She really did. Becca was one of those women who looked good no matter what she was wearing. She had clear skin, thick blond hair that fell in gentle ringlets, and a body that I swore could pull off pretty much any item of clothing. This morning, she was wearing leggings and a fleece pull-over, her hair up in a bun, and still you could’ve told me she was a model on her way to a shoot and I would’ve believed it, no questions asked.
“I know what you’re doing. You’re dressing up forhim, aren’t you?” Becca smiled at me over her coffee mug.
“Maybe I am,” I said. “Or maybe this is just for me.”
She smirked. “He really is a lot cuter than I thought. I approve.”
“I’m glad,” I said, pouring my coffee into a to-go cup. “The only question is whether or not he approves of me.”
“What do you mean?”
I put the pot back in the machine and turned to face her. “Well, after you left the bar Friday night, something happened. Er, italmosthappened.”
Her eyes lit up. “Tell me!”
“We almost kissed.”
She squealed and clutched her hands to her chest like she was a schoolgirl in the 1950s. “This is amazing! I thought you seemed a little too patient with me this weekend. I was going to ask if anything happened, but I didn’t want to jinx your good mood.”
“Yeah, well, let’s not get too excited. We didn’t actually kiss. And who knows, maybe I’m reading more into it than I should. I had been drinking, and it was dark in the bar. Maybe he wasn’t going in for a kiss. I’m not 100% sure, which is why I need to do some recon today at work. I have to see how he acts around me, get a sense for what he’s feeling and whether or not he spent the rest of the weekend thinking about me like I did about him.”
“Oh this issoromantic!” Becca sighed. “I am obsessed with your love story, you know that?”
“It’s not a love story,” I corrected her. “It’s just about sex, remember?”
“Fine, fine,” she said. “But even that is still so exciting. Paul and I haven’t had that sort of excitement in our relationship in a while. You don’t even want to know how long it’s been since we—” She stopped short. “Well, never mind. Like I said, you don’t want to know.” She checked the time on the stove. “Oh, I gotta go. I’m late. Let’s have dinner together tonight though, I want to hear all about how your workday goes withJonah.”
She threw back the rest of her coffee, placed her mug in the sink, and whisked out the door before I had a chance to even say goodbye.
* * *
I didn’t see Jonah all morning. He was holed up in his office with the door shut from 9 to noon, and it seemed he only came out at that time because there was a meeting that he called starting in half an hour. I was in the break room eating the lunch I brought from home, and I saw him open the door to his office and step out, with his head down he made a beeline right for the conference room. I told myself that he was just busy, that it was a Monday morning, and he probably had a lot on his plate. He wasn’t ignoring me, because that would be childish and Jonah was a lot of things, but childish wasn’t one of them.
The meeting was supposed to just be for department heads, but the head of the marketing department and my direct supervisor, was out for the day, so I went in her stead. Penny was her name, and she had only come back from maternity leave a couple weeks ago. My dad said that she had been using many of her vacation days to stay home with her newborn, and that was one of the reasons he wanted to bring someone like me in to pick up the slack. He also suspected that Penny might be quitting soon, since she’d expressed on more than one occasion how much she wished her maternity leave had lasted longer.
It was so like my dad to know everything about the people working at his old company, even though he was retired. He was a social guy, who liked to talk and liked to listen, and that’s what made him such an amazing boss.
Jonah, on the other hand, didn’t seem to know half of what went on in the offices. I knew he would be shocked the day Penny handed in her resignation, and in fact, I was counting on it. If it caught him off guard, then he would have to find her replacement fast, and since I was already pretty much doing her job for her, I would be the obvious choice.
I would be a department head in no time, and from there, all sorts of doors—both at SHDC and at other companies all over the world—would open up to me.
I could go anywhere.
“Hello everyone,” Jonah said as we all gathered in the conference room. I sat next to Randal, who worked in HR with my brother. I smiled at him and asked him how he liked the show Saturday night.
“It was amazing,” he said. “Who knew Cal was so talented?”
I grinned. “I did.”
Jonah clapped his hands together, standing at the head of the table, to signal that the meeting was actually starting and side conversations should cease. Everyone quieted down and he cleared his throat. “Alright then, lovely to see you all. I apologize for calling this meeting at lunch time, it’s just that I’ve had the busiest day, and this was the only window of time I had available. Needless to say, you can all leave early today to make up for the lunch hour I am currently stealing from you.”
Some of us laughed, and he nodded encouragingly.
“Great, well, as you all probably know by now, we have a major project on the horizon, one we need to start building before the beginning of next year.”
He was referring to the outlet mall deal that went through a couple months ago. The mall was being built in the middle of the state, and SHDC had already acquired the land and most of the building permits. What the company needed to do now was fill the space. Jonah, and whoever he picked for his team, would need to meet up with all the biggest brands and companies and convince them to put one of their stores in this mall. It was exactly the kind of work I hoped I’d be doing when I went into business school, and I knew I would be perfect for the job. I just had to make sure Jonah chose me.
“This meeting is mostly about the outlet mall, but I also wanted to let everyone know that I am in the process of talking to some people in Japan that want to build a new luxury resort and they are considering using us as their development team.” He grinned. “This would be a major steppingstone; SHDC has never been able to branch out of the United States, and a deal like this could really put us on the map.”