On Monday morning, Serena arrived to find a structural engineer's business card on her desk.
No note. Just the card.
She picked it up. Turned it over. Put it in her notebook.
She did not say anything when he came out of his office at eight fifteen. He did not say anything either. They went about the morning at their usual pace, which was the pace of a freight train with a meeting schedule attached, and at no point did either of them reference the Saturday in a wisteria-covered courtyard.
But the card was there.
And at eleven o'clock, when she called the engineer to schedule an assessment, the man on the other end of the phone said that yes, he was expecting her call, that Mr. Price had already given him the basics, and that he could be at the Sovereign on Wednesday.
Serena stared at her computer screen for three seconds.
Then she stood up and knocked on his open office door.
He looked up from his laptop.
"You briefed the engineer," she said.
"He's good. Best structural firm in the city."
"I didn't ask you to do that."
"No," he agreed.
She stood there for a moment. She had several things she could say, arranged in order from professional to something else. "Thank you," she said, which was neither.
His gaze stayed on her for a little longer before he nodded and looked back at his laptop.
She went back to her desk feeling funny.
She sat down and pulled up the afternoon schedule and told herself to behave normally, which she was doing; she was absolutely doing. There was nothing abnormal happening here. A boss had referred a professional contact. That was a completely normal professional thing.
But the stare wasn't normal.
Her phone buzzed. Mia.
Sweetheart, how's work?
I turned my eyeballs backward; this girl is not worried about how work is. I know what she wants, and it is gist. she has a pre conceived notion and she can't wait for it to be the truth and that's why she kept reaching out.
Going smoothly. I replied.
Did anything happen today? She asked.
Serena looked at the business card sitting on the corner of her desk.
No, she typed.
Wow okay LIAR, Mia replied. your typing pause took three whole seconds. something happened!
I rolled my eyes backward again.
Nothing happened.
I'm coming over tonight.
You don't need to.
I'm bringing wine and you're telling me everything. byeeee
Serena puts her phone in her drawer.
Oh, she loves Mia; she just hates that sometimes she's usually right.
To her own detriment.
At twelve thirty, he came out of his office in his coat. Standard lunch meeting; she had it in the calendar. He paused at her desk.
"Eat something," he said, nodding at her empty desk surface.
She looked up. "I was going to."
"You said that at twelve-fifteen yesterday and you ate a granola bar at three PM. I heard the wrapper."
She opened her mouth. Closed it. "You heard the wrapper." It would mean he was f***ing paying attention to her, because if not, there would have been no way he heard that wrapper and he knew what it was.
"It was a loud wrapper." he said like he heard her thoughts.
He left.
She sat very still for a moment.
Then she got up and went and got lunch like a person who had absolutely not just been perceived with an accuracy that felt borderline invasive, and she ate it at her desk, and it was fine.
Everything was fine.
-----
Mia arrived at seven with wine and the energy of someone who had been storing questions all day.
She was small and sharp-eyed and had the particular gift of being able to read Serena's face like a document she had studied for years. She poured two glasses, sat on Serena's kitchen counter the way she always did because there was a perfectly good table eighteen inches away that Mia had never once used, and looked at her.
"Go on," she said.
"There's nothing to."
"Serena Elizabeth Holloway. Go on."
Serena told her about the business card. And the Saturday. And the wisteria. And the stare. And the granola bar comment. She told it all in the flat, factual tone she used when she was trying to present evidence without the weight she was actually attaching to it.
Mia listened without interrupting, which was how Serena knew she was treating this seriously, because Mia always interrupted.
When she was done, Mia drank her wine and said, "So your very rich, very engaged boss followed you to your dead mother's hotel on a Saturday, told you the east wall needed structural support, put you in touch with the best engineer in the city, and then on Monday, stared at you for a bit longer, and not long after, he told you to eat lunch."
"When you say it like that,"
"And you feel nothing."
"I feel appropriately professional."
"Oh my God."
"Mia,"
"He heard your granola bar wrapper." Mia's voice was reverent with horror. "That man is listening for you. Do you understand? He is tuned to your frequency."
"That's absurd."
"That's romantic and you know it." She pointed her wine glass at Serena. "You like him."
"He's my boss."
"You like him."
"He's engaged."
"You LIKE him." her emphasis was on like.
"I am not doing this," Serena said, standing up to refill her glass for something to do with her hands.
Mia watched her from the counter with the deeply satisfied expression of someone who has found the exact nerve they were looking for. "Okay," she said. "We won't do this. We'll just not do this."
"Thank you."
"Until it blows up completely, at which point I'm going to need you to remember that I called it on day six."
"Noted," Serena said.
She drank her wine.
She thought about the business card.
She thought about him sitting on the courtyard wall looking at the wisteria like it was something that deserved attention.
She poured herself slightly more wine and thought about something else.