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“She’s talking about the Key Performance Indicators and Metrics report. It’s found in the accounting software that Mandy had access to.” I still feel a bit dazed after falling into those eyes of hers.
“Okay. I think I can get that to her.” When the cell phone rings, she glances at me nervously. “Should I get it?”
“Yes,” I grunt. “You should get it.”
“‘Kay. I wasn’t sure about the protocol since this is a meeting, and I know your time is valuable.”
I wave at the phone.
She picks it up and launches into her greeting.
I tap my fingertips together.
She doesn’t know the protocol of being in a meeting with me. I’d fill her in if I had a clue. But the truth is, I don’t know how to handle this meeting, either.
Internally, I try to sort through our timeline with any scrap of logic I can muster.
She was at my house late last night and again first thing this morning. I heard about her feelings for me—her crush. We flirted over coffee.
And now, we’re both trying to pretend none of that happened.
But it’s not working.
“Mm-hm…” She says into the phone. “I see. Yes, got it. Yes, I can tell him… Sure thing. You said Brian, right? Is that Brian, I-A, or Y-A?”
I tap my pen against the side of the desk.
My knee bounces.
Mandy never took this long on calls.
Then again, Mandy was cold and often snappy.
Gwen doesn’t have an ounce of ‘cold’ in her. Right now, she sounds like she’s made a new best friend.
“Oh, cool,” she says into the phone, a smile on her pretty lips. “I’ve met people who spell it the other way, too. Do you have Irish ancestry? Oh, wow. Neat. Yeah, my mom works over on that side of town, too… Okay, for sure. I’ll ask him to call you.”
When she hangs up, she pulls a bright-pink Post-it pad out of one of the giant pockets of her forest green sweater. She leans forward to place the pad on my desk, and then she jots down a quick note.
“I’m right here,” I tell her.
“I know, but it helps me to write things down.” She keeps scribbling. Then she peels the paper off and leans even farther over the desk to smoosh it onto the side of my computer.
I reach for it and peel it off.
“Oh,” she says, disappointed.
“I don’t like clutter.”
“Well, you need reminders. Because, apparently, you don’t like calling people back, either.”
“I don’t like calling Kate back. Other people are no problem.”
She narrows her eyes at me.
Then, she reaches forward and scribbles another note on the top Post-it. She smooths it defiantly onto the edge of my computer screen.
‘CALL KATE!’ it says, in all caps.
