Chapter 218: Chapter 2: June l
-- FRIDAY, JUNE 29, 2007 --
8:47 AM
The San Francisco Jonathan Kwong Enterprises office wasn't anything like the one in New York. There were no JKE logos on the entry doors or signs on the outside of the building. Instead of occupying the top three floors of a massive skyscraper with its own helipad, we had only the twelfth-floor in a smaller, nondescript building. All the big movers and shakers in the company were in Manhattan, and sometimes it felt like the only reason we even had a San Francisco office was so that those big movers and shakers would have someplace to store their briefcases while doing business on the West Coast.
My role wasn't flashy: I was basically an analyst. I crunched numbers, filed reports, and created PowerPoint presentations. It was still interesting work for a young man fresh out of college, with my research covering a wide range of industries. JKE was willing to buy and sell pretty much any company in any field, from high-tech start-ups to mom-and-pop farms. The company didn't manufacture a thing except money – buying low, selling high, and flourishing on the margins in-between. In a way it wasn't so different from gambling, except that the research I conducted was the company's way of rigging the game to make sure we always had the winning hand.
I'd learned a heck of a lot about business in the last year, and I'd been exposed to such a wide range of fields that I could comfortably talk about a dozen different industries, using the jargon and acronyms unique to that particular trade. I was new enough that I hadn't yet figured out my own specialty, nor had the company pushed me toward one. I didn't know if I'd remain at JKE forever or come across an opportunity to go someplace new. For the time being I simply planned to learn as much as I could, for as long as I could, about every subject I could wrap my head around. And in the meantime I was provided with a great salary, excellent benefits, and regular big bonuses every time one of those big movers and shakers closed a deal.
"You're late," June Song commented without looking up from her screen as I dropped into my chair and docked my laptop.
"I know, I know," I sighed, waiting for my login screen to appear. "Girlfriend wouldn't let me--"
"Doonnn't want to hear it," she interrupted. Again she didn't look up from her screen, although she raised her right hand and waggled her fingers at me dismissively. "Just tell me when you're ready to discuss Harmon."
"Right, right. Good morning to you, too." I chuckled and smiled ruefully, but focused on getting Outlook and my other necessary programs initiated. But of course, Windows was taking its sweet time loading, and I suddenly remembered something I was supposed to ask June, so I rotated my desk chair and looked back at her across the 42-inch high partition between us that served as a cubicle wall. Her back was to me as she stared at her monitor, but I spoke up and said, "Hey, Adrienne wanted to know if you'd--"
"Not now," June cut me off, clearly engrossed in her work. Again waggling her fingers above her right shoulder without looking back at me, she waved me off and I shook my head while turning back to my own monitor.
Given my well-known, tabloid-fodder relationship with a certain world-famous supermodel, most everyone in this office would be more than happy to hear about every little detail of my personal life, especially any detail that included the words "girlfriend" and/or "Adrienne". Even after a year with the company getting to know people and letting them get to know me, I was still best known in the office as "Adrienne Dennis' boyfriend". It was a label people were only too quick to put on me, and to be honest, I was used to it. It made it easy for me to separate those in the office who actually wanted to be a real friend from those who weren't worth my time and effort.
Thankfully, June fell into the category of real friends. She didn't give a rat's ass that I had a famous girlfriend, for one thing. From the moment we'd met in that Manhattan waiting room where M. John Fitzherbert III got fired on our first day of Orientation, she'd judged me first and foremost on my capabilities as a co-worker, and let all the other stuff about me be background noise.
Our trainer, Max, had warned us back then that we rookies would always be connected to each other, and that teamwork could only benefit us. June and I had gotten onboard with that concept right away, and from the first Monday in the San Francisco office together we'd made a pact to help each other succeed. It helped that for the first couple of months, we'd been given assignments to work on together. It was only after we'd proven ourselves as capable analysts who would provide quality material that we even started to work on different projects. Even so, we were partnered up more often than not, and should either one of us be unavailable, we were each other's designated backup.
So that meant that for more the past year, June and I had worked side-by-side on the same or similar assignments, day in and day out. For the most part we stuck to discussing business, but even the most studious of hardcore nerds can't talk about work ALL the time.
June was a sharp one, and she'd arrived for work that first Monday morning last year having researched on her own that Adrienne Dennis was not from San Bruno, despite my comment on the first Orientation day about my girlfriend being from that city. We were still near-strangers then, and I didn't yet know whether or not I could really trust her, but rather than make up a lie on the spot, I simply explained that I'd been referring to a different girlfriend who really was from San Bruno. Getting straight to it, June asked me point blank if my relationship with Adrienne was real or just a sham for public consumption, and at first I started to give her the same bullshit lines I gave everyone else. But she was smarter than that, and I still wasn't the best of liars, so June told me flat out that it would be easier if I just gave her the truth. She wasn't a gossip, and she wasn't going to blab; she simply wanted to know. And with my gut instinct telling me that I could trust her, I admitted that I was dating two girls at the same time, that the three of us lived together in that new SoMa apartment we'd just moved into, and while Sasha was also my girlfriend, it was just easier on everyone if the world believed that Adrienne and I were the romantic couple while Sasha was merely our roommate.
June's reaction was pretty much "okay, whatever", just another data point in her knowledge bank folder that summed up "co-worker Ben". The information didn't have any real bearing on my ability to do my job, so she filed it away as a simple explanation to resolve the apparent discrepancy in my previous "San Bruno" comment. And we both moved on.
Of course, while the San Francisco stalkerazzi weren't anywhere near as intense as in the Big Apple, the media still eventually figured out that Adrienne and I had a roommate – and a beautiful, busty brunette at that. Given Adrienne's well-known bisexual orientation – not to mention Sasha's physical resemblance to the masked brunette in the online sex tape – the rumors of course started flying. At first, we'd planned to go ahead and admit that I was dating the two women at the same time, even if we didn't go out of our way to advertise the fact. But after Sasha got a glimpse of life under the microscope, she lost her nerve a bit and decided she'd rather keep a low profile – an old habit from her stripper days.
So both Adrienne and I publicly stated that Sasha was merely our old college classmate and that we didn't even become friends with her until my Junior year – long AFTER the date on the sex tape – so she couldn't be the one from the video. So the rumors never became anything more than rumors, and when People Magazine's Most Beautiful Person in the World, Ashlyn Scott, turned up pregnant with Jonathan Kwong's baby, let's just say that the world at-large ceased to really care about determining Sasha's actual relationship to us.
Kim proved to be a little simpler for the media to figure out, and also became the juicier story. Public record showed that I was BJ's father, so there had been a minor scandal when he was born. For weeks, various tabloids published articles about how angry Adrienne was with me, how betrayed she felt, and claimed that I'd hidden my baby mama from her all this time, as Kim had remained living with her family in Sunnyvale right up until BJ's birth. None of us paid those stories any mind, and both Kim and BJ moved into their bedroom next to mine. But when Adrienne continued to make public appearances with me as her boyfriend while Kim and BJ were living with us, and she stated on camera that the situation was no big deal, the furor died down pretty quickly.
Adrienne partied less(ish), stayed away from drugs, and generally became pretty boring as far as the tabloids were concerned. Sasha went to work, hung out with us as a group, and avoided any overt public displays of affection. And Kim squired BJ around town running errands and generally kept the lowest profile of any of us.
We were boring. We never did anything flashy. We never got into trouble. And we didn't even try to hide. We just went about our daily lives as if the media didn't exist, and after a while they really started to NOT exist, since their pursuits of some kind of story continually came up fruitless to the point where they simply stopped trying. As far as anyone was concerned, Adrienne was my girlfriend, Sasha was our roommate, and Kim was my baby mama. Nothing more than that; nothing else to report. There weren't many paparazzi based in San Francisco to begin with, unlike New York or L.A., and the few that there were moved on to find more newsworthy fish to fry.
Of course, some of my co-workers would never stop being curious about my complicated personal life, and they continued to make not-so-subtle inquiries into the subject even a year later. I didn't hang out with those people that much. The media told them whatever it could figure out, and I didn't talk about anything beyond that. So while the latest public adventures of my world-famous girlfriend still came up as topics of conversation at the many team dinners, All Hands meetings, and other company functions, folks were used to getting non-answers from me. I still wasn't the best liar, but I'd gotten pretty good at "no comment". And if that didn't work, I'd start gushing about how adorable BJ was, how he was growing up so fast, and how foul smelling even the smallest nugget of poop in his diaper could be, and the career-driven single businessmen I worked with quickly found ways to exit the conversation.
But I couldn't completely become a closed book. The world of business is a social place, so I made nice with other co-workers, went out to bars with them, and generally got along with everyone. The surface level stuff – like where I'd grown up, how many siblings I had, and where I'd gone to school – was freely shared. The deeply personal stuff, on the other hand, was just that: personal. Thankfully, most people respected that, some people became actual friends, and a select few even got to meet Adrienne, Sasha, Kim, and BJ at one time or another.
Still, only one had ever actually been inside my apartment: June.
She and I worked together. We worked together a LOT. JKE paid very well, but it demanded a great deal of time and energy, and nobody worked only forty hours a week. Those first few months were trial by fire, and I can't say with any certainty that I would have gotten through them without her help. And since 20-year-old June still lived at home with her parents in San Bruno, at some point it just became easier to invite her over to my place instead of remaining at the office into the late hours of the night or meeting up at a coffee shop. Quieter, too.
That was back in July, well before BJ arrived and Kim moved in. My only roommates were Adrienne and Sasha, and I'd called ahead to warn them that June was coming over to do some work together after dinner. (I'd never forget what happened the last time I brought home a 20-year-old sheltered Asian co-worker without calling ahead first). June was polite, almost formally so, and accepted the brief tour of the apartment before filing it away as another data point in her knowledge bank. And within five minutes of her arrival, we got down to our work assignments.
It was no big deal. June didn't tip off the media or snoop around. When we were done with work she'd pack up and leave. And our projects were demanding enough that she wound up coming by the apartment at least twice a week.
Brandi, Dayna, and Kevin would also visit several times a week. We lived so close and had the larger apartment, so it only made sense for them to come to us. Group dinners were regular affairs, and if June and I were going to do work in the evening, then she might as well join us for the meal as well instead of eating in a restaurant by herself. She became a frequent enough visitor that everyone got used to her presence. And since my relationships with both Adrienne and Sasha were an open secret, neither of my girlfriends had much reason to hide their displays of affection. We weren't fucking on the dining table or anything, but comfortable caresses and tender kisses were commonplace.
Then Dayna's and Kevin's relationship fell apart. It had been fraying for a while, well before June started joining us, but she had a front row seat to some of their fights that took over our apartment at one group dinner or another. At first, the couple would realize they were making a scene and would excuse themselves to continue the fight in their apartment downstairs. But by early-August they sort of ceased to care about making a ruckus, and June and I would usually find some way to excuse ourselves into my bedroom to do our work.
Dayna became a near-constant presence in the apartment after the break-up. Here, she had close friends willing to listen, ready and willing shoulders to cry on, and even intimate companions for sexual relief, myself included. She and I never once had sex in the two months between the time I moved in and the time she and Kevin broke up, since she was trying very hard to become the committed, monogamous wife-type she thought he wanted her to be. But about a week after things ended, the self-proclaimed nymphomaniac asked me for a therapeutic pounding, and we'd been fucking ever since.
As I mentioned, neither Adrienne nor Sasha did anything to hide their displays of affection in front of June. Once she started fucking me, neither did Dayna. And the third time June visited after the first time I'd become Dayna's booty call, she asked me point blank if I was also having sex with the busty blonde.
I'd trusted June thus far, and would continue to do so. I told her the truth, she filed away the data point, and that was that. We got back to work. No big deal. And then last month, when Dayna and I became "official", I told June the truth again.
Of course, there were limits as to how much "truth" June wanted to deal with. There were very few people to whom I could talk about my personal life, and many of them were scattered all over the state. So once I started to get comfortable trusting June with the realities of my complicated relationships, I became more and more willing to say things I wouldn't say to almost anyone else outside of the inner circle.
For example, there was a day when I barely managed to stay conscious on a Monday morning in the office, and when June asked why I was so tired I merely shrugged and admitted that my three girlfriends had teamed up on me and fucked me within an inch of my life. She made a face and didn't want to hear any more about it. I quickly learned that any discussion of sex made her uncomfortable, the way a 12-year-old virgin might get squirmy about the topic, and I went back to not really saying much about it.
There were other times when she actually seemed curious to learn more "truth". I would sometimes mention something about "my girlfriend" and June would find herself asking "Which one?" Those times, as long as the story didn't involve something sexually explicit, she would listen to my story with interest and occasionally even comment about it.
And there was even one night in my bedroom, our work finished for the night, when I found myself rambling about my lost relationship with Dawn and how even though we'd gotten back on friendly terms, she mostly stayed in Berkeley being a student, and neither of us went out of our way to increase the number of times we saw each other. June listened to everything intently, absorbing the entire tale as if it were her favorite daytime soap opera.
I didn't talk about everything, of course. Certain secrets remained just that: secret. The intimate nature of my relationship with Brandi, for example, went strictly unspoken; while my three girlfriends were open with their PDA, Brandi had much tighter control over her impulses whenever someone outside the family was around. The Master/sub relationship I had with Kim was another aspect of my life that was never shown to June. But in general, the mundane realities of my domestic life were fair game as topics of conversation with her, and in return, I started to get to know more about June, too.
She had a little sister, Eve, just a little older than my own baby twin sisters. June felt bad, because Eve had never been the superstar student that she was. Eve hadn't skipped any grades and didn't get a perfect score on the SAT. And most egregious of all, Eve hadn't been accepted into Stanford, her father's alma mater.
June had been an avid badminton player until her early teens, but the academic pressure her parents put on her had taken away all of her free time in favor of advanced after-school study programs. Her parents brought in a piano teacher to give both girls lessons at home, but the two sisters never did anything social or related to sports.
And on the ridiculously uncomfortable (for her) topic of sex, June eventually confessed to me that she'd never even kissed a boy, let alone engaged in any kind of sexual intercourse. When it came to the four bases, the girl was still in the batter's box not even attempting to swing at a pitch. Hell, one could argue that she was still in the dugout.
But lest you think I began working my Big Ben magic on her with the goal of adding a new virgin notch to my ever-expanding belt, that sort of the thing was the very LAST thing on my mind. June was my friend, and my co-worker, and one of the very few women I'd ever met who knew of my reputation and didn't let it affect her. Her friendship meant way more to me than any potential for conquest, and I went out of my way to treat her with kid gloves and make sure she understood I'd never do such a thing.
Plus, near as I could tell, June was the least sexual person I'd ever met. Seriously, I wondered if the girl even HAD hormones. I watched her from time to time, trying to figure her out. I never caught her checking out a hot guy, even the shirtless ones with great abs in front of the Abercrombie & Fitch store. For about a month I made up my mind that she was a closet lesbian, except that I never caught her checking out a hot girl either, and I pretty much had all types of hot girls hanging around my apartment.
June had no interest in guys. She had no interest in girls. She'd never been kissed and didn't really want to be. And forget the concept of having sex. The whole thing seemed icky and gross to her and the one time I asked her about eventually getting married and procreating, she said she never wanted to marry and thought that maybe they'd find a solution for cloning if she ever thought about passing along her genes.
I wondered if she'd ever even masturbated in her entire life. Probably not.
June was a practically a machine. She slept, ate, and felt emotions like frustration, anger, and satisfaction, but she pretty much lived to work and that was it. It made no sense to me. I'd met workaholics, and Sasha was a pretty driven person, but Sasha at least had a passionate side underneath that career-oriented exterior. June, on the other hand, didn't seem to care about anything except her job. No real interest in music, movies, or the arts. She wasn't a tech-geek or a video gamer. And she didn't care about luxurious things or have much interest in exotic vacations.
I didn't get her at all. I couldn't understand how any human being could LIVE like that. I'd idly wondered if she was a high-functioning autistic, maybe Asperger's. I once thought about "fixing" her via Big Ben Experience brain scrambling, although I'd dismissed that thought immediately. At the end of the day, June was June, and it wasn't my place to try and change her. She was smart, hard-working, and willing to help me out. And when it came to dealing with the pressures of this job, I sometimes wished there were three more like her.
Of course, she expected ME to carry my own weight, too. I was sifting through my stack of emails, judging what I would need to address today and what could wait until after I came back from vacation when the sound of plastic wheels on hard-packed commercial carpet sounded behind me.
I turned around to see a still-seated June walking her desk chair around the 42-inch tall partition between us, an expectant look on her face.
"Stop daydreaming," she grumbled. "I know you've mentally got one foot out the door already, but I'm going to have to deal with all your crap while you're on vacation and we have work to do."
11:48 AM
"Knock, knock."
June and I had both been staring at my monitor, but we simultaneously looked back and found one of our co-workers standing at the entrance to my cube, his knuckles still on the plastic edge of the partition he'd just knocked on.
Rakesh smiled down at us. "Hey, you guys hungry yet?"
June blinked, glanced at my clock, and replied, "It's not even noon. The market's open for another hour."
Standing up straight, Rakesh head-nodded down the aisle. "It's Friday and Kamar wants to go to Tadich. The line probably is already out the door."
I nodded, about to agree. As close as we worked together, it wasn't uncommon for me to join my co-workers for lunch while June stayed behind. Oh, she came along occasionally, to maintain at least a minimal amount of socialization under the rationalization that doing so would improve cooperative efficiency. But she rarely did so before the market closed, and certainly not when we had the volume of work to go through today.
But June gave me a death stare as I started to get out of my chair. I shrugged and remarked, "What? It's Friday. Nothing big happens in the last hour on a Friday."
"We've got a mountain of work to get through before you leave me juggling all your crap," she complained.
"But we've still gotta eat," I argued. "And if you want to discuss work, then come along."
June shook her head. "We're staying here. You can run out to The Sentinel and bring back a couple of sandwiches. You like The Sentinel," she reasoned and turned to face the monitor again, the discussion over as far as she was concerned.
I sighed and sank back into my seat. Did I mention June was bossy? Especially for someone two years younger than me, possibly the youngest person in the entire building. I was one of the very few in the office that wasn't put off by her demeanor – probably one of the reasons she liked me so much. Some of the others bristled and barked back, but we'd long established that I wasn't the Alpha type and didn't get flustered just for not getting my way.
With a shrug for Rakesh, I waved him off and said, "Next time, man. Have a good lunch."
He nodded. "Have a good vacation. Try not to think about work while you're out."
"I'll try." I chuckled and gestured at June. "But knowing her, she's still gonna call my cell phone every three hours to talk about our projects."
Rakesh's eyebrows popped, and he warned, "More true than you want to think about." He grinned, turned, and headed back toward the others.
I turned back to face the monitor, and without looking at me June commented dryly, "Two hours. I'll be calling you every two hours."
"You're welcome to try," I replied with a smirk, knowing full well they didn't have cell reception where I was going. June knew it too, and for half a second she glanced at me and smiled as well. The girl wasn't entirely without a sense of humor.
But just as we started to get back into our work, my cell phone started buzzing in my pocket. Pulling it out, I checked the display, smiled, and answered. "Heyyy. It's not even noon. What are you doing awake at this early morning hour?"
"Who, me? I've been up for hours," Adrienne insisted before laughing. "Well, I've been up long enough to miss you. Come home for lunch?"
"You mean 'breakfast' for you."
"Whatever. I have to see you. Can you come home or do I need to waltz into your office again?"
"Nooo," I replied immediately, and she laughed on the other end of the line, knowing exactly what she'd threatened me with. The last time Adrienne had arrived unannounced, she'd literally stopped the whole company in its tracks. You'd think that people working at a company with Taylor Brynn married to the Owner/President would be a lot more blasé about a pretty girl walking into their midst. But like I said: all the movers and shakers were in New York, and Taylor and her model friends didn't visit the San Francisco office very much. So of course all the co-workers with their not-so-subtle inquiries into my personal life had gotten stirred up again.
"Well either you're coming to me or you'll have to deal with the consequences of me coming to you," she insisted.
By now I noticed that June was looking pretty annoyed with me. With a sigh, I replied, "It's my last day in the office before our vacation and there's a ton of stuff we've got to go over. Do you really want June calling me every two hours?"
"There's no cell reception where we're going, so she's shit outta luck."
"Exactly. I gotta take care of this today."
"Your funeral. Looks like I'm coming to you."
"No ... no ... don't do that." I pinched my forehead and rubbed with thumb and middle finger. "Let's meet halfway. Any kind of food you're in the mood for?"
"You can't just come home?" Adrienne complained.
At the same time, June gave me a look and muttered, "We've got work."
I stared back at my work partner and said, "We've still gotta eat, June. Look, we got a lot of stuff done this morning. Harmon's pretty much put to bed."
"We still need to get Cytherion sorted before you leave," she grumbled.
"And we will. We have the whole afternoon and I'll stay late if I have to. If it'll make you feel better, come with me and we can start talking about Cytherion on the way."
"Tiger..." Adrienne began in a warning tone over the phone.
"Fine," June replied with a sigh. She could be bossy, but she knew better than to try and pull rank over one of my girlfriends. Standing up, she asked, "Where are we going?"
"Meet us halfway, Adrienne," I said into the phone. "Café Soleil?"
My girlfriend sighed. "Just remember that this was your idea."
I frowned. "You like Café Soleil."
"I do, but food wasn't what I wanted you to come home for. I miss you, Tiger. It's been too long."
I blinked, only now recognizing what Adrienne meant. She'd gone out to a party with friends for the evening last night after dinner and had taken Sasha with her, and I'd enjoyed a threesome with Brandi and Dayna. The girls wore me out and I'd fallen asleep before Adrienne came home, so it hadn't been since Wednesday, nearly two days, since the last time My Tigress and I had made love. She wanted me to come home for a nooner.
My eyebrows rose, and I glanced across the low partition at June. The Chinese girl had already returned to her cube, locked her workstation, and retrieved her purse. I weighed the possibility of telling June that she couldn't come anymore, that instead of going to lunch I was going home to fuck my supermodel girlfriend, but after a moment's thought I decided against it. I really DID need to eat – that cold blueberry bagel hadn't even replaced the calories I'd burnt during my ordinary morning – June and I WOULD be able to talk about work, and Adrienne and I were about to go on a two-week vacation together. There would be plenty of opportunities for sex at a time that didn't interfere with my last day of work. Going two days without dick wasn't the end of the world, and if she'd already waited this long, a few extra hours wouldn't kill her.
"I'm sorry," I apologized into the phone. "I'll make it up to you when I get home, but I've really got to get work done today. Do you even want to meet us for lunch or just cancel?"
"No, no, of course I want to at least see you. Besides, did you tell June about my offer?"
"No." I rolled my eyes and stared right at the subject in question, who folded her arms and stood impatiently at the entrance to my cube. "I started to this morning, but you know her. Within these walls it's 100% work."
"I know. Well this way I can tell her in person."
"I dunno. I still think the timing's weird, what with us about to leave and all. We really should just wait until we get back."
"No, it's fine. We both know she's going to say 'no', anyway. But put the idea in her head, let her think about it, and maybe in two weeks she'll actually let me DO something when we get back."
"Maybe..." I conceded. "So ... Café Soleil?"
"Sure," Adrienne agreed.
June made a face and complained, "Isn't that a fancy place? The wait time is going to be forever."
Arching an eyebrow, I looked up at her and remarked, "You don't eat out with Adrienne that much, do you?"
12:20 PM
"Right zis way, Mees Denneez," the maître d' gestured ebulliently with an outstretched arm. "Zo gud to zee you agayn."
"Thank you, Pierre." Adrienne beamed at the portly middle-aged man, a twinkle in her eye as she led June and me past the twenty-odd people clustered around the sidewalk and lobby of the posh restaurant. We were seated in a prime corner booth and our waiter was waiting for us as Pierre returned to the lobby. He asked for drinks, I ordered an Arnold Palmer, June got a regular iced tea, and Adrienne said cheerfully, "My usual. Thanks, Jimmy!"
June's eyebrows went up. "I take it you guys are regulars here?" She glanced back at the packed waiting area.
"Kinda. There are very few restaurants in the entire city that wouldn't bend over backward for her," I explained. "But it certainly makes it easier that we come here relatively often. Of course, if -I- ever arrived by myself, I'd have to wait in line just like everyone else."
June smiled at that and opened her menu. She took one look at the first page and her eyes promptly bugged out. "Wow ... this place is expensive."
"Relax, my treat," Adrienne soothed.
"No, it's not that I can't afford it," June replied, her eyes still wide as she scanned the menu. "I just don't think I've ever spent this much on a meal. $35 for an entrée? How is that practical?"
"Sometimes eating out is not about 'practical'," Adrienne reasoned. "A restaurant is a business, drawing income in exchange for providing its customers with a complete experience."
I tapped the table and rubbed my ass into the leather booth seat, adding, "Physical comfort for example. We're not sitting in plastic swivel chairs bolted to the ground like at McDonald's."
"And the clientele here is less likely to walk up and ask for my autograph," Adrienne added with a grin.
"Something invaluable for someone like you, I suppose, but not someone like me," June commented. "Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about your choice in restaurant. Thank you very much for letting me come along. It's just that I don't particularly care for one chair over another, so long as it does the job. And while I'm sure the food here must be excellent--"
"It is," Adrienne put in.
June shrugged and continued, "I was never much of gourmet. I wouldn't be able to taste the difference between the finest quality Harris Porterhouse and the $7 sirloin special at Denny's."
I frowned. "You've eaten a steak at Denny's?"
June smiled and shook her head. "Well, no. Steak isn't really my thing in general. Not very healthy. As far as I'm concerned, eating food is a nutritional requirement, not something to be savored."
"Well I'm going to find you something you WILL savor," Adrienne insisted, picking up the menu and flipping through it.
"Thank you, but that's not necessary," June replied politely. "I'll just have the Caesar salad."
"Don't be ridiculous. We're at a nice French restaurant, so try something French. You don't order tacos at a burger joint."
"I don't eat tacos or burgers."
"That's beside the point. We're at a nice place and you need to at least try something new."
"I've never been here, so everything is new. I told you I couldn't really taste the difference between ordinary food and 'fine dining', so here's my chance."
"There's no such thing as a 'fine' Caesar salad. It's the same as at any other restaurant."
"Then why is it twenty-three dollars?"
"Because it's an overpriced Caesar salad!" Adrienne exclaimed, exasperated. "The point is to experience new flavors, to discover a unique dish you've never had before, not just get the slightly-upgraded version of something you eat all the time."
"The point is to feed myself lunch so that I can finish the rest of my work this afternoon without suffering reduced brain-function due to lack of nutrients."
"And why not take the opportunity to enjoy your food at the same time?"
"I enjoy Caesar salads."
"Nobody 'enjoys' Caesar salads!"
"I enjoy them as much as I enjoy any other food I regularly eat."
"Which is why I'm getting you something you don't regularly eat."
"Really, I'm fine with the Caesar."
"No you're not. I'm ordering something for you and you can also get your Caesar salad," Adrienne stated with finality. "I'll be paying for both, so it's immaterial what second dish I order. I only ask that you at least try my second dish out of courtesy for being my dining guest."
For a second it looked like June was going to continue to protest. But after a deep breath, she sighed and nodded. "Fine."
I was seated in the far corner of the booth, with Adrienne to my left and June to my right, and my eyes had been swiveling back and forth as the girls had their little standoff. Now that they'd stopped, I blinked a couple of times and tried to suppress a smirk. Arguing with June often felt like arguing with a computer: she was intelligent, rational to a fault, had her internal, pre-set logic, and nothing you could say would change her mind. More frustrating, she was almost always right.
Now she and Adrienne had rarely spoken to each other besides polite pleasantries whenever she came to the apartment. They were from completely different worlds, without much in common, and June wasn't the most verbose conversationalist in the first place unless the topic was something about work. To watch her now go up against Adrienne, who may have been less "bossy" in demeanor but was no less stubborn when she'd made up her mind, had been quite the little show.
Of course, I wasn't very good at suppressing the smirk, so after the two girls stared at each other for an extra awkward second or two and looked at me, I found that I'd become to focus of their ire.
"What?" Adrienne barked at me.
Wiping the smirk off my face, I raised my hands and shook my head. "Leave me out of this."
June took a deep breath and spoke up. "This is my fault. I'm intruding on what would normally be a pleasant lunch for the two of you. Perhaps I should return to the office."
"No, no. Please stay," Adrienne quickly interjected, extending a hand palm-forward across the table. Then, she turned to gesture to our waiter, who had been standing just off to the side with a tray of our drinks in hand, waiting for a break in our conversation rather than interrupt it. And as Jimmy stepped forward and set forth Adrienne's custom Appletini in addition to June's and my drinks, Adrienne glanced at me and muttered, "Maybe you were right. This may have not been such a good idea."
June's eyebrows rose. "So, I should go?"
"No, no, not that," Adrienne repeated, an apologetic look on her face.
"It was the thing I was trying to ask you about this morning," I began. Meanwhile, Adrienne looked up at Jimmy and ordered all of our meals, including a Caesar salad for June in addition to the new dish she wanted June to try. Once he left, I got June's attention again and explained, "She wants to give you a makeover."
June blinked in surprise. "A makeover?"
"Honey..." Adrienne nodded sagely. "You need a makeover."
June frowned and glanced down at her attire. She always dressed the same: dull-colored Macy's pantsuit that did nothing to flatter her figure, collared shirt beneath the jacket buttoned all the way up, no jewelry, no facial makeup to speak of, and her dark hair pulled tight into a bun. Glancing back up at both me and Adrienne, she arched an eyebrow and said, "I look fine."
"Well there's fine," Adrienne explained, "and then there's fine."
"Thank you, but that's really not necessary," June replied before shooting me a dirty look. Adrienne was giggling. That's because at the exact same time June had replied, I'd sat up straight, canted my head to the side, and simultaneously stated politely, "Thank you, but you can take that makeover and shove it."
I looked at June's death stare and shrugged, adding, "What? That's basically what you meant to say."
June huffed and rolled her eyes.
Adrienne grinned mirthfully and commented, "Which one of you is barely old enough to legally drink?"
"You can be so immature sometimes," June scoffed, shaking her head.
"I'm enjoying my life," I replied with a shrug and a smile. "Something about being around you so much brings this out in me. You're always wound up so tight, and it makes me wanna loosen up for the BOTH of us."
June rolled her eyes again and brought her attention to Adrienne. Once more adopting the formal politeness, she restated, "Thank you for your offer, but I'm comfortable with my present appearance."
"I realize that," Adrienne admitted, "but after a year of seeing you show up to the apartment wearing the same thing day after day after DAY ... I can't take it anymore. I have to DO something."
June frowned. "But aren't you going on vacation tomorrow?"
"That's what -I- said," I grumbled.
"Really, I just wanted to put the idea in your head and give you some time and space to think about it." Adrienne shrugged hopefully. "If you're interested, you and I can start discussing ideas when we get back."
June pursed her lips and took a deep breath.
"She's gonna start another sentence with 'thank you' right now," I commented.
June gave me another death stare, and from the way she screwed up her mouth it looked like she really was fighting the urge to start her next sentence with 'thank you'. Instead, she schooled her face into an inscrutably blank poker face and managed to reply, "I appreciate your consideration. You are a beautiful woman, and I'm sure you have what is considered by society as impeccable taste. But I'm no fashion model, and I certainly don't have a body that's anything like yours. I honestly don't believe the kind of clothing you wear would be appropriate for someone like me."
Adrienne shook her head. "I wasn't going to dress you like me. I realize that 'flashy' isn't your thing, and you're not out to draw unwanted attention to yourself. I was thinking something more along the lines of Brandi: beautiful, feminine, and yet tasteful. Nothing huge, just a few additions to your wardrobe, a little bit of makeup, and we could play around with different hairstyles that might suit you."
June blinked. "This may come as a surprise to you, but not every young woman feels the need to 'get dolled up'."
"Evidently. You're Exhibit A," Adrienne agreed, gesturing at June.
"I'm comfortable being who I am, and dressing the way I do. I don't need to wear makeup just because I'm a woman. I don't require that others approve of my appearance to feel good about myself."
Adrienne arched an eyebrow and said, "Are you implying that I do?"
"I'm not implying anything about you, only stating a simple fact about myself."
"Fair enough. But I'm not suggesting that I give you a makeover to try and make you feel any better about yourself."
"Then why are you?"
"To give you a taste of something other than a Caesar salad," Adrienne stated seriously. "This is a situation just like the food. I'm not going to hold a gun to your head and force you to wear different clothes out in public. All I'm suggesting is that you've lived every day of your life wearing slightly different versions of the same thing. Sure, maybe doing that is all that is required for you to maintain physical modesty and function in the world at large, but sometimes living life is about going beyond the minimal requirements and trying something new. You don't want a makeover? Fine. No big deal. But I wanted to at least present you with the opportunity to try and find out if you might like it, no strings attached."
Shaking her head slowly, June began, "Thank you for the offer, but I just don't think it's the right thing for me."
"Not asking you to change who you are or what you're comfortable with. Not even asking you to make a decision here and now. I'm just suggesting that in a couple of weeks when Ben and I get back from vacation, whenever you have some free time, you come by the apartment, we kick Ben out so that there aren't any prying eyes, and you try on a couple of outfits in complete privacy. I can apply some subtle makeup, do up your hair a little differently. You can decide if you like it or not, and we scrub your face clean before you leave the room. No pressure. Nothing risked but a little bit of your time."
June pursed her lips and turned that over in her head. I could almost see her brain tissue humming with energy behind her eyes. And if Adrienne had simply left her alone with her thoughts, I honestly think June would have come around and been willing to at least give it a try.
But my impatient paramour went ahead and added, "I see the potential in you. You may be perfectly comfortable presenting yourself to the world with this monochromatic, uncaring approach to your appearance. But with just a few small adjustments and enhancements, you could be beautiful. And maybe even a little ... sexy."
Wrong thing to say. I saw the brick walls slam down behind June's eyes as she sat up straight, gave the death stare to Adrienne, and struggled to be polite as she bit out, "Thank you for your offer, but I must respectfully decline. Being seen as beautiful ... and sexy ... may be of great interest to you and your friends, but I don't value those things in the slightest. I am quite comfortable in my own skin. And my apologies, but I don't think it's your place to dictate how I should present myself to the world."
Instantly on her heels, Adrienne grimaced and began, "I know, and I didn't mean to imply that--"
"It's fine," June cut her off. "You're not the first one to suggest I change the way I dress, and I don't take it personally. I realize the idea that my outward appearance isn't important to me is hard for someone in your line of work to wrap her head around. And I know I should feel flattered that someone as famous and busy as Adrienne Dennis would want to spend her personal time and energy on me. So thank you for your offer, but my answer is 'no'."
The girls fell into an awkward silence, and again my eyes swiveled back and forth between them. But looking up, I managed to catch our waiter's attention and subtly invite him over, and Jimmy promptly came up to the table with a beaming smile as he said, "Your food should be out in just a moment. Is there anything else I can get you in the meantime?"
Although Adrienne had been the primary person interacting with the restaurant staff since our arrival, right now she didn't even look up at him. It was clear that she hadn't won this little argument, and for a girl not used to losing, she looked a little unsure of how to handle it.
But June smiled up at the waiter and replied politely, "Thank you very much. But we're fine for now."
Still maintaining his 'happy waiter' smile, Jimmy nodded and glanced over at me. He could feel the frosty chill in the air, and with popped eyebrows he gave me an almost apologetic look. He left, we fell into another awkward silence, and I wondered exactly how we'd go from here.
2:06 PM
"Cytherion shares dropped to 13.03 this afternoon, which puts its market capitalization at 236.2 Mil," I explained, tapping my monitor with the butt-end of my ball point pen.
Staring at her own laptop, which sat on top of my desk right next to me, June muttered, "Uh-huh..."
"It's their underperforming processor sales that are sinking them, but their last quarter earnings in the graphics card division actually went up 10% year-over-year, otherwise their shares would be even lower. I really don't think they're gonna drop below 13. But if anything happens in the next two weeks, and it hits 12.5, that's when you go tell Hye-Kyoung."
Still staring at her screen, June nodded and muttered, "Uh-huh..."
Arching an eyebrow, I glanced over at her and continued, "Because we both know that NVIDIA would be happy to acquire Cytherion's Hello Kitty Beanie Baby foundries for the right price, while we shuffled off the processors to McDonald's in exchange for two Big Macs and a large fries."
June nodded and muttered, "Uh-huh..."
With a sigh, I grabbed the armrest of June's desk chair and rotated her to face me. "Seriously? Two Big Macs and a large fries?"
She stared at me in confusion. "Two big what?"
"Right, you don't eat burgers." I took a deep breath. "What's going on? You're the one insistent that we need to get through this today, and it's not like you at all to drift off like that ... again..."
Blinking rapidly, June pursed her lips. With furrowed eyebrows and an expression that plainly said she didn't understand either, she shook her head to clear it and looked straight at me with fresh eyes. "I'm sorry. Won't happen again."
I arched an eyebrow. "You sure? That's twice you've started daydreaming in the last half-hour, which by my count is two more times than you've daydreamed in the last year."
She gave me an annoyed look. "I wasn't 'daydreaming'."
I folded my arms. "Then what were you thinking about?"
She blinked rapidly again and a rosy color filled her porcelain white cheeks. June didn't get much sunlight, and the pink shade was pretty obvious on her pale skin.
"Are you blushing?"
"What? NO," she retorted, although her eyes went wide and she glanced around to make sure no one else was near us. Fortunately, the people assigned to the cubes nearest to us weren't around, either still at our typical late-Friday lunches after the market closed or otherwise elsewhere.
"You're blushing!" I exclaimed.
Eyebrows raised, June glared at me with the kind of expression that plainly said to "keep it down". But the rosy pink climbed up to her ears, and she turned her chair back toward her laptop while looking away as she took a deep breath to fight for calm.
"What is it?" I asked, gently and much more quietly.
Still staring somewhere into the distance above the top of her laptop, she shook her head slowly and sighed. "It's nothing. I'm fine."
"Don't lie to me, please."
Her eyes darted to mine for just a moment. "I'm not lying."
I arched an eyebrow skeptically. "Well you're not 'fine'."
Grimacing and rubbing her forehead, June appeared at a loss for what to do. The wheels were still cranking in her head, but her lips were pursed and she took deep, calming breaths, her nostrils flaring with each inhalation.
I glanced around as well to make sure that nobody was around, and leaned forward to grab both armrests of her desk chair and turn it to face me again. June continued to avoid my eyes, but she clasped her hands together in her lap and didn't resist.
"Hey ... this is me," I soothed. "Whatever's going on, you can talk to me."
"It's nothing," she repeated.
"It's something, and it probably has to do with lunch. You've been distracted ever since we got back."
"I'm fine. I can handle it."
"I don't doubt that you can handle anything you set your mind to," I said sincerely. "But even the strongest people on earth can use someone to talk to every now and again."
June thought about that for a long few seconds, and finally she brought her gaze to mine. She wasn't crying or anything, but there was moisture in her eyes, which she discovered when she reflexively wiped the right one and was surprised to find a teardrop on her fingertip.
She immediately stood up, rolled her chair back behind her, and rapidly marched out of my cube. Surprised, at first I simply watched her walk away. But when she walked right past her own cube and kept on going, I quickly scrambled after her.
The situation didn't warrant causing a scene, but I followed at a brisk walk and extended my stride to make sure I caught up. She made a right turn at the end of the aisle and headed toward the exit, which made me wonder if she'd planned on running all the way home. Rakesh and Kamar were coming in the opposite direction and said 'hello', but June ignored them completely. When they gave me a curious look and Rakesh actually pointed at her, I gave them a hapless shrug that said I didn't know what was going on either.
June automatically waved her security badge at the RFID reader beside the main doors to exit the cube farm. I caught up to her, badged out myself, came alongside her in the exterior hallway, and suggested, "Hey ... slow down."
She took one glance at me and abruptly turned into the doorway on our right, leading me into one of the conference rooms in this section of the office between the lobby and the cube farm.
"Close the door," June commanded over her shoulder as she bypassed the light switch and went straight for the table. To her left were internal windows between the conference room and the hallway. There were privacy blinds on them, but she left them open; anyone outside would be able to see us and recognize that the room was occupied, though they wouldn't be able to hear our conversation. On the other side of the room were floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over Market Street, eleven floors below. There were no curtains or drapes on that side, letting in enough illumination that we didn't need the overhead lights, but I knew the outer surface was mirrored so that no one could see in anyway.
Having closed the door behind me, I followed June, waited for her to take a seat, and sat down in the chair beside her. I remained silent while she clasped her hands on top of the table and gathered her thoughts. And when she finally took a deep breath and turned to face me, I did my best to give her my most reassuring and attentive expression.
"What do you think of me?" she asked quietly.
I blinked in surprise, furrowed my eyebrows, and asked, "What?"
Pursing her lips, June shook her head slowly from side-to-side and clarified, "What do you think of me as a person? As a co-worker or as ... as a friend?"
Still a little confused, I began slowly, "Well ... I..."
"Do you consider me a friend?" she interjected. "Not just a co-worker?"
"Of course."
Blinking twice, she raised her eyebrows and asked, "Seriously?" There was obvious doubt in her voice.
Sitting up straight, I gave her an honest look and replied, "Yes, I think of you as a friend, not just a co-worker. We've been spending all this time side-by-side for over a year now. I don't bring any other co-workers by my apartment, do I? And I certainly don't tell them about my ridiculously complicated love life."
June pursed her lips together, looked away from me, and thought about that. Taking another deep breath, she glanced up at me and admitted, "I don't have many friends. I mean really..." Her voice drifted off for a moment. "I guess you could say I only have one: You."
I blinked in surprise again. "Me? C'mon, what about old college friends?"
She shook her head. "Don't keep in touch with them."
"None of them?"
She popped her eyebrows for a second, gave me an almost embarrassed look, and shook her head slowly again. "I never became that close to any of them. I had project teammates, and classmates, but I didn't socialize much. Too busy with my studies. And I lived at home while everyone else got apartments around Palo Alto."
With a smile, I said, "Maybe you could've come stayed with me for the little while that I lived in Palo Alto."
She frowned and gave me a confused look.
"I told you about the summer I spent at Stanford, didn't I?"
"Um ... I think you might've mentioned something like that during Orientation week in New York..." she hedged before shaking her head.
"Nevermind. Not important."
"It wouldn't have mattered," she explained. "I got to campus when I was fifteen. I didn't really have much in common with anyone else."
"Yeah I'll bet. But now? No old high school friends back in San Bruno?"
She shook her head again. "I graduated high school at fifteen. Didn't have much in common with any of them, either."
I winced, trying to imagine it would have been like for me to go through high school or college without any real friends.
"You said that even the strongest people on earth can sometimes use someone to talk to every now and again. Well I don't really have anyone else I can talk to."
"Your sister, Eve?"
June considered that for a moment, but sighed wearily. "Don't have much in common with her, either. I ... I mean maybe ... Okay maybe she might understand ... But I don't think ... I don't know that I'd feel comfortable talking about this with her."
"Your parents?"
She blushed again. "Not about something like this. Definitely not something like this."
"You still haven't told me what 'this' is."
Her blush deepened. The lights were off in the conference room, the only illumination coming from the big exterior windows, but it was enough to tell. She took a deep breath, gathering herself, and eventually she fixed me with a serious, intent look and said, "Do you want to have sex with me?"
To say that my jaw dropped would be an understatement. That would imply that it only fell the inch or so that my cranial bone structure would allow it to lower in relative elevation. Really, my jaw wound up eleven floors down in the main lobby of our office building. Nah, it wound up twelve floors down in the underground parking garage.
"I should explain," June began with a wince while my jaw flopped around in the parking garage like a fish out of water. I merely nodded that maybe she should. She clarified, "I'm not propositioning you, nor do I wish to jeopardize our friendship with any kind of physical complications. The sex part always gets in the way, or at least that's what they said in the movies."
The movie quote helped me find my voice. "When Harry Met Sally?"
June shrugged. "Dunno. Never saw it. Just sort of a common knowledge thing."
I blinked a couple of times and took a calming breath. "Okay..."
Swallowing nervously, June gave me a curious look and said, "Another bit of 'common knowledge' is that men pretty much want to have sex with every woman. If she's female and has working parts, the guy wants to have sex with her."
I furrowed my eyebrows. "Well, I wouldn't say every woman."
June's eyebrows rose. "Not the really ugly ones. The really fat ones. The ones so utterly repulsive that nauseating disgust overrides the male instinct to copulate."
I frowned, sensing where she was going with this. "If you mean to imply that you might be--"
"I misspoke before," she interrupted. "It's not a question of 'Do you want to', but rather, 'Would you' have sex with me?"
"June--"
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