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For the rest of the day, I do my best to leave him alone, but when I come in to take his lunch order, he strikes up a conversation. Then he calls me back ten minutes later to invite me to eat lunch together.
I order our food and take it to him, sitting opposite him at his miniature conference table.
“Everything okay, sir?” I ask about ten minutes into the meal.
“Yeah, everything’s fine. Why do you ask?”
“You’re, um… staring. I thought something might be wrong.” I start touching my face, thinking I might have a remnant of salad dressing on it.
He smirks. “I’ve never invited you to eat with me, have I?”
I shake my head. “No, sir.”
He wrinkles his brow. “You know, I don’t know very much about you, Vivienne. We’ve worked together for a long time, but I hardly know the first thing about you.”
“I keep my private life pretty private most of the time. What’s to tell?”
“I don’t know. You haven’t told me.” He flashes that winning smile again, then looks down at the pita stuffed with glistening meat and creamy tzatziki. “Do you even like Greek food?”
“Of course. Who doesn't like gyros?”
He shrugs. “No one in their right mind. But I want to know more about you. What’s your favorite color? Favorite food?”
“I like red. And my favorite food is Chinese.” And here I was just a minute ago, thinking about how much I like keeping my personal life personal while I’m here. Leave it to him to find an opening.
“I like Chinese, too. What’s your favorite dish? And, very important, have you ever been to Dim Sum in Flushing on a Sunday morning? Even if you hate Chinese, it’s one of the great experiences of the world. The Chinese ambassador to the U.N. took me the last time he was in town. I’ll have to take you some time if you haven’t been. Or even if you have.”
“That sounds fun. No, I haven’t done that before. As for my favorite dish, hmm. Spicy Chinese eggplant maybe.” I take another bite of my gyro as an excuse to stop talking. “How about you, Caesar? Favorite color and food?”
“I like the color of sunset, that deep burnt orange. The sunsets in Solvaria are magnificent. But you know that.”
“I do.”
“Like that poster over there.” He points to a high-quality photo print that I noticed the first day I came into the office. It’s stunning, showing a craggy mountain overlooking a crystalline Mediterranean Sea, and a tomato-orange sunset behind it.
“Yes. It’s beautiful.”
“I took that actually. I love that color.”
“Mount Feruka, right?”
“You are good, Ms. Carter. Very good.”
“I have to get back to work, but it was nice talking to you, sir.” I excuse myself and go back to my desk. But I don’t get a break from him even then.
Every few minutes, he calls to ask my opinion on what color rug to get for the office or ask about some drink places in D.C. for when he goes down to the embassy. He’s about to drive me crazy.
Everything comes to a stop when a severe weather alert pings in my pocket. I ignore it. If I don’t check some more things off my to-do list today, I’ll be overwhelmed tomorrow.
“Are you going to get that?” Caesar asks from over my shoulder.
I jump. “How long have you been standing there?”
“A minute. Your phone’s ringing.”
It stops ringing at exactly that moment, of course. “Sorry, I didn’t hear it. I’ll check the messages and make sure it wasn’t urgent.”
“Sounds good.”
