What Did You Learn In School Today?

After her successful job interview, Jesse Flowers wondered if the rest of her life would be spent accelerating down a continuous spiral to hell. First, her 40 year-old husband ran off with a young woman, then he instituted divorce proceedings against her, then he convinced her that she didn't need a lawyer, then he fought for custody of the kids with his lawyer and won, and then managed to keep possession of their home in the bargain. Jesse wound up with a meager cash settlement. Taking her only two pieces of furniture, a futon, and her grandmother's cedar chest, she settled into an efficiency apartment where she pondered the complexities of men's midlife crises. She spent her first night alone in her two room domicile crying.

She was dazed and stunned. She began seeing a counselor just to have someone to talk to. Normally, she would have cried on her best friend's shoulder, but Kathy was married to Steve who worked for the same electronic company as her ex-husband. When Steve was transferred to Texas, Kathy had followed reluctantly. Kathy's entire family lived in the Chicago area. She welcomed the counselor's succor, but, pragmatically, she realized at age 38, she had to move on. The counselor urged her to grieve, but with her small amount of cash dwindling away, she knew the first order of business should be finding a job. Despite the mantle of emotional distress that seemed to have settled on her shoulders, she took a small measure of pride in her emerging survival instincts. She set up a checking account, a tiny savings account, and she managed to get her utilities set up and running. These were all things that were new to her. She had married right out of high school and her husband had always handled everything. Including decisively dumping her.

Driving home in what had always been her family's "spare" car, a rusty, twelve-year-old, sub-compact model, Jesse wondered if accepting the secretarial job at the recruiting agency had been a very intelligent thing to do.

She liked the modern 20 story glass building in Schaumburg that housed the agency on the twentieth floor. She liked the Woodfield Mall area where the building was located. She liked Athena Wells, the well dressed young woman who interviewed her first, although she instinctively realized that Athena didn't like her. She liked the big open office with all the computers and the friendly people and the bustling atmosphere of big business being done over the telephone.

But she didn't like the owner, Frank Braverman, who been the second person to interview her, despite the fact that Frank really seemed to like her. And that was the rub. Literally. Frank had patiently listened to her story, although her counselor had specifically told her not to "bring her problems to the interview.

After hearing her story, Frank had spent most of the afternoon telling her his story. His liberal parents from the Hyde Park area of Chicago, his radical days in Madison, Wisconsin as a university student, his sudden inspiration to go into the search and recruiting business, and his ongoing roaring success in the business. He droned on about his new Loop office. His expansion plans into other "marketing platforms" in the Midwest. On and on.

When Frank discovered that she lacked computer skills, he immediately offered to send her to school, company paid, to get the skills. He also urged her to begin taking classes for a bachelor's degree. "There's unlimited opportunity here, Jesse. But you need to get the skills and education necessary to step up to a recruiter's desk."

As he wove an imaginary verbal tapestry of her future, Frank arose from his high-backed, leather swivel chair and began stalking back and forth across the wide carpet in his private office. As if the chair mentally constrained him, he paced faster and faster while continuing on and on into Jesse's future with the company. She slowly realized Frank spent most of his time in the future wrestling with large issues only visible to himself. Eventually, however, he did work his way around to the back of Jesse's chair, which she found uncomfortable, as she tried to squirm around to face him. At one point in his description of possible branches in Jesse's future career path, Frank looked down at her fidgeting and said, "Relax. Your shoulders look like they're bunched up in knots." And, so saying, he reached down from behind her and began massaging her shoulders.

She didn't know how to respond to the massage. Confusion reigned while her mind lost Frank's conversation thread entirely. She wasn't sure if Frank was just being friendly, or if he was just one more lech. Her counselor had told her repeatedly, "You're still an attractive woman, and when you get through with your grieving period, you should resume dating again." Kathy had often complained that Jesse had aged far less than herself.

After mulling it for a few minutes, she decided that a shoulder massage was probably inappropriate during a job interview. "Frank, I don't need a massage. I'm interested in hearing about the benefits."

Frank dug his fingers deep into her shoulder muscles one last time and gave her one last squeeze. Letting go and striding back to his desk where he pulled a file from a cabinet he said, "Oh, I thought Athena went over that with you?"

The interminable interview concluded with her accepting the job, then setting her start day and filling out all the paper work with Athena.

"Well, welcome aboard. I'm sure you'll do well. Frank really seems to like you." Athena said.

"Yeah. He goes a little overboard sometimes, though, wouldn't you say?"

"What?"

"Shoulder messages?" Jesse ventured.

"Oh. He's just being friendly."

"I hope he doesn't get smarmy."

"You're lucky he likes you. Frank is loaded. And he's good looking, too. He works out everyday. He can get swarmy with me anytime he wants."

Jesse proceeded to sign up for evening business and computer classes at company expense. She liked staying busy and away from her grief. The classes also gave her a convenient excuse to avoid seeing Frank in the evenings as well. He frequently suggested late dinners to her and was disappointed when he learned she had to attend class. Jesse had learned in the interim that office gossip had already pegged him as having an affair with another woman in the office, Clarissa Raintree. The information bugged her, because Clarissa was a married woman with two kids. After her experience with an adulterous mate, she just didn't like the idea of married people fooling around.

The days in the office went by quickly because she was busy from the moment she arrived at the office in the morning to the time she departed in the evening. Frank hadn't been fooling about his business volume. She was constantly dealing with correspondence, sending fares, and calling job candidates to set up plane rides. And everyday, Frank managed to work his way behind her chair and massage her shoulders. Only, as time went on, the massages worked their way South, down her arms and towards her breasts.

She realized it was only a matter of time before Frank arrived at his destination. She tried shaking his hands off her shoulders. She repeatedly asked him to stop - and he would - for a few days. She did everything she could to dissuade and discourage him. But her resistance only seemed to make him more determined.

She cast around for another job, but she eventually realized that Frank was paying her well above scale. She needed the job, and she had been taking ruthless advantage of his free education offer. During her first nine months on the job, she had completed all the computer classes she would probably ever need. She had begun taking undergraduate courses toward a bachelor's degree. To pay for the courses on her own would have been prohibitively expensive. Everyday, as if to rub it in, Frank would always ask her as he commenced the massage, "Well, what did we learn in school today?" That annoyed the hell out of her.

So, she and Frank continued to do the massage lambada. One day she came to work early and moved her desk so that her chair backed up against a bookcase. When Athena arrived, she made her put it back. "What's the matter with you? The researcher's have to get to those books. You can't put your desk there.

When the semesters changed, Jesse noticed that the school offered a wide variety of self-defense classes. She signed up for her business classes, then began an investigation of the martial arts offerings. She talked to several instructors and quickly realized some of them lived in another world. They talked about their "dojos," or schools, the way some people discuss their nationality. She discarded the swift-striking art of karate because she thought, at her age, that she'd wreck her elbows and knees. She thought the kung fu instructor was a spooky sadist. The tae kwon do instructor, an enthusiastic young Korean, showed her some of the spinning tornado kicks that reminded her of a Bruce Lee movie. It looked spectacular, but she doubted it was really effective self-defense. She visited a jujitsu dojo and the display they put on looked like it could hold its own against Chicago street fighting, but it was far too violent for her.

She finally settled on a judo class taught by a woman, Charlene, whom she guessed to be about 60 years old. The collection of chokes, pins, and throws all involved using the opponent's weight against him, and it seemed the most appropriate for her.

As the new semester unfolded, Jesse learned the chokes and throws from Charlene who routinely threw burly truck drivers and part time police trainees on their asses. In the office, Frank continued, everyday, asking her what she had learned in school. Meanwhile, he continued heading ever southward in his massages.

Thoroughly fed-up, Jesse eyeballed a want ad for an executive assistant with a suburban cab company. She applied for the job and the interview went ok. She had to go through the rigmarole of getting bonded because the job involved handling money. The old boss told her he'd call if he decided to hire her. In judo class Jesse began gaining some self-confidence back. She felt her self-esteem rise, as she, too, began throwing burly truck drivers and part time police trainees onto their asses. She quit her counselor. She was done crying over her situation.

One day, she confided in Charlene regarding her problem with Frank. Charlene told Jesse to clearly tell Frank to "fuck off." Then she made Jesse sit on a chair in the middle of a big judo mat, then had every member of the class approach her from behind and put their hands on Jesse's shoulders. Charlene instructed Jesse to "Grab a handful of ears, honey. Wherever you throw those ears, your opponent will follow." Her first several attempts to throw ears around resulted in tipping the chair and her opponent over onto herself. She got bruised, but eventually she began flipping her classmates over her shoulders with ease.

The next day, at the office, she walked into Frank's private office. "Frank, I've got something I have to talk to you about."

"Can it wait? I'm busy here. I'm expecting a very important phone call." He said without making eye contact with her.

"No, it can't. This will only take a minute."

Frank finally looked up from his desk. "Ok. What?"

"Frank, I want you to quit rubbing my shoulders."

"That's it?"

"Yes."

"Sure. I'm sorry. I didn't know it bugged you. I won't do it again. Is that it?" He resumed staring at his telephone and fidgeting with his expensive suspenders.

"Frank, I mean it."

"I hear you. It won't happen again." And the phone rang. Frank waved her out of the office. Some big shot from one of his client corporations. Jesse left. She felt that she had fulfilled Charlene's edict.

For more than a week Frank kept his hands to himself when handing her work or discussing her work. One night the cab company called Jesse and told her she had the job if she wanted it. Jesse told the old man she needed a couple of days to think about it.

The next day, while Frank dictated a letter to her, she felt his hands land on her shoulders. She vigorously shook them off. In a few minutes they returned. "Frank, I thought you were going to knock it off." She shook the hands off again. A few minutes later they renewed their progress, and this time Jesse was too busy getting Frank's thoughts on paper to shake the hands off. When he said, "What did you learn in school today?" he reached all the way down and briefly cupped her breasts in his hands.

Reaching back and grabbing two generous handfuls of ears, Jesse said, "I learned to never take any shit from assholes like you," and she flung those ears hard onto the carpet.

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