(the picture on top is Debora)
Michael was comfortably sitting on his beige leather couch, with his legs stretched, reading a book through a pair of glasses that he used solely when alone. Reading was the only thing that still helped him distract from the memories of his ephemeral encounter with Deborah that kept assaulting him. As he was reading, his mind suddenly drifted to those memories - again. Although his eyes were glued to the book, they were absorbing nothing of its content. When he realized that his mind was adrift, he sighed passing his hand through his hair. The lack of control over his thoughts was a sign that he had already given too much room to this woman. At that point, his next actions were legitimated by his strong desire to be with Deborah again. Even though he had dumped her twice, it only felt logical to fight for another chance. So there he was, waiting on the phone for an answer from the Opera House Event Coordination team. Oh, was he glad that in one of his fits of rage, he hadn't thrown away Deborah's contact card.
"Events coordination department, how can I help?" A female voice spoke.
She didn't even need to identify herself, Michael could tell it was Deborah; she had an unforgettable voice. "Is this - uh - Deborah?"
"Yes, Debora." She subtly tried to correct his pronunciation of her name. "Can I help?"
"Only you can help me, I guess." He truly meant it, but he threw a giggle that made the confession sound a lot more casual.
"Ok. What did you say your name was?" She tried to keep the conversation on a professional note.
"Michael Spencer." He replied.
Debora remembered him immediately. The man was engraved in her memory as the rudest client ever. "So," She took a deep breath in anticipation. "Mr. Spencer, how can I help?"
"With my project."
"Your project?" She had to make sure she had heard him right.
"Yes, my Christian project." He reiterated.
"The one you said I wasn't fit for?" She wasn't judging, but just trying to clarify.
"Exactly."
"I thought you didn't want to work with me, so I fail to understand the reason for this call." She expressed her doubts blatantly.
"I admit that I didn't want to work with you then." He admitted. "But you left me your contact card, for consideration, remember?" He kept fidgeting with the card. "And so I'm calling to take you up on your offer." He informed assertively.
His call sounded so out of the blue that she didn't know what he was talking about. "My offer?"
"Yes, your offer to work on my project, in case I changed my mind." He tried to remind her.
After his reminder, the scene came clearly to Debora's mind. She also remembered that she had left him a card for mere courtesy, but secretly hoping that he wouldn't consider that offer.
"I didn't expect your call, especially after a month." She confessed, losing part of the formality required for a client. "Plus, I'm swamped!"
Swamped or not, Michael would do anything in his power to have her working for him. "So, was your offer mere courtesy?" He tried to hint at her fake helpfulness.
"But Mr. Spencer..." she had no real argument. "After a month?"
"I don't recall you mentioning a deadline."
Debora bit her lip in aggravation.
"Which means that your offer stands till this day." He concluded the obvious.
"Yes, so it seems." She had to agree. "But... uh..." she was speechless, for realizing how she would be failing a customer, by saying no to him.
"Since you're swamped," Michael quoted her. "Do you have time to meet later this week or at the beginning of next week?"
"Next week would be better." She tacitly agreed.
"You name a day and I'll make it work."
"Can I call you back?"
"Sure!"
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Debora was walking again into that modern restaurant adorned with simplistic and elegant decor. She loved the ambiance, it helped her soothe her nerves before meeting with Michael, also known as the worst client ever.
It was five in the afternoon and at that time there were no clients. From what Debora observed, it looked like the restaurant was resting from the lunchtime frenzy. Looking around, she quickly spotted Michael. Her heart missed a beat when his eyes met hers, and she became even more nervous when he shouted her name, instructing her through signaling to join him at his table.
She held onto her bag, as if bracing herself for an emotional rollercoaster with her client, and walked to him. There was no confidence in any of her steps.
"Please, take a seat!" He commanded.
Debora obeyed, hoping to be invisible. She was somehow invisible though, because Michael was stuck to the screen of his laptop and paid no attention to her whatsoever, or so it seemed:
"I'm just finishing something here..." he informed, while typing. "Something really important."
"Alright!" Debora replied, but she felt even less comfortable.
Only ten minutes later was Michael closing the lid of his laptop. "So," he pulled the equipment aside to give his full attention to Debora. "Let's get down to business!" He declared, pulling up his sleeves.
Debora was mute just looking at him.
"I'm planning to organize a Christian conference. If we're talking about time I'd say the low season, two years from now." Michael began to do all the talking. "I want this event on a global scale, and I'd like to attract maybe thirty thousand participants in all, which would be divided into the different days of the event." He explained. "This is the big picture," He stated, and noticing that she was silently looking at him, he continued, "Where you enter is in organizing the details to make this picture possible." He finished. "So, what do you say?"
Suddenly, Debora's throat was dry, but she managed to start a reply. "Well, in two years of low season, you mean we just have a year and a half, because the low season of this year is gone already."
"Ok, exactly!" He didn't understand what she had said, but in his optic, it felt dumb to ask her to repeat.
"I take that the event is happening in Sydney, right?" She began scribbling on a pad.
"Yes, in Sydney." He replied as if he had said that before.
"Before we proceed with anything, and waste our time working for nothing, it would be wiser for us to make some preliminary studies on the event panorama and accommodation occupancy in Sydney during the estimated dates of the event."
"I've taken the liberty to do that in advance." He replied. "I can send you our charts..."
Debora wanted to let him proceed, but she decided to intervene right in the beginning.
"Mr. Spencer, we won't and we can't work with your market analysis."
"I assure you: it is a reliable one." Michael was offended to hear someone question his work.
"I'm sure it is," Debora responded, noticing that he was annoyed by her comment, "but we cannot respond based on your analysis if something goes wrong. We need to do our market analysis and after that decide whether we move forward."
Michael felt tempted to scoff but held his reaction. If that was what it took to have that woman back into her circles, and ultimately regain her feelings, he would subject to that small detail, even if that meant throwing away months of work, and he hated to waste time. He swallowed his water hard, in an attempt to appease his frustration.
"Ok." He replied. "Look, I want you to work for me freelance." He was blunt and assertive. "And if you say yes, there's no need for your company's research."
Debora looked at him with intrigue. "Michael," He was so cheeky that she completely lost all the formalities and called him by his first name, "For someone who calls himself a Christian, it's inappropriate of you to suggest something like that."
Michael felt again very tempted to scoff but restrained himself. He didn't remember feeling the need to scoff so much around this woman before. Their relationship urgently needed to move past the professional, or they would never rekindle the spark that had once brought them together.
"How much time will it take for you to have a market analysis?"
"I'd say one to two weeks."
"And only then will you finally decide whether you take my project on board." He concluded.
"We can't afford to lose time with an undoable project," Debora explained, the indignation fell like a drop of sweat down her face. "We have too many doable projects that we can't afford to lose, especially for the sake of one that might not be going anywhere." She swallowed hard. "It's the policy of the company. And if you can't accept our terms, we're gonna end our business right here and now." She was ruthless.
Michael wasn't prepared for a match like that. For an instant, he didn't know what to say. He put his hand to his chin, looking at the void, trying to come to a decision. He wanted his project to succeed, and he needed a pretext to be with Debora again, so he finally replied: "OK." he sighed. "Let's go ahead with your market analysis."
Michael noticed how Debora's demeanor changed after he communicated the final decision. She was tidying up her belongings with such ease and satisfaction that it triggered him to comment on that. "You're ruthless in business," he involuntarily gave her a cheeky smile.
She was so intrigued by his comment that she stopped what she was doing to look at him, and when his eyes met hers, she suddenly felt like the ice between them had been broken. "Why do you say that?"
"Nothing." he felt suddenly amused and simultaneously embarrassed. "I like that about you." he was looking down, and when he realized the magnitude of his words, he decided to add the following: "I hope you'll show the same ruthlessness with the suppliers we'll work with."
Debora stood up, packed up her stuff, and prepared to leave. "Michael, it was nice to meet you again." she stretched her hand for a handshake.
"You too!" Michael replied, shaking her hand in return.
"I'll give you a call when the market analysis is finished."
He consented with a nod and then stood up with her. Suddenly a very random detail about Debora crossed his mind, and that was her height. He remembered her to be much taller, almost his height, which wasn't very common in women. But he shook the idea off because he couldn't recall if she had ten-centimeter heels.
"I'll take you to the door." He offered, placing a polite hand on her upper back.
He discreetly limped to the door. As he was opening the door to her, a great idea hit him. "Before you leave," He began.
Debora gave him the attention he had silently demanded.
"You have reasons to question my market research, but what guarantee do I have that your market research is the reliable one? You can always twist it to avoid working on this project."
"True..."
Debora didn't even have the chance to object, for he interrupted her with the following:
"There is a way though. I'm there with you or whoever in your team doing that research, every step of the way." He requested.
"It's me doing the research." She informed.
"Good!" He was satisfied with the prospect of spending more time with her in the future. "When will you start?"
"Right away," Debora replied. "But like I told you, I'm swamped. I'll have to work on your project after hours."
"I have a suggestion. To save you time, maybe we could do that over dinner?" Michael dared suggest, but the look on his face wasn't flirtatious; he could show the right front when needed.
"Yeah. But going anywhere is too far for me. I need to save time. So I'd suggest my place which is a two-minute walk from the Opera House...?" Debora gave him a shrug. "I hope you don't mind, but my husband will be around."
Michael had noticed that she had a wedding band, but like Brian - the bartender - had told him, that could probably mean nothing. He didn't know what to say to that offer at first. Sometimes it felt like Debora couldn't remember the night they had spent together, but other times it seemed that she was just putting a professional front to save herself the embarrassment of dealing with a guy who had dumped her in the past.
"Okay..." His voice didn't even sound. "Okay!" He repeated with a more convinced voice.
"We'll meet tomorrow at 5 p.m. at the Opera House. I'll meet you downstairs if you prefer not to climb all those steps!" She giggled, feeling comfortable around him.
"Perfect." He expressed; excited and looking forward to the coming day.
"See you tomorrow then," Debora replied walking through the door.
When the door was closed and she had crossed the street to catch the taxi that was already waiting for her, Michael observed her, noticing that although there was something strange about this Debora, he loved the fact that she was back into his life and this time he would make the most of it, even if that meant destroying the marriage she had.