A Quick Lunch

[MFDub]

Hey, folks. So, I'm writing a short story that I plan to submit to a local paper. I'm hoping to make a few bucks off of the deal. I, of course, would like the good folks of OP9 to take a read and let me know what you think. Any criticism would be appreciated.


I chug my french roast, ignoring the searing heat as it flows down my throat. My vision is blurry, my eyes tired from staring at an Excel spreadsheet for twenty hours straight. Above my laptop hangs a graduation photo that I forgot to take down. With a few seconds of spare time, I reach over, rip it off of the gray walls and crumple it into a tight ball.

My phone rings. I glance at the caller ID. Rick. I pick up the receiver. He begins to talk. I hang up the receiver. A few minutes later he shows up behind me, carrying with him a message: the boss wants me.

I snap to attention. After only a few months here, the CEO has already taken a liking to me, and I've tried to never let him down. We play rounds of golf, meet for drinks at Tavern on the Water every Friday and talk about the many ways I could make this company better when I get into upper management.

The chair squeaks in protest as I stand and violently push it back. Rick makes a similar noise when I jostle past him and speedwalk towards the elevator. The early morning sun streams through the floor-length windows along the hall, the light causing my strained eyes to wince in pain. Frowning slightly, I quicken my pace. The elevators seem to be working slowly, so I take the stairs to the top floor, dash down the carpeted half-mile and burst into the CEO's room.

The first thing I notice is that he is not alone. An old man, apparently middle-eastern, looks up from one of the plush chairs facing the CEO's massive desk. He looks as if he was caught in the middle of a laugh, one he never got to finish due to my interruption. The CEO, as usual, is cool. He smiles slightly and introduces me to his visitor. I grin politely and we shake hands.

The CEO asks me for a favor and I try not to let my excitement show. It's obvious that this is a foreign business deal, and international money is big money. The fact that he wants me to be part of such a tremendous effort is not lost. Here I stand, about to reach in two years what some of the old fogies in upper management have been striving for their entire lives. I loosen my collar slightly, an attempt to stop it from sticking to my sweaty neck.

The CEO gestures to the other chair, towards a young woman that I hadn't noticed in my excitement. She stands and turns to me, a nervous smile plastered on her pretty face. She has a gentle beauty, hazelnut skin and raven-black hair tied up in a loose ponytail. Thin eyebrows sit above dark, almond eyes that stare straight into mine, edges crinkled. Her nose is thin, and her small lips rest in a natural smirk. She's dressed in what I assume is the standard dress of wherever she came from, a brightly colored full-body wrap of some kind.

She bows her head momentarily, but quickly brings it back up. Her father shoots her an angry look. The CEO chuckles softly and gives me my assignment: to take his visitor's daughter to lunch while they talk business.

My stomach drops briefly. The CEO's expression grows grave, brows furrowing as he senses my disappointment. I recover quickly and hold my hand out to the young woman. She takes it. Her skin is smooth, her grip soft. We shake and I ask her name. She tilts her head to the side, concentrating on my face. Seconds pass before she speaks.

“Saeeda.” Her accent is strong, complementing the grace inherent in the pronunciation of her name. She smiles to her father and calmly strides past me and out the door. Her father, the CEO and I all share a look. The guest shakes his head, sits and the two begin their dealings.

I catch up to Saeeda outside of the elevators. She waits patiently by the doors and smiles when I approach. I don't return it.

“Look, fact is, I should be working right now. Instead, I'm looking after you. But your dad and my boss both have a lot riding on this deal, so let's just do this quickly and you pretend you had a good time.”

Her expression doesn't change. That same patient smile. It hits me.

“You don't understand a word I just said, do you?”

She laughs but doesn't respond. The bell rings and the elevator's doors rumble open. She grabs me, holding the loose fabric on my sleeve and dragging me through the doors. We're alone. She releases my arm and I quickly sidle into a corner. Her grip wasn't violent, but it was much stronger than I had expected. I don't like unexpected things.

She glances at me, her eyes teasing and that infernal smirk still on her lips. She's mocking me. She waits in the middle of the elevator for the doors to close. The second they clang shut, she fiddles with the shoulder of her wrap, her nimble fingers undoing cloth until the whole thing slides off her figure and piles unto the floor.

Beneath that colorful fabric are a simple white tank-top and form-fitting jeans. She turns to me and suddenly bursts into laughter. I take a deep breath and realize that my cheeks are warm.

“Dammit.”

She gathers up her clothing, placing it in a small, black bag. I stare at the wall as the elevator descends to the lower-floor, the numbing tones of Air Supply doing little to ease my embarrassment.

Our office is set up outside of Commons, so the second we step unto the pavement we are assailed by the sound of traffic, footsteps, music and conversation. The air carries the sweet scent of downtown; a mixture of food, foliage and smog. Saeeda raises her arms to the sky and stretches, drinking in the bright noon sun with her entire body.

I choose to interrupt. “Alright, there's a pretty good seafood place nearby. A little expensive, but the service is quick so-”

She frowns. It's the first time I see an expression other than some form of happiness on her face. It doesn't fit right. It's as if she's trying to force herself to be upset, but can't hide the glee hidden underneath. Shaking her head, she says, “I want the-”

She waves her hand vaguely, eyes looking up as she searches for the source of the word. I try to figure out what the daughter of a middle-eastern business tycoon would want.

“Japanese? Thai? Indian? That's the one you're from, right?”

She looks around until something brings a smile to her face. She grabs my arm and points. “There.”

I follow her finger, tracking it across the crowded street to a small, old hot dog cart. The vendor behind it leans on a shelf, idly playing with a leaf.

“Are you kidding?” I ask. She laughs and gives me a gentle push.

“No kid. Buy me one.”

“Of course you know enough English to say that.”

She nods and, still holding unto my arm, drags me across the road without waiting for traffic to stop. A black Camry screeches to a halt inches away from us. The driver leans out the window and curses while making a few accompanying hand gestures. I point to the girl in an attempt to display my helplessness. He nods knowingly and retreats into his vehicle.

She finally pulls me unto the sidewalk and pushes me in front of the vendor. Before I'm able to voice my displeasure, the vendor is asking me for an order.

“Two plain hot dogs,” I say, pulling out my wallet. Saeeda shakes her head furiously. Nudging me aside, she points to the ketchup, mustard and relish containers in turn.

“Everything.”

The vendor chuckles, but nods and makes us two hot dogs, one plain and one with as many toppings as he can manage to pile on. I hand him a crisp five and tell him to keep the change as Saeeda takes her frank and sniffs it with the expression of a child who is just about to bite into a batch of mom's fresh, home made chocolate chip cookies.

We walk through the park as we eat, the noise of the city a background track to the sound of children playing and the incessant chirping of robins. Saeeda attacks her hot dog, ripping it apart with nothing short of overwhelming glee. And yet, not a crumb falls from her lips, nor does a drop of mustard stain her mouth. She notices that I haven't taken a bite yet.

“You don't like?”

I shake my head. “I just haven't a frank in about a decade.”

“Why?”

“I grew out of them.”

She grins and I realize my earlier assessment of her language skills may not have been entirely accurate. She may have a hard time speaking, but she certainly seems to comprehend everything I say. I return her smile and bite into my hot dog. I chew slowly, allowing myself to fully remember the taste, and wondering if, perhaps, I should have gotten some ketchup.

With about half an hour to kill, we take a seat on a bench under the shade and watch life unfold around us. A few yards away, a family picnics on the grass, seated on a bright yellow tablecloth. A group of college kids play tag football nearby, nearly making the family's poor mother spill her soda with each pass. A woman in her mid-forties jogs by, pulled behind a large great dane. Saeeda laughs at the sight.

“Always wanted to get dog. Big dog. But father, he said big dog not proper for a woman.”

“I had one,” I answer. “Saint Bernard. They're the big bushy ones you see saving people in movies all the time. He was fun to have around as a kid. You could wrestle with him. Use him as a pillow.”

Saeeda smiles. “Where is he now?”

“Sold him when I got to high school. He was a distraction.”

She pushes me, the ends of her mouth turned downwards, the first serious expression of anger I have seen all day. I catch myself before I fall off the bench and she retreats a little, fuming silently. This reaction confuses me more than anything else. So much so that I forget to get upset by the physical altercation.

“What was that for?”

“You loved dog, right?”

“At the time-”

“Love is no distraction. You live in this country and say those things?” She reaches over and lightly flicks my forehead. The pain is slight, but my head jerks back anyway. “If we had no love what would we be, huh?”

I get the sense that the question is not rhetorical, and the piercing look that bores right through my eyes and into my past confirms the assumption. I'm stunned. My mouth opens, but my voice is caught, unsure of how to proceed. Saeeda spares me further pain.

“Pakistan.”

“What?”

“The one I came from,” she explains, that wonderful smirk returning to her face. “It is Pakistan.”

“Oh,” I say and blush, wondering how women are able to remember the most minute details and call them back up when it is most embarrassing. My cell phone vibrates; the alarm I set a little less than an hour ago. Time to head back to the office.

We stand and begin the walk back to the company at a much slower pace than when we were leaving. We don't speak, but Saeeda hums a tune that seems to instantly sync into the harmony of the city's music. Soft and meandering, it causes my harried mind to sink into tranquility for a moment. And in that second of peace, I recall the Me that used to jump unto my Saint Bernard's back and hold on tight as he struggled to toss me off. The one who would always take three hot dogs at a barbecue; two for me and one for him. The one who would grow tired of homework, and so would climb over the fence in our yard and try to catch worms in the forest out back.

Life forces you to grow up, of course. College bills, loan repayments, job interviews, promotions...little by little you mature. But I never thought I would lose that part of me. And I never thought that I wouldn't notice when it was gone.

“No goodbye?” Saeeda says, pulling me out of my trance. I realize we are in the elevator, heading up to the top floor. She has already begun to replace her original clothing, the other people with us focusing their gaze forward with all of their might. I press the button for my floor.

“Goodbye. And good luck. With your father, I mean.”

She laughs a melodic laugh. “Your CEO has made him happy. I could get away with many things.”

Her eyes gleam and I know she will soon test the limits of her father's happiness. The bell rings and I step out unto my floor. I wave to her, she waves back. The doors slam shut and after a short hour she is no longer a part of my life.

The afternoon sunlight streaming in from the windows warms me as I walk down the hall and back to my cubicle. I take a seat and look at the spreadsheet I had been working on this morning. I save it, close the window and open up Firefox.

I type "Dog Houses" into the search engine...