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I don’t know why I’m feeling weird about my outfit choice today. I’ve worn it before. I guess I’m feeling sort of weird about everything in my life right now. Nadia’s wedding is like a big black cloud over my head. My stomach sinks every time I think of it. I know how ridiculous that sounds, but I promise whatever you’re imagining, as far as my wedding mishaps go, it’s worse.
The thing is, I’m doing this for her. She has no idea the crap storm I bring with me to weddings. I have a seven out of seven record. Undefeated. Well, I’m actually the loser here. So, undefeated loser.
She’s given me until Monday to tell her yes because, according to her, that’s the only acceptable answer. The only reason I’m getting five days—six if you include yesterday—is because she left for a family reunion last night and won’t be back until Sunday night. She’ll be in my office first thing Monday morning to hear my resounding“Of course I’ll be in your wedding!”She even gave me tips on how I should do it. Like one of those promposal answers that are all the rage these days. A big, colorful sign and balloons were suggested.
I have hateful feelings toward my best friend. There. I said it. I kind of hate Nadia. Except I also love her. I don’t have time to contemplate these new contradicting feelings because it’s time for my one-on-one meeting with Grayson, which I also have mixed feelings about. It’s one of the best and worst parts of my week.
“Hey there,” I say, with a quick knock on the door of Grayson’s office. My stomach does a little somersault when he looks up from his laptop with those beautiful green eyes, his dark-blond hair tousled like he’s just run his fingers through it. He gives me a closed-mouth smile, his eyes warm and welcoming.
Why does he have to be so pretty? Why couldn’t he be … I don’t know … just more unattractive. He’s kind, too. I hate this for me. He could at least be a hot jerk. Or a nice, unfortunate-looking man. Why both? I honestly thought it was some sort of cosmic prank when I met him at my interview. Especially after my last job and everything that went down there. Seriously, universe? There wasn’t even a waiting period for the attraction to come, like has happened previously. It was instant magnetism.
This is my conundrum and why I have mixed feelings about this meeting. It’s my favorite part of my week because I get to meet with just Grayson, only the two of us in his medium-sized, minimally decorated office. It’s my least favorite because I am constantly battling with myself to not hop over his desk and right into his lap. I’ve actually pictured this … a lot. I’m thinking of it right now, even.
“Come on in,” he says, interrupting my little fantasy. He gestures toward the white leather contemporary chair in front of his desk. “How are you?”
“Good,” I tell him. He always starts out the meeting with a little informal chat, and I’ve always liked this part. Other people I’ve worked under would mostly get right to the topic at hand, like I’m just a workhorse here to do their bidding. But not Grayson. He’s been that way since the beginning, and he does it with everyone. I initially felt sort of smug that he was taking my life into account, like he wanted to know more about me and thought I was special. But then I found out it’s a thing he does during all his one-on-ones with the leadership team. So that was kind of a happy-balloon-popping realization.
It’s made me a better leader, though. Because I’ve done the same when interacting with my coworkers, and it’s brought us closer. I know things now, like Simone has nine siblings and is close to every one of them, and about the fertility problems Vik and his wife have gone through. I’ve also learned some unfortunate things about people. Like about Dane, for instance, who works under Vik in QA and who likes to bike to work pretty much every day (unless there’s too much snow), and who once educated me extensively on his reasoning for going commando in his cycling gear. So that was fun. Especially because the crux of that story was that he’d forgotten to bring underwear to put on under his work clothes. Oh, and his zipper was down, which was how the conversation started, and … I saw some things, or rather, something. I didn’t realize what I had seen until he told me the story. It’s hard for me to look Dane in the eyes now. Nadia’s and my nickname for him isn’t Wiener Schnitzel for nothing.
“Glad to hear it,” Grayson says. “You …” He stops himself, looking down at the iPad lying on the modern, light-colored wood desk in front of him.
“Yes?” I ask, feeling an urge to know what he was going to say.
He looks up at me. “You didn’t seem all that excited about Nadia’s wedding … uh, yesterday in the meeting.”
“Oh,” I say. Right,that. “I … I just, well, I …” I stop talking because I’m not sure what I want to divulge here. That I hate weddings? With no context, that makes me sound callous. But do I even want to tell him my reasoning? To go into all that? Or even a portion of it?You are correct, Grayson. I don’t want to go to Nadia’s wedding because, as it turns out, I’m a jinx. A wedding jinx. It’s a thing … that I do. I have lots of proof.
Grayson leans back in his chair, fidgeting with the band on his watch. He lets out a breath. “It’s really bad timing for me,” he says. “Even to take a day or two off from work, much less a weekend. I want to be there, of course. But I don’t know if it would be smart of me right now to leave. You know?” He looks up at me.
“Of course,” I say. “We’ve got to get everything ready for user testing, work out the bugs with the UI. Not to mention fixing the optimization issues we’ve been having.”
There’s so much more. The part I’m most worried about is what kinds of issues the user testing will discover. If they’re big enough, it could push back our September release date, and I haven’t said this to Grayson, but at this point we are already cutting it close. The user testing needs to go almost flawlessly, which has never happened since the invention of phone apps. This is an assumption on my part. Maybe it has happened. I highly doubt it, though.
But we have to get it done on time. The App Growth Summit in New York is scheduled right after the launch and we’ve got an opportunity to be featured there, which would be huge.Reallyhuge. The truth is, none of us can afford to take time off right now, except for maybe HR, for obvious reasons, and Nadia’s team, since they can only do so much until this app is ready to go to market. Her team’s main focus is AppInnovate’s first app, TourSpotter, an attractions and sightseeing application.
Wait. Did Grayson just give me the best reason ever to not go to Nadia’s wedding? A real, tangible reason? Why didn’t I think of this? It’s absolutely true that we need every moment to get this app fully up and running by September. This isn’t even an excuse—this is reality. It’s fact.Thisis how I can save Nadia’s wedding from my bad juju.
The feeling of relief rushes through me so quickly, I feel like I should throw my fist in the air, or maybe stand up and do a cheer, or perhaps jump over this desk and onto Grayson’s lap.
There I go again.
“I don’t think it’d be good for either of us to go,” I say, folding my arms and purposefully pulling the corners of my lips downward. Should I give him sad puppy-dog eyes as well to sell my regret? No, that’s too much. I’ll just stick with the frown. “We’ve got too much on our plates right now.”
Grayson nods. “Exactly,” he says. “I really don’t want to miss it, but I feel like I have to.”
“Yeah, of course,” I say, nodding my head up and down in rapid little movements. “I want to be there too … of course.” Dang it, I saidof coursetwice. I’m overselling.
“Was that why you didn’t seem excited? Because of everything we have going on here?”
“Um, yeah,” I say. “That was a big part of it.” This is a lie. I hadn’t even thought of it. But it’s the best freaking excuse, and I could just kiss Grayson for coming up with it. I won’t, of course. But I’ll be sure to entertain the thought after I’ve left his office.
“Well, I think we both know what we need to do, then,” he says.
I do know what I need to do. And I now have an excuse. A real one. Nadia won’t be thrilled, but I might have just made it so her wedding will go perfectly, so she should really be happy. She should be thrilled. Regardless, I’m happy enough for the both of us.
Mila
“YOU’RE GOING TO TURN DOWN a wedding in Hawaii at the Four Seasons?” My sister-in-law, Gwen, is, in a word, flabbergasted. “Are you crazy?”
