Right…so now being fat was good because I looked like a typical American woman? I was so confused right now. And nervous as hell, and when I got nervous, the Chatty Cathy doll always tried to rear her ugly head. I had her by a chokehold, but she was able to squeak out, “Marta, if you are firing me, just please go ahead and fire me. This whole talk about my first day and how I never lost weight, if this is just build-up to saying that this is no longer the right place for me, please come out and say it.”
Marta’s eyes widened during my little outburst. Did I mention that when Chatty Cathy got going, the words came out really fast and got louder toward the end to the point that I was practically shouting? Yeah, so that happened.
Marta leaned back in her chair and stared at me as if I had sprouted a second head. Maybe she was mad because I had beaten her to the punch. She leaned forward over the desk and, wonder of wonders…she smiled. And not her fake model smile, but a real smile.
“Millicent, I am not firing you, you silly, ridiculous girl.” Okay, the smile was now confusing me. But I stayed silent until she finished. “I hired Scarlett so she could bring in more business and help us expand into the other areas of production where we’ve been lacking in the past. Our forte has always been fashion shows, but they have become highly competitive, and the private parties and individual showcases are a much bigger part of our industry than when I began.”
Why were we talking about Scarlett again? God, I was so confused. I felt like my head was spinning, but thankfully I was able to keep the strangle hold on Chatty Cathy.
“I want to ensure that there is plenty of business coming in the door. I know we have kept the existing clients because of your expertise in handling both them and their shows, and I am hoping you will mentor Scarlett and show her how she, too, can be successful. It will be harder for her, as she is much prettier and thinner. She won’t have your bourgeois charm, so you’ll have try and work with what she can bring to the table.”
Poor Scarlett, at such a disadvantage because she was thinner and prettier than me. Wait, when did this become about Scarlett again? And why was I teaching her how to do my job? My color was coming back up, and the muzzle was getting ready to fly off.
“Before you jump to the conclusions that, if your red chest and flushed face are any indication you are well on your way to making, let me say there is very good reason why I need you to train Scarlett to do your job.”
And the dramatic pause. Come on, woman, you’re killing me over here.
“Scarlett needs to be able to take over for you because I want you to take over for me. I am getting old, and I would like to spend the last years of my life in France with the few friends I’ve not alienated. So, that is what I’m announcing on Thursday, that you will succeed me as head of this company.”
I was shocked. I was stunned. I just sat there. It took me a minute to realize that not only had I mentally slammed Cathy’s mouth shut, I apparently had at some point put my hands over my own mouth. So Marta said she wanted me to head her company and I was sitting here beet red with both hands slapped over my mouth. Wow, what a dignified way to handle this conversation. Kudos, Millie.
“Millicent, you may remove your hands and please let me know what you think about this. If you are not onboard with these changes, you must let me know now. I didn’t really have a Plan B, but I will certainly develop one if you decide this is not something you are interested in pursuing.”
Honestly, I had no idea. I had never thought the woman would quit, or even die. I never imagined I could make it any higher up the ladder than assistant producer. It was completely outside the realm of my imagination to even consider running this company. Marta kept staring at me, waiting for me to say something, but I had no idea what to say. I always thought she hated me. I knew she thought I did good work, and I knew that she knew she couldn’t run this place without me, but to be willing to turn it all over to me? I didn’t know what to say.
“When do I need to let you know my decision?” I had to have some time to think about this. If I took this job, it would mean writing would fall to the wayside; there was no way I could run this company and continue to blog. Could I give up on that dream for something I never imagined I could have? Definitely needed some time to think about all of this.
“I can give you until Wednesday evening. I will have to know something before the meeting on Thursday, and your answer might require me to consider other alternatives…so yes, Wednesday evening by five.”
“Thank you.” I wanted to say so much more, something along the lines of Sally Fields and “You like me, you really like me,” but I decided the best thing I could do was get out of this office and go figure out what the hell I was going to do with the rest of my life.
CHAPTER 12
My 2:00 meeting with Daniel started as kind of a blur. I was still reeling from the conversation with Marta, and I couldn’t for the life of me wrap my brain around what life would be like if I was the one in charge of that company. For years I had held in all the radical ideas I had, only floating the easy wins that I knew Marta would be on board with; I couldn’t imagine being able to steer this company in the direction I thought it should head in.
About halfway through my presentation, Daniel abruptly stopped me. “Millie, can I please have a word with you in private?” I looked around the workroom and looked at the two seamstresses. He had never asked that we speak away from his team before, so I wasn’t sure what this meant. I hoped this wasn’t another bomb that was going to land on my head.
“Um, sure. Where would you like to talk?” The workspace was just one giant room filled with tables, fabric, and dress forms.
“Why don’t we head downstairs and grab a cup of tea at the coffee shop?” he was already gathering up my papers and nudging me toward the door.
“I hope your plan doesn’t consist of me dropping anything else on my chest, ‘cause I plan on getting a water, so I’ll be safe.” Humor was always my go-to strategy when I was nervous, and his sudden need for some alone time have me very, very nervous.
He didn’t even crack a smile. “Hmmm, yes, of course.” In fact, I didn’t even think he had heard what I said.
I kept up a steady stream of comments on the way downstairs and out to the sidewalk. He continued to “hmmm” and nod at me, but he was obviously not listening to anything I said, which was actually a good thing, since I was just babbling with nervousness.
He told me to go ahead and sit down and that he would order for us. Great, now I get to sit here and stare at his cute backside while I contemplate what fresh hell he’s going to unleash on me. Couldn’t he see that I had already had several of the most challenging days of my young life?
He came back with a pot of tea and two mugs on a tray. I was not normally a tea drinker, but I decided to go with the flow on this one until I heard why he felt the need to whisk me out of the workroom for some private conversation. He took forever pouring and adding sugar and a little milk to his; I shook my head no and grabbed the mug so I had something to do with my hands.
“I am assuming that whatever dreaded thing Scarlett was hinting about at dinner the other night has happened and that it is the cause of your complete lack of attention during our meeting. I thought it best if we sat down and you could tell me what happened. I have too much riding on this show to not have you 100% involved in the conversation I was attempting to have with you upstairs.”
It was funny to me how snippy, snarky little comments sounded oh-so-much-better when spoken with a British accent, especially one sweetened by the cadence of India. But in this case, I was not lulled by it; I was pissed. Well, kind of pissed. Pissed that he had noticed. I thought I was doing an excellent job of keeping my inner turmoil under wraps, but I was obviously mistaken. How many serious conversations would I be required to have before I could go home, curl up in the fetal position, and decide what I was doing with my life?
“Daniel.” Grrr, I hated apologizing to clients. “First, plea
se let me apologize for my preoccupation with other matters. I would never let my own issues interfere with the quality of work that I deliver to my clients. I am sorry, and I assure you that my head is now completely in the game. I would be happy to return upstairs and answer any questions or concerns you may have about the final proposal for the show.” There, that ought to make him feel a little better.
“While I appreciate your professional reassurances, I am concerned about you…on a more personal level, shall we say?”
Sorry, what? He continued despite the look of confusion I knew was all over my face.
“I don’t think it is untoward of me to say that we have rather enjoyed our time working together. I feel like we have become friends as well as working colleagues. While, certainly, the show is a high priority for me, I wanted to get you away from it because I could tell you had something on your mind. As your friend, if I may presume so much, I wanted to see if there was anything I could do to help.”
Ohhh. That was so well put. Poor Daniel, if he had any idea just how friendly we had been getting in my head, he would run screaming out of the café. Of course my late-night text probably went a long way in moving us closer to the friend end of the spectrum than the colleague end. And I was dying to blurt all this out to someone and see what they thought. My plan had been to get through the day and head over to Avis’s to get her two cents worth, but I didn’t think I could hold it in for that long.
So I blurted out the whole story. The whole story. Even the bit about my weight and Marta’s fat comment. It all came flying out of my mouth, and my brain wasn’t acting fast enough to edit that particular section out. It made me nervous that I had put the weight issue out there in front of a man. Gay or not, men never really knew how to handle that. Should he act like I never brought it up? Should he tell me what he thought I wanted to hear? Or should he tell me how he really felt? At least in this case it wasn’t a direct slam to my body size, it was simply an observation on Marta’s part, so maybe he would just let that seep into the narrative and not pluck it out and want to talk about it.
“She told you that you should lose weight on your first day on the job? Why in the world did you ever come back the next day?”
No such luck. Apparently the man had an uncanny ability to hone in on the one subject I didn’t want to talk about. Great.
“Daniel, what choice did I have? She only said what every other person in this industry thought when they interviewed me; she just happened to say it. And I knew it going in to this field. It is a body-conscious profession that we have put ourselves into, so it wasn’t a surprise to me that my own body was being called into question on day one.”
He started to say something, but I cut him off by putting my hand over the one he had wrapped around his mug. “If it wasn’t that I was too fat, it would be that I was too tall, or too short, or too blond, or too brunette, or too old. The list goes on and on. But I also knew that what I looked like didn’t have anything to do with the job I was going to be doing. So I let it slide. I wrote down her quotes, I watched her work, I took notes of my own, I made my own connections. It all worked out. Was it painful to have her discuss my body in such familiar terms? Absolutely. Would that have happened if I had taken a job in teaching or banking? Probably not. So, please don’t hone in on that one aspect of the story. I need your opinion on this. I don’t know why; we haven’t known each other for very long, but for some reason your opinion is very important to me.”
There, I had said it. If your opinion was important to me, then you were important to me. If this man was as sensitive to subtext as I believed him to be, he should hear the message loud and clear. Too bad I couldn’t just blurt out, “So, are you really gay? Because I’ve been fantasizing about you for weeks and I would be so happy if I thought there was even a tiny chance that those fantasies could become reality.”
“Is this what you’re passionate about?” he asked as he covered my hand with his other hand.
What? What was the question again? I kept staring into his eyes, and it took me a second to realize that: one, he was referring to my job and not my unrequited lust for him, and second, I was still staring at him, not uttering a word. Focus, Millie, focus.
“I don’t know. That’s what I have to figure out, I guess. There is another field that I’ve dabbled in on the side that at one time was my dream career, but I also really love many aspects of what I do. I love the art, I love the staff we have at Marta’s, and I love the designers and artists I get to work with every day. The hours suck, the pay isn’t much better, and I rarely have any social interaction with potential bedroom partners, but I do love it.” Once again, the mouth was moving faster than the brain, evidenced by his eyebrow winging its way up his forehead at the mention of no sex. Yes, admitting to this man I had been having raging sex dreams about that I haven’t had time for dating anyone…oh yes, I was reeling him in one depressing life fact at a time.
“Well, the dreadful impact to your sex life aside,” he smirked, “what do you think would happen if you didn’t take the job?”
“I hadn’t really thought about it. I guess Marta would look elsewhere for a replacement, but that would seem kind of awkward for me to then begin reporting to someone who has the job I could have had.” Is that something I could do? Or should I plan to quit?
“You know what I do when I’m faced with challenging career decisions? I listen to my body. I work myself into a meditative pose and then I relax and let the two choices flow through my mind. Then I notice how my body reacts to each choice. Does it tense up? Do I feel like a cloud has passed over me? Do I relax? Our bodies are very in tune with what is and isn’t a good choice for us. We get so distanced from it that we lose the ability to tap into it and let it help us make our decisions.”
I wished I could tell him about the ashram I had visited while I was studying in Delhi. I wished I could tell him about the guru I studied with who helped me to calm my mind in times of trouble. I wished I could tell him so much about my time there. I suddenly wanted us to have a lot in common and be connected on many different levels, not just work.
“Is that how you decided to become a designer and to follow the, um, path less taken for most Indian men?” Was there any delicate way to say “Was this how you decided it would be okay to be an openly gay man?”
He smiled. “By the path less taken for Indian men, I assume you are referring to my career choice?” I loved it when that eyebrow of his inched up his forehead. He always added that little element when he was trying to be funny or intimidate me; either way, it always worked to melt me just a little bit. Two could play at this game, though.
I raised my right eyebrow to mirror his and said, “Why yes, of course. Whatever else would I possibly be referring to?”
“Hmmmm, indeed.” Now I was really melting. That “hmmmm” noise he made always got me—a little farther down south, but got me nonetheless.
“So, now you know the whole sordid dilemma. I have to make the decision by tomorrow night, and I still have no idea what to do.” I went to reach for my mug when I realized we were still holding hands over his mug. Dratted man. I was so comfortable around him that I wasn’t even aware we were still touching.
I pulled my hand out from under his and took a sip of my tea. He stared at his now empty hand and looked up at me. Somehow the tone at the table had become very serious very quickly, and I couldn’t tell what that look was all about. I hated how in all the romance novels the heroine got “the look,” the one that signaled yes, absolutely he was as hot for you as you were for him, jump him, jump him. That never, ever seemed to happen in real life. My heart said that was what his eyes were telling me, but my brain was saying this was a man who liked other men. Could this day get any more confusing?
I abruptly stood up, turned on my heel, and put my mug on top of the trash bin and called over my shoulder, “Enough soul searching, Mr. Singh; we have a show to plan, and we’re not going to spend another minute hashing over
my issues. We have Delhi fashion to put on the New York map, so chawlo.”
Oh shit.
“Did you just say chawlo?” he was practically yelling at me because I was already sprinting out the door. How could I be so stupid as to tell him “let’s go” in Hindi? Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“What? No, I said ‘hello?’ Like ‘hello, let’s go?’ Come on, man, this is America!” Hopefully that would be enough to bury it.
He followed me across the street and didn’t say anything else, but he did keep shooting me curious looks in the elevator. Oh well, I would tell him some day, but not until after the show.
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