The bell of the office door chimes, signaling that someone is walking in. I had just started a new job as an administrative assistant a couple of weeks ago, and I was loving it. It was definitely a major change from the retail world that I had come from, but I wasn’t a stranger to customer service.
I was still in the ‘let me impress my boss’ phase so I’m making sure I stay busy. Since I was new to the job, this wasn’t hard to do; the learning curve was something else. I was deep into organizing a new file when I was approached by a man that looked like he was dipped in the most delectable milk chocolate. He wasn’t the usual tall, slim guys that I am usually attracted to. He was kind of chunky around the mid-section. Simple wire rim glasses framed his face and I could tell he probably wore them for many years. He wore a hat that looked worn from wear and a work uniform that was stained from his day’s work. Theo was scrawled in cursive above his left pocket. With him now in front of me and I could look into his eyes, something seemed familiar about him.
I’ve never seen him before in my life, but I was getting comfort vibes from him. It created butterflies and alarmed me all at the same time. He smiled and I had to remember I was at work and I had a job to do.
“Yes sir. How can I help you?” I greeted him. I smiled my most professional smile hoping to hide what was going on in my head.
“Yeah, I wanna change my direct deposit information,” he says with a smirk on his face. I could tell that he was a charmer. People like that are dangerous-cunning and crafty men like that have a way of getting whatever it was that they wanted out of women. Yet, I couldn’t deny the man was attractive. His kind always were.
“Ok. Let me get that form for you.” It was January, so it was pretty cold outside. This particular day, I wore a green dress, sheer stockings, and black thigh high boots. I get out of my chair and walk over to where the forms were. When I turned around, he was looking at me. I sit back down in my chair and hand him the form.
“Here you go.” I give it to him, and I notice his hands. They are worn from work, but they had a gentleness to them. My mind jumped to weeks, months ahead and I imagined the type of protection those hands could give.
“You must be new around here?”, him gazing at me like I was an alien or something.
“No.”
“Well, I’ve never seen you before.” He’s fishing for information. I’ve grown to know that when men make comments like that, they are looking for some more information.
“I’d like to keep it that way,” I whip back. I can tell he was stunned by my reply because of the look on his face.
“Dang, shawty! It’s like that?!”
“I just like my anonymity. If you see me, you see me. If you don’t, you don’t.” I shrug. I may have found the guy attractive, but he wasn’t going to know that. That is always my reply to guys that say they have never seen me before. I’ve always liked the idea of being unknown. The less people that know you, the less they know about you. I have always been that way. I planned to live life that way.
“Oh ok. I feel that. You from here?” He ignored my shortness and continued to fish for information.
“Yep,” I replied hoping to sound annoyed to hide I was intrigued. He was not pushy in his quest of wanting to know more information, but I could tell he was fishing. He proceeded to fill out the form and the phone rang, so I answered. I finished up the call as he was finishing up the form. He handed the form to me, gazing at me like he was trying to look for some kind of clues or something to proceed in his quest. I took the form from him and asked him if there was anything else that I could help him with. He said no, but tried to make small talk, asking my name, where I went to school, flashing his sense of humor and making me laugh as I dodged every question he asked. I was simultaneously relieved and frustrated that the door chimed indicating that someone was walking in. Now that we weren’t alone anymore, he was giving up his quest for information and turned to leave.
“Have a great day!” I called behind him.
“You, too!” He half turns and yells back to me. For a second, just a split second, I wanted to ask him to wait until I was finished with this customer. I hadn’t really answered any of his questions, but I liked that he wasn’t giving up so easy. Confidence was something I really, really loved in a man.
For some reason, I knew that I had not seen the last of him. He reminded me of so much I needed to stay away from, but I could not lie, he had me intrigued. I had done a lot of work getting myself to this point in my life, and I didn’t want to undo all the work I had done because I couldn’t leave well enough alone.
“Mina!” my co-worker and best-friend calls out to me. I get up from my desk with the form in my hand to take it over to the CFO. I round the corner to peep my head into her office to see what was up.
“Who was that you were talking to?” she asks me with a little grin on her face.
I look down at the paper because I couldn’t remember his name. “Mmmmmmm….Theo.”
“You know he was flirting with you, right?”, she says with a grin on her face.
“No, he was not! Besides, he probably either got a girlfriend somewhere or is talking to a girl that thinks she’s his girlfriend.” We both laugh.
“You’re not a flirt, so you don’t know when people are flirting with you.”
“Amelia, whatever! That dude was not flirting with me. He was just being nosey and-“ she cuts me off,
“That’s cause he was flirting with you! Duuuuuuuhhhhhh!” We both laugh as I round the corner to drop the direct deposit form off and then head back to my desk. When I get back to my desk, I look down at my phone to see that I have a missed facetime from Eric, this guy that I used to talk to a while back. I make a mental note to delete his number later on. I also compared Eric to the very brief interaction I had with Theo. So many differences. I had to remind myself I didn’t know Theo at all. And just like Eric fooled me, Theo could, too. But still…it was nice to have a man’s attention.
I power through the rest of the day, but my mind couldn’t stop wandering off to the exchange Theo and I had earlier. He had the worst humor, but I didn’t let on that I was enjoying it. I wrapped up the day with parking lot chatter with Amelia and zoomed off to pick up my daughter from school. As I approached the traffic light, I saw a face that looked oddly familiar. It was Theo. He was standing talking to another guy. I stared for a few seconds to see if I could make out what they were talking about. My phone vibrated in my lap and it was Amelia.
“You were right…..” the text read with a screenshot of a picture of Theo and some girl in the photo. My friend was the ultimate investigator and social media made it extremely easy for people to find things out about other people.
“Yep….” Was my reply. The light turns green and I drive off in the direction of the school. I can’t say that I wasn’t surprised, but I was also a little disappointed. Sometimes my intuition doesn’t let me down and sometimes, I let me down by not trusting my intuition. I should’ve listened to myself this go round. If I did, I could’ve avoided the pain that would follow.