"So where is Dave taking you tonight for your birthday?" Lois asked excitedly, sounding like many older married women do when asking about a younger single woman's plans for the evening.
"He's not," Tina replied sounding kind of disgusted. "Didn't I tell you?"
I pulled my face out of the computer screen and leaned back in my chair to latch onto the conversation between these best work friends. As the only man working in a department of women I always found their conversations interesting and informative.
"I thought he was taking you someplace special," Lois said, her voice dripping with disappointment.
"Can you believe this?" Tina replied dejectedly. "He calls me up Wednesday night and says that he has a family obligation tonight and can't make it. A funeral in Toledo of all places and he won't be back until late."
"He didn't ask if you wanted to go along or something?" Lois asked.
"Nope, so it looks like it's going to be a Blockbuster night," Tina admitted with a big sigh.
Finally compelled to put in my two cents worth, I pushed back from my desk so I could see them through the doorway to my cubicle.
"At least he didn't say that he had to stay at home and wash his hair," I cracked.
"Oh, Greg," Lois giggled, but Tina looked back at me with her big dark sorrowful eyes.
"I could almost believe that one seeing the way he's been acting lately," she confessed.
"So do you have a Plan B?" I asked, getting up from my chair and standing by the doorway. I could see the two of them closely now sitting at their adjoining desks.
"Like I just said, Blockbuster or bust," Tina answered, shrugging her shoulders.
There was nothing worse than a beautiful woman being left at home on her birthday because some punk didn't know his ass from a hole in the ground. I've never understood some of my brothers who treat women poorly. I don't believe in the pedestal thing, but then I do believe in treating people with respect, especially women.
"Man, that's cold," I said, realizing my opportunity. "I'll tell you what, Tina. If you don't have any other plans, I'll take you out tonight."
Lois looked over at her younger friend with a big smile and nodded her head.
"Hell, your birthday comes only once a year," I went on. "It's the least I can do."
"But it's such short notice. I don't know," Tina said with a little giggle. She paused for a moment looking first at Lois then at me. Suddenly she made her mind up and smiled. "Sure. Why not?"
"All right," Lois said clapping her hands together.
"Gee," Tina said, looking perhaps surprised.
"Gee, what?" I asked.
"Gee, I didn't think that consultants were allowed to date their clients," Tina replied.
"We're not. But I work for your boss and she is definitely not my type."
"Well, okay then," Tina answered.
"How about I can pick you up about six thirty?"
"Okay," she replied. Then a sly little smile crossed her face. "Now I can wear that cute little black dress I just bought."
I could only smile at the thought of seeing her in the lovely little black dress again. It's a long story of how we got to this point so let me explain. You see I'm a hired gun; a business consultant brought in to help comapnies out of a jam. As part of a medical review group for a major insurance organization they had to meet some new government reporting requirements and had no idea where to turn. I had spent a couple of months helping them revamp their computer system.
Little had I known when the account executive brought me in that I'd be working as the only male in a group of about thirty women, nurses at that. Although the thought was quite appealing at first, the very professional all-business atmosphere kept the assignment from resembling fun and games. I was a bit disappointed since we all have had fantasies about doctors or nurses and the business office setting removed much of the luster; there were no white uniforms or gaping hospital gowns nor any helpless patients at the whim of the medical staff. I remembered the first day when their manager had gathered the staff together to introduce me and ask them for their complete cooperation.
"What sort of cooperation?" Tina had asked with a sly smile, looking me up and down.
"He'll be wanting to look at our computer system, how we enter, access, and retrieve data, make-up special reports," Christine had said. "That sort of thing."
"Oh," Tina replied. "Can he do me first?"
As the other nurses giggled and tittered, I noted the nameplate sitting on her desk, Tina Valerio. She was younger than the rest, perhaps in her twenties whereas the rest were probably in the thirty-five and up club. She had thick shoulder length black hair that she wore with long bangs that fell down into her eyes. Her eyeglasses were large and unstylish and the rest of her seemed swallowed up by an oversized business suit.
"Well, I always like to save the best for last," I quipped with a polite smile. "But in this case I may have to make an exception."
There were more giggles and chuckles and the gal next to Tina gave her a little tap on the shoulder. I couldn't help but notice the growing blush in her cheeks. I laughed along but took note of their reactions, an important part of the job when consulting. I was given a desk next door to the manager and settled in to start my review. The department had recently been consolidated and the nurses were shuffling around to new desk assignments.
"I've always wanted a window seat," remarked one of the older nurses who had moved next to a bank of windows. "And now I've got one!"
"Actually, I like the view from my seat just fine," said Tina as she plopped down into her new seat.
I looked over from my new desk and could see her swiveling back and forth in her chair, directly in my line of sight, with a cute smile on her face. When I glanced over later on, I caught a glimpse of Tina bending over to unpack the last of her stuff and couldn't help but notice the curves hidden in the drape of her slacks. Without her jacket, I could see the nice round curves of her breasts. When she stood back up, she noticed my admiring gaze and combed her hand through her dark hair, pulling it back from her face. Even behind the protection of her eyeglasses and despite the flush of her cheeks, there was a glimmer of beauty in her face. She had a slender frame with narrow shoulders and waist but a delightful curving flare to her hips. Why was she hiding herself from the world, I asked myself. We smiled awkwardly and went on silently with what we were doing.
The next morning, I was unpacking my survival kit, a box of stuff that I took from job to job, including accessories for my laptop, some office supplies, and a picture of my kids. I had just set it down on my desk when a cheerful voice called out to me.
"Excuse me, Greg," said Tina, who was standing at the doorway to my new cube. "Chris said you wanted to meet with me this morning."
"Ah, yeah," I replied. "Anytime you're ready. I reviewed the manual yesterday, but would really like to see how it really gets done."
"Well, that book is a joke, really," she laughed stepping into my cube. "There's a lot we do that isn't in there. They've added some shortcuts and other things that are documented."
"Great," I said, watching as she picked up the picture. She was dressed in a bulky dark business suit. She was much shorter than I and seemed to be hiding behind her dark hair and eyeglasses.
"Are these your kids?" she asked looking at the picture closely.
"Yeah, my inspiration," I remarked, pulling out an old souvenir coffee mug from Jamaica. "They're what keeps me going."
"Cute kids," she commented, setting the picture back down carefully. "Is there a Mrs. Greg?"
"There was," I admitted. "We divorced a couple of years ago."
"I'm sorry to hear that," she said. "It seems these days that people just give up instead of trying to work out their problems."
"If it makes any difference, it wasn't my idea," I confessed, stuffing a bag of laptop accessories into an open drawer. "She said she needed to find her space, whatever that means. It's funny that you think you know someone, but then when the chips are down you really don't them at all."
As Tina stood beside me, I tried to look her over and gauge her reaction. She seemed to be doing the same with me, peering up at me through her glasses with her dark eyes. I could certainly see the Mediterranean heritage in her face, but there was something else, maybe Latin. She was difficult to type; the needle on the looks meter kept moving. As I sized her up, it seemed funny to me as I thought about how we must have looked, both of us in our professional business suits, checking each other out. The look she was returning felt a bit uncomfortable. I'm sure she could see that I was older, perhaps much older than she, but what did she really see, what was she really looking at?
We spent the rest of the morning reviewing their procedures. She sat at the terminal and began showing me the basic procedures, pointing out the things that hadn't been documented. As she worked the keys, I noticed how small and delicate her hands were, with slim fingers each topped with long dark polished nails. I also noticed that her cheeks were flushed. Sure, I could say it was the excitement of working with me, but there was something else. What was it about her that I couldn't put my hand on? Was that an undercurrent of feeling beneath the crisp business suit and eyeglasses, or was I reading something into the situation? At one point, when she had a problem demonstrating a particular procedure, she paused and banged her palms on the keyboard.
"Dammit!" she said in a voice far removed from her normal polite professional manner. "This is just one of the problems we have!"
She pulled off her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. Then she looked at me and our eyes met again, this time without the protection of her eyeglasses. Her eyes were beautiful, like large dark pools that were inviting me to take a swim. I could begin to see the layers of emotion that were running deep within her. She reached up to brush her black hair from her eyes; her cheeks were still flushed a bit. She slid her glasses back on.
"Well, good!" I said. "These are the kinds of things that I need to see to get a good feel for what needs to get done."
Later on, when we paused so she could take a break with her friend Lois, I was left in my cube with a warm, jittery, nervous feeling inside. My palms were sweaty and I fidgeted with a pencil. Maybe it was just the excitement of starting on a new assignment. Even though I had been consulting for a few years, there was always some apprehension each time I started at a new place so I shoved it to the back of my mind.
The following week proved to be the most interesting of my assignment. I was able to make some progress in laying out the code for the new program; my close proximity to the nurses gave me great insight into their personalities. On more than one occasion, I thought to myself that they surely must know that I could hear most of what they were saying. Even though I was in my cube, their voices would easily carry over the partition. Maybe they wanted me to hear, but then, maybe I didn't want to hear. One was having marital problems and was constantly on the phone with her renegade husband. Another was conducting business for her part-time job while at work. And when Tina and Lois talked during a break, I could have sworn that it was as much for my entertainment.
