First Sight

by Donohue, Laura

  “No, you don’t need to come,” my mom said. “The doctor just wants to check me out before he prescribes new medication to help manage the pain. I probably just did too much over the weekend.”

  “Mom, you really should take it easy.”

  “I know, Sweetie. You don’t need to worry about me.”

  “Well of course I’m worried if you’re going back to the doctor. Let me know if you need anything.”

  “I will. Have a good day at work. I love you.”

  “I love you, too. Bye.”

  I clicked my phone shut, and Travis peeked in. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said with a sigh. “My mom has to go back to the doctor’s today. I just stopped by over the weekend, and she seemed fine.”

  “You look worried,” he said gently.

  “I am; I’m just generally stressed out, though. There is so much going on—my mom, the retreat taking so much time, the deadline for this project. I seriously need a vacation,” I said, giving him a small smile.

  “What are you guys up to?” a male voice suddenly interrupted. I looked up to see Jeff standing in the doorway.

  “Just chatting,” Travis said easily.

  “Hey Jeff,” I said, sorry that Travis and I hadn’t gotten a chance to finish our conversation.

  “I’m headed down to the break room. Someone brought in donuts and bagels this morning. You guys want to come?”

  “Definitely, I’m starving,” Travis answered.

  “No, I better get back to my office,” I said, fiddling with my cell phone. I still wanted to grab some coffee and now needed to call Brian to see what he thought about Mom’s doctor appointment.

  Travis’s eyes met mine. “I’ll catch up with you later, okay Maddy?” He paused, and I knew he would stay with me if I wanted to continue talking.

  “Sure, I’ll talk to you later.”

  Jeff started telling Travis about some hockey game he’d watched last night, and they gestured for me to go ahead of them. I said goodbye, but as I walked away, I could feel Travis’s gaze on me all the way down the hallway.

  Marissa was still on the phone when I got back to my office, apparently telling her sister about the guy she had met at the coffee shop yesterday. I sat down and had just logged back into my computer when I realized my lunch was still sitting on top of my desk. I grabbed it and walked to the break room to stash it in the fridge. The boxes of bagels and donuts on the table were almost empty, and everyone had gone back to their offices already. I was just opening the fridge door when I heard someone else walk in behind me.

  “Hi Elizabeth,” I said, smiling, as I turned to see who it was.

  “Good morning!” she said happily. She came over to put her boxed meal in the freezer and gave me a knowing look.

  “What’s up?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.

  “Oh, you know,” she said with a wave of her hand. “It’s nothing.”

  “Nothing?” I looked at her skeptically. “Come on. Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “I just think it was nice of Travis to drive you home last night.”

  “Yeah,” I said slowly, trying to figure out why she was acting just like Marissa had yesterday. “That was nice of him to drive Marissa and me home.”

  “I noticed you two were there together at the bar before Marissa and I came in,” she hinted.

  It was starting to dawn on me that she and Marissa seemed to be conspiring to get Travis and me together. They were both dropping an awful lot of not-so-subtle hints, and last night at the bar it sounded like Elizabeth had even been talking to Travis about it. Just what I needed—some office gossip that I had a crush on my coworker. A coworker on the same team as me, nonetheless.

  “Right, well…Marissa was running late, so I headed over to the bar by myself,” I said slowly. I felt myself flushing slightly and wondered why I was so embarrassed. That was exactly what had happened. Yes, I had ended up at the bar alone with Travis for a while, but it’s not like I’d planned it that way. We were all meeting at the bar after work. They were the ones running late.

  “You know he really likes you, right?” Elizabeth said gently.

  “Travis?” I asked, perhaps a bit too loudly. “No,” I said in a more hushed tone. I paused, wondering if I had just heard someone in the hallway. Listening closely for another moment, I chastised myself, deciding that I was just being silly. So what if I said his name? Travis and I worked on the same project together. Certainly I could be talking about work with Elizabeth. And so what if someone had been listening? They shouldn’t be eavesdropping out in the hallway to begin with.

  Elizabeth’s voice drew me back to the present. “Yeah, I thought you knew,” she said.

  “Well, we’re friends,” I said quietly, feeling puzzled. “He’s nice to everybody.”

  “Look, I probably shouldn’t have said anything. You two are just always so cute together, and I know he’s interested in you. I don’t think he’d necessarily say anything since you work together, but I thought you might want to know.”

  I was staring at her, trying to register what she was saying as her words slowly clicked into place. Had Travis told her this himself? That didn’t seem very likely. And what did she mean that she thought I would want to know? Was it that obvious that I liked him, too? As I tried to make sense of my muddled thoughts, I noticed that Elizabeth was starting to look a little uncomfortable, and I realized that I still hadn’t answered her.

  “I don’t know if I could date someone that I work with,” I said hesitantly, not really wanting to discuss it any more with her.

  “I understand. Hey, there’s always Gym Guy,” she said slyly.

  I laughed out loud remembering Marissa’s date from a couple of months ago. I shook my head, starting to walk out, but paused in the doorway and called back to her, “He’s not my type at all—a total dumb jock.”

  She smiled, thinking about Gym Guy or Travis, I wasn’t sure. I stepped out of the break room and was startled when I saw that Travis himself was just then slipping into his office down the hall. Had he heard our conversation? Probably not. I had said his name rather loudly, but he couldn’t have heard anything else unless he’d been standing right outside the door. And if he had been standing there, certainly he would have walked in to say hello. I brushed it off and walked down the hall into my own office, settling in to finish writing a review of the retreat we’d gone on—not typical of what we usually covered, but Jennifer wanted to add it to the website under “Outdoor Adventures.”

  The morning passed quickly and soon it was almost time for lunch. I sent a quick email to Elizabeth, Marissa, and Travis, asking if they wanted to eat soon. Elizabeth responded right away saying that she’d be there in ten minutes. Even though she was sitting in the very same office as me, Marissa hit “Reply-All,” saying, “Yes, I’m famished!” I didn’t get a response from Travis, but I figured that he might be meeting and not at his desk. Marissa ran out to the deli downstairs to get a sandwich, saying that she’d meet me in the lunchroom. I’d already seen Elizabeth walking by to heat up her lunch, so after a few minutes, I headed to the break room. As I walked down the hallway, Travis rounded the corner, carrying a bag from the deli.

  “Hey Travis,” I said, smiling when I saw him. “Are you going to eat with us?”

  His dark eyes met mine, and as I looked up at him, I thought that he seemed upset about something. His face was hard and his mouth pressed together in a tight line. This was probably the first time I’d ever seen him looking unhappy—he was always in such a good mood.

  “No, not today,” he said coolly, walking right past me. I stopped in amazement and turned around to watch him as he continued down the hallway. Why hadn’t he stopped to talk to me? He headed straight to his office without speaking to anyone else. What was going on?

  Elizabeth was pulling her food out of the microwave as I walked into the break room. “Hey Elizabeth, is Travis okay?” I asked. “He’s eating lunch by himsel
f in his office.”

  “He seemed a little quiet earlier,” she said with a shrug.

  “Yeah, he kind of blew me off in the hallway just now.”

  “He’s probably just stressed out about this project. This is the first publication that we’ve had since he started working here—we have a lot of tight deadlines coming up.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” I said, still musing about what could be bothering him.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it,” Elizabeth said, sitting down at the table. She pulled the plastic wrap off her meal, and steam rose up into the air. The scent of marinara sauce wafted over to me, and I felt a wave of hunger.

  “Okay,” I said, turning to grab my lunch from the refrigerator. “I just thought maybe he was mad at me or something.”

  “Who’s mad at you?” Marissa asked from the doorway. She stood there looking back and forth between Elizabeth and me.

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” I said, walking over to the vending machine and sliding a few quarters in for a soda. The can rumbled down as it dropped, and I pulled out my diet coke.

  “All right,” Marissa said slowly, sounding a little miffed that I hadn’t included her in the conversation. She walked over to the table carrying her brown paper bag from the deli and sat down. Before long the three of us were talking and laughing, and the rest of our lunch hour passed quickly. Try as I might though, for some reason I couldn’t get the uneasy feeling out of the back of my mind that something had happened with Travis.

  ***

  I left work right at 5:00 that night and headed over to my Pilates class at the gym. I’d started taking Pilates classes a year ago and loved them. It was so relaxing to come to class after being stuck at my desk all day. Nothing felt better than to just stretch and let all my tension out. Emily was meeting me for class today, and I waved when I spotted her in black yoga pants and black and pink top.

  “Hi Maddy!” she called out as she walked over, giving me a quick hug. “How are you?”

  “Good,” I said. “God, I haven’t seen you in ages.”

  “I know; it’s been a few weeks, right? How was that retreat that you and Marissa went on?”

  I started to tell her about last week’s activities and all the crazy tasks that we’d done, culminating with my first zip-lining experience.

  “Wow, that sounds really intense,” she said, unrolling her purple yoga mat.

  I unfurled my blue mat next to hers and slid off my shoes. “Yeah, it really was. I was scared to death some of the time, but it was actually pretty fun overall. It felt weird going back to work though after spending so much time together. I got to know everyone so much better, outside the office, and then suddenly we were back to the old routine again. It seemed like everything was just off-kilter or something.”

  “Huh.” She looked thoughtful. “I guess it’s kind of like when you come back from a vacation or something and everything just seems strange. You’ve been off doing other things, but nothing has really changed.”

  “Yeah, that’s exactly it,” I agreed.

  “And how was Travis?” she asked with a grin on her face.

  I couldn’t help but smile as she mentioned his name.

  “See, you’re lighting up already just thinking about him,” she laughed.

  “Have you been talking to Marissa?” I asked jokingly.

  “Marissa?” she asked with a laugh. “No, why?”

  “Oh, she has her own theories,” I said with a sigh. “Never mind.”

  “Well go on,” Emily said, giving me a nudge. “Spill!”

  “All right, all right. Travis…was great actually. He was in my group both days of the retreat, we spent every day together….”

  “Oh really? That sounds promising.”

  “I don’t know; it was great then.” I frowned, remembering our strange encounter earlier. One moment he’d been following me into the conference room to make sure I was okay, and a few hours later he’d blown me off in the hallway, not eating lunch with any of us.

  “So what’s wrong?”

  “Oh, he was just acting really weird today. He usually has lunch with us, and this afternoon he totally blew me off.” I explained what had happened in the hallway and how he’d never replied to the email I’d sent about meeting for lunch.

  “Maybe he was just busy and had to work through lunch or something.”

  “Maybe…” I said, hesitating as I considered that. I didn’t have much time to mull it over though, because the instructor was soon standing at the front of the classroom, leading us in a few stretching exercises. The next hour flew by, and before I knew it I was saying goodbye to Emily and getting ready to head home.

  I got back to my apartment just after 7:00. It was dark out, and I flipped on the light switch as soon as I walked in, the room immediately filling with warm light. I hadn’t bothered opening the blinds this morning, and it was just as well, because the sun had already gone down. I dropped my gym bag and purse down on the floor in my bedroom and hopped in the shower. I hadn’t bothered changing out of my Pilates clothes at the gym. Sometimes it was just easier to shower and get changed at home.

  I decided that I wouldn’t be going out again anytime tonight and put on my pajamas. They were a purple satiny pair from Victoria’s Secret, and for a moment, I thought that it was ironic that here I was wearing something cute to bed, yet no one was going to see me in them. I smiled to myself, thinking that that was just as well. It’s not like I was dating anyone now to begin with.

  I debated what to make for dinner and finally decided on a quick stir-fry. I pulled some vegetables and chicken from the refrigerator. As the oil was heating in the frying pan, I chopped up an onion, some mushrooms, and bell peppers. I added a little teriyaki sauce as I mixed everything together in the pan, and soon a mouth-watering aroma was filling the room. Carrying my plate into the living room, I sat down on my sofa to watch TV as I ate. A rerun of Friends was on, and I found myself laughing at the familiar plotline.

  After I ate, I carried my plate back into the kitchen. I noticed there was a missed call on my cell phone, but I didn’t recognize the number. They hadn’t left a message, so I went back into the living room and settled in to relax for the rest of the evening. I had trouble falling asleep that night, and I wasn’t sure if I was still wound up from Pilates or if it was just because I had a lot on my mind. I felt a little anxious about going to work the next day, but I couldn’t quite pinpoint what was wrong. After tossing and turning for an hour, I eventually fell into an uneasy sleep.

  ***

  The next morning, I was a few minutes late getting to the office, and I spotted Elizabeth, Marissa, and Travis as I walked into our building. Marissa had just gotten to work, like me, and was carrying a bag lunch along with her purse. Elizabeth and Travis looked like they were heading out, probably to get coffee. They were all laughing about something, and I smiled as I approached them. I could see Marissa waving her arms animatedly, and it seemed like she was in the middle of telling them a story—probably something to do with her latest guy, I thought wryly.

  “Hi!” I said, waving as I walked up. “What’s so funny?”

  Elizabeth waved hello as I approached, and Marissa was still in fits of laughter. Travis’s back had been to the door, but he turned to see who was coming. Marissa started to explain whatever they’d been talking about, but was giggling too much to continue. Elizabeth was laughing as well, but Travis, however, seemed to stiffen slightly when he realized it was me. I met his gaze and watched as he looked at me in stony silence. His eyes, which usually were so warm, looked cold. “I should get going,” he said abruptly, before turning and walking toward the door.

  I watched him leave, feeling puzzled. “Okay,” I said, spinning back around to Elizabeth and Marissa and holding my hands up in confusion. “You both saw that, right? He is mad at me.”

  “Yeah, I did see that,” Elizabeth replied, looking confused herself. “That’s really unlike him.”

  “Why is he
mad at you?” Marissa asked.

  “I seriously have no idea,” I said, suddenly feeling exasperated. “I didn’t do or say anything. We were all having fun at happy hour, right? He drove us home; everything was fine yesterday morning. Then all of a sudden, right before lunch, he basically stopped speaking to me.”

  Elizabeth nodded, eyes narrowing as she appeared to be thinking something over, but she didn’t say anything else.

  “Well, apparently you did something to tick him off,” Marissa said.

  “Yeah, too bad I can’t remember what it was,” I said sarcastically. “Besides, we’re not in high school. If he’s mad about something he should just tell me, not give me the cold shoulder.”

  “He’ll get over it,” Marissa announced, trying to lighten the mood. “Let’s go upstairs. I want to show you this dress online that I just ordered.” I nodded, deciding that it was probably not worth wasting any more time discussing it with them.

  “I’ll see you two later,” Elizabeth said. “I still want to get some coffee. Maybe I’ll see your buddy on the way there.”

  “Yeah,” I said, rolling my eyes slightly, “maybe he’ll enlighten you on what exactly his problem is.” Marissa and I headed to the elevators while Elizabeth went the other way. Although I was still miffed, I was relieved that the others had seen it, too, and I knew that I wasn’t just imagining things.

  Chapter 12

  The deadline for our project continued to loom on the horizon, and after a rather uneventful weekend, I’d been putting in extra hours at the office each night. It was such a stressful week that I hardly had time to talk with anyone, yet alone deal with whatever was going on with Travis. He persisted in barely speaking to me but was perfectly friendly with Marissa and Elizabeth. I didn’t have the slightest idea why he was angry, but I was so annoyed by his behavior that I didn’t even attempt to find out. If he wanted to behave in such a childish manner, then I saw no reason to seek him out to learn what was wrong. Certainly any adult would have just spoken to me directly, not ignored me whenever I happened to walk into a room.