Page 150 of The Parkers' Handsome Holiday
“I’m just thankful to get out of that office,” Nikki admitted. “No offense to you guys, but sometimes that place is so boring.”
“Nah, I get it. I actually started as a fact checker before I worked my way up to managing editor,” I explained.
Tiffany’s eyes grew wide.
“You did?” she asked. I nodded.
“I sure did,” I responded. “We all have to start somewhere. Who knows, you may be taking my job before I know it!”
“I could never do your job,” she said.
“Why not?”
“I just couldn’t,” she said. “You do a great job. You’re confident and take charge at the meetings. For starters, I could never stand in front of everyone, including our boss, and give a presentation.”
I was flattered. It turned out she had noticed me, but I was still confused by her own lack of confidence. Someone that gorgeous should not have been as timid and insecure as she was. What or who caused her to be that way?
The rest of lunch went by rather uneventful. Maurice and Nikki seemed to hit it off much easier than Tiffany and me. Once we had covered my past working history, mine and Tiffany’s conversation had died down considerably. I desperately tried to keep her talking, but her short answers were preventing our conversation from taking off again. She kept looking around the bar with a mix of sadness and nervousness.
“Have you been here before?” I asked. She shook her head.
“No,” she replied. She said it in such a tone that I knew not to pry any further. She obviously did not want to discuss whatever had happened here. I decided to ask her about work instead. I knew that would be a safe topic.
“How do you like your job so far?”
She shrugged.
“I guess it’s okay,” she admitted. “As Nikki said, it has moments where it’s less than exciting, but that is part of the position, right?”
I nodded in agreement as I took a sip of my iced tea.
“Well, I hope you know that you are doing a great job,” I complimented her. She blushed.
“It’s an easy job,” she said. “Anyone can do it.”
There it was again – the insecurity. It seemed like she had no confidence in herself, despite being one of the best fact checkers that I had ever worked with. She was much smarter and more thorough than Nikki.
“It isn’t that easy of a job,” I replied. “You should really give yourself more credit.”
She shrugged. We would obviously have to work on this confidence thing.
We left the restaurant and headed back to the office. Despite being December, the Miami sun was still very hot.
“I wish we could skip work and go to the beach,” I said to Tiffany. Nikki and Maurice were a good fifteen feet ahead of us.
“I haven’t been to the beach in so long,” Tiffany said.
“What? We live in Miami! You’re supposed to live at the beach.”
She wrinkled her nose.
“I know, it’s just, I guess it lost its appeal after a while.”
Her response baffled me. I had moved to Miami a few years ago from New York and one of the main reasons was because of the beautiful beaches. Compared to up north, Miami was an endless summer.
“We should all go sometime,” I said. “Maybe one day we can leave the office early and call it a ‘team-building’ exercise?”
She did not seem impressed by this idea. Once again, she was caught up by the thoughts inside of her head.
