Nerd Girl

by Lee, Sue

  I couldn’t help thinking about Jake at this moment. Maybe Ryan was another Jake. Catherine was his comfort, his longtime companion, and he had chosen to marry her despite the lack of passion. Maybe that’s what you do after being with someone for so long; you eventually marry because that’s what everyone expects. You give up on the fireworks and the butterflies in your stomach. You wimp out.

  Would Ryan choose to take a leap of faith and go the less certain route? I’d like to think that I could offer him love and companionship, and if our kisses were any indication, there was definitely no shortage of physical chemistry.

  Then it hit me. Andrew chose the latter of these two options. It never occurred to me before, but Andrew left the security of our very comfortable relationship. I was always the safe bet. Andrew did what I was hoping Ryan would have the courage to do. When Andrew broke up with me, it really wasn’t about me. It was about going after the love of his life. He had found the one, and it wasn’t me. He wanted his stars and butterflies and he took the leap.

  I couldn’t be angry with Andrew anymore for the choices he had made. I couldn’t blame him since I encouraged Ryan to do the same thing. Being unfaithful to me was wrong, but I wouldn’t be so quick to judge anymore. If Ryan hadn’t done what he had done, would he even be contemplating this choice? Probably not.

  Regardless of his decision, I had another dilemma I needed to process. I was screwed at work. I had become the byproduct of an office affair, only my situation was worse. The woman being cheated on was not a stay at home mom or a wife whom I would never see or meet; she was my direct manager. Just my luck. Could it honestly get any worse?

  How will I be able to show my face at work again? Maybe I should call in sick. But since I’m already taking Thursday and Friday off for Anna’s wedding, and having just started this job, I can’t take a whole week off work.

  Since I wasn’t in Ryan’s direct chain of command, I didn’t think MS had the right to fire me for this. At the same time, I dreaded what would certainly be a discussion with HR. They may reprimand me or maybe put it in my file. Regardless, I’ll have to leave the team, because I couldn’t imagine Catherine leaving her job for this. She was the established legacy on the team, not me.

  How would this be explained to my teammates? Oh, the thought of this getting out was beyond mortifying. Crap, Stephanie Wheeler will soon know about this. I can just see her now, looking down and possibly even lecturing Ryan for getting involved in such a mess. I was such a freakin’ idiot.

  I could just quit, I guess. But I didn’t want to give him or anyone else the satisfaction. Plus, that’s the last thing I wanted to have happen. I have, or had, a really good career here and it paid well. I was considered a senior at level 62 and for someone who was only twenty-nine years old, I was doing quite well for MS standards.

  There was no good ending to this. I was angry with Ryan for even putting me in this situation. As the more powerful and older influence, he should’ve made better decisions both with my career … and my heart. If I was completely honest with myself, despite his error in judgment and his dishonesty, I was still crazy about him. I had been falling in love with him and I couldn’t just shut it off. If he said he wanted to be with me right now, I would say yes in a heartbeat. For once, I would put all my pride and judgment aside, no doubt about it.

  So where did all of this lead me? I was at a complete dead end. This time, I had nowhere to escape to. I had allowed Ryan into my heart and he had entered it so easily. I had only myself to blame for letting that happen. I let the tears fall as it started to rain.

  If there ever was a bad case of the Mondays, today was it. I couldn’t recall a Monday morning I had ever dreaded more. There was no traffic this morning, of course, since I was hoping for a few extra minutes to agonize about going into the office. But no, despite the Mercer Street construction, I had no delays getting to the freeway. Most lights were green and the 520 bridge was wide open.

  As I drove into the parking garage of my building, my paranoia about Catherine kicked in. I didn’t know why, but I felt so ashamed. It’s not like I knowingly let all this happen on purpose. If anything, I was just as innocent as Catherine was. I kept telling myself that Ryan was the bad guy here—he was the one that had put both Catherine and me in this very awkward position. Even as I tried to make him the villain, my feelings oscillated between anger and pathetically missing him.

  In my desperate attempt to prevent a Catherine run-in, I went out of my way to get coffee on a completely different floor, stopping at the first floor kitchen even though my office was on the second floor. How cowardly was that? I just didn’t have the energy to face her. As I waited for the Starbucks machine to cycle through its noisy grinding and brewing stages, I thought about how strange this situation had become.

  Catherine was everything I aspired to be. She was beautiful, successful, sophisticated and confident. The irony here was that not only was Catherine my manager and I the other woman, but she was also now my competition. I was crazy jealous of her.

  After getting my coffee, I purposely took the long way to my office in an effort to avoid passing Catherine’s. I logged onto my machine and reviewed my meetings for the week, then looked up Catherine’s Lync status and was relieved to see it showed her as unavailable. Her away message status still showed that she wasn’t expected to be in the office until Friday, the day she was originally supposed to have gotten back.

  It all made sense now why Ryan was unable to commit to attending Anna’s wedding. Catherine would’ve been back by then. Of course, he couldn’t be my date once his fiancé was back in town. A new wave of hurt and anger ran through me.

  I wondered if Catherine just hadn’t gotten around to updating or deactivating her away message yet or if she’d decided to take a personal day. I was hoping for the latter. I had no idea what happened between Catherine and Ryan after I left yesterday. I could only assume there was a difficult discussion.

  By mid-morning, it still appeared that Catherine would remain out of the office. By one o’clock, I gave into the feeling of relief that she likely wouldn’t be in today.

  Getting motivated to do any work was difficult. I wasn’t sure if I would even have a job tomorrow. I hadn’t heard from Ryan. His Lync status continually showed that he was in a meeting. He had made no attempt to contact me. I was saddened by his silence, but also somewhat surprised, since I expected some sort of follow up after his persistence on the street yesterday morning.

  Maybe he chose Catherine. Maybe they spent all day yesterday, and last night, talking and making up. The idea of losing Ryan pained me more than I liked to admit. I literally felt a dull ache in my gut and experienced a shortness of breath at the mere thought of my loss.

  I went for a run to blow off steam after work, hoping to regain some mental and emotional balance. I didn’t have the energy to cook or even get take out and ended up having a bowl of cereal for dinner.

  I went back online after dinner to check my email, but there was nothing from Ryan. His IM status showed as unavailable. Silence meant only one thing. He had chosen Catherine. I swallowed the reality of Ryan’s rejection and spent another restless night tossing and turning and evading sleep.

  Tuesday morning I went through the same morning routine; there was still no sign of Catherine. If she was out of office again tomorrow, maybe I’d get lucky and not have to see her at all this week. Oh, let the gods please be good. Next week, I could face her. I just needed a few days to collect my dignity so I could face the inevitable with her with my chin held high.

  I had a meeting with Kyle in Lincoln Square this afternoon. Since the meeting was in Lincoln Square, Ryan’s building, I considered cancelling it. Mia would be joining us as well, but she was staying on campus and dialing in via conference call, something I could totally do. Admittedly, I decided to meet Kyle in person since there was a small chance I might see Ryan from a distance. I was a glutton for punishment.

  After lunch, I drove over to
Kyle’s (and Ryan’s) building. I entered the elevator from the main lobby and pressed the button for the twenty-second floor. Two other men entered the elevator with me, both displaying their blue MS badges. The elevator stopped on the sixteenth floor and several more people walked in. Just as the elevator was about to close, a hand from the right jarred it back open. My heart stopped and a small gasp escaped my lips. It was Ryan.

  Of course, this was one of those elevator rides where it seemed like every single floor button had been pushed between the sixteenth and twenty-second floors. There were six other people on the elevator and, of course, they each needed to get off on a different level. He didn’t spot me immediately, because I stood in one of the far back corners, but our eyes met only momentarily before he faced forward with a stoic expression.

  Most of Ryan’s back was to me, but I could tell he was keenly aware of my presence. I noticed the vein on his temple was twitching again, but I couldn’t fully see his face to read his expression. A guy who had entered the elevator with him began speaking about the meeting they had both come from. Ryan sounded guarded, but polite, and asked the gentleman to provide more details to him in an email.

  I painstakingly watched the buttons light on and off on each floor, impatiently waiting as the door repeatedly opened and closed. He finally exited on the floor just before mine. After walking out of the elevator, he turned around and looked directly at me. His eyes were hard, but seemed to soften a tad bit, before he walked away. A couple of the people in the elevator followed Ryan’s gaze, wondering why Ryan was looking at me. As the door closed, I slowly let out my breath, not realizing I’d been holding it for six floors.

  I was about ten minutes early, so I used the time to grab a diet soda. I walked over to the lobby area behind the kitchen and sat for a few minutes on the arm of a bright orange, contemporary chair. I looked out at the view of downtown Bellevue, sipping my soda and trying to recover from the last few minutes. Why did Ryan affect me this way? The Ryan in the elevator was all business, not the warm and charming Ryan I was accustomed to. Despite his stoic, frozen look, he still looked dashingly handsome. It was hard to believe that it was only a few days ago that he was hugging me and nuzzling into my neck, kissing me sweetly. He had seen me almost naked and tucked me into bed, yet five minutes ago, we had just pretended not to know one another in an elevator. I bit my lip, wanting to cry.

  I had to pull myself together. Just one more meeting, one more hour, and I could call it an early day. As I headed to Kyle’s desk, I found him sitting in his corner cubicle overlooking the Cascade Mountains. Now why couldn’t I fall for a sweet, sexy, uncomplicated guy like Kyle?

  I tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, Kyle.”

  Kyle spun his chair around and rewarded me a broad smile. He stood up and gave me a hug. “Hey, Julia, how’s it going?” he said cheerfully.

  “It’s going well,” I lied, faking my smile. “I’m starting to get the hang of things.”

  “Good. Well, you know, you can always reach out to me if you ever need help with anything,” he said happily.

  “Yeah, totally,” I replied. “This is exactly why I’m here.”

  “Well, let’s grab a focus room.”

  I followed him down the hall, hoping to find an empty room for our meeting. Lincoln Square, unlike most MS buildings, was set up as office cubicles. The whole idea was to create an open physical working environment that fostered collaboration and the sharing of ideas. Frankly, in a company that was meeting-crazy, I found it cubicles rather inconvenient and all this talk about collaboration was a bunch of bullshit. It was just the MS way of saving money, though no one would admit it. I was thankful I still had the privacy of my own office.

  I followed Kyle around the building for what felt like forever, until we realized there weren’t any available focus rooms on the floor. We were now running ten minutes late and resorted to walking down to Ryan’s floor to look for a room. My anxiety level rose as we wandered the halls, and I looked around nervously, bracing myself for another potential Ryan run in. We finally found a room and situated our laptops on the table. I sighed loudly and opened up Lync to conference in Mia, who was already waiting.

  “Sorry, Mia,” I apologized. “We couldn’t find a room.”

  “No worries,” Mia replied. “So, how are you guys doing? How were both your weekends?”

  We all chatted briefly before jumping into the meeting. I shared some select details of Anna’s bachelorette party and Kyle told us about camping at Lake Wenatchee with several of his buddies. Matt would’ve joined him, but opted to stay home with Mia to get ready for their trip to Puerto Vallarta. They were leaving tomorrow.

  As we transitioned the discussion into non personal topics, I found myself focusing easily on the work in front of me, all thoughts of Ryan behind me. Mia managed the digital marketing agency relationships at the worldwide level and Kyle managed it for the US Subsidiary. There was a lot I needed to know to take over the portion of work that Mia had been managing. With Mia and Kyle as my mentors, I felt comfortable asking questions and digested all the necessary details.

  It was nearly four in the afternoon before the meeting came to a close.

  Kyle said his farewells to Mia, shut his laptop and looked up at me. “I’m heading down to Joey’s for happy hour. It’s an ongoing US team thing. Want to join?” he asked with a hopeful expression.

  “Uh, isn’t it just for people in your org?”

  “Well, yeah, technically, but other people come all the time. We usually get about twenty or thirty people joining in. C’mon … it’s totally casual. It’ll be fun.”

  “But, I won’t know anyone,” I said in half protest.

  “Well, then it’s a good opportunity to do something about it, don’t you think?” he said, ignoring my discomfort. “I’ll introduce you. Plus, you’ll get free drinks.” He smiled mischievously, like that would seal the deal.

  “Do any of the execs join?” I asked innocently.

  “Yeah, sometimes,” he replied. “It’s really laid back, though.” Apparently, executive visits weren’t a concern of Kyle’s. Of course, it wouldn’t be. He had nothing to hide.

  I bit my lip, wondering if Ryan would be joining the group. I was suddenly nervous and my natural fight or flight instinct kicked in. As much as I wanted to flee the building, the potential opportunity to see Ryan again won over.

  “All right, I’ll join you,” I said with fake resignation. I had almost forgotten Mia was still in the conference call. “Talk to you later, Mia,” I said into the speaker phone. “Have a great vacation!”

  “Okay, see you in a couple of weeks! Have fun, you two! Bye!”

  I wondered if Kyle heard the little inflection in her voice that said, “It’s so cute Kyle invited you to happy hour; I hope the two of you hook up!” like I did. Probably not. I rolled my eyes and couldn’t help smiling to myself. I wondered what she would think if she only knew the truth.

  Joey’s was a restaurant in the building next door to Lincoln Square. The food wasn’t bad, but the lunch scene was different from the evening scene. In the evening, there was definitely more of a meat market singles vibe going on. I had always found this place somewhat comical, because every hostess and server was female, sexy, bright-eyed and under the age of twenty-five. They must have had a uniform code requiring their female employees to wear black cocktail dresses of their own choice. Unofficially, the dress apparently needed to be tight, showcase gratuitous cleavage, and have the hem located far above their knees.

  When Kyle and I arrived, we headed immediately to the bar area and seated ourselves near a group of tables already occupied by a handful of folks from his team. I recognized some of them and Kyle informally introduced me to a few sitting near us. A very cute cocktail waitress arrived in her tight, black, cleavage-spilling dress. We both ordered beers from the menu.

  “So are you going to be checking out Bumbershoot next weekend?” I asked Kyle in my attempt to make conversation. />
  Bumbershoot was the annual three-day weekend music festival at the Seattle Center, home of the infamous Space Needle. With his love of music and watching live bands perform, I figured Kyle would be a regular Bumbershoot attendee.

  “Yeah, I think so. I’ll probably just go on Saturday since Jane’s Addiction is the only real band I want to see there.”

  I asked him sarcastically, “Aren’t you going to see Gotye?” I rolled my eyes.

  “I like him,” he deadpanned.

  Oops! I just looked at him blankly, trying to pretend I hadn’t made fun of his favorite singer. I guess there was a reason why Gotye was so popular. Just because I thought the music was awful and a sorry excuse for talent didn’t mean others agreed with me.

  “I’m just kidding,” he said quickly, chuckling at my expression.

  Ten points right there. God, why didn’t I feel something for this hot sweet man sitting next to me with great musical taste? Over the course of drinking my beer and discussing Bumbershoot, I noticed more people had arrived. Within the hour, there was a good group of twenty or so people from the US Sub milling around, plus a handful of others I knew from other teams. Seeing these others outside of Kyle’s org made me feel a bit less out of place.

  “What about you? Are you going to check out any shows?”

  As Kyle waited for me to answer his question, in the corner of my eye, I noticed Ryan enter the bar. He spotted me immediately. We made quick eye contact, but then both looked away. Kyle looked over his shoulder to follow my gaze and noticed Ryan. He nodded to him in acknowledgement. Much to my surprise, Ryan walked over to our table, but didn’t sit down, thank goodness.

  “Hey, Kyle, how’s it going?” Ryan asked casually, glancing briefly over at me.

  “Good, good,” Kyle said.

  “Great job on the FY13 agency negotiations. I heard you did well on the training sessions too,” said Ryan with genuine appreciation. He was totally in VP mode right now.