The cappuccino - Anita didn't really want the foam anyway - fell. When her eyes closed and that dark door inside everyone, way in the back, way down at the bottom of the sightless places opened inside her, Anita's hand relaxed enough to allow the paper coffee cup to slip through her fingers. In the split second the cup fell half-way to the sidewalk, Anita's mouth went slack. When the cup hit the ground, before the coffee splashed her nice business heels, Anita's body was a thousand winking and tingling pin hole stars.
A gust of wind helped the spilling coffee cover both her feet and tore the words from the cabbie's mouth. She looked at him and let out a breath she'd, apparently, been holding.
"Hey, lady! Hey, you okay? You gonna sneeze or somethin'?" She heard him that time.
"Yeah..." she blinked, "I'm fine."
Anita's reflection in the window showed her a different woman this time. Her eyes looked glittery and alive, her bust line sat just right, not quite low enough to be slutty, and the natural pout of her lips made her smile, she liked that smile. She looked and felt sexy. So what?
"Avalon Tower, please?" she seated herself and crossed her legs.
She smiled that smile she liked all the way to her desk. When she saw the clock on her computer she added a chuckle to the smile. She was ten minutes late, and that was okay. She'd enslaved herself to her work for a long time. She was allowed to be late once.
As she settled into her chair she kept expecting the old maid in her head to start going over all the repercussions from signing into her HP desktop ten minutes late. Computer hard drives created permanent records, records that the company monitored. It may take awhile, but in the end this would come back around. The computer, and the reports it generated, were heartless things that turned a blind eye to facts like Anita's impeccable work record thus far. As her programs loaded on her computer she thought, if the computer doesn't care why should I?
----
"Morning Anita," Ben said as he strolled by her desk about forty-five minutes later. "Don't you just look... what's the word, what's the word?" he took a deep breath, expanding his chest, stretching his shirt a little.
"Sanguine, today."
"Good morning Mr. Strass. You've got nothing this morning. At one, you need to be at The Revenue to have lunch with a Mr. Tooki. I've arranged everything for our flight to Japan next week." Anita went through this routine every morning with Ben. Now, he would turn on his heel and walk into his office with a polite Thank You as she smiled at his back.
"Did you say Tooki? My goodness, it's like I'm working with Anime characters. Anyway, we're flying first class I assume, sweetheart."
Whoa, Anita froze along with everything around her. She forgot to breath. One single moment stretched like rubber band. And snapped back.
"Of course, Mr. Strass."
"Ben, please. Anita we've been over this before," then he winked at her and turned on heel. "Thank you, Anita." His office door closed behind him. He stood behind his desk and brought his right thumb up to his lips. He had some other meetings today. Meetings Anita didn't know about. For the last three years Ben held conference calls with some of the world's leaders. Dictators, Kings, Presidents, Prime Ministers: Anita coordinated these and kept Ben on point and on time. Other times Ben made calls on a phone Anita didn't know about. He set up lunch with poor farmers on the weekends. He'd fly them to the city wine and dine them and then take their land at such a low price it's a wonder Ben slept at night.
Today, Ben needed to get in touch with Jack. Jack owned a bar in a dump side of town. Ben was prepared to take the worthless lot off Jack's hands at what Jack would think was a deal. Along with the bar, Ben would slide in rights to all of Jack's land in a nearby rural county. He'd talked to Jack a few times and gleaned that Jack was a sharp guy. He'd be a hard sell, but Ben had negotiated contracts worth exponentially more money. He'd made deals with countries that eased famine, and filled his bank accounts. He'd get the bar and the land. Today, he would seal the deal.
He also intended to talk to Anita. He could think of no reason not to tell her. She'd think it strange that he was interested in farm fields out in the middle of nowhere. But when he explained to her how sometimes you had to follow your gut. When he conveyed to her how strong the gut feeling about this land was, she'd understand. He kept putting it off. She'd look at him and say good morning and he'd see those eyes. Something inside Benjamin Strass stopped him from talking to her. She'd give him her morning summary and walk directly into his office. He couldn't look at her innocent face any longer.
Ben turned and put his left hand down on his desk. He stood with his thumb against his lips and looked at the picture on the wall. He hung that picture himself not long ago. He stood and stared and thought about the farm fields and forgotten patches of forest out in Collin's County.
The phone in his pocket vibrated. As if waking up, Ben shook his head and blinked his eyes. He pulled the phone from his pocket and looked at the clock before accepting the call. He'd been standing next to his desk for thirty minutes. Nothing this morning, Anita told him. Now the phone, JACK showed on the screen.
"Jack, buddy. How's it going?" Ben said.
"Good, good. Have you thought about the numbers we talked about?" Straight to business. No time for Ben to butter him up with idle yet praising chitchat.
"Yeah, you know, I have been thinking about that. Working some figures," Ben paused for a beat. Jack didn't fill the space with desperate monosyllabic words like: yeah, yeah, yeah.
"Anyway, listen, why don't I fly you into the city Friday afternoon and we'll do lunch Saturday? We can really get some gears turning on this thing."
"I run a bar. We're open on weekends. How about you tell me whether you like those figures, because they break my heart but I'm a realist."
Damn, this guy was good. Stubborn like one of those pharmaceutical company lawyers. "Okay, okay. I've got to do lunch today at one. I'll call you after. Let you know if the paper work is in the mail or not."
"Good."
Ben would pay what Jack wanted and Jack knew it. Ben could afford it, certainly, but he was a business man. Can't blame him for trying.
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