When a week passed without a call or a word from Tara Thornton Pam realized she may not have made the best impression. Then it hit her. They hadn't exchanged numbers and while Tara knew where she lived she didn't expect the woman to pop up and say she'd been thinking about Pam. So, when that first week passed she went about her work with more determination that required it. Unsure of why she was so affected by her not making an effort to call her at all. By the second week Sookie felt it was her duty and detrimental to her health that she take her boss out to loosen up. In the guise of a lunch date she picked at her chicken salad examining her boss with all the causes of the woman's strange behavior running through her head. She was never cruel to any of the workers, but of late she was beginning to be less compromising than her usual self. She demanded perfection regularly, but this new Pam seemed to be obsessed by it.
The interior of the restaurant was stylishly open with windows letting in plenty of light and warm accents of color to contrast with the stark white table covers and crème carpet. At dinner time this place was extremely expensive, but the lunches were more affordable with an exquisite selection of food that Sookie treated herself to whenever she could get a chance and it was one of Pam's favorite places to dine.
"How's your chicken?" Sookie asked as soon as the older woman took a bite.
Covering her mouth with a napkin she chewed nodding her head with a pleasant look, it wasn't bad.
Pleased for her boss, Sookie skewered lettuce sprinkled with cheese and vinaigrette with her fork before placing it in her mouth. She might as well bite the bullet, "I can't figure if you got laid or not."
"Excuse me," Pam frowned.
"That first week you weren't on cloud nine but you were getting there. Then you do a whole 360 on Monday and suddenly we're not working hard enough or good enough. I'm just wondering who got under your skin."
Pam was offended and a bit irritated her mood had been that transparent, "no one."
Her secretary gave her a look of disbelieving. Sookie was aware of almost everything there is to know about this woman being under her employ for two years now. She asked, "Did you, you know."
Pam smirked, "no I didn't."
"But, you met someone," Sookie continued to prod leaning forward on the tabletop with her elbows and her hands clasped together in a begging gesture.
"I met someone," the marketing executive finally admitted to someone.
The waitress refilled their drinks then asked about their meal and if there was anything else she could do for them? Both women shook their heads and the brunette with the long face and large smile went on to find another customer to please.
"There's no one in the world that happy to pour a drink," Sookie glared at her bouncy demeanor remembering her waitress days in college.
"Back to me," Pam continued needing to get the ordeal out of her head and into someone else's to be sure it happened and to confirm her feelings weren't unfounded. "Am I crazy?" she asked at the end of it.
"To expect a call when she didn't get your number?" Sookie considered, "yea." Her eyes veered to a duo staring at them from another table, "sometimes that's how the cookie crumbles," the younger woman shared absently the line of her mouth rising into a smile targeting the two men over her bosses shoulder.
The one with the dark hair raised her drink to her.
"Whenever I need underwhelming advice I know who I can count on," Pam dryly pointed out.
"I'm about to do you a favor," Sookie rose from her sit, "because I love you and I want to see you happy. It's not healthy to pine over what could have been when I'm about to introduce you to your future husband."
"What?" Pam hissed in confusion.
Sookie either didn't hear or didn't care to acknowledge that she heard her when she went directly to the table of two men. Adopting an inconspicuous method of looking at the reflection of the mirror on her phone she noticed Sookie charming the duo until one looked in her direction standing and starting straight for her. Dropping her phone she quelled the urge to roll her eyes and smiled indulgently at the handsome blond whom her secretary sent over.
"I'm Eric," he held out his hand. In a blue business suit a white shirt sans the tie at six foot
Cool eyes looked the pale appendage over as if inspecting it to see if it were clean or not.
"Pamela," she took it giving him her name.
"I know," he admitted, "may I?" he gestured to the seat.
"My friend's sitting there," she said.
Giving her a knowing grin he nodded toward the pair behind them, "it seems she's taken with my partner Bill."
Pam had been set up.
"I see," she droned aggravated. It escaped her that moment why the young woman was even an employee.
Eric took a seat feeling silly standing there. Pam didn't object since Sookie was noticeably distracted and wouldn't be missing her seat any time soon.
"That's a nice name Pamela," he complimented.
She wasn't sure if he expected her to be impressed by his looks alone, because if that was all he had too offer then Sookie had misjudged the basis of her attraction.
"That sounded like a line didn't it?" he called himself out with a charming smile with enough nerve to look embarrassed.
Pam was patiently awaiting the check almost wishing she hadn't sent that girl away the first time. Who knows when she'd return to the table again?
"This is the worst way to meet people isn't it?"
Pam agreed with him on that.
He regaled her with a blind date he had a few weeks ago. The woman was neurotic and obviously wasn't over her last relationship she pulled out a miniature album of their adventures in Thaiwan, Australia and a few other places Eric didn't commit to memory. Pam relaxed and shared a war story of her own if only to compete against his tale because her guy didn't compare to hers. The man had the audacity to answer a phone call from his wife in front of her and claim after the phone call that he believed in full disclosure.
By the end of their show Eric took the initiative and asked her and Sookie out for drinks when they were outside waiting on the valet to bring their cars.
"We'd love to!" Sookie took charge speaking for the both of them and Pam let her because she found Eric to be sincere. And she liked it with her encounter from the week before tucked away in a box in her head of things that could have been, but never did. It wouldn't hurt her to spend time with a well dressed gentleman that filled out a suit the way he did. At least this time she wasn't pretending to be something she wasn't for someone who obviously wasn't interested.
