by C. L. Donley
“No, it’s okay. I actually want to speak to one of them… Amy I think is her name.”
He loved doing that. He never once faltered. He was sure they thought he genuinely knew everyone’s name and what they all were doing. He felt the energy shift positively. They liked working for him.
One of the directors near the door rushed out of his seat and called out Amy’s name. Both girls turned around and Amara pointed to herself in disbelief. Cluelessly, the director tried to correct Amara, assuring her that she was not, in fact, herself, repeating her name.
Dear Lord, was this really happening?
He watched as Amy confirmed that she was indeed Amy. The redhead chimed in, “My name’s Amanda…”
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
“Amara!”
Amara heard her own name through the muffled glass.
Coming out of Grayson Davis’ mouth.
Oh. My. God.
Two
Chapter 2
Amara gave herself a million notes as she made her way back down the hall to the entrance of the frameless glass conference room.
This is it, this is it, don’t panic, be yourself, you were born to brush shoulders with this man, you are awesome, amaze him with your wit, but don’t look like a desperate groupie, he probably wants to talk about minorities at his company, thank you God for making me black today!
She walked through the door and tried to summon that eerie calm that sometimes came upon her when, on rare occasions, she found herself in places of prominence. She almost had it, but then she looked around the room and the faces filled her with anxiety. What exactly was she here for?
She heard a calm voice at the head of the table say, “Have a seat. Simon, give her your chair.”
Holy…crap.
Should she jokingly take a giant deep breath? No, that’s stupid. Just sit down. She gave an anxious look at all the people at the table who were oh so very high above her pay grade as if to acknowledge that she well knew the disparity between them. Inwardly she felt none. But it put them at ease.
You’re about to look a gorgeous billionaire in the face, so drink it in she told herself. She did.
She took a breath and looked him square in the face. She smiled. He smiled.
He was, in a word, beautiful.
His features were notably chiseled, a millennial version James Dean, even down to the angst which she attributed to his computer-nerd core. He was in a dark blue jacket with an argyle pattern shirt that was youthful, but the man underneath exuded power and leadership. She watched his dark blue eyes dance and it was all the things.
The people around her shifted. Dear God, was she an idiot? She just gave herself entirely away. People who brush shoulders with greatness do not soak up moments with them like they will be their last, dumdum. Pick a persona!
“You’re new around here, is that a fair statement?”
“It is,” Amara replied, nodding her head and looking down at the table.
“Where were you before this?”
“Oh, here and there. Nothing substantial yet just, still trying to figure out what I want to do.”
“Did you go to school?”
“Boy, did I!” Amara joked, and they all laughed and loosened up a bit. “My bachelors is in English Literature, my masters is in Writing and Pedagogy.”
“Goodness gracious.”
“I’m so hungry, please sponsor me,” she confessed with faux desperation. They all laughed again. She wasn’t so naive that she thought her show would earn her a 12 rung promotion, but she was enjoying herself.
“I’m actually a fan of the humanities,” he offered. “When we’re on the brink of technological annihilation it’ll be you guys who save us from ourselves.”
“I just wish I’d saved myself a fortune like you did and just taught myself.”
Wow. She’d done her research indeed. He was flattered. And a bit speechless.
“Well. Colleges have a vested interest in making sure you don’t value the simple genius of the library until after you graduate.”
A knowing hum reverberated through the room that was part genuine, part kowtow. And then the blatant, what the hell is she doing here? atmosphere began. She didn’t dare ask.
“Do you see yourself having a future here?”
“Honestly?”
“Of course.”
“Honestly… I’m thrilled to be working for your company, but I’m a bit bored.”
You could’ve cut the tension with a knife.
You ungrateful negro, the white angel on her shoulder protested.
“It’s no offense to anyone here and certainly I don’t mean to suggest that should reflect on anyone else…it’s not you, it’s me,” she tried to joke.
Since everyone else’s jaw was on the floor she thought it wise to continue, “I’m not completely insane I assure you, it’s just that…I was contemplating quitting today actually, because I just realized I’m taking up someone else’s space who would really want it, because I’m so afraid to move on.”
“So…your strategy is to do the same thing at another place, and spend the rest of your life as an entry-level employee,” he posited, as a conclusion rather than a question.
Amara’s pulse skyrocketed.
Was she really in straight talk heaven right now with Grayson Davis?
This is real.
He seemed to be genuinely concerned about her future and good God so was she. Tell me your secret, she wanted to say. Though she was starting to suspect there wasn’t one. He was brilliant and driven. And she was, well, addicted to her boyfriend Netflix.
“You know what, honestly Grayson Davis, sitting across from me and concerned about my future,” she humorously began. The conference room, while amused, was a little impatient to know where this was going. “I guess I’m relying on the fates to help me figure this out. What did men do 100 years ago when they found work? They saw a ‘help wanted’ sign, walked in, the sign came down, next thing you know it was thirty years later. It can’t be that hard to find a calling.”
“Only now this is the 21st century, and you’re a young African American woman who’s spent several years and several tens of thousands of dollars pursuing the meaning of truth, and the meaning of meaning.”
Good heavens.
Amara’s heart was beating in her ears, and though she felt an excitement on the inside— that was, to her, more akin to being near death than it was to arousal— she was pretty sure she was going to find out how wet he was making her once she stood up.
On the outside, Amara smiled.
“Touche,” she simply said.
A beat of silence.
The billionaire took a breath. “Well, honestly I did not expect this meeting to go where it just went, thank you for humoring me, everyone. Amara.”
“I’m sorry,” Amara said, covering her face.
She wasn’t sorry.
“Do not apologize, young lady.” Good God, he was talking to her like a pervy uncle, he thought.
“If I’m here to talk about race relations they’re great,” Amara added hastily, with two thumbs-up held closely to her chest. “Ohmigod I’m sorry,” she said again, hiding her face with both hands this time. Everyone laughed again, secretly grateful for the feedback.
It may have started out about race relations, but there was no need for her to know that. Clearly, she was smart enough to gather as much. Anticipating needs again, Grayson thought.
“We appreciate that,” Grayson smiled a killer smile.
She was on a roll and it was all going as well as it would in a dream. It made her think something else magical might happen.
It did.
“I’d like to continue this conversation with you in a more appropriate venue, so don’t quit today, okay Amara?”
“Okay,” she laughed, excusing herself and cringing as she left, seeming lowly as her position demanded. She even covered the sides of her face with her hands as she vanished out of the sight of
the solid glass windows of the conference room.
It was for all of their benefits, he knew. He’d spoken to her on the phone and inadvertently stalked her online. She was aiming for greatness but hadn’t the faintest clue how to get there. Hell, with very little training and a little more confidence he knew without a doubt she could replace at least one person at this very table with ease, he theorized. His eyes unconsciously drifted to Simon at his thoughts, who coincidentally was also the one who broke the silence.
“She’s adorable,” Simon said. The room nodded in muffled amusement.
* * *
As Amara made the long trek back to her desk she made note of the time. It was 10:08.
10:08 am on a Monday her life had changed in a flash.
And only a thousand more years until the work day was over.
Could she wait a thousand years to call her best friends Kim and Mya? Likely not. She had to coordinate that thing now. She could take an early lunch.
When she got to her desk, her co-worker Amanda was wide eyed and looked sort of like she’d been crying.
“Oh my God, Amy! What happened?!” she shrieked.
“One second…” Amara stalled.
She powered up her phone, which she wasn’t supposed to do at work, but it was an emergency. She waited for her personal Webster app to open. The cubicle was eerily quiet. Amara looked up and found all eyes were on her.
“What?” she asked with a furrowed brow.
“What happened? Did you get fired?” Justin asked in a whisper.
“No!” Amara answered.
“Well, what did he want?” Amanda was impatient.
“He wanted to know if I saw a future with the company.”
“What did you say??” Amanda prompted.
“I said no, actually.” Amara laughed.
All the guys dropped their jaws and their eyes widened as they met each other’s gaze. Amanda was absolutely infuriated.
“I knew I should’ve been the one in that room!” she fumed.
Amara should’ve been offended but she wasn’t. She could care less that a grubby opportunist was upset about her moment.
“What did he say?” Ahmad wondered atop the cubicle.
“Would you all like a complete rundown?” Amara answered.
They were all enthusiastic as Amara began, complete with gestures and voices and sound effects of the explosions happening in her brain. Suddenly she heard the familiar chirp on her phone of Webster notifications, one of which was a direct message.
“Hold on,” Amara said, her head back on the initial task of setting up a conference call with her besties. Her mind became that of a drunk’s as she tried to concentrate on telling the story, messaging her friends, and also contemplating what was staring her in the face, a direct message from Grayson Davis.
“Holy Shit!” Amara said loudly as if in the throes of a crisis. It was a crisis. The cubicle farm was on the edge of their seats.
“He just sent me a private message…”
“Who, GRAYSON DAVIS??” Justin guffawed.
“I thought his account was run by bots?” Ahmad said wide-eyed.
“So did I,” said Amara.
“It is,” Amanda confirmed smugly.
Even Amara expected something arbitrary when she opened it, but the message literally made her heart stop:
“Someone’s on their phone during company time.” Winking smiley face.
“OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGodohmyGodohmyGodohmyGodohmyGodOHMYGOD!” was all Amara could chant as the phone made its way around the cubicle.
“What…the fuck, Amy,” Justin said.
“I think he’s like…for real trying to get some from you, Amara,” Ahmad said, sounding concerned.
“Please God please!!” Amara prayed aloud.
“Honestly Amy, you’d let some billionaire just take advantage of you like that?” Amanda started, sounding disgusted.
Amara desperately needed to get a bat signal to Mya and Kim. She was in no position to use Webster and accidentally send something to the boss of all her bosses. She sent an S.O.S. text in all caps and hoped they weren’t busy at work in the next hour.
Her phone chimed again, and Amara realized with a mixture of excitement and dread that she wouldn’t be available in the next hour.
“Lunch downstairs in 45? I know it’s early.” Another winking smiley face.
* * *
By the time Grayson headed down to the culinary award-winning cafeteria for early lunch, he’d convinced himself thoroughly that his intentions toward Amara were completely and entirely professional and charitable.
She had been a delightful and unexpected distraction in an otherwise predictable headquarters visit.
He didn’t know what his expectations had been, but whatever they were she’d defied them. She was kind of kooky. Like her profile. The only picture she had of herself was the profile picture, which was a blurry shot of her doubled over in laughter. Any other photos of her she’d been tagged in.
She didn’t fawn over him outwardly like most women did, yet he knew firsthand how fanatical she was about him. Nor did she pander to him professionally with a Miss America answer about her future with the company.
No one would be surprised if the billionaire wunderkind took an interest in a potential bright and rising star. She’d sat competently in a room full of brown-nosers— talented ones, mind you— and stole the attention they’d all been falling over themselves to earn. By saying she didn’t want to work there. Imagine if she became the next great mind at Webster, what a PR story that would make.
No one would suspect that during their first meeting he’d been busy putting a body to a face to a voice to a name, because her boring white dress shirt and forgettable gray slacks were still singing its praises like a church choir.
Nor would they suspect that inviting her to lunch had been any sort of inner battle between his professional self and his personal self.
Personally, he was a man who loved women. And women loved him.
It was a relatively late discovery.
An early misdiagnosis of bipolar disorder in adolescence demanded meds that made him fat and brought his already struggling interest in sex down to zero. When he stopped taking his meds his junior year of high school, shortly before dropping out, his libido was back but an incurable loneliness set in. By the time he’d got a job as the youngest employee at the NSA, he’d gained the life of an attractive young male overnight, having shed the weight and much of his acne. And though his female co-workers had noticed right away, he remained awkward and solitary. It took another few years for him to confront his ignorance of women head on. Only then did he find out that his fears were unfounded, because as it turned out he was quite good at sex, and had since been making up for what he considered unforgivably lost time.
He became an avid researcher of women. Certainly not as predictable as BASIC or binary code but there were patterns nonetheless. He found sex to be mentally relaxing. He could let his body take over and his brain got more rest than it did when he slept. It was perhaps the one thing that he was naturally good at that actually interested someone besides himself.
Amara wasn’t predictable at all. She was a complete mystery to him, but he didn’t quite know why. He had to consider the difference in race as a variable. That and her intelligence was enough to cause a good number of unknown permutations. He already had a type: blonde and buxom. Sometimes a brunette would do if she was foreign. He was never one of those guys that got excited by the thought of uncharted territory, and maybe it was just boredom, but something about Amara turned him into Vasco de fucking Gama.
Her body was the obvious incentive. She was stunning, he surmised. First from her profile and then after seeing her in person. Her dreadlocked hair remained pulled back at work but he’d seen in her profile that it was usually variously styled and on display, as though it were her pride and joy. He’d seen in one of her posts where someone at work had warned her early on that her ha
ir was “distracting.”
Her doe eyes and her dark brows made her stare unignorable, a bit like Brazilian women, who were great in bed but a touch too dramatic for his taste. Her smooth features were pronounced and perfectly symmetrical. He was a sucker for symmetry. That and her height was enough to make her model material. She either didn’t know or didn’t care, he couldn’t quite tell which. It sort of seemed like both.
She didn’t wear makeup at work, or any adornments for that matter.
Was she a lesbian? Hot.
He’d slept with lesbians before and it was always memorable. He suspected some of them had just said they were to stand out, to make him chase them. Well, it had worked, and for the experience, he was genuinely appreciative.
He thought back to the humorous way she’d held her own this morning as if she were there to hold a press conference. The way she’d looked him square in his eyes sent a cool shock through him that he hadn’t felt in maybe ever, as if she knew everything he’d been thinking and exactly why she was there.
He simply wanted to feel more of Amara’s energy.
What would it be like to kiss her?
Insane, he hypothesized.
Her lips weren’t as full as some women of color he’d met, but they still trumped any woman he’d ever dated.
A smile formed at the corner of his mouth.
But still, his professionalism was in no danger, he assured himself.
Exciting people excited him and made the company better. That’s all. And sometimes those exciting people were women, and yeah, he had a thing about women but…it’s fine.
This was going to be fine.
Three
Chapter 3
Amara put one foot in front of the other as she went down to the cafeteria and calmly set her expectations as low as humanly possible.
This guy is going to have 80’s Michael Jackson level attention on him at all times, so he’ll definitely not be alone, and even if you were planning to get five minutes with him, better pare it down to 30 seconds in case everyone else gets greedy.
She thought back to that moment in the conference room where his attention seemed almost like that of God having a conversation with His creation. The dude had serious presence.
