Page 47 of Tell Me What you Think

"Can I ask you something personal?"

Olga swallows the bite in her mouth without really chewing it.

"Uh, yeah, of course."

"Did you—" Marina hesitates, which is unusual enough for her that Olga goes on alert.

She's not going to bring up the kiss, is she? She promised she wouldn't, and Olga needs her to keep that promise, because if she mentions it right now, she'll probably start stammering, turn the color of a stop sign, and be completely unable to form a coherent sentence.

"Did you always know you were into women? I mean — was it easy to figure out?"

Of all the questions she could have asked, that was the last one Olga expected, and especially not in that curious tone, with that almost unfocused look — but anything is better than talking about the kiss.

"No, it wasn't easy, and I didn't always know. It took me way too long to understand what was going on."

Marina fills her lungs and lets the air out slowly through her nose.

"How long is way too long? How old were you?"

"Thirty, around there." Olga smiles with that mix of embarrassment and warmth that has her boss more and more hooked. "Before that I lived with constant doubts — I don't know how to explain it. I dated guys and it was fine, it wasn't traumatic or anything, but I never felt what I was supposed to feel. It was like living at half volume. I knew there was something different about me and I couldn't figure out what it was. It was exhausting."

"And what was it like when you figured it out? What happened?"

Marina is growing more and more intrigued, because the fact that Olga came out to herself so late only adds to all the confusion she's been feeling about herself lately.

"I met a girl in an English class." Olga blushes — naturally — because the last thing she'd imagined doing today was talking about this with Marina Cardona. "At first I didn't understand what was happening, but one day I realized I'd spent days getting ready more carefully than usual just because I wanted her to notice me, and suddenly all the doubts I'd been carrying for years just clicked into place on their own. It wasn't that I was dull, or shallow, or incapable of falling in love — I'd just spent my whole life looking in the wrong direction."

Marina listens without eating, arms resting on the table, searching her own mind for any parallel to what Olga is describing.

"Weren't you scared?" she asks, too quietly, though Olga hears her perfectly.

"Terrified — I panicked," she says, nodding to emphasize it. "Understanding that was the scariest part of all of it, because one thing is finding out you were blind when it was obvious, and another thing entirely is looking back and realizing the signs were always there, shining like a lighthouse, and you just couldn't read them — and because of that you stumbled around your whole life, letting it slip by while you were living it with people you were never going to connect with. It was terrifying. It makes you wonder how many other things about yourself you still don't know."

Marina has a dull ringing behind her ears, an uncomfortable hum, and a cold sweat creeping up her back that sends one shiver after another through her. Is that her? Is that why her marriage didn't work? Was she the one who was failing? Was her husband right when he complained that they barely had sex?

"Marina, are you okay?"

She looks up and Olga holds her breath watching her, because she has never seen that lost expression on her face before.

"Does that question ever go away?" she manages to say.

"Which question? Oh." Her assistant lets out a soft laugh. "The doubt. It doesn't exactly disappear, but it changes."

"Into what?"

"I don't know — it's just that one day you stop looking backward, stop thinking about the time you lost or all the signs you missed, and you start thinking: thank God, better at thirty than never."

And at forty-five? Marina wonders, trying to convince herself that's not her situation. She did fall in love with her husband, even if that faded quickly, and if she looks back, she's not sure whether the signs are there — but she doesn't want to start thinking about that right now.

"Why do you ask?" Olga probes, trying to make sense of her boss's strange mood.

Marina drops her gaze and picks up her fork.

"Nothing, just curious. Come on, finish that before it gets cold," she says, and doesn't lift her eyes from her plate for the rest of the meal.

When they're done cleaning up, Marina walks ahead down the hall toward the back room and Olga follows, with the feeling that something has shifted in the woman, though she can't quite say what — because her boss goes through boxes with the same calm as before, only in silence now, as if her mind is somewhere else entirely.

She's dying to ask her what's wrong, but giving her space is the least she can do given that Marina is here, going through boxes with her, when she could be anywhere else or with anyone else.