Chapter 8 Wedding Season #2
Ollie sighs. “Apparently the client had anxiety issues, and their therapist had recommended frequent physical pleasure as a tool for managing it, and they believed the vibrator was supporting equipment necessary for them to do their job. I explained to the client our usual policy about mental health equipment.”
“Alright, that’s enough,” Destiny says, laughing. “We have officially bonded, and now we should be looking over the meeting agendas, okay?”
Lana and Niamh sigh but settle down, looking at either the meeting agenda or something more entertaining on their cell phones. The passenger van gets quiet, and Ollie leans closer to me.
“Your ex is still in New York?” he asks quietly.
“He never was,” I reply. “He was visiting a friend in Philly when he got the news of the tour. He decided to drive up and surprise us.”
“And he didn’t text you he was coming?”
“He expected me to be home. Which I usually would be.”
“How do you feel about him getting the tour?”
I shrug. I glance over at Brant, noticing that he’s watching our conversation. “It’s good for his career.”
“It’s a big deal, though, right?” Ollie asks quietly.
“Yeah.” I sigh. “Hopefully it works out. Nick doesn’t have the best luck with bands.”
I watch Ollie visibly relax. Did he think that Nick was staying in my apartment?
“What’s this about your ex? What band is he on tour with?” Brant asks me.
“Nick booked a gig with The Big Lie.”
Niamh and Lana spin to stare at me. “Is he like, a roadie?” Lana demands.
“He’s a guitar player,” I reply, and as soon as the words are out of my mouth, I know I should have avoided the question.
“Wait a second,” Niamh says, “you are telling me that your ex is the new guitar player for The Big Lie?”
I sigh, nodding. “Temporarily.”
“To replace Theo Jones while he’s in rehab?” Lana asks.
“Yes,” I say. “What bands do you guys like?”
They have a lot of opinions on that question, and I make sure to ask them follow-up questions, a distraction tactic that works only long enough for them to circle back with even more enthusiasm.
Lana explains to me that my ex-husband is “the coolest” and asks whether I can get them backstage passes.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Ollie leans over to me a minute or two later. “I’m okay without a backstage pass.”
Brant pulls me aside as we all get off the passenger van at the hotel.
“You and Ollie seem like good friends,” he says quietly.
“Yeah. We went on a date once, but it didn’t work out,” I tell him. I figure that it’s best when lying to stick as close to the truth as possible. “We’re friends now.”
“Okay.” He raises his eyebrows and nods, slowly. “I think he might be interested in more than that.”
“It’s not that, I’m sure, Brant,” I say. I feel uncomfortable. A vague, floating thought that Brant himself might be interested—and if so, might not easily forgive me for the lie—floats through my head.
Brant’s eyes are full of wary cynicism, but then again, they always are.
The meeting at the hotel feels productive, though, and after a while I stop feeling frustrated that I can’t be alone with Ollie and start appreciating how he behaves in meetings: how he lets everyone speak, how he takes notes, how he never makes the meeting about him.
He makes relevant comments and then listens.
He lets Destiny do her job and lead the group.
He smiles when someone makes a joke but never prolongs the joke enough to waste time.
It feels ridiculous to stare at a man who is quietly typing on a laptop and think, I love the way he types, yet there I am.
Being attracted to him while he was dancing was comprehensible.
This feels like something else entirely.
Eventually, Lana pulls out a document summarizing how employees feel about the current policy for office relationships.
“So I got the responses to our questionnaire.”
“Global or New York office?” Brant asks.
“This was all U.S., not global,” Lana says. “And to the question of ‘Are our current policies clear?’ we got eighty percent yes.”
“So twenty percent don’t understand the policy?” Destiny asks.
“Well, when we poll folks about whether any policy is clear,” Niamh says, “twenty percent of people almost always say no, so that may just be the idiocy factor.”
“We’ll use that exact language in the report,” Destiny jokes.
“Anyway, when people ask if there should be more reporting of relationships, eighty percent said no,” Lana goes on.
Ollie and I glance at each other and then away.
“A lot of the comments talk about how it’s intrusive,” Lana adds.
“I specifically got two complaints: one is that it is hard to label relationships when they are in the casual phase and announcing them to the office after a date or two feels like an intrusion. The other was that casual relationships can create blowback that people aren’t willing to deal with. ”
“Did anyone give an example,” Destiny asks, “of the kind of blowback they expect?”
“One person mentioned that he suspects his manager might have a crush on him and she might get jealous if she knew he was dating someone else in the office. But since he can’t prove the crush exists, he has no clear protection against potential retaliation every time he has to mention dating another employee. ”
“What did people say when asked if they wanted all employee relationships forbidden?” Brant asked.
“Ninety-four percent said no,” Lana replies.
Niamh smiles. “That six percent is probably the manager who has a crush on her employee and doesn’t want anyone else getting to him.”
I shudder. The implications of that feel a little close to home.
“My take,” Lana says, “and I’m not, like, a lawyer or whatever, but I feel like the more we demand disclosure, the more likely we could be liable for potential issues.
Like if we force employees to discuss that they are dating someone else, they can argue that we forced them to experience retaliation and that the whole company is more liable. ”
I am impressed with Lana. She has always seemed unserious, but I realize now that I’ve mistaken youthful exuberance for lack of intelligence.
“The simplest solution,” Brant says, “is just to forbid all relationships entirely.”
Destiny nods. “That would be easiest, I agree. But that’s quite tricky in practice sometimes. I know you’re not an employment lawyer,” she says to Ollie. “But any thoughts?”
“I think the company will be sucked into lawsuits regardless of guilt and any policy could be used in either direction,” Ollie says.
“All lawsuits tend to include all possible parties so as to avoid finger-pointing at whoever was not involved in the suit. But I do think we should take into consideration what employees are telling us.”
“True,” I agree, determined not to look at Brant. “You can’t report someone for having a crush on you, which is often the more loaded situation. Can’t we have a policy of leaving it to the employee to assess the impact on their work? Unless they’re obviously in an employee/manager situation?”
Brant’s eyes are still narrowed as he glances at me. What is going on, exactly?
I start to worry as we get ready for the boat tour. Will he notice if I wind up alone with Ollie? Should I avoid Ollie because it will be obvious that we like each other? But I already told Brant we were friends, and I don’t want to look like I’m hiding something.
The boat turns out to be a fairly large one, holding perhaps fifty people, and it has several distinct groups on it: a handful of senior citizens who are clearly birders, laden with binoculars and lists of shore birds in their hands; a couple of smaller groups of tourists from France and Japan; and a large family group who are on some kind of reunion trip.
It quickly becomes clear that the parents at the family reunion are occupied with their smaller children, and their teenagers have turned into a loud, cackling gang, busy impressing each other with loud remarks and phone memes.
As the boat leaves the dock, Ollie and I stand with Brant and Destiny for a few moments, watching Lana and Niamh take photos for some kind of Instagram ‘I own a yacht’ concept.
“Did they really suggest we talk about being naked as an ice breaker?” she asks us. “That really happened, right? I didn’t hallucinate it?”
As I shrug, amused, she glances between Brant, Ollie and me. “I am so thankful for you three. You’re my grown-ups.”
I feel vaguely guilty that I’m going to try to sneak off on the field trip for a moment alone with my boyfriend.
As our boat negotiates its way among smaller Connecticut pleasure boats, Ollie and I deliberately walk in opposite directions on the deck without saying anything, as if to throw people off our trail.
After a few minutes, we land in the same spot, a quiet place to stand on the deck together, looking out at the Connecticut shoreline as we slowly circle an island.
It is hard to stay apart like this. It is beautiful and quiet, the wind in his hair and the sun on his face, and I can’t kiss him.
“Brant is interested in you,” Ollie says quietly.
My stomach sinks. If someone else has noticed Brant’s behavior, that makes it real. “I hope not.”
“Every time he talks about his cynicism about dating, his eyes go right to you.”
I shrug. “I’m hoping if I ignore it, he will get bored and fixate on someone else. He’s my direct supervisor so he can’t ask me out.”
“I wonder if that’s why he put you on the committee with him. To figure out your feelings about it,” Ollie says quietly.
I shrug. “I’m worried he won’t forgive me for insisting I’m single and then starting to date you, whenever we do tell people.”
“We’ll have to keep well away from each other in the meantime,” Ollie says. “Especially around work. I was thinking we could start having lunch together, but…”
“Yeah, no. Bad idea.”
“He can’t retaliate against you, you know that, right? That’s illegal,” Ollie says quietly.