“Come in.”
“Hi.” He grins as he pokes his head in, opening the door just enough to squeeze the rest of his body through. “Whoopsie.”
He stops, his body curling over the door handle as he fiddles with it.
That nervous laugh erupts from him, pink staining his cheeks. “My belt loop got caught on the door.”
He closes the door behind him, a brown paper bag clutched in his hands. “Um. So. Two things.”
He pauses.
“This feels like a good news/bad news situation,” I say.
His smile crinkles. “The good news is I brought you lunch.”
He lifts the brown paper bag and places it on my desk. The smell of my favorite chicken salad teases me from inside the bag.
“Oh.” My face warms. “You didn’t have to do that.”
He shrugs.
“And the bad news?”
“Richard just called me,” he says, his face already apologetic.
“Okay.”
“He asked me to tell you to come down to his office tonight. After five.” The knot tightens. After five on a Friday. Almost everyone else in the office will be gone.
“Why is that bad news?” I ask, feigning nonchalance, but my voice is too tight for it to work.
Wesley pauses and I stare a hole into his forehead, hoping he’ll get the message.Please don’t bring up the conference room.“He didn’t sound...like himself.”
I nod once, eyeing the paper bag. Suddenly I’m not so hungry anymore.
“Do you want me to come?” Wesley asks.
“I...” Strangely, the idea of his presence calms the frantic beat of my heart. “I do. But I don’t know how long this will go. Don’t you need to leave early?”
He shrugs, looking down at my carpet. “It’s my party, right?”
Right.It’s his birthday. I should have told Emily. She would have helped me get a cake with too much sugary frosting and wrangle a few coworkers to sing an off-key “Happy Birthday” during the lunch hour. Instead he got stuck on lunch duty.
“That would be great. Thank you, Wesley.”
I try to imbue my gratitude in those few words but it doesn’t feel sufficient enough. Wesley’s presence at this meeting is exactly the buffer I need to feel like I can breathe under Richard’s gaze.
Thank you doesn’t feel like enough.
“Wesley,” I blurt before he closes the door behind him.
He turns, his hand on the door handle that held him up.
I run marathons, lead a department. But I can’t speak to my intern right now. After an interminably long pause in which my throat constricts around thank-yous and apologies and admissions of truths I can never reveal, I say, “Happy birthday.”
A dimple appears on his cheek. “Thanks. You, too.”
Everyone takes their breath for granted; we’re alive so we breathe oxygen. That’s it. But when I’m at the end of a race, my body screaming, my legs wanting nothing more than to stop, my breathing saves me. Preparing for this meeting with Richard feels like the end of a race. I can’t breathe and I just want it to be over.
