by Lisa Lim
“And what about you?” Deepak enquired, “What’s your strategy?”
“Me?” I gave a careless shrug and said truthfully, “I’m just going to be myself.”
“I’m not too sure if it’s a good idea to show your true self, warts and all.”
I knew Deepak was addling with my mind. “Well,” I said, putting conviction into my voice, “that’s my strategy.”
“Anyhow,” said Deepak, “now that it’s down to you and me, it’s gonna be the Clash of the Titans.”
Dead from exhaustion after the grueling tennis match, I couldn’t sum up the energy to hold a conversation with Deepak. With some effort, I nodded and half-smiled at his gentle babbling.
God. He talks crap. And he does it so well.
Chapter Ten
“Oh there you are, Carter!” said Deepak in a voice of artificial surprise.
Carter was sitting outside the Shanghai Cafe, thumbing through his BlackBerry. As we approached, he looked up with a fairly unwelcoming expression and briefly acknowledged our presence.
I managed a perfunctory smile, aware that he was openly observing us. “Have you been here before, Carter?”
“Nope.” His reply was succinct, as usual.
I preened and straightened myself, in case Carter wanted to comment on how nice I looked. He didn’t.
Deepak flashed one of his practiced smiles. “Shall we go in now?”
We strode into the restaurant and beneath my spiky heels, the plush carpet yielded pleasingly. I glanced around, taking in my surroundings. The atmosphere seemed relaxed but conducive for business.
Deepak strutted to the front of the house and declared self-importantly, “We need a table for three. Pronto.”
Without looking up, the hostess informed him that there would be a thirty minute wait.
“Thirty minutes?” Deepak snorted quietly. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Despite kicking up a fuss, Deepak left his name with the hostess and rejoined us.
Minutes later, the frazzled hostess bustled past us with a quick “Excuse me.”
I was mildly surprised when Carter dazzled her with a roguish grin. “Hi there!” he said. “It’s so nice to see you again.”
“Oh, hi!” The hostess immediately squared her shoulders. “Nice to see you too, sir.”
“Oh, there’s no need to call me sir. Carter will do.”
After a frozen moment, she brightened and said, “Right. Carter. So nice of you to come back to the Shanghai Cafe. I think we might have a table in the back that has just opened up.”
“Really?” Carter said brilliantly. “That’s fantastic!”
“Yes. Right this way, please.” She led us to our table with a noticeable spring in her step.
I pulled out a chair and said sotto voce, “Carter, you told me you had never been here before.”
“And I haven’t,” he said simply.
“So basically, you were deceiving the hostess.”
“Not really.” Carter leaned back and studied the menu. “I was just being friendly.”
“But,” Deepak cut in, looking genuinely perplexed, “she told me there’d be a thirty-minute wait.”
Deepak’s question was met with silence.
“Good afternoon, folks,” our waiter greeted us with the requisite air of gravitas. “My name is Arthur and I’ll be your waiter this afternoon.”
“I think we’re ready to order.” Carter glanced around the table and Deepak and I nodded our assent. “Yes,” said Carter decisively, “we are.”
“Wonderful!” said the waiter. “Let’s start with the lady at the table.”
“Um.” I nibbled my bottom lip. “I’ll have the Szechuan Chicken, please. Extra spicy.”
“Good choice,” said the waiter. “And to drink?”
“An Arnold Palmer iced tea.”
Then the waiter turned to Deepak. “And for you, sir?”
“Er …” Deepak studied the menu whilst hemming and hawing, his face a mask of indecision. “I’m not so sure.”
“Shall I come back in a few minutes?”
“No, no.” Deepak’s voice surged with irritation. “Actually,” he said in a rush, “I’ll just have whatever this fine gentleman next to me is having.” He flashed Carter a hundred watt smile.
I shifted uneasily in my seat and noticed that Carter didn’t quite return Deepak’s smile. “Do you even know what I’m having?” he enquired sharply.
“I don’t,” Deepak replied. “But I’m fully confident that you have excellent and exquisite taste.”
At this point, Deepak had lost his depth perception.
Carter glanced up from his menu. “I’ll have the Phoenix Claw.”
“And to drink?”
“An ice cold Tsing Tao.” Carter snapped his menu shut. “Thank you.”
Deepak made a great play of studying the wine list, lightly tapping a finger on his chin as he evaluated the selections. It’s a shame he didn’t have a beard to stroke, too. “I’m torn between the Château Mouton-Rothschild and the Beerenauslese. Or,” he added reflectively, “maybe I should just go with the Blanc de Blancs.”
Mon Dieu! Sacré bleu! Deepak spoke with a note of hauteur in his voice, complete with all the proper inflections.
It sounded something like this: I’m torn between the sha-TOH moo-TAWN rawt-SHEELD and the BAY-ruhn-OWS-lay-zuh. Or maybe I should just go with the BLAHNGK duh BLAHNGKS.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or be highly impressed.
The waiter made a suggestion. “Sir, the Château Mouton-Rothschild would pair nicely with the Phoenix Claw.”
Deepak nodded wisely. “I’ll suppose I’ll go with the sha-TOH moo-TAWN rawt-SHEELD.”
“Excellent,” said the waiter. “We offer both the 2006 and 2010.”
“A 2010? GOD NO!” Deepak said it with such force that he almost fell off his chair. “I’m no animal! I don’t drink wine that young.” He frowned with disgust. “Besides, that year was too wet.”
“It was a wet year,” agreed the waiter in heartfelt tones. “So you’ll go with the 2006 then?”
“Of course!”
“Certainly, sir.”
As our waiter wandered off, Deepak tutted, “I’m such an acid freak. Flabby wine just doesn’t cut it for me, you know what I mean?”
I did not deign to reply.
“By the way.” Deepak’s eyes cut back to Carter. “Is the Phoenix Claw some sort of crab or lobster claw?”
Carter slowly sipped his iced water. “It’s chicken feet.”
“Chicken feet?” Deepak’s voice pitched higher. “Um, sounds delightful.”
“It is.” Carter’s facial muscles moved into a fraction of a smile. “Just try not to think about where the chickens have been walking before you devour those gnarly toes.”
There was a rabid gleam in Deepak’s eye and I went into a coughing fit in a weak attempt to disguise an acute attack of the giggles.
Twenty minutes later, our food arrived. Almost immediately, Deepak reached for the Kikkoman bottle and drizzled soy sauce all over his chicken feet.
Carter looked slightly put out. “You haven’t even tasted it yet.”
Deepak carried on dousing the chicken feet with soy sauce. “I like my food salty.”
“But,” Carter said pointedly, “if you had tasted it first, maybe you’d have found it salty enough.”
“Speaking of salt,” said Deepak, expertly changing the subject, “when the Romans conquered Carthage, they salted the earth so that nothing could ever grow there again. But here’s the thing, we dump salt all over the roads to melt ice in the winter. Now that salt then gets washed away by the rain and it seeps into the soil. So tell me, how come grass and weeds and all kinds of green still flourish and grow along the roadside?”
Huh? What the hell was Deepak talking about? Romans? Weeds? Who knows?
I wondered if his skintight pants had cut off all circulation to his brain. Following his words was like trying to sort out a riddle
in a different language.
Instead of simply saying, “Avoid ambiguity! Adopt clarity!” I almost wanted to yell, “Eschew obfuscation! Espouse elucidation!” just so I confuse Deepak as much as he was confusing me.
Oh well. True to form, Deepak was baffling with his bull.
“Deepak,” Carter said dryly, “I think you need to take that story about the Romans with a pinch of salt.”
All this talk about salt was making me thirsty. I drained my glass of Arnold Palmer and tucked into my meal. Carter soon followed suit, but not Deepak.
He forked about his chicken feet in a dispirited fashion, picking up a wiry foot, examining it closely before setting it back on the plate. Mostly, Deepak just stared forlornly at his chicken feet, like a poor lost soul drifting on a bamboo raft out in the middle of the South China Sea.
“Use your fingers and start by biting off the toes between the joints,” Carter instructed with what sounded like obvious relish. “Then chew off the skin and spit it out.”
I had to stop myself from giggling.
Deepak’s face was a picture. “D-d-d-do …” Deepak stopped himself and swallowed hard. “Do I eat the nails, too?”
Carter shook his head whilst sucking on a cartilage. “Go on, try it.”
Deepak bared his teeth in a smile. He looked like he would rather gouge his eyes out or die of the bubonic plague than go near the chicken feet. He put his fork down with a slight clatter, reached for his glass of wine and polished off the contents in one quick gulp.
“How’s your wine, Deepak?” I asked conversationally.
“Mmmm,” he said pensively, “it was ingratiating without being obsequious.”
I smiled benignly.
“Do you drink wine too?”
“I do,” I said blithely.
“Really?” Deepak raised his eyebrows in surprise. “What kind?”
“The ones with screw caps,” I said with a straight face.
“Oh.” He wore a slightly offended air and for once, he was apparently lost for words.
Hah! This was too much fun.
Really. I found this whole situation highly amusing. But as I sat there watching Deepak staring manically at his chicken feet, my conscience eventually kicked in.
Hmm, despite its appeal, I’d better not exacerbate the situation.
And I’m proud to say that I behaved and resisted all urges to tease, taunt and test Deepak’s patience. I even threw him a bone, so to speak.
With extreme generosity, I said, “Hey, Deepak! Can I try one of your chicken feet?”
Deepak slid the entire plate toward me. “You can have it all!”
I reached for a scraggly chicken foot and held it aloft. Then I pointed a fingered toenail at Deepak’s heart and spoke around a croak, “E.T. phone home.”
Deepak was now openly laughing and even Carter cracked a semblance of a smile.
Encouraged, I began wiggling the chicken foot. “My Preciousssss,” I croaked like Gollum, or is it Smeagol? Anyway, it’s that creepy creature from The Lord of The Rings. “We wants it, we needs it. Must have the Precioussss.”
Deepak snorted loudly. “That was pretty precious, Kars.”
After that, there was a perceptible lightening of the atmosphere. Though Deepak never touched his chicken feet, the rest of the meal went by rather smoothly, or so I thought, until Carter sent Deepak back to the call center.
Then it was just me. And Carter. At a Chinese restaurant with a plate of cold chicken feet sitting between us.
Awkward sauce! Sweet and sour sauce!
I looked at Carter warily, wondering what was coming next.
“Coffee and dessert?” he asked.
“Yes, please.”
Carter signaled for the waiter and requested the dessert menu.
“So,” I began, “why did you choose me over Deepak?”
“Deepak made a decision before knowing all the facts.”
“What?” My voice was incredulous with disbelief. “He did? When? Where?”
“Just now,” Carter said simply. “He salted his food without even tasting it first.”
“Oh.” I managed a tepid smile.
The waiter arrived with the dessert menus, breaking into our conversation. “Thanks,” I said before turning back to Carter. “Was that the only thing you factored into your decision?”
“Of course not,” said Carter, scanning the menu. “People often reveal their true selves in the most innocent situations. Sometimes it’s the little things you say, or don’t say, that often make the most lasting impressions. I watched Deepak’s interactions with people—the waiter, the hostess and it gave me a glimpse of the Deepak underneath the shiny veneer. On the surface, he seems to be more interested in looks than performance, in appearances than real accomplishment. To him, form is far more important than substance.”
“Mmm.” I sat forward in my chair. “But he’s a good talker.”
“Deepak may talk a lot but he doesn’t always know what he’s talking about. Not to mention, his false flattery was highly transparent and it backfired.”
“OK. So now I know why you didn’t pick Deepak. But why did you pick me?” I asked lightly, though with a twinge of alarm. “Did I just get the job by default?”
“Not entirely.” Carter briefly glanced up from his menu and held my gaze. “I also watched how you dealt with situations.”
“And?” My tone was guarded.
“You don’t take yourself too seriously. I like that.”
My eyes widened like platters. “You do?”
Carter went on, “I liked the way you handled lunch with Deepak. You made light of a situation by pointing out the absurd. A good sense of humor is an important asset in the business world. It diffuses tension, be it in a board room or in a casual meeting, which gives you the upper hand.”
“I am not your clown,” I said mildly. “And I don’t exist simply for your amusement.”
“I never said that you did. Clown or not, you created a favorable impression. And when you’re dealing with people, a sense of humor goes a long way. It creates one of the most favorable long-term impressions.”
“Hmmm. So is a sense of humor the most important personal asset in business?”
“Nope. Common sense is. Although,” he added wryly, “common sense is not so common these days and if you don’t already have it, then you probably never will.”
I looked at him expectantly.
A smile played across his lips. “And yes, you have it. If I didn’t think that you did, you wouldn’t be sitting here right now.”
“I see. So … the tennis match, this lunch, it was all a test?”
“In a way it was,” he admitted. “Think of this whole experience as your first lesson as the new Project Manager … always keep your guard up while encouraging others to lower theirs. Usually, the less formal the venue—”
I cut in, “Like tennis?”
“Like tennis,” he echoed. “Or like this lunch, then the more likely it is that people will let their guards down.”
Over coffee and dessert Carter began telling me, at some length, about the new position. I found myself nodding at all the appropriate moments while my mind raced along its own track. I still couldn’t believe I got the job.
Sometime later, I was caught slightly off guard when I realized Carter was no longer talking. In the pause that followed, he sat forward, his dark eyes studying me over the rim of his cup. Eventually, he began, “Why do you …”
“Why do I what?”
“Try so hard,” he finished.
I shrugged. “When you don’t look like Jewel De’Nyle, Pamela Pornero or Kylie Kleevage, you have to try extra hard.”
Quietly, he said, “You underrate yourself, Karsynn.”
Yowzah! Was Carter Lockwood actually paying me a compliment?
“When I look at you,” he continued, “I see the steel in your eyes. Your spitfire ambition. And in a way, I see myself.”
I allowed myself a
quiet, glowing smile. But his ringing vote of confidence in my abilities was slightly marred by his addition of, “A less intelligent version, a little rough around the edges, but driven and diligent nonetheless. There’s still a lot you need to work on.”
My smile slipped a notch. “Like what?”
“You react to situations. You need to force yourself to act rather than to react. Put some emotional distance between yourself and situations.”
“I’m just being myself,” I said weakly.
“If you consistently present your ‘this is me, take it or leave it’ self, then you’re not going to be a very effective manager.”
I fixed him with a deeply skeptical eye. “And why is that?”
“A great deal of role-playing goes on in business and the key is to come across as your best self by playing a role that features your strongest business qualities, all while hiding your worst.”
“But when I’m being myself, I’m being assertive.”
“It’s OK to be assertive, but assert yourself only when the time and place are appropriate. And you need to focus.”
“On what?”
“Focus more on getting what you want and less on getting something off your chest.”
“So much to learn.” I sighed. “And so much office politics.”
The exasperation in my voice caught Carter’s attention. Well, it wasn’t exactly hard to miss. “Office politics … haven’t you noticed that people who complain about office politics are always its victims?”
“I’m not complaining,” I said indignantly. “I’m simply stating a fact. Anyway I don’t believe in playing office politics. I have my principles, you know,” I added with dignity.
“More sins are committed in the name of principle,” he scoffed. “Besides, principles are usually a convenient cover-up for a bruised ego.”
“Hey, I don’t have a bruised ego. I just refuse to play the game anymore.”
“Listen,” Carter said, “is climbing the corporate ladder a game? Absolutely. In fact, it is several games going on at once. You have to recognize real talent and not be misled by appearances. At the same time, you must figure out a way to let the true decision makers know how good you really are without making enemies of the people in between. You must keep your peers as friends while maintaining the support of your subordinates. And you have to be vigilant, always making sure that other people don’t steal your ideas and use them as if it were their own.”