Gorilla Dating Read online

  With that, he takes off at what could best be described as a sprint. Funny, my dad is Al’s age, and I don’t think he could move that fast if his life depended upon it.

  I sit back down at my computer and type in my password to unlock my system so I can check my e-mail.

  Amazing. A-stinkin’-mazing. Just in the time that I chatted with Al in the hallway, I’ve received three e-mails about the zoo project.

  To: [email protected]

  From:[email protected]

  Subject:Time-sensitive deadline

  You need to put together a slide deck by tomorrow (3:00) about the initial ideas for the zoo campaign. We are meeting with the Lone Star team Thursday morning. My notes are in my folder on the pubshare. Put the deck in my folder when you are through.

  No more than 10 slides.

  CR

  I see where this is headed. I have learned one thing for certain in my new job. Once something I’ve completed finds its way into Cindy’s folder on the shared drive, it automatically becomes the intellectual property of Cindy herself.

  It’s one of the more frustrating things about my role as an Assistant Account Executive, in all honesty. Still, Al just told me that he’s looking for good things from me on this project. So, presumably, since this is such a high-profile account, presumably, he’ll see our deck for the Lone Star meeting, and presumably, since he’s worked with the frigid, yet fiery monkey for a while, he’ll recognize that I did it and not Cindy.

  Presumably—and hopefully—speaking, of course.

  And then…there’s Lone Star Consulting’s Jack Cooper. If I can’t make headway with Cindy on this project, maybe I can get some attention from him. A positive word about my work to Al from the outside consultant could be exactly what I need to drop that “Assistant” from the beginning of my title.

  The next e-mail is a calendar invite.

  * * *

  To: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]

  From:[email protected]

  Subject:Meeting w/Lone Star

  Time:Thursday, May 24, 8:15 a.m. CST

  Location:Lone Star office 10th and Congress, 4th Floor

  Be there 15 minutes early. I will be presenting our slide deck.

  CR

  The calendar invite is quickly followed by some electronic brown-nosing. Or, is that “brown-mousing?” I may have to surf the web a little tonight and lay the groundwork to coin a new phrase.

  To: [email protected]

  From:[email protected]

  CC:[email protected]; [email protected]

  Subject:Re: Meeting w/Lone Star

  * * *

  Cindy,

  Will you need me to assist you in presenting to the Lone Star team? I believe this could be an opportunity for me to develop my presentation acumen.

  Laura Lynn

  * * *

  Presentation acumen? We used to play “corporate-speak bingo” at my last job. A bingo board gets filled with stupid office phrases instead of numbers, then everyone just quietly sits back and plays during meetings. One of my bosses, Joseph, was really terrible about saying things like “riding the bullet train to success” and “button down on our objectives.” Several times during a meeting, you’d hear a quietly whispered “bingo” as someone got five over-used phrases in a row. I now can’t get this memory out of my head.

  I smile. I had some great colleagues at the paper. There simply wasn’t a career path there for me anymore. I hated it, but I saw the writing on the wall and knew I needed to make a leap while I had a place to go. But my days here at Brown & Company are lonely…and sometimes, I wonder if I’ve made the right decision.

  I wanted to change my future.

  But is the future I’m creating going to bring me happiness?

  I close my eyes, and visualize myself at some fancy conference, maybe in a place like Geneva. The ballroom is packed with serious scientist types. Jane Goodall is standing there, introducing me:

  “And now, ladies and gentlemen, I know many of you think I did groundbreaking work with primates when I worked with chimpanzees in Gombe National Park, Africa. But that doesn’t even compare to this latest research by PR guru Kate Cormick. She has gone inside the world of chimps and cracked their language. Without Kate’s keen observation of the species, we would not know how verbose these creatures truly are…” The crowd breaks into applause.

  Beep.

  My computer makes a noise, cutting off what would have been my fabulous acceptance speech, to tell me I have more mail.

  To: [email protected]

  From:[email protected]

  CC:[email protected]; [email protected]

  Subject:Re: Meeting w/Lone Star

  * * *

  No.

  CR

  That was direct. I wonder if Laura Lynn has any second thoughts about her own future? Or am I the only person who worries about what’s next?

  2

  “There are uncanny similarities in the nonverbal communication patterns of chimps and humans - kissing, embracing, patting on the back, touching hands, tickling, swaggering, shaking the first, brandishing sticks, hurling rocks. And these patterns appear in similar contexts as those in which they are seen in humans. They mean much the same.”

  --Jane Goodall Institute’s “Chimpanzee Central”

  * * *

  I’ve noticed a bit of a statistical phenomenon over the course of my professional career. The time at which you leave work is directly proportional to how late you perceive the hour on the clock to be.

  For example, if I was going out with friends on a Saturday night, 11:30 p.m. wouldn’t be late. It would be time to meet up at someone’s house and head out.

  On a Wednesday, after sitting in a cubicle for 15 hours straight, 11:30 p.m. seems far past bedtime. Today was a long day. Cindy’s notes on the zoo project were hieroglyphic at best, and this afternoon, she “back drafted” me about getting her a first pass at the slide deck before I left work today.

  In keeping with my perception of Cindy as the office primate most closely tied to fire, “back drafting” is the term I’ve applied to her habit of dropping sizable projects with unrealistic deadlines on my desk right about the time I think I’m on track to accomplish everything on my task list for the day. I need to find an asbestos-based clothing line that’s appropriate for work. If this PR thing doesn’t work out, I may just create one myself. I can’t be the only one who runs in to back drafting in the office.

  After getting back to my apartment complex, I force myself to tiredly pick up one foot, then the other, as I climb the stairs to my apartment. I put my key in the lock and turn it. I hear a very faint clicking sound.

  My door is unlocked.

  I know I locked it this morning. In the back of my mind, I can clearly see myself locking my door. So why is it unlocked?

  Should I walk to the door across from mine and ask Gary to walk in with me—in case someone has broken into my place? Isn’t that what neighbors are for? Especially male neighbors who live across a landing from single females?

  I’m grounded to the cement, standing between my apartment and Gary’s. If it were possible to grow roots in concrete, my toes would now have a system worthy of supporting a California giant sequoia. If it’s nothing—like I really didn’t lock my door, even though I clearly remember fumbling my keys when I almost dropped my breakfast smoothie—then I’m going to be mighty embarrassed.

  I keep staring at my neighbor’s door, unable to move my feet. I know that realistically, I’ve only been standing there a few seconds, but it feels like I’ve been paralyzed with this fear of the unknown. It feels like ice water dripping into my veins—one drop at a time.

  Okay, Kate. It’s put up or shut up time. I either need to put up and knock on Gary’s door or shut up and prepare to do my best MMA cage match impression and battle po
tential attackers with my high heels.

  Oh, who am I kidding? Gary’s a middle-aged software engineer. He’s not intimidating to a mouse pad, much less a real rodent—and certainly not any kind of potential felon lurking on the other side of my door.

  If Gary can’t save me, Stuart Weitzman will. Well, at least his namesake shoes will.

  I shuffle the three-step distance to my door, then reach my hand out at approximately the speed it takes the moon to complete one lunar cycle, before grabbing the doorknob. I turn it quietly to the right, hoping to be quiet and catch the attacker off guard with my stealth.

  Call me Bond. Kate Bond.

  I press my body near to the door, as if to hide behind it, and reach half of my defense artillery—one designer peep-toed pump—around the door and into the small foyer.

  “Hey, roomie!” The door jerks out from under me as the person on the other side grabs it open in a rush.

  “Aaugh!”

  I don’t know if I’m screaming because the jarring of the door caused me to smack my head into it, or because I’m totally freaked out that Mimi has apparently broken into my apartment.

  “Mimi!” I sputter. “What are you doing in the apartment? I was about to totally go all Law & Order on you.”

  “What?” She gives me one of her don’t-you-know-I-don’t-get-your-pop-culture-references stares.

  Although Mimi is almost a decade younger than me, she has spent most of her life standing at a barre in pink satin pointe shoes and lives with me while she’s finishing up her degree at the University of Texas. I wasn’t expecting her to be back in the apartment with me and Dijon the wonder-poodle until mid-August.

  “The family vacation ended a few days early, on account of Mark’s news.”

  Not only is Mimi a ballerina born…she is also the younger sister of my ex-boyfriend.

  And she just said he had news.

  I can feel my shoulders get heavier as the little angel settles on one, and the pesky devil perches on the other. I don’t want to know the news about Mark.

  Except that I really, really do. “Oh, there’s something going on with Mark?” I try to adopt an indifferent tone, the sort of tone I imagine Joan Crawford would use in one of those black and whites on the classic movie channel.

  “Oh, you don’t really want to know…” she hesitates. “Nothing major.” Mimi took a quick glance at her feet. Now I really had to know.

  I cock an eyebrow at her. “Hmm?”

  “Well, he’s getting married. Idon’tlikehermuch.” She looks at her feet again. “If that helps any,” she finishes in a quick rush of breath.

  Married.

  Mark.

  And not to me.

  “Katie, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to be the one to tell you.” She put a light hand on my upper arm and smoothed out imaginary wrinkles from my long-sleeved blouse. “On the other hand, I did want to tell you. I wanted you to hear it from a friend.”

  Sweet Mimi. She’s exactly what I’d want in a little sister. Great smile, a heart of gold…and impeccable taste in shoes.

  And now she’s going to be someone else’s little sister-in-law. I can feel warm saltwater in the corners of my eyes. Mimi knows me well enough to know when I am trying not to cry. With one graceful step, she comes close, wraps me in her arms, and hugs me tightly. Mimi always makes any physical movement, no matter how small or how ordinary, look like a pas-de-deux out of Swan Lake.

  I know I’m not crying about Mark.

  In almost ten years together, he broke my heart more times than I can count on all my fingers and my toes combined (with probably my ears and nose thrown in for good measure) and I’m better now that I’m not on pins and needles waiting for the next cycle to begin or end.

  Truly, I am better now, six months after things ended once and for all. But maybe even though I think I’m strong, I’m still a girl who gets a lump in her throat when the man she’d once planned to marry gets mentioned.

  I suppose, above all else, that makes me normal.

  But sometimes, I don’t want to be like everyone else. I just want to be loved.

  3

  “Chimpanzees communicate with a wide range of calls, postures, and gestures. Each individual has his or her own distinctive pant-hoot, so that the caller can be identified with precision. A loud, long, savage sounding wraaaa call is made when a chimpanzee comes across something unusual or dangerous.”

  --Jane Goodall Institute’s “Chimpanzee Central”

  * * *

  Although the hands on my watch clearly pointed at 7:57 a.m., I knew that the moment I stepped off the elevator, the “Boss Alarm” would squawk, announcing that I was late. The Back Draft Monkey has a malicious focus on time.

  I think of it as malicious, not relentless or aggressive, or any of the usual adjectives, because like most things in Cindy’s part of our little PR zoo, it only applies if you’re not on her A-list.

  And I’m not. I don’t know exactly why, but I’m not.

  Others are, though. Laura Lynn could walk into this meeting ten minutes late, and just giggle and say something like her little top-secret, high-tech thingamajig forgot to ding when the reminder came up in her calendar, and Cindy would just tell her to grab a seat, then hand her a copy of the current presentation.

  Not so for me. Therefore, I keep my guard up.

  The elevator doors part before me like a pair of metallic curtains. I consciously straighten my spine and push my shoulders back, hoping to appear taller than the five-foot-four which God saw fit to bless me with.

  I want Cindy to recognize that the instant I put one black leather slingback mule shoe onto the entryway carpet. The back drafter doesn’t have to like me, but I am three minutes early, and it would be a nice change if she would at least respect me.

  I look around, bursting with my own version of high-heeled courage, but am letdown before my soles even touch the carpet.

  There’s only Logan in the entryway. My shoulders release downward with a snap, and the breath I didn’t even realize I’d been hiding behind my diaphragm lets out with a short pop! of air.

  “Hey.” Logan greets me with that most male of all expressions, the sideways-glance-and-brief-cock-of-the-head.

  “Hi, Logan. Where’s everyone else?”

  “Dunno,” he says, oh-so-professionally. “I got here about five minutes ago—wanted to be early in case Cindy was here, y’know?”

  He shrugs his shoulders briefly and gives a quick glance to the left, complemented by a quick glance to the right. “I didn’t want her to make a big deal like she does sometimes when some people are running behind.”

  I can feel the corner of my mouth twitching up in a small, knowing smile.

  Hmmm. This Chimp may be smarter than I have given him credit for.

  We continue standing for a few minutes at the landing near the bank of elevators, covered in that awkward silence of co-workers who aren’t really friends. Although I think of myself as a master at interpreting Chimp-speak, I am not conversationally fluent in the tongue.

  I fiddle with my thoughts, thinking I should come up with some small talk between me and Logan, to see if we can connect on a level free of my labeling him with all of my primate monikers. Just as I’m about to speak up, though, the elevator doors slide open again.

  It’s Laura Lynn. I sneak a quick glance downward at my watch. It’s now 8:04 a.m. Where is Cindy to see her protégé’s delayed and hurried entrance?

  “Okay.” Laura Lynn raises her hand, like a teacher trying to catch her students’ attention. “Listen to me, y’all. Cindy is sick. She has laryngitis and can’t talk.” Laura Lynn takes a breath in and makes deliberate eye contact with both of us, to make sure we understand the gravity of her next words. “But she is on her way. I just talked to her, and she wants me to cover for her until she gets in.”

  “Did she say when she’s going to arrive, Laura Lynn?” There are now eleven minutes until our presentation to Jack Cooper’s team is scheduled to star
t, and well…inquiring minds kinda want to know.

  The Empress of All Chimpdom fires up her laser-beam gaze and levels squarely on me. If I’m not mistaken, the pupils have turned to brimstone, and the irises around them—though normally brown—have liquefied to fire. Her words are framed by a sharp hiss of breath.

  “My goodness, Kate. Have some sympathy. Your boss—who told me she’s been at the office until ten o’clock for the last two nights—ten-o’clock, Kate—is sick. But she’s coming in because that’s the kind of leader she is. Cindy said something to me the other day, and I hate to be the one to tell it to you, but she’s right. You totally need to get an attitude adjustment, Kate.”

  Wow. What on earth got into Laura Lynn’s latte this morning? At least for this particular moment, I’m more bothered by her instantaneous display of a power trip than the fact that my supervisor is talking about my office performance behind my back with one of my peers.

  I mutter an “okay” to Laura Lynn and decide not to bring up that I have been at work until after eleven-o’clock those same two nights that Cindy was slaving away, giving her the data she wanted for her presentation and polishing her PowerPoint slides. But I don’t.

  Instead, like a good primate wannabe, I just follow my new pack leader through the door of Lone Star Consulting. Mentally, I pat myself on the back just for being such a good pseudo-Chimp.

  I can tell that Laura Lynn, as the team member without “Assistant” in her title, is trying her rock-solid hardest to project leadership and trying to declare, via body language, “See me? I’m in c-h-a-r-g-e.” In about two seconds, I expect her to go all karaoke on us and start singing a certain Aretha Franklin anthem like she means it.