FAT and in Love

Chapter 6 : The Second Meeting

We sit in her room. She opens a pack of Graham crackers and gives me a pack. We eat together.

"So are you excited?" she squeals as she plops her flabby butt onto her bed.

I recline in an armchair she has by her door. I pop a cookie into my mouth. I can't help but smile. Just thinking about Dominic has the butterflies raving within my bowels. That kind of sounds gross but that's how it feels.

"He totally owns that whole company though. Do you think it's real? I mean do you think he was telling the truth?" I ask, feeling great that I can talk to someone about this.

I had told Sandy the bare minimum of what happened but we had both been so busy trying to get things in motion that we haven't really had the time to sit down and talk about it in length.

"Lacie! Why would he lie? You can just go look it up."

"True," I reply. "Sandy I'm so nervous. This guy is leagues above me. How do I even know I'll be able to do whatever he asks me to do?"

"You're going to be fine," she says.

"Yeah but why me though?" I ask- more to myself.

"Because you're fine as hell and he can see it."

I blush and suddenly, my tummy doesn't feel as though the cookies belong there.

"Oh Sandy!!" I get up suddenly frightening Sandy, I can tell.

"Okay then," she says as she watches me whirl like an enamored Disney princess... or ogre.

"It just makes you think there's something more to it. Then again I don't want to get into that mode were I over expect something to happen. He probably just sees that I have a certain skill set and he can detect that stuff or thinks I'll be a valuable asset to his company. I don't really know why he would have to find that character in a company like Computer Diesel. Anyway, I won't look a horse in the mouth. It's just a job that's all it is. We shouldn't think it's anything more or less."

"Why not?" says Sandy, a mischievous grin playing upon her round face. "It could be something more."

"Sandy!"

"What Lacie?"

"No!" I say firmly.

I collect myself and make the conscious decision not to let what happened with Adam happen with Dominic. Fool me once shame on you fool me twice... Well, you get the idea.

Sandy teases me just a little bit more until we are all out of things to say. Maybe we're just thinking about how ridiculous we are in even considering that someone like this mighty Dominic would even be interested in the likes of me. To break the awkward silence, Sandy gets up energetically and heads for her closet saying,

"Well for one thing you're going to go to the interview looking like spice on ice."

"I technically already had the interview," I say reliving the moment in my head.

There go the butterflies again. I wish they would go extinct. Where's bug control when you need it?

"Here!" Sandy says pulling out a beautiful very berry colored SONOMA Life and Style Crochet Slubbed Dress.
"I wore this to my interview. It was rocking."
"Did you get the job?" I ask.
"No." Sandy replies and throws me the dress.
"Try it on."
"Are you kidding?"
Sandy puts a meaty hand on her hips and waits with snazz.
"Okay okay."
I self consciously slide my pants off as Sandy watches. I look up.
"Hey. Enjoying the show? Turn around!" I say laughing.
"Oh shut up. Really Lacie, what do you have that I don't? Except that rack. Man you put Pamela Anderson to shame."
"Sandy really!" I squeal almost falling over.
We're both laughing so hard I can barely keep my balance. I love Sandy. She's like the sister I never had and I can thoroughly be myself with her. I smile and change into the pink dress. I look in the mirror and my smile drops.
"I look like a camping tent."
All I hear next is a loud thud and Sandy gasping for air.
I whirl around and see her feet up in the air with her cracking up. I roll my eyes.
"Glad you're amused."
No reply. Just the constant stream of hyena guffaws. I sit on the bed and wait.
"I know your laughing because it's true."
She laughs harder. I sigh and take off the dress. I'm not having this.
"Lacie," she just manages to get out before vomiting a parade of laughter molecules into the air. Great. Now I'm giggling.
Before I know it we're both on the ground laughing and hitting each other. It honestly feels great to laugh like this. If we couldn't have this kind of release we would both go nuts.
After we finally calm down and have another bout of laughter for 15 minutes we get up and sit on her bed.
"Honestly I think it looks great on you but your bust is just way too big. We just have to find something that accommodates your melons."
I stare at her blankly. There it goes again. The laughter.
***********************
Well here I am. My car and I barely made it to Philadelphia. I look down at my phone at the text Dominic sent me of the address of this colossal building in front of me across the street.
As I walk into the building it immediately feels as if I has just translated into another dimension where everything is set centuries in the future. Even the doors when they slid open made an eerie whining sound.

As I get off on the 14th floor, a gorgeous woman sitting at the desk a few feet in front of the elevator asks me what is the nature of my visit.
"I have an appointment with Dominic Boveri."
"Your name?" She asks politely.
"Lacie Morgan."
She looks down at a reference or something. She presses the button on the phone and another pretty woman, also a blond, comes up to meet her from out of nowhere.
They exchange whispers. The second blonde walks away. I look around the building feeling so out of place right now. Suddenly, I don't want to be here.
The second blonde woman comes back to give a paper to the first.
The blonde woman at the desk looks up at me and smiles. The smile is so fake I can smell the plastic wafting off of it. I wonder in this instance if she's the one I spoke with on the phone. I can't identify her voice because voices sound so different on phones than in reality. Well, for the most part.
"You can head back there. He's on a call right now but he'll take you in a few minutes."
"Thank you," I reply professionally.
I get up and head in the direction in which the second blonde had walked. My belly is jumping right now. He'll take you in a few minutes? Oh my goodness Lacey. What an earth am I saying? Thinking?!
When I get back there his office is hard to miss. It takes up practically the entire back wall of this floor. Wow.
I can see the elegant Dominic swiveling in his chair on the phone. His eyes catch mine and he signals me to wait. I find a chair nearby me and sit down, crossing my legs as I try to be as modest as I know how.

The doors and windows to his office are made of glass. I try to look for the blinds and have a fleeting thought. Has he brought women into his office to fool around? I'm sure he has his... How would they get privacy?
After what seems like half an hour, I'm sure it wasn't that long it just felt like it, Dominic finally comes out to greet me.
"Lacie! Glad you could make it," he says with that disarming smile of his.
His voice is so deep and smooth that he seems to change the atmosphere around him when he opens his mouth to speak. Maybe it's the authority that he has with his voice. Maybe it's the air about him, I don't know. All I do know is that he makes me weak in the knees.

He looks down at my outfit as if assessing what I'm wearing. Uh oh.
"You look nice," he says looking back up into my eyes.
I blush wondering if he really means it.
He looks at his watch and begins walking quickly, signaling me to follow.
"Peta, cancel my 11:00," he says to the second blonde girl I saw.
"Yes Mr. Boveri," she replies like a trained dog or programmed robot.
What is this guy the president? God, I feel out of place. Did someone pluck me from out of my world and plant me sometime in the future? Everything here looks so... So not from earth. I know for sure this is not NASA and surely is not the White House nor the Pentagon.

We go into the elevator. For the first three floors we are the only ones in it. I know this is not happening. I know this 50 shades of gray nonsense is not happening to me. I dare to look over at him. He looks straight ahead with his back aligned perfectly like a military commander. He's so long and slender. I mean tall and slender. Geez. Then, he looks over at me without moving his head.
"You excited?" He asks without a hint of foreplay and his voice.
"Is that a trick question?" I reply, trying to be coy.
"No trick question. Just a question. I'm pretty straightforward with people. I'm never going to beat around the bush with you," he replies insinuating power in his voice.
Looking straight ahead he continues saying,
"I trust that doesn't bother you."
I have no idea how to reply to him because the way he just said that made it sound as if I have no right to let it bother me.
"No sir."
He says nothing. Maybe he's annoyed. Oh my goodness this is so nerve-racking. I have no idea how to act around this guy. It's like he's a weird machine that if you rub it the wrong way, the switch can go either way or something can get activated or deactivated that can cause you to blow up. I try to read his body language but he's like an iron wall. One thing I can read for sure is that he's not interested in me. Not in the least bit.