Nice To Meet You

What A Man

Sunny

“Where’s Mark?” I ask my friends, Di and Ellie, as soon as I get to Berg’s, one of the places we like to visit for lunch. We go there not because the food is amazing—it is and the serving is commendable too—but because their food tends to be overpriced, which means it’s never crowded during lunch time.

Who in their right minds would pay twelve dollars for a burger—and that price doesn’t even include burger and fries—when there’s a decently suitable and perfectly affordable Jollibee just around the corner?

No one, that’s for sure. Especially not in this economy.

Except, apparently, for us. Because we didn’t get out of the office early enough to beat the lunch crowd. By the time we got to Jollibee, all tables were occupied and the only thing we could do was either stand awkwardly by a table with occupants that were almost done with their meals; passive-aggressively guilting them into surrendering their table to us as soon as the last piece of french fry has been ingested…

Or pretend that now is a good time to have a hearty hamburger meal while sitting down and not having to rush.

We chose the latter.

“He said he was still finishing his report so he would leave the office with you. He isn’t?” Dionne answers.

I roll my eyes. “Well, let me see, maybe I left him outside? Of course, he didn’t leave with me. That’s why I’m looking for him.” Seriously, Di is one of the smartest people I know, but she has an uncanny ability to ask the most obvious questions. It’s times like this that serves as a reminder for me of how different I am from my friends at work.

Di and Ellie are my closest friends in NewCity Tech. We were in the same batch of new hires and we bonded during New Employee Orientation. That was six years ago and since then, we have been inseparable. In addition, Di’s real name is actually Dianne Regina Arevalo. Since we wanted to be fair to each other, we agreed that we will both use different names so we avoid confusing our colleauges. She decided to go with her first name and I decided to go with my nickname.

Ellie, ever the peacemaker, just laughs at Di and myself having another one of these discussions. She’s actually the mastermind of Di and I going with a name that is not Regina instead of arguing about who gets to keep using the name. Now that we’re older and wiser, we laugh at how we didn’t think about just going ahead and using the name Regina if we really wanted to. But it’s too late for that now.

“Di, we spoke about asking obvious questions, right?” Ellie calmly reminds her. And she’s right. We’ve had to raise this to her at some point because it was driving us mad.

Di shrugs her shoulder. “Sorry! I’m working on it, ok? But poor Mark—”

“Here you are, ladies! Sun, I dropped by your area and assumed when I saw it empty that you went ahead without me. No, I know! I know! I got so engrossed in my report that I forgot to ping you about going here together,” Mark clarifies quickly when he saw me open my mouth to protest.

Mark takes the empty seat next to me and turns to Di and Ellie. “I’m hungry. Have you guys ordered?”

Di straightens her back. “Oh, yeah! We’re just waiting for our number to be called.” She shows Mark their queue number. “Sorry! We weren’t sure what time you guys would get here—”

Mark smiles at Di fondly. “Don’t worry about it. I could always order.” He turns to me. “Have you ordered? You want me to order for you?”

I quickly nod my head. He’s a sweetheart, bless his heart. “Can you get me the Junior Bacon Berg and iced tea? I’ll send you my payment later.”

Mark waves his hand. “Yeah, don’t worry about it. I gotcha. I’ll get your orders too, ladies, if they call your number while I’m there,” he says.

Di and Ellie smile at him gratefully. When he’s out of earshot, Ellie announces to our group, “He’s such a good guy.” And Di and I both laugh because Ellie is always so fond of him.

“Tell us something we don’t know, El,” I say.

“Oh, oh! You know who I’m interested to know if he’s a good guy?” Di asks out of the blue.

“Who?” I’m surprised that Di said this. She’s had the biggest crush on Johnny Park ever since he transferred from our East Coast office to Singapore a little over two years ago.

“Jeffrey Peters,” she answers.

“Jeffrey Peters?” I ask, my voice unusually high. “But why?”

“Oh, you’re right! I wanna know if he’s nice too!” Ellie and I both speak at the same time.

Di looks at me then Ellie then back at me again. “Why not? Aren’t you curious about him?”

This makes me snort. “Excuse me! Do we all react this way every time there’s someone new in the office? No, right? Jae is just a guy. Why do we care if he’s nice or not?”

“Jae?” Trust Ellie to pick up on the little details.

“It’s his nickname,” I explain.

“Oh! I didn’t know that. How did you know?” Di asks. “He’s been in the office for what? Two weeks now? And with the exception of HR bringing him around to the different departments on that first day, I haven’t had much chance to talk to him,” she adds.

“Well, I spoke to him briefly on his first day and he shared that I can call him Jae. And I do see him every so often in the break room.”

Di and Ellie exchange looks before they turn their attention back to me. “Interesting,” Ellie observes.

“What’s so interesting about that?” I ask.

Ellie’s looking at me like she knows something I don’t. “I learned that Jae doesn’t really talk to a lot of people. He’s mostly just talking to Johnny or the other expats in the ofice. I know the locals are a little in awe of him. Today’s the first time I’m hearing that he talks to other people not expats.”

I roll my eyes at that. “Pffft! Come on! Why would he not talk to everyone? Maybe the others just don’t talk to him that’s why he doesn’t talk to them too? It must be hard to be the new guy and have people expect you to be the one to reach out to everyone who knows everyone else already,” I remind them.

“Wow. Someone’s defensive on another person’s behalf,” Ellie says.

I pretend that I didn’t hear her.

“Say, Sunny, what do you think of Jae?” Di stares at me, her eyes staring intently at my face, determined to gauge the authenticity of my response.

I shrug. “He’s alright, I guess.”

“What else?” Di probes further.

“What do you mean ‘what else?’”

“Like do you think he’s sexy? Hot? Gorgeous? Someone you’ll swipe right on?” Di expounds.

I roll my eyes. “Of course he’s good-looking. I mean, we’ve all seen the man, right? He’s tall and even with clothes on, it’s obvious he’s got insane proportions. He looks like he’s a swimmer or a model or something,” I respond. I run my hand through my hair and fluff it. I know I’m blushing but maybe I can convince my friends that it’s just because it’s so hot. I mean, Berg’s is an open-space restaurant. Whatever air-conditioning is here is trumped by the insane humidity in this small city.

“Hmmm…” Di answers.

I raise an eyebrow. “What? What’s that ‘hmmm’ all about?”

But it’s Ellie who leans in closer—or as close as the table between us will allow her to be—to fire the next shot. “So do you wanna see him with his clothes off?”

“Ellie! Please! I seriously don’t need that idea in my head right now!”

“When do you need it then?” Ellie continues.

“Never! Sheesh. We’re colleagues. We work with him. Be for real, guys!” I exclaim.

“You know what I think, Di?” Ellie ignores my statement and turns to our other friend instead.

Di’s smile is almost wicked as she turns to Ellie and plays along. “What?”

“I think someone has a crush on the new guy.”