Chapter 10 : The Texts Begin.
1984 Words
The first text came at 11:47pm on Thursday.
I was already in bed, not quite asleep, thinking about nothing and everything at the same time the way you do when your brain has decided that sleep is optional and review of every conversation from the past week is mandatory.
My phone lit up on the nightstand.
Roman: The Lorne presentation is scheduled for Monday. 2pm. You should be there.
I stared at the screen for a moment.
Then I typed back: It's almost midnight.
Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
Roman: I know what time it is.
Roman: I'm finishing the Singapore brief. Saw the Lorne calendar update. Thought you should know.
Me: Thank you. I'll be ready.
Roman: I know you will.
I put the phone down.
I picked it up again.
Me: Do you always work this late?
The reply came faster this time.
Roman: Yes.
Me: That's not actually healthy, you know.
Roman: Neither is texting your boss at midnight to tell him his work habits are concerning.
Me: You texted me first.
Roman: About a meeting.
Me: At 11:47pm.
Roman: Point taken.
I smiled at my phone in the dark of my bedroom like an absolute fool.
Me: Goodnight, Roman.
Three dots for a long time. Then:
Roman: Goodnight, Lina.
I put the phone down.
I did not fall asleep for another hour but when I did I was still smiling.
The second text came Friday afternoon.
I was at my desk, deep in the Lorne refinements, when my phone buzzed.
Roman: The Harmon client wants a preliminary review next Thursday. Can you have the visual identity locked by Wednesday?
Me: Yes.
Roman: You didn't hesitate.
Me: Because I can have it locked by Wednesday.
Roman: Good.
A pause. Then:
Roman: You're allowed to say no if the timeline doesn't work.
Me: I know.
Roman: Do you?
I looked up at his office. He was at his desk, phone in hand, and I was absolutely certain he was not looking at me even though I was looking at him.
Me: I know the difference between a challenge and an impossible deadline. This is the first one.
Roman: Noted.
Me: Was there anything else?
The three dots appeared. Stayed. Disappeared.
Then my phone rang.
I looked at the screen. Roman. Calling me. From his office thirty feet away.
I answered.
"Yes?" I said.
"Come to my office for a second," he said. Then he hung up.
I put my phone down and walked across the floor trying to look like someone who had not just had a completely ridiculous text conversation with her supervisor who was now calling her into his office for reasons unknown.
Claire was not even pretending to work. She was just watching.
I knocked on Roman's door.
"Come in," he said.
I came in and closed the door.
He was standing by the window, phone still in his hand, looking at me with an expression I was starting to recognise. The one that meant he had something to say and was deciding how to say it.
"I could have texted that last message," he said.
"Yes," I said.
"But I wanted to say it properly."
"Okay," I said.
He put his phone in his pocket. "You're good at this work. Better than most people I've worked with at twice your experience level. And you should know that I notice. Not just as your supervisor. As someone who—" he paused. "As someone who values good work."
I looked at him across his very organised office with the city behind him and the small plant on the windowsill and thought about the many ways that sentence could have ended and the one way it actually did.
"Thank you," I said.
He nodded.
I should have left then. That was clearly the end of the conversation. But I did not leave. I stood there for one moment longer and said:
"You could just text me things like that, you know. You don't have to call me into your office every time you want to say something true."
His expression shifted. "I know," he said. "But then I wouldn't get to see your face when I say it."
The office was very quiet.
Outside on the floor someone's phone rang. Someone else laughed. The normal sounds of a Friday afternoon at a company that was winding down towards the weekend.
In here it was just that sentence and what it meant.
"Okay," I said quietly.
"Okay," he said.
I walked back to my desk.
I did not look at Claire.
I opened my laptop and stared at my screen and tried to process the fact that Roman Vale had just said he wanted to see my face when he told me true things and had said it like it was a simple observation and not the kind of thing that rearranged everything.
Saturday morning I was at the small café near my apartment working on the Lorne materials when my phone buzzed.
Roman: The warmth palette on page 6. The terracotta shade. Is that available in paint specification or just digital?
Me: Both. Why?
Roman: Just confirming for the client presentation.
Me: On a Saturday morning?
Roman: I'm reviewing the deck.
Me: Of course you are.
Roman: What are you doing?
I looked around the café. At my laptop open on the table, my sketchbook beside it, the coffee I had been nursing for forty minutes because I kept forgetting to drink it while I worked.
Me: Also reviewing the deck, if I'm honest.
Roman: At home?
Me: At a café. The one I told you about. The almond croissants.
A longer pause this time.
Roman: Are they as good as you remember?
Me: Better. I'm eating one right now.
Roman: Good.
Me: You should try sitting in a café sometime. No agenda. Remember?
Roman: I remember.
The three dots appeared and stayed for a long time.
Then:
Roman: Maybe I will.
I put my phone down and looked at the café around me. At the window table where the couple had been that night in the car. At the golden light and the weekend morning and the particular feeling of a city on a Saturday when everything moved a little slower.
I thought about Roman in his apartment wherever his apartment was, reviewing presentation decks on a Saturday morning because that was just what Roman Vale did.
I picked up my phone.
Me: You should actually stop working and do something that is not work. It's Saturday. You're allowed.
Roman: Like what?
Me: I don't know. Go for a walk. Read something. Watch something. Exist without productivity for two consecutive hours.
Roman: That's a very specific timeframe.
Me: Because less than two hours doesn't count. You'll just be thinking about work the whole time.
Roman: You're probably right.
Me: I'm definitely right.
A pause.
Roman: What are you doing after the café?
I looked at my laptop. At the work I had planned to finish today because I always planned to finish things and then finished them because planning without execution was just organised daydreaming.
Me: I was going to work on the secondary concept layouts.
Roman: You were. Past tense?
Me: I'm considering taking my own advice.
Roman: And doing what?
Me: Something that is not work.
The three dots appeared and disappeared three times.
Then:
Roman: Let me know how it goes.
Me: I will.
I did not work on the layouts.
I finished my coffee and my croissant and I closed my laptop and I walked home the long way through the part of the city that had good afternoon light on Saturdays. I stopped at a bookshop I liked and spent forty minutes looking at nothing in particular. I bought a book I did not need. I went home and I read it on my small sofa with the string lights on even though it was still daylight outside because string lights made everything better.
At 4:30 my phone buzzed.
Roman: How did it go?
Me: What?
Roman: The something that is not work.
Me: Good. I bought a book.
Roman: Did you read it?
Me: Half of it. I'm still reading it.
Roman: And are you thinking about work?
Me: No.
Me: Are you?
A pause.
Roman: No.
Me: Liar.
Roman: I stopped twenty minutes ago.
Me: What are you doing instead?
The three dots appeared and stayed.
Roman: Sitting.
Me: Where?
Roman: A café. There's one near my apartment. I've walked past it a hundred times. Never been in.
I sat up on my sofa.
Me: You're at a café right now?
Roman: I'm at a café right now.
Me: Doing what?
Roman: Nothing. Coffee. Watching people. Existing without a purpose. Like you said.
Me: Roman Vale is sitting in a café on a Saturday afternoon doing nothing?
Roman: Don't make it a thing.
Me: I'm absolutely making it a thing.
Roman: Lina.
Me: This is character growth. This is development. You should be proud.
Roman: I'm ending this conversation.
Me: No you're not.
A longer pause.
Roman: No I'm not.
I smiled at my phone.
Me: How is it? The existing without purpose?
Roman: Strange.
Roman: Good.
Roman: I see why you do it.
Me: Because sometimes you need to not be useful for two consecutive hours.
Roman: That's harder than it sounds.
Me: I know. But you're doing it.
Another pause. Then:
Roman: Thank you.
Me: For what?
Roman: For suggesting it.
I looked at my phone for a long moment.
Me: You're welcome.
We texted on and off for the rest of the weekend.
Not constantly. Not the way people text when they are deliberately occupying each other's time. Just — occasionally. Small things. A question about the Lorne deck. A comment about something I saw. A photograph he sent me of the view from wherever he was sitting with no caption, just the image, and I looked at it for longer than I should have trying to figure out what it meant that he sent it.
Sunday evening I was making dinner when my phone buzzed.
Roman: Question.
Me: Answer.
Roman: The green dress from the Meridian launch. Where did you get it?
I stopped chopping vegetables.
Me: Why?
Roman: Someone asked me. One of the board members. She wants to know for her daughter.
Me: Oh. Small boutique near Crestwood. I can send you the name.
Roman: Thank you.
I sent him the name of the shop.
Then, before I could stop myself:
Me: Did you like it? The dress.
The three dots appeared immediately. Then disappeared. Then appeared again.
Roman: Yes.
Me: Just yes?
Roman: What do you want me to say?
Me: I don't know. More than yes.
The dots stayed for a very long time.
Then:
Roman: You looked like yourself in it. That's what I liked. Not that it was formal or appropriate or the right choice for the event. That it was you.
I stared at my phone.
I read it again.
I put the phone down on the counter and went back to making dinner but I was not really making dinner anymore, I was just moving vegetables around a cutting board while thinking about a text message that said you looked like yourself like that was the highest compliment Roman Vale knew how to give.
My phone buzzed again.
Roman: Too much?
Me: No.
Me: Not too much.
Me: Thank you.
Roman: See you tomorrow.
Me: See you tomorrow.
I finished making dinner.
I ate it sitting on my kitchen floor with my back against the cupboard looking at my phone and reading that message four more times.
Then I opened my sketchbook and I wrote at the top of a new page:
Week five. This was supposed to be temporary.
And underneath it, smaller:
It doesn't feel temporary anymore.
- Writer
