by Leah Kay
“I know, and I have been okay with this new arrangement between you and Mom. But it just hit me today, I am sorry.”
“Please don’t apologize; I need you to be strong. I understand this is unfair to you, but I also know you are strong enough to handle this.”
Sniffling through the phone, she replies, “I am strong, Dad. I love you.”
“Love you more, Lily.”
By the time he reaches his room, they’ve talked about school, friends, and new recipes to try together and then she remembers something. “I completely forgot; was Looney Tunes any better today?”
That nut job again. Nathan doesn’t want to think about Isha but uses the situation to make Lily laugh. “I think she is a sexist, Lil.”
Laughing at his exaggeration she asks, “And why is that?”
“My team was having drinks, and the moment two guys walked over to the table, she walked away and sat with a bunch of girls.”
“That’s odd. There weren’t any other guys at the table?”
“I guess there were.”
“Then she is not a sexist, Dad.”
Glad that Isha is useful in distracting Lily he says, “Alright, I will deal with Looney Tunes, you have a good rest of the night and say hi to Mom for me.”
“Will do. Good night!”
He walks straight to his laptop to book a critical flight.
Sitting in the hotel room, he realizes how accustomed he has become to fresh towels, nicely made beds and small bottles of shampoo. However, eating out every day and being cooped up in a room without fresh air even for a few hours is starting to bother him. He is determined to find a place so that he can embark on this next chapter in his life—a chapter he isn’t prepared for, a chapter that has been forced on him, and a chapter that has created a distance of 3000 miles between him and his daughter.
Loneliness dawns on him slowly at the sight of the blank screen, forcing him to recognize the void left behind by the loss of familiar places and intimate connections. Seeing no way to escape this purgatory, he turns his attention to his trusted source of distraction for over a decade—his inbox. Chipping away at his unread emails, he comes across a note from Isha from earlier in the day. A wave of sadness replaces the former anger he felt towards her. He’s been made aware of all his shortcomings during his 16 years of marriage, but as a boss he is respected and loved. He is known to be fair and has always taken good care of his team. It is entirely out of his comprehension as to why he is being subjected to this forced alienation. Refusing to add another disappointment to an overflowing plate, he walks away from his laptop to grab a beer from the mini bar.
An email notification pings in the background, but he ignores it to watch sports instead. A few beers and complete mental exhaustion later, he turns off the lights next to him and plops his head on the pillow ready to do it all over again tomorrow. Darkness fills the room except for the sharp white light from his computer screen. Annoyed, he walks over to the desk to shut it off, and the email notification from earlier in the night catches his eye. Squinting at the bright screen, he clicks on it. “Thank you for this opportunity. I won’t let you down.”
His lips curve into a smile relaxing his weighty shoulders. “I know… And an in-person thank you would have been nice.”
With a brief escape from his loneliness and despair, he retreats to bed.
Chapter 5
The Art of Seduction
Isha wakes up to her alarm at 6:30 a.m. and habitually scrolls through her messages. She scrolls past a few emails from the sites, her core team, and then she sees it … a reply to her late-night thank you note.
“I know … and an in-person thank you would have been nice.”
She immediately curses her liquid courage that enabled the late-night email to Nathan. With her heart beat racing, she takes a quick jog to the spin class. She wants to see him, tell him she is thankful, tell him she is not a weirdo, tell him that she’s doing the right thing for both of them, at least she thinks she is. Unable to land on whether or not her remote attraction to Nathan, fueled by her dream, would be considered cheating, she pivots back to reprimanding herself. Get your act together and stay away from him. She drops off her bag in the locker room and walks over to the spin studio. Walking past the glass windows that look into the studio, she sees Nathan. CRAP! Immediately turning around, she rushes to the nearest elliptical machine. Stepping on it, she selects an incline workout and powers through it to a repeat of Alanis Morissette’s “You Outta Know”, burning through her frustration.
Claire catches up with her in the locker room. “You have got to be kidding me.”
Isha stops getting ready. “I may have sent Nathan an email after a few drinks,” she cries out to Claire.
Puzzled, Claire inquires, “Oh! Not about the dream, is it?” wanting to know more.
Letting out a sharp breath, Isha gasps, “Good lord! NO. I just thanked him.”
“What is wrong with that?” Claire waits impatiently for Isha to start making sense.
“Well, he suggested an in-person thank you would have been nice,” Isha explains hurriedly.
Claire’s face relaxes into a smirk. “That’s cute.”
“This CANNOT be cute,” Isha replies with massive hand gestures.
Laughing at her theatrics, Claire tries to reason with her. “The sooner you become friends with him, the easier all of this will be.”
Feeling defeated, Isha heads upstairs and gets to work. Her day is filled with meetings with her core team to revise and finalize the implementation plan. She contemplates replying to Nathan’s message and starts typing.
“That sounds like a great suggestion, I am on it!” … That’s bad.
“Sorry about that, I was catching up with some old friends.” … This is even worse.
“In-person thank yous are sooooo overrated.” … You are terrible at this.
Giving up, she deletes the draft and moves on with her day.
Daniel, Isha, and Claire wrap up their planning meeting close to noon. The plan is coming together well and, depending on how quickly Nathan signs off, the team could be traveling in a month to the sites to kick-start implementation activities. There is plenty of work to do before that—develop templates, training materials, presentations, realization metrics, resource models, timelines, and the list goes on. Isha develops a project plan for the core team to divvy up the responsibilities and prepare for the rollout. Next step is to meet with Mark and Jim to obtain their feedback before she can present it to Nathan. She schedules some time with both of them later in the day. Claire suggests grabbing a quick bite before their day gets busy again.
They walk out to the food trucks outside the Genex building and stop by a hoagie truck. Claire realizes she left her phone in the conference room they were in, so she rushes back upstairs to grab it while Daniel and Isha order and wait for their hoagies. It is a beautiful day in Philly and Isha takes in the sun, closing her eyes, leaning her head back with her arms spread out, completely oblivious to the old Asian couple walking behind her. Her right hand smacks the woman in the face and she spits out curse words at her, in what Isha can only presume is Mandarin. Mortified, she apologies profusely as they walk away making angry hand gestures at her. Daniel breaks into a fit of laughter watching this show play out in front of him, and she smacks him for not warning her but eventually gives in and has a belly laugh herself.
Nathan, walking on the other side of the street after grabbing lunch with another colleague, notices Isha. He feels a sense of warmth seeing her so happy. Except the warm and fuzzy feeling quickly disappears into thin air at the realization that she completely dismissed his email response from last night. He was hoping to have received a reply by now. He isn’t thrilled with himself for the way he responded to her. But her erratic behavior has made its way under his skin, nudging him to respond. He watches them grab their
sandwiches and walk towards the benches to take a seat. On an impulse, he crosses the street to join them.
Her laugh disappears seeing him walk towards her. And boy is he cute… Her heart starts pounding again. He stops by and says hello, only to be received by a lukewarm hello from her and a genuine welcome from Daniel. He makes quick conversation about their hoagies, the weather and watches Isha stuff her face like a chipmunk to avoid conversing with him. Right when he is about to give up and walk away, Claire joins them and reads the situation with ease.
“Nathan, have you heard of liquid courage?” Claire is ready to get Isha out of her shell.
Isha almost chokes on her food.
“Confidence you gain after a few drinks? Is that what you are talking about?” Nathan looks confused.
“Isha, have you ever experienced that before?” Claire rags Isha.
Isha glares at Claire. “Perhaps.”
“Perhaps, huh? What about last night?” Claire continues to tease her.
And even before Claire can finish her sentence Isha tries to stop her. “SHUSH.”
Nathan pieces together their play. “I hope that’s not required for our meetings together. Genex policy unfortunately doesn’t allow it,” he teases Isha and walks away wondering why she would be afraid of him.
Isha is too dumbfounded to speak, she growls at Claire, while Daniel looks confused by what just happened.
Later in the day, Nathan makes his way through the city streets to Rittenhouse Square, a posh neighborhood that envelopes a lush park. String lights are draped across the trees, and several city dwellers are lounging on the benches spread across the park. Perfectly groomed dogs join their owners who are busy having lively conversations with their friends. Surrounding the park are several elegant restaurants providing street-side seating to enjoy the weather and engage in a healthy dose of people watching. As he makes his way around the park, he stops for a drink at one of the restaurants called Parc, a French restaurant known for its decadent food and sinful pastries. He finds a table outside and relaxes into a chair to take in the surroundings. The demographic is a clash between young, hip adults and older, refined retirees, both of whom fit right in the hustle and bustle of the neighborhood. A violinist performing on the street corner, attractive youngsters making their way to happy hours and multiple conversations about how the Phillies are going to do this season are just a few things Nathan is taking in, contemplating whether he fits into this neighborhood. His phone beeps to alert him of a new meeting request for tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. “Requesting approval of the Implementation Plan” from Looney Tunes herself.
“Is this fueled by liquid courage? If so, I have serious concerns for your health,” he replies, finding delight in teasing her.
A minute later. “No comment.”
Smiling at her response, he continues to be puzzled by her need for liquid courage to have a conversation with him and is determined to get to the bottom of it with her at their meeting tomorrow.
“Work for that glass of wine you plan to drink tonight. For some of you, it may be a bottle.” Nancy motivates her class. Her Core Sanity has a cult-like following at Genex. She mixes motivation and sass effortlessly. Isha and Claire walk out of the session with perfect posture and feeling fit after an hour with her. Getting ready for work in the locker rooms, both of them go into details on what to wear to see Mother Monster tonight.
“To be a good little monster, we need to be original,” says Claire as she curls her hair.
Nodding her head in deep thought, Isha asks, “How about we drape ourselves in prosciutto?” thinking of Lady Gaga’s infamous meat dress.
“You may be on to something,” Claire replies sarcastically.
“Besides, you can snack on it if you get hungry later,” Isha adds facetiously.
Stepping into the elevator, Claire presses the button for the 12th floor. “You think we will be out of place at Gaga’s concert?” she asks.
“Trust me, Liam says she attracts one of the most diverse audiences. Besides, don’t be a drag, just be a queen.” Isha mimics Gaga’s voice.
Claire throws her a judgmental stare. They make it to their offices and Isha prepares for her meeting with Nathan. At 9:25 a.m., she walks over to his office with her files in hand. Approaching the door, her palms start to sweat. With a deep breath, she knocks on the partially closed door and slides it open to let herself in. Standing at his desk, Nathan is dressed in a crisp white shirt with sleeves rolled up to his elbows, tucked into a pair of dark denim jeans. The sight of him makes her heart flutter and she helplessly cries a little on the inside. Isha has always had a thing for men in white button downs. And Old Man here with his broad shoulders, narrow hips, and long legs is looking quite delectable in one. She immediately finds new appreciation for her olive skin tone that effortlessly conceals her embarrassing flush in the cheeks. She takes a seat across from him and with a push of a button he lowers his desk and takes a seat in front of her.
His curiosity about her has been through the roof since Claire’s remark about liquid courage. He couldn’t wait to see Isha this morning to get to the bottom of it all. Except, now that she is in front of him, his words escape him. Dressed in a poppy-red sheath dress, dangly earrings, and her long hair swept to one side, she looks delicate. Looking into her soft eyes, he loses his focus.
“Good morning, Isha.” He extends his hand.
“Morning Nathan, how are you?” She returns his handshake
“Wow, I get a handshake today. To be honest, I prefer a curtsy.” He banters with her.
Her heart flutters again. “I tend to save them for special occasions.”
He laughs. “Fair enough, let’s get started,” forcing them both to experience their budding chemistry.
Again, he has gone through the pre-read she emailed him last night and has already marked his copy with notes. She continues to be impressed with his preparation, considering that she sent the material to him late last night.
“I’d prefer if you spread the rollout at least three months apart between sites. With your current proposal of two months, you might be cutting it too close.”
“We were aggressive with our plan.”
“I understand, but you need good data to support your trend analysis.”
“Makes sense, I will revise it.”
“Other than that, everything else looks good. Nice work.”
His recognition of her hard work sits well with her confidence levels. “Thank you. Once you sign off, we can get the ball rolling.”
“Let me send out a formal announcement to the sites and you can follow it up with scheduling next steps.”
“Sounds good to me.” She admires how quickly he came up to speed with everything.
Collecting her stuff to leave, she says with utmost sincerity, “Thank you for your support on this project.”
He looks up at her. “Don’t screw it up.”
Her smile fades for a moment only to see he is bantering with her. “I’ll try not to,” she says, biting her lip to avoid adding anything more.
He stands up to meet her eyes. “So, why do you need liquid courage to talk to me?”
Stunned by his candor, she replies, “No comment,” trying to conceal an embarrassing smile starting at her lips.
He laughs. “I will be away for a few days next week. Here’s my number in case you need to reach me for any work emergency.” He takes his phone out to exchange numbers.
Exchanging numbers at a workplace is not uncommon and shouldn’t ring any alarm bells, except Isha finds it unsettling to have an easy access point to him. With this approval, there are so many things to look forward to: Interaction with sites, new challenges, travel, and fighting the insane chemistry with the old man. Begging herself to stop the madness, she gets back to work. Receiving approval is only half the battle. Real challenges come during execution a
nd Isha feels ready for them. For the next few hours, she puts on her headphones and develops a detailed plan for San Diego, which includes critical stakeholders to target, development of training material, core team involvement and timelines. Putting together finishing touches to her plan, she notices a new email from her boss.
“Team,
It’s been a challenging time with all the transitions. Let’s get together for a team lunch at Reading Terminal Market. Meet me in the lobby at 11:20 if you want to head out together.
Nathan.”
Around 11:15, all but Isha meet Nathan in the lobby.
Mark and Jim point out the sites around Genex walking alongside Nathan. He nods along, but his mind is elsewhere. After a good meeting and friendly banter together, he thought he was making progress with Isha. Right when he thinks the awkward phase is over, she pulls the disappearing act again.
“And I thought we were making progress…” he texts her reluctantly.
Moments later, Claire texts Isha. “You are now hiding from me?”
Slurping ramen at her desk, Isha ignores both of them.
The team orders food from the many cuisines available and gathers at a large table in the middle of the market.
“Thanks for setting this up, Nathan. It’s a nice way to get to know your team,” Claire adds before taking a bite out of her sandwich.
“My pleasure. We had this tradition in San Diego, and I wanted to try it out here.”
“Nathan, how is it going with your move? Have you found a place yet?” Daniel asks as he digs into his stromboli.
“It’s going well. I have been exploring some neighborhoods around the area after work, and I am hoping to make my decision soon.”
“What areas have you been to so far?” Mark inquires.
“Rittenhouse Square and Northern Liberties. I plan to check out Old City after work today with a relocation agent.”
“Nathan, how does your family like it here?” Jim innocently inquires.
