“It certainly won’t, Mr. Ramsey. I won’t be massaging you again.”
“Of course, Ms. Parker. I would expect nothing less. I meant that you don’t have to find the workplace threatening.”
“I appreciate that, Mr. Ramsey. You understand that I don’t want to be your friend either.”
“Absolutely. Look, I’ll leave you three alone to chat,” he said before turning around and walking back to the food tables.
“What does threatening mean, Mommy?” Ella asked.
“Don’t worry about it, honey. It doesn’t mean anything. Mommy’s in control.”
“Did you see me flying with Mr. Gordy?”
“I did, sweetie. You were very high up. Mr. Phillips did a very nice thing. You shouldn’t ask too much from people, Ella.”
“Okay. Sorry, Mommy. Thank you, Mr. Gordy. Can I go play with the other kids now?”
“Yes, dear,” Samantha said, and as soon as she put Ella onto the ground, the child ran away towards the ball game the other kids were playing, which was being supervised by another Phillips Corp staff.
“You’ll understand if I don’t call you Mr. Gordy,” Samantha said.
“Of course, Ms. Parker. I’m sorry if I overstepped the boundary with Ella.”
“It’s fine. Like I said to Janine—”
“Who’s Janine?”
“One of your cleaning staff.”
“Sure. The lady over there? There’s a lot of people in my company.” Gordon tried his best not to sound corky.
“Fine, fine. I was saying to Janine that Ella is going through a difficult stage right now.”
“I couldn’t tell. I was more than pleased to play with her.”
“You were concentrating quite a lot. Her father used to do that, and you were concentrating more than he used to.”
“Used to?”
“He passed.”
“Right. Sorry. I guess that was implied.”
“It’s okay, Mr. Gordy.”
Gordon laughed.
Ella was playing at a distance, totally forgetting about the two adults. There was a bit of silence between the two as they stared on and off at each other, and Samantha shifted uncomfortably.
Gordon’s phone rang, and he picked it up. His limo appeared at the edge of the park. Samantha could swear she saw a hesitation in his eyes that seemed to say he didn't want to leave yet.
“I’ll see you around,” he finally said.
Samantha made a short hmm sound. She didn’t know exactly why she was exhibiting a bit of teenage attitude. Gordon was already on his way to the limo, and she couldn’t help but stare at him as he walked. He was firm and taught, not exactly the macho type, but he had a lean, sexy frame. His bum was tight, too, the kind of tight that would fit perfectly in her hands.
Stop Samantha, she thought to herself. You will only get yourself hurt again.
Gordon turned to look at her when he got into the limo. He waved goodbye to her as if he had caught her in the act. She felt embarrassed and didn’t bother to wave back.
Get a grip of yourself. Don’t get involved. Focus, Sammy.
She turned her attention to Ella, who was having the fun of her life, oblivious to the drama going on between Mommy and Mr. Gordy.
Samantha wasn’t quite sure why she’d agreed to go to the picnic, but she was glad she had. It had begun with Gordon’s secretary calling her up and requesting a lunch meeting. Samantha, suspecting that there was nothing official planned for this meeting, replied to the secretary, “Mr. Phillips, if you wanted such a lunch meeting, you could hold it down in my studio.” For a start, Samantha was proud of her new studio. It was a significantly more practical way of Samantha working with as many clients within the company she could.
So that Samantha could maintain at least a little professional distance, her agreed wage was partially reduced to reflect a kind of rental payment for this particular space. It was a sizable room that had once been an office. It was even a corner office with two rows of windows. Luckily for her, as Samantha phrased it, the kind of worker who required a corner office was too stuck up to accept one that was only halfway up the building and also not of comparable size with any of the other senior workers. It was sizable, though, if not sizable enough for some people. It had been used as a storage room before Samantha came. Putting a massage table in the middle was no big deal. And Samantha, who had a month before been in tears about losing her job, now had her own fancy studio. She had even bought herself some new looser fitting-sweatpants.
A few days later, Mr. Phillips did come around for lunch. There was a knock on the door, and Gordon entered, beaming.
“I haven’t seen this space before.”
“There’s probably quite a lot of your giant building that you haven’t seen.”
“That’s true. But you have made it very homely, very pleasant, dare I say, very Sammy.”
Sammy had indeed repainted the walls and had, in the spirit of self-employment, done all the work herself. She had even laid out tables with incense sticks and pots of tea. She also had a sink installed and had some speakers installed in the room to play calming music.
“I brought lunch.” Gordon held out two plates.
“You have your lunch brought to you by plate?” Samantha was astounded.
“Why? How do you eat here?”
“I go to the canteen. Open up a lunch box.”
“Right. Sorry. Do you want to go to the canteen?”
“You don’t have to be quite so sensitive. You’re here now. Now give me the goddamn food.” She grabbed at one of the boxes, and they both laughed. The chemistry between them was undeniable, but a lot had happened since their college romance, and a lot had changed. Or had it?
“I hope I chose well enough,” Gordon said.
“I’m sure it’s fine.”
After a minute or so of quiet eating, Gordon asked, “Are we going to talk about it? I mean, I’m here. You accepted my lunch invitation. Are we moving beyond the purely professional stage?”
“I’m eating lunch with my boss. One doesn’t say no to one’s boss.” Samantha was smiling. She had known it was coming to this, but she hadn’t really thought of her response.
Taking the cue, Gordon said, “And so one shouldn’t!” before tucking into his meal with extra gusto.
“So, like I said, are we going to talk about it?” he asked. “We can go off the record; we can be off company time now. I mean, I would ask you out for a drink so that you’re in truly neutral territory, but I suspected you wouldn’t find that agreeable.”
“What’s there to talk about? You fucked off. We had something special, and you fucked off.”
“I’m sorry.” Gordon looked truly sorry. Either he actually was, or he thought he was.
“Look, it was a long time ago. We could just move on. I still don't want to be your best bud. But I’ll have lunch with you.”
“I’d like to tell you…”
“You really don’t have to,” she said.
“I’d still like to. I take responsibility for my own actions, but it was pressure from my family that caused me to make that decision.”
“It took me a long time to reason how you could break off something so powerful. After a while of being angry, I was able to remember the parts of you I loved, and I remembered what you’d told me about your family. I thought it might be something like that.” Samantha tried not to show any hurt, but she was hurt. She entertained the possibility of getting involved with Gordon again, but she had no idea how it would turn out, and if last time was any indication of the pain she would feel if they split again, she wasn’t interested in taking the leap. Not yet, anyway. Not until something changed.