Chapter 5
Chapter
The whole way down to the cafeteria—which is in another building in the corporate complex, across the green—Mark Winterson asks me questions.
Where I went to school, where I lived in New York, what my favorite places were there.
(“I went down on weekends a lot when I was in Cambridge—did you ever go to this restaurant…?”)
He’s walking alongside me, matching my slow pace in these heels. Leaning in when I talk, with this gentle, serious look, like whatever I’m saying is very important.
And I hate to say it, but I feel like a million bucks. Like I won a prize—the most interesting person in the meeting! Even though part of me is saying, There’s no way he just wants to hang out with you. There is probably a catch.
But then Mark Winterson gives me a sideways grin and a hidden dimple emerges on his cheek, and my brain becomes a dog hanging out a car window, tongue lolling in the breeze, wheeee.
When was the last time someone paid this much attention to me? It makes me realize how starved for human contact I am these days. I’m like one of Erica’s neglected plants, bending toward the light.
We enter the cafeteria, and it dawns on me that they’ve completely redone it since the last time I was here—which was ages ago, probably back in high school when Mom took me once or twice. It’s brighter and more open now, sun washing over the warm wood tables.
In New York, I’d usually eat at my desk—Mom always stressed that it’s not good optics to be up from your seat too long. I think she started using that word because she liked watching The West Wing. Everyone seems so competent! she’d say. And Martin Sheen is cute.
“So! What’ll it be?” Mark Winterson clasps his hands together. “I’m buying.”
“Oh, uh…everything looks good.”
He tilts his head toward the counters where you can order and raises his eyebrows. “I heard they have pozole on Wednesdays.”
The way he put extra emphasis on that—does he think…I’m Mexican? Or does he just like pozole?
“How about chicken fingers?”
“Chicken fingers it is,” he says with a smile I’d have to rate as extremely winning. His face is too perfect; I’m still half expecting it to glitch. “Sit down, I’ll come find you.”
I take a seat by the window, and across the cafeteria, Greg catches my eye.
He’s sitting with the other accountants—who, contrary to the nerdy stereotype, are kind of fratty.
“The accountants like to party” is a sentence more than one person has said to me since I started here.
And, for some reason, Greg—who is usually unfazed by most things—seems strangely concerned.
I check my phone for an excuse to look away. And shit, that scammer is still at it. I’ve missed some messages.
sampaguita72:
Ruby Magdalena Ocampo, how dare you talk to me that way! I’m just concerned about you.
I take some more screenshots, wondering where I might have used my middle name as a security question recently.
sampaguita72:
I’m just saying! Haven’t you moved on since high school? It’s not good, clinging to the past! Like that beat-up old Acura Greg drives.
Impersonating my dead mother is one thing, but do you have to drag me too?
Mark Winterson is paying at the register, and the lady ringing him up is giggling a lot. Thoughts like Mom would be thrilled if you dated someone like that and Broad shoulders and Wow, Harvard! kick up in my head like a swarm of bees.
Oh my God, calm down! Be professional! He’s out of your league, anyway.
Then he walks back my way with two red plastic baskets of chicken fingers, and when he notices me watching, he raises them up high, as if to say, See! Got ’em.
The sight is disarmingly wholesome. It takes the edge off how intimidating he seemed before.
“How’s it going so far?” I ask as he sits and places one of the baskets in front of me. “How do you like TKCORP?”
“Thrilled to be here,” he says without irony. “Great opportunity. TKCORP is legendary. And I’ll get to learn so much about the workings of the C-suite.”
“Mm,” I say with a tart little nod. “You’re the ambitious type.”
Mom’s voice rings in my ears, saying, You should find someone with more ambition!
I don’t even need that scammer/bot/whatever in Slack. I’m haunted enough on my own!
Mark Winterson smiles glossily. “Love your candor.”
“Oh, thanks,” I say, taking some napkins out of the dispenser to stuff into my purse when he’s not looking. “I got it on sale.”
He grabs a pink sugar packet from the holder, turning it over and over in one hand. “Have you read No Rules Rules?”
“Should I have?”
His eyes flick down and a quick, self-conscious grin stretches his face. “It’s a good read. We need more of that candor around here—it’s time for TKCORP to confront some hard truths, that’s what I said in my interview.”
“What kind of hard truths?”
Mark Winterson launches into a fairly involved explanation of his management philosophy—the new ways of thinking that interest him, the problems the “folks upstairs” brought him on to help with—but it’s a dense thicket of buzzwords, and I understand only about half of it.
Talent density. Distributed decision-making. Synergy.
He must clock that he’s losing me, because he clears his throat and takes a beat. “I’m talking too much,” he says, waving a chicken finger. “Tell me about you.”
“Well…I’m out here writing copy. With great talent density. And synergy.”
He gives me a hearty laugh. “And you’re funny too.”
Heat rises in my cheeks. “What did you really ask me here to talk about, though?”
“Wooow,” he says, smiling open-mouthed like I’ve scandalized him. “Cynical!” The dimple is back.
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“Look, I don’t have a big agenda.” Mark Winterson leans back in his chair and peers around the cafeteria, cords of muscle flexing in his neck.
“Just trying to talk to as many people as I can. Figure out how this place actually works. What makes it tick.” His gaze settles on me again.
“And it’s interesting to me that you’ve been around here your whole life, but always on the outside. ”
Something about what he said—an accidentally profound layer he doesn’t mean—cuts right through me.
“Um. Yeah, I guess.” I fidget with the basket’s wax paper lining. “What do you want to know?”
“Nah, that’s boring. Let’s talk about something else.” He leans forward like he’s about to tell me a secret, and I try not to let my eyes linger on his lips. “We can talk about work next time.”
My heart flutters. Next time?
“What do you want to talk about?” he adds.
Now that he’s asked me that, every possible answer seems to have skittered right out of my brain.
“Um…do you play…sports?” Ugh! Of all things, why would I waste a question on that?
“Not really. Rugby, in school.”
I laugh much louder than is probably appropriate. “Is that a real sport? Who even plays that?”
A furrow appears between his brows. “Millions of people around the world?” A self-deprecating grin spreads over his face. “I went to college in London. I know it sounds pretentious.”
It makes him more attractive, somehow, seeing that he can poke fun at himself.
My phone lights up, and there are a bunch of missed Slack notifications on the screen—this time all from Erica.
I suck in a sharp breath. “Oooh, I should—” I make a vague gesture.
“Say no more.” In one fluid motion, Mark Winterson grabs both of our plastic baskets and stands up. “We’ll have to do this again sometime, though.”
I hurry to the elevator before I can say something embarrassing and ruin this moment.
Did that really just happen?
After the doors close behind me, I jump up and down and scream silently into my hands.