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The middle of the board has a large panel on it now with yellow and green zones, and a bunch of notes scribbled inside them. Blue circles represent projects that are already on our radar that might be repurposed for this newly formed idea. Throbbing green dots represent “sprouts” which are germs of ideas that might turn into something else, somewhere in the future.
In the old days, somebody like me probably would have to be taking notes. The whole purpose of the wall-sized panel that Irving invented was to preserve the results of this meeting automatically, so nothing got lost. It keeps the information intact, lessening the risk that the notetaker wouldn’t understand enough to get it all down correctly, or know which points were important and which were extraneous.
The project even has a name. “Horizon Shimmer.” Makes no sense. No problem.
I can tell we are nearing the end of the meeting, because the first pink bar has appeared on the screen. These are used to mark “action items,” or things that are going to get assigned to various people in the room. Not me, of course. I am barely anyone.
The pink bar is a cue for Veronica to stand up. She rises slowly, emerging from her seat at the head of the table like Aphrodite being birthed from the sea or something. Her long, professionally-waved hair surges over her shoulders as she walks to the board. This morning, nobody else got up there. People only shouted things while Irving drew them out and massaged them into this project sketch.
She is the first person to get within two feet of him. She knows everybody is watching her in her super tight skirt as she slinks toward him. She wants us to watch. She wants us to know that they are a couple. They have been dating forever. They probably fuck every night and whatever. She probably does that Aphrodite-on-a-halfshell thing dressed in thousand-dollar underwear that he tears off with his perfect, white teeth.
With one hand cupping her left hip, she slashes her right arm diagonally to pepper the board with seven pink bars. Each one responds to her voice commands, automatically filling with tasks. The pink bars slide up and align horizontally as Veronica flicks at them with her fingertips. Her mastery of the board controls would be impressive if it weren’t so annoying.
For his part, Irving stands off to the side with his arms crossed over his chest, crushing his pecs together so that he almost has cleavage showing out of the V-neck of his linen pullover. I’m tempted to take another picture. Something about that temporary valley between his impressively sculpted chest muscles makes me wanna…
“Opal?” comes a voice that I instantly recognize as Veronica’s.
Everyone, literallyeveryone, swivels to look at me in surprise.
“Me?” I answer, my voice dry and cracking.
I don’t know what just happened here. She’s calling my name because I did something wrong? Because I did something right? Because Ididn’tdo something?
“Sure, why not?” Irving shrugs. “She spent a month in Honduras. I’m sure she would bring an interesting perspective, wouldn’t you? Opal?”
The sound of my name on his lips turns my lungs into pointless, matching sandbags. I can’t breathe. I only smile meekly and offer a tight nod that I hope everyone interprets as professional acceptance of the task.
Team leaders shrug and turn back to the board, assuming the matter is settled while I try to make sense of this. He knows that I was in Honduras. Oh my God! He actually read my resume? Heremembersa part of my resume? He thinks about me? I mean, he has previously thought about me? Enough to remember details from my resume?
Veronica’s hand drifts over a pink bar, presumably the one related to the task I’m being assigned. She slowly swivels her head in my direction, one eyebrow raised in haughty judgment.
“Perspective, yes,” she repeats slowly, making it clear that she doesn’t think I have a single thing to offer at all.
“I think she has some bandwidth,” he shrugs. “Get it on the team list.”
He thinks I have bandwidth? He knows something about my bandwidth?
“You know… I could do that,” she nods, stepping toward him and smiling beautifully. “I already have a team in mind, though. You know what, I’ll just circle back—”
“Sounds great,” he replies automatically, pivoting away as she steps toward him.
From the look that she casts me across the room, I know for sure that I am not on a team. She tosses her hair over one shoulder and it seems to fan out in slow motion before settling down across the small of her back in mathematically precise waves.
For some reason, I don’t like looking at her. It’s like a magnet, but the opposite of a magnet. She looks at me, and I bounce off in the opposite direction toward anything at all. This time I happen to look at Irving, whose gaze sweeps over the back of the room, just missing the top of my head. He doesn’t really seem to see me at all.
But he does know my name! And he has thought about my bandwidth.
As everybody files out of the room, I stare down at my cell phone, not wanting to look at my text messages, and not wanting to look at anything else in real life. But at least this is good camouflage. People probably think that I am on the team, or that I am trying to look up my calendar or something. They don’t know I’m just avoiding eye contact.
Once almost everybody is out of the room, I can finally try to stand up, surprised to feel that my nethers are still vibrating with sexy thoughts about Irving Galloway. At just that moment, Veronica shoots me an appraising look, her eyes narrowed. I freeze and shrug, then curse myself for shrugging. Damn shoulders! What are you thinking?
But I can tell she understands completely. Her nostrils flare, and she tilts her head toward Irving, her undisputed property. I would like to fall into the earth, but instead I just slink toward the back door, hoping to leave before she stares holes into the back of my head.
Chapter 3
IRVING
Ihead back to my space, waving good morning to anybody who tries to meet my eye. It is a great group of people. Mostly hardworking, and even the low-level performers have sparks of creativity in them from time to time that make it worth keeping them around. I know everybody says that their company is like a family, but I’m not going to say this. I have afamily, and I know that mycompanyis very different.
