The Diary Dilemma Read online

  “I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced,” he said as soon he joined the traffic. “I’m Johan.”

  “I know.” After another deep breath, she added, “Nice to meet you.” Realizing she was still holding on to the pepper spray, she hid it back in the bag.

  “Expecting trouble?” Johan asked, without any effort to conceal his smirk.

  “I might still use it. Why are you going home so late anyway?” Eda slapped her mouth as soon as she finished speaking. “It’s none of my business. I’m sorry.”

  Johan turned a sly smile as he stopped at a traffic light. “Where to?”

  “You don’t have to--”

  “I insist.”

  Eda recited the address from memory.

  “Why are you going home so late?” Johan asked.

  “It’s your fault.”

  “How come?”

  The excessive tiredness had effects previously unknown, such as talking without thinking and mild paranoia. Now that the proverbial cat was out of the bag, an explanation was due. Did Johan expect gratitude for the additional duties? “You’ve requested that all the communication between your company and us goes through me.”

  “And?”

  “And this is my first day. I had to familiarize myself with the project before the meeting tomorrow.”

  “Oh! I see. I’m sorry; I didn’t realize that. We can postpone the meeting and--”

  “That would render my efforts pointless. Plus, I don’t want to give Matilda the satisfaction. But seriously, what were you thinking?”

  Once more, the words seemed to form directly on her lips, with no proper thought. She wasn’t supposed to pick on the clients, especially one she just met. While she was expecting some acid remark, laughter came her way, and this time it didn’t seem to cover some inner pain as it had in the night of the party.

  “It was my only way out,” he explained. “I’d been in a meeting with that woman for two hours. If I have to repeat the experience, I’ll have a stroke or something.”

  “Matilda?”

  “Yes. I feel for you. Having to interact with her on a daily basis.”

  “Does anyone like her?” Eda asked.

  “I doubt it.”

  “This makes me feel bad for her. A little.” She felt his gaze fixed on her burning skin and struggled to find a way to push the conversation forward. “Why me?”

  “You’re the only person in the team I knew by name. Plus, Talia thinks highly of you.”

  The fact that he seemed so eager to please his future sister-in-law was revealing in itself. “Is her opinion good enough for you?”

  “Yes. She’s an excellent judge of character.”

  “Is this why she picked your brother?” Eda stopped just before the words ‘before you’ came off her lips. Her idea that there was or had at any time been something between him and Thalia was based solely on her instinct. Nobody knew how erroneous her instinct was better than her.

  Johan frowned. “Um, I suppose. My brother is very lucky.” For a few moments, silence ruled, while Johan opened his mouth a few times, trying to say something. The inner battle with himself ended quickly. “Talia means a lot to me. She was right about some things... She helped me through some of the hardest times I went through, so when she and Bud hooked up, I was overjoyed.”

  “You knew her before she met Bud?”

  “About a year before. That’s how they met.”

  “I thought they met at Bud’s bar.”

  “They did. Talia and I were supposed to meet there that night to discuss some sensitive issues with the project we were working on. I got held up because my wife was... Well, she had some issues. I asked Bud to make sure she’s not lonely, they started talking, and the rest is, as they say, history.”

  The car turned right on her street. Eda fixated the streetlights they were passing by; a word seemed to jump out of each one. Wife. She’d never considered a wife, and her disappointment at the discovery frightened her.

  She peeked at the hand he wrapped firmly around the wheel. “You’re not wearing a ring,” she noticed accusatively.

  “That’s because I’m not married anymore.”

  Johan stopped in front of the main entrance. She didn’t want to leave without extracting as much information as possible.

  “Divorce?”

  “She passed.” Johan’s stoic mouth curved downward.

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.” Both her sentences were untrue.

  “No worries. Is this your building?”

  Eda opened the door; in her rashness, the bag fell on the pavement. “Oh, s--!”

  She turned to Johan, forcing a smile she hoped didn’t turn out as crocked as it felt. “Sorry. Good night.”

  Just before she closed the door shut, he leaned over. “Eda...”

  “Yes?” she asked with a voice as tense as her stomach.

  Johan sighed. “Nothing. See you tomorrow.”

  She click-clacked on the pavement, inserting the key into the lock with a shaky hand. By the time she got into the building and turned to catch one more glimpse at him, the car was already moving away, leaving her feeling empty.

  What was happening to her? She’d hypothesized a love triangle that couldn’t be farther from the truth. If anything, he was still in love with his dead wife; that had to be the rough patch Talia had mentioned.

  Instead of pondering on his problems, she had to sort her own. These feelings towards him were nothing but a useless complication. But these feelings were at baby stage; she could choke them to death before they developed. She’d done it many times before; she could do it again.

  By the time she opened the door to her apartment, she’d decided not to entertain thoughts about Johan that were unrelated to work. She was still trying to convince herself of that when she stumbled on the luggage placed disorderly at the entrance. She shuffled deeper into the living room, where a silhouette was sleeping on the couch.

  “Polly!”

  Polly

  A wave of excitement replaced Eda’s exhaustion. Polly’s presence was enough for her to feel like a high school student. Memories of times long passed rushed in, re-establishing previous patterns. When Polly was around, she became the old Eda, the exciting, fearless, outgoing person she used to be before loneliness and excessive fear altered her DNA.

  The lines time had left on Polly’s face and the gray hair mattered not. She was still the one who dared Eda to do the craziest things and who dragged her to all kinds of parties and meetings.

  As impulsive as Polly was, flying from so far away without notice was too much. Eda’s heart cringed at the thought that her old friend might be in trouble.

  “Nothing’s wrong, girl!” Polly said while they were both sitting on the couch. “Our last call worried me, so I decided to come here and make sure you don’t lose yourself in all kinds of nonsense. You have to fill that diary.”

  “Are you sure that’s why you came?”

  Polly squeezed the flowery cushion tighter. “I also came because I miss my friend. But I guess you didn’t need me since you got here so late. Tell me, who’s the guy?” Polly winked complacently, seeing possible relationships everywhere, as she always had, fixing Eda with men more times than she cared to admit.

  “There is no guy,” Eda stressed.

  “Are you sure? You have that intense look you get every time you’re into someone.”

  “What intense look?”

  “This one,” Polly insisted. “You do fancy someone; you may not know it yet, but you do.”

  Eda pulled the pillow from Polly and threw it back into her face.

  “I didn’t get home so late because of some man. I got a job.”

  Polly’s face fell as she forced a yawn. “Tell me about your job,” she demanded. “But be brief; I don’t care that much about it.”

  “Most of my new colleagues seem okay. The boss is awful.”

  “Interesting! Do tell.” Polly leaned forward, her
attention seized.

  As she spoke, the fact that her description of Matilda was grossly exaggerated didn’t escape Eda. Yet, the anger she mustered for the woman didn’t let her pace herself.

  “I feel so bad about you,” Polly said, faking compassion. “I know how you feel. Remember that year when I worked at the groceries store over the summer? My boss was awful.”

  “Oh, don’t say it!” Eda exclaimed, covering her face with her palms.

  “What was it you told me then? Instead of judging what you don’t know, you’d better try to understand why she doesn’t like you."

  “I know what I said,” Eda spoke softly, the palms muttering her voice.

  “You were right. She thought I was after her husband, which was entirely untrue...”

  “I know!” Eda said, finally taking off the hands.

  “...and we ended up being good friends. We still are.”

  “I know you may have a point here,” Eda half-admitted.

  “May?” Polly stopped for a laugh. “I suppose Matilda may be an evil cow. That shouldn’t stop you from figuring out why. Maybe she thinks you’re after her husband.”

  “I don’t even know if she has one, but if she does, he has all my sympathies.”

  Although she tried, Eda couldn’t find a way to contradict Polly without being hypocritical. Matilda had started a war, intentionally or not, but a war couldn’t exist unless both parties agreed to fight. In the least, Eda decided to let Matilda fight on her own.

  Once she made that choice, she could understand why her new boss would feel her job threatened. All she had to do was assure her she had no intention of stealing it to alleviate the tension.

  Polly pulled her back from her thoughts. “Can I borrow your car tomorrow?” she asked, returning from the kitchen with a glass filled with red wine.

  “My car?”

  “I can drive you to work and pick you up in the evening. I want to do some sightseeing.”

  “Oh!” Until that moment, Eda hadn’t realized she had no wheels to get to the meeting the next day. “My car is still at the office. The engine didn’t start.”

  “How did you get here? A taxi?” Polly refilled her glass with wine.

  The bottle was almost empty, and Eda hadn’t drunk a drop. Worry was building up again. As far as she knew, Polly had no drinking problem.

  “A client brought me home.” As soon as the words were released, Eda didn’t doubt Polly would extract the last bit of information from her encounter with Johan, dissect every word and gesture, and draw rash conclusions.

  “A client? Was it a man?”

  Eda sighed. “Yes...”

  “A handsome one?”

  “It depends on your type, I guess.”

  Their conversation continued for another bottle of wine, with Polly constantly seeing a romantic angle that did not exist.

  Except it did exist, and Eda set to change that.

  “Look, even if I am interested in him—and I’m not saying I am—it wouldn’t work. He’s still hung up on his dead wife.”

  “Did he say that?” Polly asked.

  “It was implied.”

  Polly slammed the glass on the coffee table so hard it was a miracle it didn’t break into tiny pieces. “Implied? With you, implied means you’re jumping to conclusions without having all the facts. You always do that, girl! You have a tiny bit of information and invent the rest to form a theory. The only thing you know for sure right now is that his wife died, and he is still sad about it.”

  “It doesn’t change a thing!” Eda shouted, harsher than she intended. “I’m not going to be his second-choice wife, always to be compared with the first, the one he wants to be with. I can’t have that.”

  “Who’s talking about marriage? I’m saying that there seemed to be a spark there, and you should see where it leads.”

  “There is no spark!”

  “Yes, there is. He clearly likes you too.”

  Eda paced around the couch in anger. No, she wouldn’t be convinced of it and blamed the lack of good arguments against Polly on the tiredness.

  Gray

  “Follow me, please.”

  Eda sprung up, picked her bag, and began her trek after the model-sized receptionist.

  After visiting two multinational companies, Eda concluded they couldn’t be more different. After the warmness and glee that infused every floor of SOFTGENA, she now passed through hallways as frigid as the people populating them. Even the receptionist was wearing a gray suit that faded against walls of the same color.

  The door her guide opened had nothing to set it apart from the others they’d passed by, except the number on its frame, 4. She followed the receptionist inside.

  The conference room could’ve housed fifteen people, but it had one occupant. The same darkness from the night of the party wrinkled Johan’s eyes, his reflection and stoic posture standing out against the city view out the wall-sized windows. He turned absent-mindedly when the receptionist cleared her throat.

  “Eda! Nice to see you again.”

  “Same here,” she said as soon as they were alone. Slight hesitation. “Is everything alright?”

  “Why wouldn’t it be? Please sit.”

  They sat face to face, Eda inspecting him closely for any clues related to his situation.

  “Did you sleep well the rest of the night?” he asked.

  Eda displayed what she hoped was a painful grimace. “Not really.”

  “I hope I’m not the one to blame for that too.”

  Considering she’d spent one hour talking about him with Polly and another thinking about him before falling asleep, Eda couldn’t give an honest answer. “I hope I’m not the one to blame for your sleepless night,” she said.

  Johan’s eyes enlarged. “Oh?”

  “You have bags under your eyes.”

  He laughed. “Quite true.”

  The explanation she hoped he’d offer never arrived, so she fixed her gaze on the water glass right in front of her.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t postpone this meeting. It would’ve been best for both of us, but my company--”

  Eda raised her palm. “It’s fine. I’m ready to roll...kind of. I’ve seen in one communication that we’re expecting five other managers to join us.”

  Johan nodded, the smile vanishing. “That’s right. I don’t think they’ll all come to be honest. But they cover various parts of the supply chain, and their departments will be impacted by the software upgrade. I’d rather they don’t start with change requests soon after the program is completed like they did last time, so I called them to this discussion.”

  “Didn’t they give their input until now?”

  “Not as detailed as I would’ve liked.” Johan narrowed his eyes and leaned slightly forward. “So, why didn’t you sleep last night?”

  “A friend from my hometown paid me a surprise visit, and of course, we had to discuss the latest changes in my life before I was allowed to go to sleep.”

  “Did you talk about...um, about your new job?”

  “In painful detail.”

  Johan smiled. “Did you mention the fact that you are forced to take on new responsibilities because of your jerk client?”

  “I didn’t put it quite like that,” Eda answered, joining in his smile.

  An intense flowery scent reached her nostrils as a man and a woman entered the conference room. Eda’s smile cemented as Johan introduced her to the managers.

  Ever since she’d found out of this meeting, interior tremor became her constant companion, fearing she wasn’t prepared, and her failures would cause problems for the company, Talia, and Johan. She’d been gathering it all in a ball of nervousness centered in her forehead; a ball that spread stress to her entire body.

  From the moment the meeting began, the ball of stress melted into confidence together with the realization that this wasn’t all that different than her freelancing jobs. Same clients who knew nothing about what she could do for them, or
how the software modifications might help them. Same fixation on insignificant things. Same desire to reduce cost at all costs. In all these, her task remained the same—to manage their expectations and guide them to decisions that would benefit them as well as her company.

  This part seemed more difficult than usual; her efforts to gather more data from the managers drowned in disinterest.

  “I don’t think you understand, lady. I want to extract my reports, that’s it,” a 60+ man with a repulsive breath said. “I don’t care about the details or how the processing works.”

  “Mr. Brunt,” Eda started calmly. “The processing part will affect your team and, in turn, you. With a better understanding of what you need, we can offer alternative solutions that will cut the operational time and avoid the errors given by manual input. Our software can receive data from an EDI transmission which will go great lengths in using the same information on multiple platforms, thus giving your employees time to focus on other tasks.”

  During the endless conversation, Johan intervened from time to time, pacing the situation when the managers seemed to want to get to war.

  Did Johan fit into this culture? Even in friendships or romantic relationships, Eda couldn’t relate well with someone who didn’t care about their job. She’d met countless people like that over time, all having one of two excuses: either that they hated their jobs, or that their employer didn’t care about them either. None were justifications for lousy work.

  In this circumstance, she had to bite her lip and keep her opinions to herself, working that much harder to change their minds.

  “Fine, Ms. Hansen,” Brunt spit after hours of debate. “We will get in touch with the lower levels to have their take on this, and we’ll get back to you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have another meeting.”

  Eda forced her lips to form a confident smile until all the managers had left.

  “You did a great job,” Johan said, nearing with every word he spoke.

  “Thank you.” Her voice sounded tense, strangled even.

  “For what? I was congratulating myself for asking you to do this. You had an impact on them.”