Lovers and Other Strangers
Myka believed in fair game, so she set out that afternoon to plan a dinner Helena would not soon forget. She thought she would enlist the help of the resident Chef Amour who, oddly enough, was standing right outside Myka's door when she opened it.
"I have a few ideas," Millie said as soon as her boss opened the door. She had spent the better part of that afternoon wondering how to help Myka.
"How did you….?" Myka asked, looking around to see what clue Millie could have picked up on.
"Myka, I'm a woman who knows love and where there is love, there should be good food," the woman who gave a course in that connection proposed. Then Millie walked into Myka's office as if she were already two steps ahead. Which she was.
Myka slowly closed the door as she tried to connect the dots. "So you have some suggestions…?" Myka tried to ask, hoping they were on the same page.
"Of course I do," Millie said enthusiastically, happy to have the chance to assist.
Walking back to her desk, Myka asked her eager assistant what they were.
"A delicious meal of delectable food that will enhance the mood for sensuous consumption," the connoisseur explained in a sing-song voice.
Myka stopped mid-step when she saw the knowing look on her assistant's face. "Okay," Myka said, cringing at how nonchalant her response sounded.
"You might even want to eat the food," Millie said, whipping out a folded paper with the menu written out already. Myka nearly tripped over nothing on the floor and landed safely in her chair.
"Oh, I must have…" she tried to save face.
Millie watched as the red rushed up Myka's neck to her cheeks. "See? We must create a meal that will aid in the expression of desire and what better way to help that than with scrumptious food that will tease the palate and awaken senses," Millie said as she glanced down at her list of ideas.
"I was …thinking…pasta," Myka coughed, preparing to listen attentively.
"Do you know that Capsaicin in chilies stimulates nerve endings to release chemicals which can raise the heart rate and trigger the release of endorphins to give you a natural high?" Millie stated because she lived to educate people about different nourishments.
"No, I don't think…." Myka tried to answer.
"Now, for appetizers, I'm going to forgo the asparagus appetizers and suggest figs instead," Millie said with the most innocent expression. Myka was well read enough to know that there were physical associates with both of those foods.
"Excuse me?" Myka said, wondering if she wanted to hear the actual menu.
"Everyone knows that figs are a wonderful source of both iron and potassium. Would you rather avocado?" Millie asked, as she peered over her reading glasses.
"No, uhm…(clears throat) …and for dinner?" Myka asked, and took a pen as if she needed to write any of this down.
"Lobster pieces drizzled with butter," Millie answered on cue. She always put a lot of thought into her menus.
"Oh, I don't know if Helena …," Myka said, trying to remember if she had seen the Brit ever eat the dish.
"She will," Millie said with a knowing stare. She didn't know a person, seafood fan or not, who could refuse a bit of lobster from a lover's fingers.
"Okay, that is easy," Myka said as if it were a foregone conclusion. "Any suggestions for dess….?"
"I like to say that if we're doing this the right way, you won't actually get to the third course," Millie smiled, before the question mark appeared at the end of Myka's sentence. "But I think chocolate covered, well, anything, is always nice."
"Chocolate…okay, then. I think…yes, that about covers it," Myka said, as she started to write something down and noticed that the pen was upside down.
"Good! Glad I could help. Now remember, Myka," Millie said as she left the list with Myka and got up to leave. "The key to romantic dinners…..," she said from the doorway. "No utensils."
"No utensils," Myka repeated, trying to sound like she was committing the instructions to memory.
Millie went outside and returned to her desk where she prepared the email with the dinner menu and sent it to Leena.
While Myka was listening to Millie and planning the dinner, Helena was busying herself in work. She asked her temporary administrative assistant several times to get people on the phone or to send messages. The woman ran back and forth from her desk to Helena's desk, delivering proposals and contracts to review. And, in between those mad dashes to and fro, Sue signed for the delivery of a very large bouquet of flowers. At the next available moment, Sue brought the vase and flowers into Eileen's office and placed it on her desk and handed her the card.
"Oh, they're beautiful," Eileen exclaimed when she saw them. The sweet aroma filled the office and she thanked Sue for carrying them in. She worried that they were too heavy for the woman. She waited for the woman to leave before she opened the card and read:
"TECHnically speaking, you are the love of my life," Claudia. Eileen's forehead wrinkled at the corniness of the joke, but she loved the woman who sent it and she hugged the card into her chest.
"You are the sweetest," she texted to her girlfriend when she inhaled the aroma of the pink roses.
A smiley emoticon appeared almost instantaneously on her phone. She knew Claudia was busy with the systems check on the android. "I miss you more than Helena misses Sui," she texted and laughed at her own joke. Again, the smiley emoticon appeared almost instantly. "Thank you for the flowers. They're beautiful," she texted. Claudia texted back – "Just like you. I have to work late. How about we meet for dinner at eight at Rays?" "Perfect," Eileen texted back. She had a meeting downtown and the famous pizza place, a favorite of the Wells gang, would be close by.
At the very same time that Eileen was on her phone reading the invitation to dinner, Claudia was getting a different set of texts from her girlfriend, telling her she would be late that night and would meet her at home. Claudia was actually glad she had some time alone at home to continue her work on the proposal. She texted back – "I will have dinner waiting for you." And by that she meant, she'd order the pizza.
As the two women unknowingly answered what they thought was each other's emails, nothing in massive sophisticated security system at Wells Corp sounded an alarm.
Whoever was doing this was …. very good.
"I've read about proposals, but never actually seen one," Sui said to Claudia as she tapped the keys on her laptop with unusual vigor.
"You never watched The Bachelor or The Bachelorette?" she asked as she slip another photo into place.
"We don't watch reality shows at Mrs. Frederic's," Sui explained.
"Bummer," Claudia said and Sui agreed.
"I have tried to explain that I have no organic brain to rot as she declares would be the outcome of viewing such shows," Sui expounded.
"Have you …actually ever won a disagreement with Mrs. F?" Claudia stopped what she was doing to ask because the odds were astronomical.
A quick check of his memory bank came up with the answer. "No," he answered.
"Ha! Another thing you and Helena have in common then," the techie laughed.
"Oh, no, I believe I have witnessed Helena presenting her side of dissimilarity and advancing," Sui concluded.
"Sui, I know it might look like that to the uneducated eye, my friend, but I believe those are probably the times Mrs. Frederic is too tired and allows Helena to win. Just saying," Claudia shared.
The android absorbed new information the way most of us inhale chocolate; with great delight. "Oohhh," he said, adding that to both his Helena file and Irene's. He would later repeat it at an importune moment. "Why does Helena portray herself as indifferent to someone she cares a great deal about?" Sui asked, as Claudia got up to check his scanning process.
"I think," she said, bending down and clicking the mouse over another program to analyze his connectivity, "….it's because feelings are messy and black and white people like me and the boss, want to put feelings in boxes and label them. They don't work like that."
"No, I know that. Why do you fear them?" Sui asked, drawing that very astute conclusion.
"Why do we….. fear them?" Claudia asked him, looking right into his blue eyes. "Who says we….? Because they're fraking scary. They come out of nowhere, they jump you from behind, they blindside you, they straggle your thinking until you can't form words," Claudia ranted from the heart.
"It would seem you have had a lot of experience in this," Sui said.
"Yeah," Claudia said, wondering how they got on to such an annoying topic.
"And yet you have such positive feelings for Ms. Sullivan," the student of human behavior observed.
"Well, of course I do. She's….," Claudia stopped to find the right words, but none seemed to match her feelings. "Everything."
Sui processed everything he was seeing – the suppressed expression of feelings, the obvious change in temperature and heart rate of his mentor when she spoke of her beloved, and how her words seemed incongruent with the depth to which she obviously had these feelings. He searched his database for possible things he could offer to aid Claudia. .
Then he broke out into song! Specifically "She Is" by the Fray. And in what could only be attributed to his cross referenced programs, he sang the words and sounded exactly like the singer as he belted out:
Do not get me wrong I cannot wait for you to come home
For now you're not here and I'm not there, it's like we're on our own
To figure it out, consider how to find a place to stand
Instead of walking away and instead of nowhere to land
"Sui!" Claudia said when she realized he was repeating lyrics. "Stop!" but there was no stopping him. He was singing his heart out because he had calculated this response had the highest correlation to what would be soothing to his friend. Perhaps in written form, not in verse.
This is going to break me clean in two
This is going to bring me close to you
"What didn't we give you an on and off switch?" she yelled as she tried to figure out how to shut the man down. Literally.
She is everything I need that I never knew I wanted
She is everything I want that I never knew I needed
People were now staring into Claudia's work area as the android concluded his impromptu serenade. "Ha, ha," she laughed nervously as coworkers looked in. "He's …his ITunes programs. Stuck. Ha," she said making it worse.
"I have no program issues," Sui said and the techie glanced over at the duct tape on her desk and wondered if it would work.
"Yes, I know, it's just I needed an explanation as to why you were singing that song," the Director of IT shared.
"Because I analyzed the over 2000 songs that you programmed me with, and chose that to best reflect your current situation," Sui explained.
"Thank you," Claudia said, grateful for the gesture, not so happy with the attention. "Well, you're in tip top shape. No viruses, no hacking, no surprises," she concluded as she detached the input wires.
"I was certain that there were no anomalies," Sui said, standing up and fixing putting his suit jacket back on.
"We can never be too cautious," Claudia stated firmly.
"Actually, some studies have proven that being overly cautious can impede spontaneity," Sui said as he thanked Claudia and took his leave.
Those words, unlike the others that he had spouted during his checkup, struck Claudia. She pushed the monitor that showed the glowing results of her android friend, and looked at her laptop. Sticky notes with ideas and plans were attached to the screen, in addition to ten different programs that were loading pictures, compiling music and calculating what the weather was going to be next week. Another tracked sales at the Apple Store where she was planning to propose to Eileen.
"Maybe Sui is right," she said out loud. "Being too cautious isn't always the way to go."
Helena let out a long sigh as she finished the paperwork that had been piled on her desk. Once she put her mind to it, the tasks at hand went rather quickly. Her reward came in the form of a text from her wife – "Meet me at home for a romantic dinner". Helena pushed back in her chair, smiled the broadest smile, and gazed out the window.
What in the world did she ever do to deserve this woman? She wondered.
It would seem that everyone had special dinner plans that night. Pete was meeting Jane at The Oak Room for a late dinner; Claudia worked feverishly on cutting back on her proposal creation, and Helena was urging Pete to get through the traffic that stood between her and that romantic dinner.
Eileen Sullivan was downtown at a meeting to review the scripts for the new season of the TV show - HG Wells. The response from the audiences had been overwhelmingly favorable, but the network was thinking of moving it to a less than desirable time slot. "It's the precursor to being canceled," a very concerned junior executive whispered to Eileen.
"This makes absolutely no sense!" Eileen argued. "The numbers prove that this show is exactly what the public wants!"
"Our calculations and projections of what will be big next season is leaning more towards reality television," the network CEO explained. "But we look forward to an amazing season, nonetheless."
To say that this seemed counterintuitive to Eileen was putting it mildly. The show rested in her hands and she knew how important this line of business was to Helena. She didn't even have to question what her mentor would do. As they sat around the table listening to the accountants and analysts argue about the future of the show, Eileen jotted down her plan. She kept glancing at her phone to see the time. Two hours until she met Claudia.
Plenty of time to tell these idiots what she really thought.
Myka could have predicted Helena's entrance with absolute accuracy. "Stairs, two at a time, door opens," Myka said as she sat on the couch in the living room, but with her ear on the front door. "Coat," she said as she heard the article of clothing being flung and missing the chair. "Bag," Myka said, softly right before the thud of the purse hitting the floor. Myka stood up and took the two champagne flutes and walked towards the door. "Straightens out her dress like she hasn't been running and …voila!" Myka said, just as Helena entered the doorway. Myka handed her the glass and smiled, because Helena was trying to settle her breathing.
"Hello you," Myka smiled warmly.
"Hello you," Helena melted in response.
"To us," Myka said and leaned into to kiss her wife and handed Helena a glass.
"To us," Helena said, watching Myka sipping the elixir and then doing the same.
Myka's expression changed as her eyes twinkled and her lips smiled in a mischievous grin. "And to all the things I'm going to do to you tonight." No sooner had she said those words, than her hand reached out for Helena's glass as the thought – "Ankle gives out, loses balance momentarily," flashed across her mind.
She did know her wife.
So did someone else. And they were about to play with fire to get Helena's attention.
I'm way off my usual schedule but do hope you're still reading along. Love to hear your thoughts!