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“Please, call me Milly,” I say reflexively.
Her smile broadens and she says, “Good, you can call me Cristal.” She extends her hand and I reach out to shake it. Some of my nervousness eases.
Instead of going back to sit behind it, she sits in the chair next to mine. She gets right down to business.
“You have a budget of thirty-five thousand dollars. You cannot spend a penny more. Not a single penny.” Despite the briskness in her tone, she's smiling and it helps calm the swarm of nervous energy in my chest.
“This party is important, we want it to be just like everything else we do here—elegant, luxurious, without a hint of a gaudiness.” She leans back, still smiling and says, “Tell me how you are going to blow our minds.”
It takes super human strength not to gulp. I reach into my briefcase and pull out my party planner and the design sheet I’ve already created.
I lay it on the table between us and say, “I can do even better than that. Let me show you.
”
* * *
An hour later, we’ve signed a contract and she doesn’t even blink when I mention my fee. She has another meeting right after mine, so we agree to touch base in a couple of days to work out more details.
I start to put my papers back into my bag. I can’t wait to get home and tell my mother how things went today.
“This is going to be great. Dean will be thrilled.” She grins at me, claps her hands together, and stands to walk back to her desk.
You know that phrase, “the world stops spinning”? Well the opposite happens to me. My world begins spinning so fast that it flies off its axis. The papers in my hand flutter to the ground. I look at her incredulously, hoping my expression doesn’t belie even a quarter of the turmoil that is building inside of me.
“Dean?” I squeak.
She looks at me quizzically. “Yes, Dean Orleans. He’s our new CEO. It hasn’t been announced yet. That is one of the items on the agenda for this grand opening. This party is really important to him. To all of us,” she says as she sits back down behind her desk.
I try to recover and bend to pick up the papers on the ground. I cough and then force myself to say nonchalantly, “Oh, I didn’t realize. I saw that magazine cover and thought he was a client.”
She laughs, a genuinely amused laugh. “He looks like he could be one, but no, he’s the boss. Not just a pretty face.”
I don’t imagine the admiration I hear in her voice, and I'm annoyed it makes me feel jealous. Knowing Dean so well used to be a privilege I enjoyed, and now I’m worse than a stranger.
Just then, the door flies open and as if conjured by our conversation, the subject of it walks through the door.
The atmosphere in the office changes, immediately and drastically. All of the oxygen seems to fly out of the open door, and I struggle to steady myself.
I have often imagined our paths crossing. I wondered how I would feel, and I wondered how Dean would react. Nothing could have prepared me for the riot of emotions which starts to gallop, like unbroken mustangs, through my chest.
At a loss, I look at Cristal, she looks completely relaxed, so I know it’s just me who feels the effect of his presence like the heat of a furious fire.
He stands in the doorway, looking like the god Achilles, and his gaze sweeps the room before it settles, like a green laser beam, on me.
The collision of our eyes, transports me to the past, and suddenly, Dean and I are back in my bedroom on the last night we saw each other. The last time we kissed, and the night I made promises I went on to break only days later.
I see that boy, and I forget myself. I take a step toward before I even realize I’ve moved. The shuttering of his expression and the quick shake of his head wakes me up.
I look at Cristal and blush when I realize she's watching me. She looks curious, and I don’t know what to say. So, I just look back at Dean.
The picture on the magazine cover does him no justice. He's tall, much taller than me, even in my heels, and muscular but lean.
He's dressed immaculately in a dark gray suit with a white shirt and red tie. His blond hair is longer than in the picture and swept off his face. His eyes, green and clear, remind me of the bottle of sparkling water I just finished drinking.
Those eyes, icy as wintergreen trees, are currently on me. He’s studying my face. His expression is one of cold impassivity. He doesn’t look the least bit surprised to see me. Then, as if I'm a person of no consequence, he simply looks away.
“Dean hates you.”
