Chapter 19

Stan first had to take Anne back to her house so that she could change for 
work. Stan, in any case, normally arrived earlier than Anne, so they arranged 
to drive their own cars, for the time being at least.

The first thing that happened to Stan as he walked into The Firm was a 
surprise. Elaine came from behind the reception desk and hugged him. "Thank 
you, Stan," she told him, "thank you for being so kind and understanding 
yesterday." Stan protested, "But I didn't do anything!" But Elaine persisted...

"Yes you did, you gave me a hug when that's what I needed and then you 
discreetly cleared off out of the way when Susan and I needed space. We both 
noticed, both spoke about it, and we both thank you. Oh yes, this one's from 
Susan!" And she gave him another hug.

"Anyway, Susan and I did a lot of talking yesterday. Susan told me she's 
always in fear that I'll find someone else, someone more attractive or 
something. I told her I didn't need anyone else and I thought I'd 
demonstrated that I loved her. The rest is private, but the upshot is that I'm 
going to stop doing things that wind her up, and she's going to stop the 
unnecessary possessiveness that was getting to us both. Well, we'll both try, 
anyway."

 "As part of that, with Susan's okay, I want to give Anne a thank you hug from 
us both as well, if she's not going to be upset or embarrassed by it. What do 
you think?" Elaine asked an overwhelmed Stan.

"I, er, well, er. Um. I can't really speak for her, but why don't you ask her? I 
know she's comfortable with you two girls, but being hugged by you might be 
different. "

"Okay then, Stan, I'll have to wing it," Elaine answered, sober faced.

Stan walked on through into the office, where Elizabeth was already at work 
as usual. "Hi Stan, good weekend?" she asked him, with a smile and a distinct 
twinkle in her eye.

He sat down at his desk as he answered, "Yes, very!" with an equal twinkle. 
Each looked at the other for a moment, and then both burst out laughing.

"Okay, you first!" managed Stan. Elizabeth retorted, "No, you first!" with more 
laughter from both.

"Okay, okay, I'll go first," yielded Elizabeth. "I suspect my weekend wasn't as 
exciting as yours, anyway. James drove over to my place and we had a nice 
dinner. What with an aperitif before the meal, wine with it and a brandy 
afterwards he couldn't drive home, so he stayed overnight."

Stan didn't say anything, but his eyebrows lifted in question.

"No, we didn't! He was a perfect gentleman. He was going to call a cab, but I 
offered him my spare room and he accepted. So you can get your mind out of 
the gutter! Now, you have a slightly more interesting tale to tell, I suspect?"

Stan couldn't help but smile, but he answered, "A gentleman never tells tales 
about a lady," in a fake posh voice with his nose held loftily up in the air. 
Elizabeth laughed again, put one finger beside her nose and told, him "Don't 
worry, I'll not pry into your affairs!" And they again smiled at one another.

Stan however added, "I can say that we'll be seeing each other again, often I 
hope. Tonight for certain, at our dance class, and I hope more often after 
that."

Elizabeth looked as pleased as Punch, Stan noted. "You can stop looking so 
smug!" he told her.  "Why? I've got someone else to look after you now!" 
Elizabeth answered. She grew more serious and continued, "I was worried 
about you, Stan. But if you can snare as good a catch as Anne Berkely, I can 
stop worrying. That black cloud you used to carry along with you is gone, and 
you're out in the world, dating again."

Stan, now just as sober, simply said, "Thank you, Elizabeth. Thank you."

Then they got on with their work.

- - - - - - - - - -

When Anne arrived a few minutes later, she was greeted by a similar speech 
from Elaine, who came out from behind her reception desk. She looked up at 
Anne who this time was wearing a pair of jeans that must have been sprayed 
on along with a low-cut white top. Elaine practically purred, but she knew that 
Anne wasn't interested. That didn't stop Elaine from looking appreciatively, 
though.

"Anne, as part of our 'thank you', I've been asked by Susan to give you a hug. 
Would you mind?" she asked the older, taller blonde shyly.

Anne smiled, nodding. Elaine came to meet her and they hugged briefly. 
"Thank you, Anne, from both of us. What you and Stan did was really nice."

Elaine walked back behind her desk and sat down. Anne had a peculiar look on 
her face for a moment, then it cleared and she went on into the lab to get 
started on her day.

- - - - - - - - - -

Denise was late arriving at The Firm that Monday. Elaine saw her, called out 
"Hi there, Denise! How was the holiday?" before noticing the bloodshot eyes, 
the fatigue around them and the set expression on her face.

Denise was not happy. Jim hadn't called, and his phone seemed to be out of 
charge or switched off. She couldn't believe just how stupid she'd been, giving 
herself to him like that. She'd told herself he'd call after all, but when she 
began to accept that he wouldn't she'd thrown things at the wall in anger. Now 
she was just depressed, and severe lack of sleep hadn't made things any 
better.

Denise mustered a "Hello, Elaine. Yes the holiday was great, but I'm afraid 
I've been let down since. I'll talk to you later, Laney," and moped on past 
towards the IT group office.

Elaine thought for a moment, picked up the phone, and called Stan. Elizabeth 
answered, and Elaine asked if Stan was free...

- - - - - - - - - -

Elizabeth put the phone down and started to say something to Stan, when Bob 
called him over. With an apologetic glance to her, Stan walked the ten feet to 
Bob's office.

Once inside he sat down. Bob told him, "You remember we spoke before, 
about getting all the Quality Department paperwork accessible on-line? Well 
I've been speaking to Jon Kelly, and he says they've got some resources 
available and we can start to look seriously at it now. I want you to go over 
there and chat with him about what we want out of the system. You know, as 
we discussed earlier."

It had been a more and more pressing requirement for some time to get as 
many documents as possible available on-line to the internal network. The 
Firm was well behind in this respect. Jon Kelly was the IT manager and he'd 
been 'waiting for available resources' for quite some time. Now, at last, it 
seemed he'd decided he could spare the effort. Stan said he'd go straight over, 
and he bustled out of Bob's office. He saw Elizabeth motioning to him, but 
said, "Later, Elizabeth!" and hustled towards the IT group.

On his way over, Stan thought about Denise. He hoped he'd be working with 
her, he could ask about the holiday she'd had. A small part of him that he was 
slightly ashamed of wondered about the man she'd been talking about, as 
well.

He reached the IT group office and saw Denise in with Jon. Jon looked 
concerned, but Stan couldn't see Denise's face. He knocked on the door and 
was called in, and then he saw Denise.

He was shocked. Denise looked completely different from the happy person 
who'd been going on holiday only two weeks ago. She looked tired out, her 
eyes were bloodshot and she'd obviously been crying.

"Oh, God, Denise! Whatever's the matter?" he asked her, with compassion in 
his voice.

"I-I'm okay. I'll talk to you later, Stan. Er..." Denise stammered out, obviously 
unsure what was going on.

"Stan, I'm sorry, but could you excuse us a minute again? I still need to talk 
to Denise," Jon told Stan, and no sooner had he been invited into the office 
than he'd been asked to leave. Stan went, a bit perplexed.

He went to Paul, one of the other guys in the group, and they got chatting. 
Paul was a talented artist; he mainly worked in 3D computer art but Stan had 
seen a couple of his freehand pencil sketches as well. After a suitable time 
talking about the weekend and their various problems, Stan asked, "Paul, do 
you know what's the problem with Denise?"

"Not really, Stan. She came in late this morning, looking like her puppy had 
just died. She wouldn't talk to anyone; she just sat at her desk looking like 
she wanted to burst into tears. Jon called her in the office, and they've been 
talking ever since."

Just then, Jon poked his head through his office doorway and asked, "Stan, 
can you come in now?"

Stan went. He sat down next to Denise, who seemed to have recovered her 
composure, although she still looked upset.

"Okay," said Jon, closing the door. "I have an opportunity for the two of you, 
but I also know that I have a problem. Stan, Denise has just come back from 
her holiday and has been upset by someone she met there. She'll need your 
help and support. Denise, you have a job to do, I hope you'll be able to be 
professional and not let your private life affect your work. Can I count on you 
both?" Stan said, "Yes, Jon," while Denise merely nodded.

"Right then. You know the document access project that Stan's been after for 
a while, Denise? Well, you came to the end of that project you were on before 
your vacation, and Stan's now free as well. I want you two to work together 
on this one." He turned to Stan. "Stan, you know what you want and how you 
need it presented."

Jon then looked at Denise. "Denise, you will handle the technical aspects. It 
shouldn't take you too long. You'll need to be aware of the potential load on 
our server, remember."

Jon dismissed them with a hopeful little smile and a sigh, "Okay, off you both 
go, now."

Jon was never great at briefings, Stan remembered. This one was no 
exception. Up the pair of them got; as they left the office Stan managed to get 
Denise's attention and mouthed, "Coffee?" She nodded back to him, and so off 
they went.

They got their coffee and sat at one of the tables. Stan, as so often, didn't 
really know what to say, so they sat in silence for quite a while. Eventually he 
managed to say in a gentle voice, "What happened then, Denise? You sounded 
happy enough on Friday."

"No I wasn't!" Denise told him, her voice rising. "I was waiting and waiting for 
that bastard Jim to ring me, and he never did. I tried to ring him but his 
mobile's switched off. He used me and dumped me without a second thought, 
and I let him. If I ever saw him again, I'd kill the fucker!"

Denise was angry... very, very angry now. Stan could see she needed to vent. 
He was taken aback by her vehemence though, and sat back to think for a 
minute before he said any more.

"All right then. How about you telling me what happened, and we'll see what 
can be done," said Stan, groping for a way forward.

"What's to tell? I gave myself to him; he dumped me; end of story!"

"Do you want to get in touch with him again, Denise? Or perhaps... not now?" 
Stan asked.

"Oh, if I could only..." began Denise, before her voice trailed off. She was 
thoughtful for a moment, before saying, "I really don't know, y'know? On 
Friday that's all I could think of, talking to him again, seeing him again. Now? 
I don't know." She stopped speaking and turned away from Stan. After a 
moment he saw her shoulders begin to shake.

He went around and knelt on one knee beside her, putting an arm around her 
shoulder as he did. He looked up at her, but Denise turned her face away 
again. Stan had seen the tracks of her tears, he could feel her shaking, but he 
didn't know how to comfort the young woman crying in his embrace.

So he did the only thing he could: he held her, stroking her shoulder and back, 
and let her cry. It was only afterwards that he remembered he'd been softly 
whispering, "It's okay, it's okay, let it out, it's okay," virtually the whole time. 
But eventually Denise drew away from him, still shuddering a little but with a 
smile precariously in place.

"Thank you Stan, I needed that hug. Thanks," she unsteadily told him.

"Anytime, Denise, anytime. I'll always be here for you. You know I'll always be 
here for you." The words spilled out of Stan, he wasn't even truly aware of 
what he'd said.

Just then Stan realized someone was behind him in the canteen. He turned to 
look, and saw that it was Anne. She had a very serious look on her face!

"Stan?" she asked, "What are you doing with Denise?"

Stan stood, feeling slightly guilty. It must have shown in his face, because 
Anne's face and posture returned to it's more customary forbidding nature. 
Stan's instinctive "It's not what you think..." didn't make matters any better. 
Fortunately for them both Stan went on, "Denise has had guy trouble, and 
needed a hug from a friend. That's all."

Slightly mollified, Anne was nevertheless unhappy. "I heard what you told 
Denise, Stan. 'Friend', is it? Is that all?"

Denise was watching, taking this all in.

Stan was caught between the two women. He didn't want to leave Denise, but 
on the other hand he had to make Anne understand. He replied to her, "Yes, 
of course Anne. Denise is my best friend. She's the one who pulled me out of 
my dark time. You know that. You can't be jealous over this, surely?"

Anne shook her head, and then paused for thought for a while. Eventually she 
relaxed a little, then a lot and came to Stan, pulling him into her arms and 
kissing him soundly.

Denise saw this and shrank into herself. Stan didn't notice at all, but Anne saw 
when she opened her eyes and pulled back a little.

"Denise?" she said.

Denise looked up at Stan, with anger again on her face. "You bastard! I 
thought you said you weren't ready for a girlfriend!"

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