Free Revenge of the Cube Dweller by Joanne Fox Phillips Page A

doubt, she skimmed some of the proceeds. I do wonder if she tithes the standard 10 percent of her takings.
    Mazie must still be at lunch because her computer screen saver is on, indicating she’s been gone awhile. Three toddlers, dressed alike, stare up at me.
Must be her grandchildren
, I think.
I wonder if I would be a grandmother by now, if Winston and I had decided to have kids
.
    When we first discussed marriage, I wanted a large family andwas disappointed that Winston did not.
Big money would have made child rearing much easier than it had been for my parents
, I think. Winston wanted no children, pointing out that he traveled frequently and didn’t feel as though he would make a good father, being so obsessed with succeeding in business.
    Winston had been an only child, and although he had liked my siblings and all the little nieces and nephews, he had absolutely no desire to complicate his life with his own offspring. In the negotiations on the question of kids, I had caved and had justified the decision by taking great vacations and accompanying Winston on his frequent trips to New York and London.
    As the years went by, his invitations for my companionship had grown more infrequent, so I had filled the gap by perfecting my golf game and spending time at our club. Our dog, a black Labrador retriever we named Rocky, had become the focus of our parental inclinations. We had become one of
those
couples, with pets instead of children.
    My God, I am old
, I’m thinking as I look at Mazie’s grandbabies, as they are often referred to in Oklahoma. I decide to leave before more depressing thoughts enter my brain, and I head back to my floor. I take the stairs rather than the elevator this time.
    I’m fat, old, and out of shape
, I think as I march down the stairs to my cube on six.
I need to start exercising and get a facelift
. These same thoughts had consumed me in the months after my divorce. It is so like women to blame themselves for the despicable behavior of their men. If only I had kept myself up, if only I was better at whatever … For me, those thoughts quickly gave way to placing the blame squarely where it belonged, especially when I recalled the last time I saw Winston.
    I remember being in my lawyer Stu Van Dyke’s office for about the sixth or seventh settlement discussion.
    “This valuation is bullshit and you know it, Winston.” I looked across the table as my husband and his lawyer Rick exchanged “not this again” looks.
    “And what about our working interest in those wells in North Dakota? And the deferred comp plan? Your compensation is a matter of public record. I have the proxy right here in my purse.” I got up to leave. My lawyer stayed seated, intimidated for the moment by my ability to find what he had not. “This is so ridiculous,” I continued as I walked to the door. “I do our tax return, remember?” It had occurred to me early into the divorce proceedings that divorce lawyers are not financial experts, and my background was actually stronger at the nuts and bolts of transactions than Winston’s or either of our attorneys’. Despite his Rice MBA, Winston resided in the world of structured deals and high finance rather than the transactional minutia in which I, as a CPA, was an expert. Still, the mistakes I pointed out were too large to have been oversights.
    “Please sit down, Mrs. Lewis. Please.” Rick stood up and gestured to my chair. “Give us a minute to get our ducks in a row here.”
    “Look, Winston. Just play fair and we can get this over with. I don’t want the house! The yard! The putting green! The pool! How am I supposed to maintain all of that? I haven’t worked since Bush Senior was in office, for God’s sake.” I had knownwomen who had made that rookie mistake, opting to keep their stylish residences only to have to sell when they could not manage the upkeep on a barista’s minimum wage. “And you, sir,” I pointed at Rick, “have had ample time to