Page 9 of No One Else

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OKAY, NEW YEAR, NEWsemester. A fresh start. With clients at work. With school.

With Natalie.

It’s the second day of the Spring semester and as I walk to my final class of the day in the Knightley building, where most of the business classes are held, I contemplate the still unresolved situation with her.

It’s not that we’re avoiding each other exactly, it’s just that it’s been really busy at the gym... and I have no idea what to say to her.

Hey, sorry for admitting my true feelings to you... that you obviously don’t share... at the worst time possible.

That should go over real well.

It hasn’t been difficult to keep my distance from her at work for the past two weeks. Even when we do have the same shift, there’s actually no need for us to interact. Our jobs have nothing to do with one another. Before, I just always found a reason to be over by the front desk.

I wanted to look at the schedule. I wanted to ask her about a new client that booked me. I wanted to check something in lost and found.

I wanted to just be near her.

Charlotte’s advice was to take Natalie’s lead, and I am, but that’s getting me nowhere. I know she has a lot on her plate. January is our busiest time of year as people come out of the woodwork with New Year’s resolutions to get fit. It falls upon her to sign them all up, get them scheduled with personal trainers, explain what group classes we offer - the whole works. Sure, there are two other girls that work part-time at the front desk too, but Trisha trusts Natalie the most. She’s proven herself over and over again.

If only I can get back in her good graces. I just need to figure out the best angle to go about it.

And like I’ve conjured her from mere thought alone - she’s there. Sitting in the front row of my three p.m. Principles of Marketing class. I pause in the doorway just as she looks up - the surprise on her face mirroring my own.

I approach her slowly, standing in front of the two-person table she’s sitting at by herself, and hitch my backpack up higher, nerves suddenly coursing through me.

“Are you in this class?” she asks neutrally, no hint behind those beautiful green eyes as to how she feels about it.

“Yeah. It’s an elective for the business major. I didn’t know you were taking it or anything,” I rush to add, suddenly afraid she’ll think I somehow engineered this. I mean, did it enter my mind last semester when choosing my classes that she would possibly be in it too since she’s a Marketing major? Sure. But it was a long shot. At the very least, I thought I could ask her for advice with the coursework in case she’d already taken it.

God, I really am pathetic.

“You don’t have to justify it to me.” She taps her pen against her notebook, focusing on the professor as he calls the class to attention. He’s dressed in a three-piece suit, complete with a bow tie, his sleek blond hair swept away from his face. This guy must mean business.

“If you could have a seat Mister...” he says to me, glancing pointedly at the empty chair next to Natalie.

“Butler,” I mutter, hurriedly sitting down before I call any more attention to myself. I can already tell this is the kind of professor who has no compunction about putting students on the spot.

Fuck. This is not how I wanted this to go. Awkwardness radiates between Natalie and me as the professor goes over the syllabus, her pen continually tapping against her notebook in a steady rhythm, her leg jiggling up and down underneath the table.

“Now, you will have several assignments throughout the first half of the semester that will help you learn about other kinds of buyers,” Dr. Kaufman says, walking away from the podium and meandering through the rows of tables. “That’s what marketing is. Learning how to sell things to a variety of people. It’s easy to know how to market to the type of person you are yourself. You already are the ideal buyer, therefore you understand the particular wants and motivations associated with that type of buying. So what happens when you need to pitch a product or service for which you are not the ideal buyer?”

He stops in front of a girl in the row behind us with wild curls. “Miss...”

“Johnson,” she supplies hesitantly.

“Miss Johnson. How would you market pipe tobacco for a company trying to reach men ages fifty to eighty?”

“Um...” Her eyes dart around the room, frantically searching for the answer.

“It’s rhetorical Miss Johnson, don’t tax yourself.” He continues walking until he’s standing in front of me. Of course. “And Mr. Butler. How would you market tampons for a company focusing its product on teenage girls?”

I cringe involuntarily. Of all examples, did he really have to use tampons? I sense Natalie next to me struggling not to crack a smile, bringing her hand up to cover her mouth. I’d rather have her amused than stone-faced at least.

I stay silent, knowing he doesn’t truly want me to respond.

Dr. Kaufman continues back up to his podium. “Neither of my unwilling volunteers has the personal expertise to answer those questions right now. They are not the ideal buyers for those products. But that’s what we’re here for. Principles of Marketing will help you learn the basics of how to market to a variety of buyers.”

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