Chapter 15: The Loss of Progress=A Fresh Start

On Sunday, she and Todd began their first day of marathon training. He had sent her a text instructing her to meet him at the entrance of Sharon Woods Park. She arrived timely at 9:00 A.M. and parked her car next to Todd's truck.

He got out of his truck and was about to greet her when he took a double take. She was wearing shorts. Shorts! She had on a t-shirt that hugged her body instead of her normally oversized ones that fell over her butt. Her new $60 sneakers donned her feet.

"Hi Hayden. So… you're looking good." He was wearing a cheesy grin. "You finally figured it out."

She rolled her eye. "Thank you." She tried not to blush and wondered if people would think that they were a couple…

Sharon Woods had a great jogging trail that Todd liked. Hayden had been to the park many times, but had never ventured onto the trail. It wove through the forest on dirt paths across a wooden bridge and alongside a rocky creek. She had no idea that there was so much beauty in this park. Todd didn't make her run or jog but he did insist that she maintain a fast walk. Other joggers passed them, and she saw people who were there just to walk and enjoy the scenery or to toss rocks into the creek.

"This place is so beautiful. I can't believe I've never been to this part of the park before."

"Kia and I brought the boys here yesterday." He pointed ahead to a signpost that described the dinosaurs that had roamed the area. "Kevin, who is ten, did a hurdle over that post."

"Are you serious? That thing's over four feet high."

"I think he's going to be a runner." Todd smiled. "He wants to do the Zombie run with me."

"Then you should bring him along to train with us," she offered. School was out and she liked the stories that he told about Kia and the boys. His wife seemed really down to earth and the boys obviously loved Todd just like he loved them.

He squinted at her. "You sure you wouldn't mind? You do pay me to focus my training on you."

"Well, I'm hoping that he'll run slower than me."

Todd chuckled. "So, I'll do this; when we're out of the gym there is no charge for the training."

"But-"

"Since I have to train too, and if Kevin is coming along, then we should just consider it a training partnership."

"Hell yeah! You got a deal!" A dollar saved, was a dollar earned!

When they finally returned to their cars, Hayden was tired. If she was this tired from just an hour of fast walking, how was she going to handle an hour of running? Todd stated that he would see her at the gym Tuesday and instructed her to begin walking the treadmill again.

"I want your pace as fast as we were walking today, okay?"

"Got it."

"No running yet. I'm going to start you on intervals of thirty-seconds. Walk for three minutes and then fast run for thirty seconds." She nodded, hoping that she wouldn't look totally stupid when she fell off the treadmill, which was sure to happen. YouTube, here I come…

Yet by Monday, Hayden felt in high spirits. She was actually looking forward to her second job as she began looking at her sales as a test of her abilities and not just getting to the money. Marcus winked at her as she took her seat and Hayden gave him a quick wave and then averted her eyes in case he tried to flirt or offer her drugs again.

Brian had returned, but he didn't look much better. He wore a somber expression and seemed distracted. He didn't even stare today. However, he did say hello when he passed her desk on the way to the canteen for his break. He even congratulated her on her new sales.

Mr. Fox came out of his office to tell her how well she was performing and Pam nearly broke her neck to agree that she was doing extremely well—somehow syphoning the credit onto herself.

"I had some very good help," Hayden responded simply.

"Well, you keep it up. Next week we're going to have a monthly bonus. It's a thousand dollars. Top seller wins."

Now that was some good motivation. Not that she thought she could outsell all of the experienced Telemarketers, but it would be nice to outsell some of them.

Mr. Fox headed back to his office and looked at Brian's desk. "Where is he?" his voice was suddenly very nasty.

Hayden looked at him in surprise and Pam quickly answered. "He's taking a smoke."

Mr. Fox grunted in displeasure and then returned to his office.

Brian was only gone ten minutes and when he returned Pam spoke to him in her fake saccharin voice. "Brine, he was looking for you."

Hayden noticed the look that crossed his face. Was Brian afraid of Mr. Fox? He nodded and then quickly returned to work.

At the end of the evening, Hayden was happy to see that she had twice as many sales as Pam—who seemed to take it as a personal attack every time Hayden got up to write her initials on the board. One sale a day might not get Hayden a thousand bucks, but in a four-hour shift, it wasn't too shabby. At the end of the shift, she didn't immediately dart out the door like she normally did either.

She made sure that her order forms were correct for the printers because she had seen how Pam spent so much time talking to customers about mistakes on the layout. As she was heading out the door, she heard a loud noise from Mr. Fox's office; as if someone had thrown or slammed something, and then his muffled voice cursing up a blue streak. At first she thought that he might have fallen until she understood that his words were directed at someone.

She could only make out a few of them but she clearly heard the repeated use of the word fuck as in, "fuck-up," "where the fuck," and "who the fuck."

Marcus was walking out the door whistling and doing a pimp walk. He didn't even seem to notice or care that Mr. Fox was going off on someone. She lagged behind until the office door swung open and Brian came walking out. Mr. Fox was still yelling at him.

"You don't have that many more chances here! Do you hear me?"

Brian looked over his shoulder back into the office. "I was sick!"

"Well that's your fault, not mine!"

Brian walked away, his face an angry mask. Hayden hurried out the door. Damn, she was never going to call in sick…