Page 22 of His to Correct

Thanks,

Melissa

I hit send, then leaned back in my chair, taking deep breaths. There. That was normal. Professional. I just needed to focus on next steps, on moving this proposal forward through proper channels.

An hour passed, then two. No response from Mandy. I distracted myself by studying the org chart and the strategic plan for the next fiscal year, but I kept finding my eyes drawn back to my open email client. Each time I glanced at it, I got a little more tense at the lack of response from Mandy.

By late afternoon, I couldn’t take it anymore. I told myself I needed to talk to Stuart, to get his input on this project before I lost my nerve entirely. I decided to go find Mandy in person and see if I could get on Stuart’s calendar.

I made my way through the maze of cubicles to Mandy’s desk. As I approached, I saw her leaning back in her chair, one hand holding her phone to her ear while the other carefully applied bright red polish to her fingernails.

“…and then I told him, if he thinks I’m going to put up with that kind of behavior, he’s got another think coming,” Mandy was saying, her tone light and gossipy. She looked up as I approached, giving me an irritated glance.

I stood there awkwardly for a moment, not wanting to interrupt. Mandy raised an eyebrow at me, then sighed dramatically.

“Listen, Jen, I’ve got to go. Some work thing. I’ll call you back later.” She hung up the phone and looked at me, her eyebrows raised.

For a long moment, my mind went completely blank. Somewhere, distantly, I understood that the utter absence of conscious thought came from the sheer complexity of my reaction to Mandy’s failure even to reply to my email when she so obviously had nothing more important to do. All I could trulydo, though, in the moment, was stare at the apparently anxiety-free expression on Mandy’s pretty face.

Blood rushed into my cheeks. Mandy’s brows rose even higher, and I felt absolutely certain that she could see my embarrassment in my face. Finally, the words came, though they sounded so much weaker than I wanted them to.

“Did you…” I started. I realized I was shaking with suppressed rage.

“Oh,” Mandy said, her eyes becoming suddenly sympathetic, as if she were embarrassed on my behalf, that I had come to see her with something so trivial. “Your email? About Stuart’s calendar?”

I nodded mutely.

“Why don’t you check back tomorrow, hon? I do the calendar first thing in the morning.”

I swallowed hard.

“Thanks,” I told her, because my whirling thoughts seemed unwilling to let me say anything more meaningful. “I…”

I meant to ask, in an acid, even arrogant tone, whether she could do me the courtesy of a quick reply next time. I meant to get the upper hand in the situation, to assert the dominance my whole being seemed to cry out in need of.

But Mandy had swiveled her chair away so that she could start to put another coat of polish on her nails. Distantly, I understood that this provocation corresponded exactly with my last interaction with Mandy. Some part of her—possibly even a conscious part—felt the compulsion to test me. I thought she probably wouldn’t have tested a male executive quite so strenuously, but I also thought that that fact should have challenged me—brilliant, strong-willed Melissa Mitropoulos—to show my mettle.

Instead, I walked away, heart pounding, face scarlet, brain imploding.

Not because I didn’t want to assert my dominance over Mandy.

Because Ididwant to do that. I wanted to show Mandy that I might not be Stuart, her super-boss, but Iwasher boss, as a member of Stuart’s team, however junior.

Frankly, I told myself and then instantly pretended the thought had come from some alternate dimension, I wanted to paddle Mandy’s insubordinate backside.

“What’s wrong?” Joe asked as I sat back down at my desk, planning to do nothing but memorize the Selecta employee handbook, in hope of forgetting everything else that had happened today.

“Oh, nothing,” I told him, finding it easy to pretend indifference. Relationships with my peers in the bullpen went just fine. I had learned in my college business program both to talk the talkand to walk the walk. Even in Selecta’s strange, old-fashioned corporate culture, the rest of Stuart’s team seemed happy to treat me like one of the boys. “Fucking Mandy. You know.”

“What?” Joe asked. “She butt-hurt because you asked her to make a few copies of your secret proposal?”

I told him what had happened, carefully not revealing anything about the nature of my proposal. That had been the subject of good-natured jokes among the team as they had watched me working on it day after day, to the point whereMelissa’s Secret Proposalrepresented a riff any of them could tag on the end of a list of just about anything, for a laugh.

Joe frowned as I narrated, and the frown only deepened as I reached the nail-painting, chair-swiveling climax.

“That’s not nothing,” he told me, his voice serious, when I’d finished.

To my dismay, I had to blink back tears of relief.

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