She laughs. “You’d like that.”
“I would love that.”
I ask the waitress for a pencil and a piece of blank paper. When I start drawing, all the other colors in the restaurant disappear. There’s just Zandra, incandescent and so much more self-possessed than she used to be. She is beautiful, of course, but it’s everything about her—the smile, her slightly tensed hand on the table, and the way she gazes around the restaurant with curiosity and interest in the aesthetic, the people, and the food. The world is strange and beautiful to her, which is a rare perspective. After what happened in Paris, finding out that I’m her boss, the rumors about us at the office, and taking on this advertisement project with such a short deadline, she has every right to be bitter, but she remains intrigued and impressed by the world.
I’ve only completed half of the drawing by the time our food arrives. I don’t show it to her yet. It’s incomplete and we’ve jumped back into this so quickly, it feels like at least one thing should be kept a mystery.
My phone vibrates. I check it as Zandra asks the waitress for one of their signature cocktails.
Alina: I thought you should know that I’m getting on a plane now for California.
I reread it a couple of times. Alina knows we’re on a break. She hasn’t contacted me for over two weeks now. But she’s on a plane, heading to the state I’m currently in and, as far as she knows, I’m still here. She doesn’t clarify if she’s going to San Francisco. It’s possible she’s coming to California for her parents or her sister, who live in Ventura, or she could have a job somewhere else. It’s a big state. Under those circumstances, she would be texting me to open a dialogue about meeting up. But Alina has always flaunted her independence to everyone—almost to the point of overcompensating—so if she was coming here for another reason, she would have told me.
It’s possible I never understood Alina, which is why I can’t pinpoint her motives or her intentions.
“Mark?”
I look up to see Zandra watching me.
“Are you okay?” she asks. “Is it about the ad?”
“No, no, everything is fine with that,” I say. I slide my phone back into my pocket. “It’s just my mother complaining about my father. Did we decide if you’re coming to my apartment after this?”
“That depends,” she says. “Do I get to see both of my drawings or just one of them?”
“You can see whatever you want, whenever you want.”
She laughs, picking up her fork with an elegance that’s nearly impossible to replicate. My phone feels oddly bulky in my pocket now. I’m not going to let an ex-girlfriend get inside my head or slip into Zandra’s head. That text will just be one thing I keep a mystery between us.
Chapter 11:
Zandra
“Ican’t believe it,” Aaron says. “Julietta was right.”
“That’s not a phenomenon,” Julietta says. “I don’t know how often I have to be right for all of you to stop questioning every word I say.”
Aaron sets his coffee down on my desk. “I don’t. I just question your social skills, which are lacking.”
“Are you two done chatting about my life?” I ask. They’re both huddled around my desk like I’m a football coach in the middle of a game where my two players are shameless gossip and Julietta.
“We haven’t even started. You slept with the big man, the owner of 2Resonance, a man who must have more zeroes on his paycheck than you’d find in a matrix,” Aaron says. “And you want to stop talking about it before we even find out if he’s good in the sack? Is his privilege longer or shorter than four inches?”
Julietta snorts. “Okay. I’m out of this discussion. Aaron, you need to take the sexual harassment seminar again. I’m going back to my desk. God save you both from your office bullshit because I can’t save you anymore.”
“Thanks for your time, Julietta!” Aaron calls out as she walks away. She flips him off. He waits until she’s back at her desk before leaning closer to me. “When she worked for a previous company, she got in some trouble for sleeping with her supervisor. So, while she’s usually a bit prickly for no reason, this time her porcupine syndrome is flaring up for a legitimate reason.”
I turn around, interested in the conversation for the first time. “What kind of trouble did she get in?”
“Everyone at the company just turned against her. People don’t like the idea of someone getting better treatment because of personal relationships,” he says. “But you don’t need to worry about that. We’re chill here. We’re like beavers.”
“Beavers?”
“We give a damn.”
I press my fingers against my temple. “That’s a terrible joke. I love it.”
He smiles, but it slowly fades away. “I agree a tiny, teeny bit with Julietta though. You should be cautious. Everyone here is cool—well, nearly everyone, John is a bit questionable—but Mark is your boss and there is some potential that it could make people think twice about whether or not you deserve promotions or anything like that if you’re sleeping with him. Most of us know better—you’ve proven yourself already—but some people have nothing better to do than be bitter.”
