He held up his hand when I drew a breath to speak. “No, it’s really simple. This order comes from the higher-ups… higher up than me. You take your assignment; you spread the word to management, and you follow-up to make sure they’ve cut the hours. End of story.”

  “But Hal—”

  “We’re not discussing this further,” he said dismissively, his eyes flicking toward the door. “I only called you in here because you hadn’t replied to the email to confirm you received it. I expect you to carry out your job by the end of the day.”

  I hesitated before leaving, and Hal let out a long sigh.

  “Part of working at corporate is making the tough decisions, Clara,” he told me. He then turned on his desktop monitor and began clacking away at his computer. “You can’t care what other people think of you if you want to survive here.”

  Biting down hard on the insides of my cheeks to keep from snapping, I pushed the chair back and stood.

  “Thanks, Hal.”

  There was no way in hell I was going to do this—not by the end of the day, anyway. After slipping out of his office, I grabbed my coat and purse, told the receptionist I was headed to lunch with a vendor, and called it a day. I needed to think, to consider my future career at the company, and I definitely couldn’t do it surrounded by other corporate vultures.

  My options were limited, but once I set them out, the decision was easy. Either I instruct managers to lay off hundreds and hundreds of people across the country, or I piss off Hal.

  From my bench at a local park, a place I often went to work out some of my heavier problems, I grinned: pissing off Hal was practically my favorite pastime already.

  Bring it on.

  ****

  “Honey, it sounds like you made the right decision.” I bit my lip, my stare glazed over as my dad’s voice sounded in my ear. “I mean, would you really want to invest your career in a company who does something like that?”

  “I guess not,” I sighed, but my words were unconvincing to both of us. I sounded miserable, and I was fully aware of it. I mean, how can I not be? With a stereotypical white box filled with my desk’s contents sitting on the couch beside me, I had every right to be miserable; I’d been fired.

  Apparently Hal did not appreciate my combative attitude on the issue, and after a forty minute meeting where I tried to argue against the ruling, occasionally pointing out senior-level employee salaries that could be cut back to make up for budget issues, he told me he’d have to let me go.

  “We planned to merge PR and HR one of these days anyway,” he’d told me as I openly gawked at him. “We need team players, Clara, and I’m afraid you’re not cutting it anymore.”

  In that moment, I’d questioned my stance on the whole issue, and it had apparently come down to me losing my job—or them. In the end, I shook his hand because that’s how I’d been raised, then I was left to pack my things. My coworkers, the ones who I got along with best, were devastated to see me go, and I’d sat in my car crying for a full twenty minutes before I left the parking lot.

  A part of me wanted to take this to a labor board. We weren’t unionized at the company or anything drastic like that, but I was pretty sure this was a wrongful termination if I’d ever seen one. The more I sulked at home, however, the more I wondered if corporate life was for me
. I loved business, but politics weren’t my game—never had been, never would be.

  “Think of all the free time you have now,” Dad said.

  I know he was trying to be helpful, but my dad’s words made my eyes prickle with tears, and I ran my fingers under to collect some of the watery mascara.

  “I guess.”

  “You’re a bright girl,” he continued, and I could hear the clatter of dishes in the background. He was cleaning up after his lunch, pleasantly enjoying retirement as the rest of us slaved away every day. Well, the rest of them. No more of that for me. “Some lucky company is going to snatch you right up.”

  I shrugged. Working in public relations had become a pretty popular gig these days, and even though the job market hadn’t been saturated with people when I graduated university five years ago, it was pretty competitive now.

  “But take a breather,” he asserted firmly. “I bet you’re a little worn out anyway, and there’s no sense in running yourself ragged to find something new right away. You have savings, right?”

  “Yup,” I said, picking at the track-pants I’d practically fallen into as soon as I was home. “Plenty of that.”

  Even if the company had its problems, I’d always been paid well. By my rough estimates, I could keep paying my rent and car payments for another eight months before I needed to delve too far into my savings. Money wasn’t the problem. Morale, on the other hand, could probably use a boost or two.

  “I’ve never been fired before,” I muttered, my voice losing a bit of its strength. “Dad… It’s humiliating.”

  “You were fired for something you believe in.” I heard the kettle shrieking in the background, and sighed. “I know it doesn’t make it any better today, but one day you’ll look back on this knowing that you did the right thing.”

  “They’ll just get someone else to do the cutting,” I argued, suddenly feeling a little stupid. “People are still going to be let go… I’m just one of them now too.”

  “Sleep on it.”

  I fell quiet for a long moment, my mind a mess of incoherent thoughts, broken only by my dad’s voice. “So, what else is new?”

  I didn’t have it in me to make chitchat about the rest of my life; work had been all-consuming this past year, so I didn’t exactly have time for much of a social life. Maybe now I could… see movies, or something. After giving my dad an adequate rundown of my pathetic social endeavors as of late, which included finding a sale on detergent at the grocery store down the street from me and a solo trip to a music festival in my favorite park for all of thirty seconds (I’d been exhausted from a full day at the office), I made my excuses and said my goodbyes.

  Mom was going to call me when she got home from work, so I had that exciting conversation to look forward to, during which I was sure I’d rehash everything from today in agonizing detail as she chirped about silver linings.

  Too depressed to sort through my desk things, I grabbed the remote and turned on the TV, then buried myself beneath a quilt. At least good ol’ TV had no desire to analyze my recent firing. Good ol’ TV was always there to distract, never to judge. Besides, I can’t remember the last time I watched TV in the afternoon, so there was that.

  Chapter Two

  Why does everyone on social media look so accomplished?

  With one hand in a chip bowl, laptop perched on my knees, and my free hand strictly for scrolling, I wasted away yet another unemployed day online. A week had gone by since I’d been “let go” from the company, and I could slowly feel all my brainpower oozing out of me with each unproductive day that passed. I had also taken up talking to myself while puttering around my apartment, an embarrassing tic I hadn’t ever done before. Most of my friends were coupled up, but I still had the opportunity to grab drinks and dinner here and there—each time winding up spectacularly drunk and blaming it on my recent firing.

  But everyone I knew worked during the day; had weird hours that saw them snoozing in the afternoons; or they traveled for work. So, while my nights were open to the possibility of some social contact outside my parents and my younger brother, my days were filled with, well, just me.

  “ I’m not all that interesting, honestly.”

  My online friend group is rife with drama, however, and I could usually spend a few hours scrolling through all the various feeds. It was like having reality TV without the commercials or drunken sobbing—unless you counted my drunken sobbing. I’d branded the people I was friends with and followed into two groups: accomplished adults and forever teenagers. A lot of my high school friends were forever teenagers. Most of my college group was accomplished adults.

  I feel the more time I spend online I felt myself dangling precariously between the two groups, threatening to drop off into the more adolescent.

  Scrolling through a Twitter feed from a girl I went to high school with, I smirked at her incredibly passive-aggressive comments toward another girl we mutually knew, and I felt like I was in twelfth grade all over again. Once the 140 character posts turned into song lyrics, I clicked to another tab, all the while feeding a continuous stream of chips in my mouth. With my greasy blonde hair chucked up in a bun, chip crumbs on my chin and ratty college t-shirt, I was definitely a pitiful sight.

  But at least no one could see me slightly judging them from the other side of a computer screen. Unfortunately, not much had changed since the last time I ambled through my newsfeed, and I let out a defeated sigh.

  It was at that moment that something caught my eye. It wasn’t a snarky post or a depressed cry for attention, nor was it one of a thousand pictures of people’s kids, but rather an advertisement. Usually, I ignored the pleas for my business, each ad tailored to me based on my browsing history, but the words in this one spoke to me.

  Want to change your life? Want to be a life-changer?

  Why yes. Yes I do want to change my life. Chewing my lower lip for a moment, I threw caution to the wind and clicked the ad link, surprised when I found myself on a volunteering website. There were all sorts of places to dedicate one’s time to, but I was immediately drawn towards ones that required a trip overseas. Lips pursed, I clicked through a few information paragraphs.

  “I’d always wanted to travel to Africa ….anywhere in Africa.” I thought out loud.

  I was fully aware that the continent had a range of beauty from the mountains of Kilimanjaro to the spices sold in Morocco. The north, south, east, and west are all vastly different from one another.

  Chip bowl forgotten, I sat up and narrowed in on an organization that taught children in rural villages. Their contact page listed a representative in Kingston.

  “That’s about an hour’s drive from home.” I thought to myself.

  Without giving it more than a passing thought, I grabbed my phone and dialed the number.

  ****

  “You have a variety of options to pick from. Here’s a few brochures…”

  “I actually looked through all of these online,” I said, watching as Eileen, the representative from the volunteer organization, set the papers back down on her desk. “There’s one in particular I was interested in.”

  “Well that’s wonderful,” she offered with a smile, her hands knitted together in front of her. “You know, we do have an online application that you can fill out.”

  I swallowed down my embarrassment, heat rushing to me cheeks. “I…I just wanted to talk to someone about this, face-to-face.”

  Her expression turned kind, and I let out a little breath when she told me she understood that. Good. I couldn’t be the only one who wanted to talk things over with an actual person. I’d seen the online application before I drove out here. I’d read through all the FAQ pages, I’d watched the videos that other volunteers made about their amazing trips abroad. I’d done it all. As exciting as it all seemed, I couldn’t bring myself to commit to something so… out there until I talked to someone.

  It wasn’t crazy to volunteer, I know that. It wasn’t some absurd idea that
I might want to give back. But I’d spent years in the corporate world, and before that I was working in retail dealing with awful customers and finicky electronics. This was… different. This was a big, scary, strange step that I felt odd taking through some online application. I wanted to see a face. I’d spent a week looking at the website, perusing everything, researching the trips I wanted to do.

  But I needed to see someone nod and smile at me before I applied. I wanted to hear that this was legitimate, that grown people my age did this kind of stuff.

  “Now, would you like to discuss any particular volunteer opportunity?”

  The phone rang beside her, but she pressed something to silence the sound. Her office was much more hectic than I anticipated, as soon as I stepped through the front door from the packed parking lot, it was like I was back at my old company. There were computers, people, desks, filing cabinets, the whole nine.

  “I was back in the corporate world…with prettier pictures on the wall”. I smiled at the ironic sentiment of my thought. “I’d like to teach kids,” I explained, my legs pumping up and down with anxious energy. I’m not sure why I was so nervous, it’s not like she knows me. This Eileen woman won’t look at me and call me a fraud for wanting to teach. She doesn’t know I’ve only ever worked in PR as a serious adult with a serious adult job. I wanted to do something fun, and I’d always loved kids. This would be perfect…in theory. “Preferably on one of your Africa trips.”

  “There are several countries that are perfectly safe to volunteer in for our Africa destinations,” she told me. “You can specify where you’d like to go when you apply.”

  “Great.”

  “The kids are wonderful,” Eileen insisted with a nod. “I think this is a great choice. We’ve always had the best feedback from these excursions. Usually we coordinate our teachers with our builders, and you’d go over with a group.”

  That was a relief. As much as I wanted to stand on my own two feet, maybe patch myself up after getting fired, I wasn’t sure if I could go to some remote location across the world alone.