ROBYN
I left him sitting there, with nothing to say…I suppose. I don’t know, maybe he had a lot to say, but as usual, he wasn’t saying it. How had he ever expected to have any kind of relationship if he wouldn’t loosen up? Maybe he didn’t expect to have a relationship…maybe that had all been in my mind. I sat at my desk, staring at websites I was supposed to be upgrading on my computer with all of that running through my mind.
I shook it off and got back to work…for about five minutes. Was I just fooling myself? Wasn’t what I saw in his eyes the same affection I felt for him? Could I have been that wrong? With that thought, Gary walked into my office….great.
“Hi Robyn! How are you doing today?”
“I’m good, Gary, how about you?”
“I’m doing alright. I’ve just been so worried about you. It’s so good to see you back. Did they catch the guy who did this to you?” Leave it to Gary to open the wound without even realizing it.
“Yeah, they did.”
He looked relieved, “Good. I was worried that he had your information….Anyways, I’m glad. Did you get to have any fun before that, I hope?”
“Robyn?”
“Oh shoot! I’m sorry, Gary. My mind is wandering today. My New Year’s Eve was good up to that point. I spent it with some dear friends. I also enjoyed my time off. How about you?”
“It was okay. I went to a party that Dan in accounting threw. Good party…good people. But, Robyn….”
Damn it! He was going to say something that we would both regret, I could feel it. I couldn’t deal with this today. I’d already broken up with one guy…the one I really wanted. I didn’t want to have to hurt this one’s feelings.
“That’s great!” I told him. “Dan’s a fun guy. I’m sorry, Gary. All this time off has really gotten me behind in my work. Do you mind if I get back to this?”
He looked disappointed. He had to know I was avoiding whatever it was he wanted to say and I felt bad about that. I wondered how long it had taken him to work up his nerve and come in here so that he could say it. I felt like a terrible person, but wouldn’t it be worse to lead him on….Kind of the way I felt that Aaron had me?
“Sure Robyn, let me know if you need any help.”
I smiled at him, “I will, Gary. Thank you.”
He left and I tried to refocus on the task I was supposed to be working on. My mind drifted back to that day Aaron didn’t show up at the restaurant and Gary had taken his place. I had never asked him why he didn’t show up….was that the beginnings of him not wanting to be seen out with me? A man in his position, with his amount of money was under constant scrutiny. His photo was taken at least a dozen times a week and I wondered…was he worried about a photo being taken with a co-worker…or just a woman not in his social circle?
He’d gone out in public with me ice skating and to the carnival at the park. He’d gone to the jazz festival…maybe those weren’t places where he thought the paparazzi would be lurking. Maybe it was only the fancy restaurants and bars and parties he was worried about. Would it be a crime if a photo of us turned up together? Was it that since I worked for him that he was worried about the impropriety of it? If that was the case, why didn’t he just say so instead of making me feel like maybe I’m just not good enough?
I opened up another window on my computer and typed in his name. I got millions of hits again. This time I typed in “society pages.” That gave me hundreds of thousands of hits and thousands of photos to look through. I found that oddly, throughout the years, Aaron had been mostly photographed either alone or with his male business associates. There were a few photos with women, but after reading the captions, I found that those too were business meetings. Had he never been in a serious enough relationship with a woman that he was comfortable being seen with her in public? It had to be hard to go through life being that uptight and worried about what everyone else thought of you.
I sighed and switched the computer back to my work. I’d obviously gotten nowhere with having a relationship with him, but he was still my boss…I had to get back to work before I screwed that up too.