Worlds Apart (Chapter One)

“He’s flirting with you,” Marilyn whispered as she leaned toward her coworker’s side of the long reception counter where they worked side by side each day.

“Stop it. He is not,” she protested through slightly clenched teeth as her gaze again wandered to the intriguing stranger seated on the couch near the door to the interior office suite.

“Oh, yeah, he is,” Marilyn pressed. “He is checking you out.”

She could feel heat radiating from her flushed cheeks and the inside of her mouth had suddenly become dry. If Marilyn only knew, she thought to herself.

Just then the intercom buzzed. “Yes, Mr. Bascom, I’ll send him right in,” she said politely before replacing the receiver. “Mr. Bascom is ready to see you now,” she advised him, standing and coming around from behind the counter in order to escort him down the hall to the office of the company’s Vice President for his job interview.

Neither of them spoke as he followed her down the corridor. When she stopped in front of Mr. Bascom’s closed office door, she tapped lightly with her right hand as she turned the doorknob with her left and then gestured to him to enter. She mouthed the words “good luck” to him as he walked past her before gently closing the door and returning to her work station. There, she began her morning transcription.

An hour or so later, her headphones on, she was typing furiously and did not hear him re-enter the foyer, so she nearly jumped out of her chair when she turned to find him leaning on the counter watching her. He was smiling broadly.

“Oh, my gawd,” she shrieked. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Just a few seconds,” he said grinning mischievously. “I’m sorry that I startled you.”

Scrambling to regain her composure, she asked, “Well, how did the interview go?”

“I think it went well. He said I would be hearing from him in a few days, so keep your fingers crossed,” he replied earnestly.

“All right, I’ll do that,” she responded just as Marilyn returned and took her seat a few feet away. “Good luck and hope to see you again.”

“Me, too.” He winked as he took his time to turn away from the counter and walk to the door, glancing back one more time and nodding his head slightly before exiting.

She continued to stare at the door for a few seconds after he closed it, primarily because she could feel Marilyn’s piercing stare and did not want to turn and face her.

When she could avoid doing so no longer, Marilyn rolled her eyes dramatically as she placed her headphones over her ears and mumbled, “Oh, no, he wasn’t flirting with you. Nah. That wasn’t flirting . . . that was just . . . I don’t know . . . conversation. Yeah. That’s what that was. Just conversation. Right.” She continued shaking her head in amusement as she began typing.

A few weeks later, she was exiting her vehicle in the company parking lot when she heard a voice she did not recognize greet her. “Good morning,” he said as she spun around to find him standing by the rear corner of her car. He grinned sheepishly, realizing that he had again startled her.

“Do you enjoy doing that to poor, unsuspecting women?” she said with mock exasperation.

“I’m sorry. I thought you saw me as I was walking over here. I didn’t mean to scare you,” he responded with genuine kindness. It was at that moment she realized that he had the most beautiful brown eyes she had ever seen — deep-set and warm.

“I take it you got the job?” she inquired.

“I sure did. Today is my first day,” he said proudly.

“Well, congratulations!” She was trembling slightly.

“We’d better get to work then,” he said as they began walking toward the building together. “How long have you worked here?”

“Oh, only about six months. I take night classes at the university,” she explained. “This is my second semester there. I decided that I wanted to be completely independent from my parents and support myself, so I switched to evening classes. I work all day and have classes four nights a week.”

“Wow, that’s a rough schedule, isn’t it?” he asked.

“It’s not bad. It just doesn’t leave much time for outside activities. I pretty much spend all of my weekends studying,” she shrugged.

“No time for a boyfriend then,” he said gingerly as he waited for her reaction.

“No, I guess not,” she laughed lightly. “Not that I have to worry about that.” She again felt the heat rising in her cheeks as she wondered what he would think if he knew that she had never really had a boyfriend. Not that she hadn’t been interested in several young men during her high school and college years. But none of them had ever reciprocated her feelings.

“Oh, I don’t believe that.” He smiled softly as he held the door to the building open for her.

“Well, this is where we go our separate ways,” declared in order to change the subject. “You need to go up to Personnel and check in. They’ll have about a million forms for you to fill out, and will give you your security badge,” she explained as she pulled hers from her bag and showed it to the security guard posted near the bank of elevators.

“Then I guess I’ll see you later. Maybe we can have lunch soon.”

She was dumbfounded. Was he asking her on a date? “Um . . . ah . . . sure. That would be nice,” she stammered as she pressed the button to summon an elevator even though it was already illuminated.

“All right then. You have a good day now.” Her knees felt wobbly when she realized that he was looking right at her, smiling broadly.

“Yeah . . . you, too. Congratulations again,” she said as she stepped into the elevator and the doors closed behind her.

For a few moments, she stood frozen, facing the back wall of the elevator. “What are you doing?” she asked herself aloud. “What are you thinking? Are you crazy? You can’t go out with him.” Just then she felt the elevator stop so she quickly turned to face the door, slightly out of breath and thoroughly rattled by her brief encounter with the good-looking stranger who had indeed been flirting with her, just as Marilyn observed. She sighed regretfully as she reminded herself that she could not, under any circumstances, date or become involved with the intriguing gentleman who was increasingly seeming to be the first man who ever pursued her. She knew that, no matter how strong their attraction to each other, any relationship they might enter into would inevitably and inescapably end very badly.

To be continued . . .

Inspired by the Sunday Scribblings prompt: Stranger

Included in:

• Just Write Blog Carnival at Incurable Disease of Writing

Presenting the finest of the writer’s blogs by the bloggers who write them: Top 5 Picks as chosen by the December 26, 2008 WOOF Contest contestants.

Prose:

Fiction:

• Jenn – Worlds Apart (Chapter One)
• Jennifer M. Scott – Dear God

Opinion / Nonfiction / Nonfiction Rant:

• Harneet Singh – Life With an Aim
• Amritbir Kaur – The Yardsticks of Life — Success and Failure

About Writing:

• Khaye Cardenas – Please Excuse Me, I am Writing Again

Poetry:

• Khaye Cardenas – The Woman’s Silent Prayer
• Dragon Blogger – Two Sides to Every Tale
• Dragon Blogger – Why Does Mommy Cry?
• Daisy Bookworm – Breath
• Exquisite Corpse – Great is the Morning

Brought to you by PlotDog Press, featuring the serial suspense screenplay, Intervention. Want to participate in the next WOOF? Submit a link to your best writing of the past two weeks using the form at the bottom of this page.