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Now, I was suspicious.
I straightened my torso and leaned away from her. The leather of my office chair groaned as I looked in her direction. Yet she sat there in silence for several seconds, just staring at me with a satisfied grin on her face. At last, unable to control her excitement any longer, Fiona bent forward at the waist and wiggled her eyebrows at me.
“Are you ready?” she said.
I nodded with several deliberate bobs of my head. “Oh yes. Quite.”
Her smile widened further, and with that she reclined into her chair. As she did, she propped her elbows on the arms of it and tented the tips of her fingers together. I was, in a word, flummoxed, by the apparition seated before me. I use the term only because the Fiona I knew never behaved with such bravado or confidence. About the only thing I could conclude was that the person before me was, in fact, a figment of my imagination, or I was drunk at a little past ten o’clock in the morning. I glanced down at my coffee cup. Knowing what remained of my bitter beverage was liquor-free, I instead readied myself for whatever it was she had to say.
I gestured for her to speak. “I can’t wait for this.”
And then, in handful of words, Fiona changed my perception of her once more.
“I’m going to do it,” she began. “The presentation.”
For a moment or two, I merely blinked. Convinced I’d misunderstood, I leaned forward in my chair. Placing my forearms flat on the desk’s surface, I intertwined my fingers and tapped the fleshy formation against the wood for several seconds.
“Come again?”
An eager smile and a nod to match emanated from her. “You heard me. I’m going to do the presentation. Just like you asked.”
Hearing her confirmation, I pressed my conjoined hands against the desk.
“Just like that?” I said with a crisp snap of my fingers. “All of a sudden you’re ready. That’s what you’d have me believe?”
Her confidence unabated, Fiona licked her lips in a defiant smack. “Yes. Just like that.”
I’d gotten pretty good at reading people over the years. In fact, the skill I’d acquired in this regard was a point of pride for me. And whether or not Fiona could actually do it when the moment arrived, in that second anyway, she did believe it.
“Okay, Fiona. I’ll bite. Exactly how would you pull this off? As I recall, speaking in public was the single biggest fear in your life.”
She shook her head and cut me off. “No, there’s a bigger one.”
Her comment caught me off guard. I studied her for a split second. I detected the trace of a swallow at the utterance of her last statement. Knowing her personal life as I did, I had a sense of what she meant. Perhaps her grandmother had taken a turn for the worse or debt collectors had come calling. But whatever it was, she’d discovered at least a sliver of the courage I believed she had in her. In fact, I sensed a swell of emotion build inside of me.
If I wasn’t mistaken, it felt almost like… pride.
Without so much as a thought, I said, “Have dinner with me tonight, Fiona.”
Almost as soon as I spoke the words, it was as if I had an out of body experience. It was one thing to keep my dalliances internal. In other words, so long as they remained confined within the walls of the company, I could control the situation… should anything go awry. But now, in an unconscious moment, I’d put myself in a precarious situation, since I didn’t make a habit of trotting out my office conquests for the world to see.
Yet, as I looked into Fiona’s eyes, I didn’t see the face of someone who’d be malicious or take my invitation for granted. But the truth was that it was little more than a hunch. Still, it was a risk I was willing to take and in business, as well as romance, you have to learn to trust your instincts. And now that my question was out there, it was up to Fiona to decide. Her mouth snapped shut as my offer settled in to her consciousness. She looked at me in silence for a moment or so, but didn’t respond. Frankly, I expected a ‘yes’ but I hadn’t expected no response at all.
“Something the matter?” I asked at last.
She shook her head. The powerful posture she’d assumed moments earlier transformed before my eyes as she melted into her chair, overcome by uncertainty.
“No.”
I scoffed. “Come on, Fiona. You know I’m not going to buy that. What’s the problem?”
She cleared her throat.
“It’s just that, well, I’d like to, but I’ve got something to take care of… at home,” she muttered.
Fiona leaned forward in her chair a bit, grasping the arms of it with her small fingers. Would she tell me the truth? I allowed her to sit in silence for a few more moments until it became obvious she’d divulged all the information she wanted. For now at least, there would be no confession.
