Chapter 17
“Thank you so much for this,” Beth says, flipping through the document Martha has just handed her. She had to conduct a content audit and Martha had kindly prepared a template guide. It’s a tedious task but it’s necessary to improve the company’s brand and inform their content marketing strategy moving forward.
“It’s no problem,” Martha replies with a smile.
“But you really didn’t have to—”
“No, no,” she waves her off. “It was my pleasure. Your suggestion to use proprietary data to create long-form content with graphics was exactly what we needed. We’re really happy to have you on the team.”
Beth grins. “I’m happy to be here.”
Martha gives her a final smile as she turns away from Beth’s desk.
Beth returns to her desktop where a page on the company’s leadership is open. With every mention of Adrian in the article, she has to bite back her childish grin as she recalls the events of last week Friday. It had been a complete mind-fuck for her, and a weekend later, she still isn’t over it. The things he’d said to her, the way he’d kissed her, touched her—her heart speeds up at the memory.
She still can’t believe that it happened. But she’s certain she wants more to happen.
She hadn’t known what to expect when she’d walked into the office Monday morning. She’d spent the weekend in a mental limbo, expecting him to call or text. But he did neither. And naturally, she found a way to convince herself he was with a woman– some impeccably styled socialite, like the many that littered the last week’s fundraiser, who works in a fancy gallery. She imagines him taking her to an art exhibition where they would talk about expensive artworks or the last time they went to Paris, and a bunch of other sophisticated, borderline douched topics Beth has never had any business participating in.
She shakes her head to dislodge her erratic thoughts. It’s possible she’s being overly sensitive– or more appropriately, irrational.
Beth glances at her watch and notes that it’s five minutes past two, which means it’s five minutes past her daily scheduled sugar fix. She has Greek yogurt and a leftover piece of cherry cheesecake sitting inside the break room fridge with her name on it. She glides her chair away from her desk, snatches her empty mug, and heads for the break room to get a coffee refill.
On her way, she spots Adrian in the midst of three men in suits, laughing and joking. He’s dressed to kill in a three-piece suit that stops her heart for as many beats. When he sees her, his expression staggers but in a split second, it returns to a more neutral one. She gives him a small smile but he doesn’t return it, he merely gives her a curt nod, flicking his eyes down the front of her wrap dress, remaining thoroughly stoic in the process. Then he turns around and walks away.
It could mean nothing, she tells herself. He’s probably just busy.
Lengthening her stride as she walks, she strengthens her gait and stiffens her spine. She refills her cup and heads back to her office.
When she’s back at her desk, she slumps in her chair. That wasn’t the reaction she’d expected from him. But before the burrowing insects of doubt can make their way into her heart, Beth squares her shoulders and straightens in her chair. She refuses to do this. She isn’t about to allow feelings for a man to consume her. She has a presentation to prepare for.
****
Beth’s hands are shaking so much that she has to put them under her lap.
She feels ridiculous for being so uneasy. It’s just a presentation in front of a handful of people. But she’s never really given a presentation before. Sure, she’d spoken in front of co-workers at her old job. But this isn’t the same. She’s presenting to people she’s only worked with for a couple of weeks and she’s desperate to make them like her. Or at least make them approve of her and see her as less of an outsider.
She takes a deep breath and goes over her points in her head. She’s got this, she’s well prepared. She gives the room a sweeping glance. It’s only a few minutes till the meeting starts and most seats are occupied. Her co-workers are broken into small groups making small talk. Suddenly an eerie silence settles over the room.
There’s only one person in this company who’s able to create this effect. Beth’s eyes snap to the door of the conference room and her guess is confirmed.
Shit. What’s he doing here? Isn’t this meeting supposed to be solely for the marketing team?
Adrian steps into the room and everyone straightens in their chairs. He shakes hands with a few people and acknowledges the others with a nod before taking a seat at the other end of the room. When he spots her eyes, he gives her a slight nod, his face remaining expressionless.
She’d reached the conclusion that he was avoiding her. On two occasions, her entrance to a particular room resulted in his exit within the minute, with barely a glance in her direction. That wasn’t solid confirmation, but still. His behaviour stings especially after he’d kissed her. She doesn’t know what to make of it but she’s decided to just ignore his hot and cold attitude toward her.
Martha starts the meeting by giving a brief rundown of their progress and how effective they’ve been in narrowing down their target ratios for the last financial quarter.
When she’s done, she clears her throat and motions toward Beth to take over. “Now, Beth has a couple of ideas she would like to share.”
Beth takes a final calming breath as she walks to the front of the room. Starting off her presentation of ideas takes the most effort, but with her PowerPoint slides to rely on, she easily falls into the zone, soon forgetting her audience. She begins by stating the content marketing strategy she’s crafted for the new app product.
While she speaks, she can’t help flashing quick glances at Adrian, hoping for feedback. But he remains quiet throughout her presentation, offering no reaction of any sort.
She moves on to map out the proposed projects which include a campaign that would bring in companies that want to advertise within the windows of their app. And how the company can leverage the scrolar ads so that businesses not only pay an advertising fee, but they also agree to some form of promotion for the company. She speaks for nearly an hour and when her colleagues ask questions, she answers confidently and succinctly. She concludes by emphasizing that all content would be personalized by digging into analytics gained from understanding the demographics and affinity categories of consumers.
With the presentation concluded and the last round of questions answered, the meeting finally wraps up. Everyone goes through the expected round of goodbyes and handshakes. Her colleagues congratulate her on her presentation. Martha in particular tells her that she presented amazing ideas and Beth feels a rush of triumph.
Her eyes search the room for the one person whose praise she craves for unexplainable reasons. Her eyes finally find his, but they are unreadable. And then he steps out of the conference room and disappears down the hall. His departure is like a punch to the gut. The endorphins from her presentation performance aren’t enough to shelter her from the defeat of Adrian’s lack of acknowledgement.
She says her goodbyes to her colleagues, then turns her attention to gathering her things, all the while afraid that everyone in the room can read my expression. She marches out of the conference room and down the hallway.
She doesn’t slow down; hurrying as if that would help her outrun the truth she saw in his eyes.