A pause in conversation felt awkward. She met his eyes without flinching or looking away. He couldn’t fully interpret everything her eyes said, but he could see the pain behind her expression. Brad didn’t think he should broach certain topics, but he believed they both felt the presence of the proverbial elephant in the room. “You settling in okay?”
“I am. I rented a small house on a short lease. Once I feel settled, I’ll start looking for a house to buy.” As she spoke, she moved her hands, and her bracelets clinked on her arms. “It was time to leave Savannah. I contemplated moving, well, anywhere, but Atlanta just felt right.”
“We’re certainly happy about that,” he said warmly. “You’ll find the architectural division here a little larger than the one you’re coming from.”
“I toured here during some training a couple of years ago, remember?” No. He didn’t remember. He wasn’t even in the country, and when he heard she had come by the office, he felt angry and frustrated for weeks afterward. He knew he would have to process the concept that she just assumed he had been here and would surely remember her visit. She was here now. That’s what mattered. Valerie continued, “To think that you have an entire floor dedicated just to the architectural division is amazing. As you know, in Savannah, I shared a large office with three other people.”
“We’ve spoken of enlarging Savannah’s operation several times. But we always have nine other projects with higher priority.” Brad had wanted to go to Savannah to head up that proposed expansion personally and, if he just happened to run into Valerie Flynn while down there, well, all the better.
She smiled brightly, showing even, white teeth and dimples on either side of her mouth. “Uncle Phil took a little home building operation and turned it into a multi-state design, build, commercial and residential contracting company in just thirty years. I imagine there are more than nine projects in front of Savannah’s little office complex.”
Brad laughed. “You’re probably right.” Far more than nine. More like forty-nine, much to his frustration. He settled back comfortably in the chair, forcing himself to relax the tension in his shoulders and neck, and he watched as she relaxed, too. “Mom been in touch with you yet?”
“Oh, yes,” Valerie said with a warm smile, her southern drawl pouring forth like smooth sweet honey, effortlessly elongating those two little syllables. “She met me at my house the day I got here. She acted like I was a long-lost child come home.”
“Well, to her, you are.” In that moment, they were fourteen again. An awkward boy trying to act cool and a coy girl trying to act distant. He could almost smell the swimming pool out back and feel the planks of the gazebo beneath his bare feet as he stared into this woman’s eyes. She had changed. She had grown up. But the Valerie he loved with all his heart still lived inside this grown-up woman in his office. He suddenly wondered, what would his mother say about his attraction toward Valerie? Would she approve? He could not imagine that she would disapprove.
A thought suddenly occurred to him. “Hey. You do know they’re building that church library and dedicating it to your parents? That’s not new information, I hope.”
Her lips thinned and she lifted her chin in a very subtly defensive manner. “Yes. I do know that.” After clearing her throat, she said, “I’d love to see where I’ll be working.”
Understanding that the shared personal history moment had passed and the professional relationship now took over, Brad stood. Obviously, her parents were a hot-button topic. That confused him.
Valerie’s parents had died when she was three, so she didn’t have a real memory of them. She told him one summer when they were eleven or twelve that all her memories consisted of her and Buddy; that she only knew what her parents looked like because of pictures. When he asked her if that bothered her, she shrugged and said that she didn’t know anything different.
“I’ll have Bentley come up here. He’s expecting you. You’ll be working directly for him, but really, we want to do a lot of knowledge transfer. As of today, you’re training to take over his position when he retires in a few months. That hasn’t been announced but it’s kind of an open secret.”
When she stood, Brad extended his hand. He watched her hesitate ever so slightly before placing her fingers once again into his grip. When she took his hand, her grip was feminine but firm. “I am really happy you’re here, Valerie. Looking forward to seeing you around.”
She pulled her hand away before she replied, “I really look forward to whatever is next.”
Valerie shut her office doorand leaned her back against it. She closed her eyes, exhausted—both mentally and emotionally. She thought of her little corner of a shared office in Savannah and her total understanding and comfort in the job and the expectations for the job. Now they had her training to head a team, working on the seventh floor of a ten-story building dedicated entirely to Dixon Contracting.
It overwhelmed her. How could she possibly run a team? What made her more qualified than the people who had been working with Bentley in this office all along? She, a young black woman, coming into this office thinking she could take over just because of her relationship with the Dixons?
Her meeting with Brad this morning – she’d hoped that since so many years had gone by since she had even seen him, the silly attraction she felt for him would have dissipated. But it hadn’t.
Instead, the light in his eyes as he smiled and welcomed her this morning had caused the breath to catch in the back of her throat. His eyes had crinkled in the corners, his sun-streaked hair catching the light from his windows.
She’d wanted to hug him, kiss his cheek, see what he felt like as a man. Her attraction for him had always been very one-sided, though, and, as a teenager, she’d never had the courage to make the first move.
Now, she came back as a broken shell compared to her previous existence. Nothing about her made her available, even if he was interested. Which he couldn’t possibly be.
As doubts plagued her mind and she started to sink inside her head, she ran her finger over the scar on her right wrist that ran from her wrist bone up to the bottom of her pinkie. Suddenly, she realized she didn’t hear her own voice, but his. Tyrone’s. Even after all this time, the doubts he’d fed into her subconscious still surfaced and took over.
Intentionally straightening and moving away from the door, she pushed thoughts of Brad and Tyrone out of her mind and walked into the middle of the room and took a slow turn.
She had a drafting table on one side of the room, right under the window, and on the wall facing that, a long counter stretched across most of the wall. A whiteboard hung above it at one end, and a smart screen above it at the other. A tablet connected to the smart screen sat on the counter, plugged into its port.
Where the counter ended, she could see a rack that would hold building plans. At the end opposite the door sat an L-shaped glass desk with metal legs. A phone and a black desk pad sat on the surface across from her. A keyboard and mouse sat on the short arm of the L, facing a wall filled with four large screens. She knew the screens could be combined to show one image or four different images, allowing her to work with her design and engineering software.
A white leather desk chair sat behind the desk and in front of a wall filled with built-in shelves. A company policy binder sat on the otherwise empty shelf.
Boxes sat near the counter and in front of her desk. She recognized the boxes she’d had delivered from Savannah. Deciding to go ahead and unpack, she opened the first box and found her leather-bound books on design, a college graduation gift from Uncle Phillip. Inspecting the shelving, she strategically placed the books sporadically around the shelves, then filled the gaps with some knickknacks, photos, and awards.
An hour later, her hip twinging with a dull ache, she stood in the middle of the room and inspected the shelves. Using her artist’s eye, she made a few changes, shifted some things around, then set the empty boxes by the door.
She walked to her desk and slid into the chair. The leather arms felt smooth under her hands. She brushed her palm over the empty desk pad and smiled. This move felt right. It felt good. As the years had gone by, she’d watched Tyrone’s parole date move closer and closer, and knew she’d have to leave Savannah. The idea of running into him on the street or in the grocery store or anywhere else filled her with terror. Everywhere she looked for a job, either within Dixon Contracting or without, no city felt right except Atlanta.
