Chapter 4 : Buzz
There was no sign of Julia, sitting in a stall for a meeting and talking with one or the other business person.
Stepping out of the cafe he called, “Julia, are you off the clock?”
Julia yawned and said, “I’ll be. In half an hour.”
Roman asked, “Will it be dangerous to step out by that time in your neighborhood?”
Julia yawned again and said, “The neighborhood remains safe until nine.”
Roman snatched her words, “I’ll pick you up and drop you off. Will that be alright?”
Julia raised the caution, “After nine, the neighborhood is dangerous for all humans. Unless you are a zombie yourself, you cannot fight the zombies that rule the streets here, after nine in the night.”
Roman said, “I’ll leave your neighborhood before nine, after dropping you off.”
Julia put forward a condition, “I don’t want to go to a bar tonight.”
Roman offered, “How about a cafe, near your place?”
Julia agreed, “Call me when you are five minutes away from my place.”
Roman was about to jump into the air in joy. He flagged a cab and gave directions. Half an hour later, he was still sitting in the cab, for twenty minutes by then, called Julia, “I’m about to reach your apartment building entrance.”
Julia replied with one word, “Coming.”
After she got in the cab Roman again gave directions to the driver. He used the twenty minute waiting period in finding a decent cafe near Julia’s place. After Roman finished giving directions to the driver, Julia asked, “What’s up?”
Roman opened his sling bag and showed Julia the book of Combinometrics that he was carrying for the whole day, along with his copy and a pen. Julia’s face brightened. She flipped through the book and said, “Oh! They’ve added a lot to this edition. Mine is a lot older, the one I studied in college.”
Roman teased, “You still have your college books with you?”
Julia returned the favor, “I finished college just last year. Not very long ago. Unlike you.”
Roman giggled and refuted, “I am not that old. Just three years older than you. You’re already treating me like an old hag.”
“Anyone older than twenty five - on the funny side of twenties - is considered old.”
“You can enjoy the sunny side for another year. Old age does not spare anyone.”
They were already in the cafe before they could reach an agreement if Roman was too old and Julia was quite young. Roman asked Julia to get hold of a table. He went to pay for a mocha and a chocolate milkshake.
Julia liked the small square tables. She told Roman about her liking the tables in the cafe. Roman was surprised, “You never came here before?”
Julia shook her head, “Never. I don’t have friends. I don’t hang out with people from my company. I’m younger than most of them yet I’m the founder and Chief Executive Officer. I did not have friends at college. My cousins live far away.”
Roman digressed, “Before renting the apartment, haven’t you checked that the neighborhood is not safe?”
Julia explained, “I had no choice. When I started working for my first client, I was still in school. My three clients were hammering my head with quality issues of Connect You. My roommate went crazy after taking too much cannabis for too long and started making problems. In my own company, at the salary of a developer on her first job, an apartment near school was my goal. So I moved in with all my belongings from the dorm to the apartment. And for one year, till I got my first dividend, I slept on the floor, just on a mattress.”
Roman smiled and asked, “Why didn't you move out from this apartment and the neighborhood after getting your first dividend?”
Julia giggled, “By then lean and mean became my lifestyle. I was spoiled by the BizTalk cafe.”
Then she asked, “Where do you live? In a penthouse?”
Roman laughed out loud, “I’m rich. On paper. Besides, my money goes back into my business. I live in a little bigger apartment, shared with two students at university. I have a separate room and they share the other bedroom. Also, I have a separate bathroom while they share the other one.”
Julia thought the living situation was pretty strange for a married man. Then she remembered some stingy people who often used to sublet their empty rooms with others. She had no idea what Roman was thinking about her married life. She asked, “Why didn't you bring your books to the apartment while you left the dorm?”
Roman told her, “I gave away all my books while leaving college. I had no idea that I would be needing them every now and then while working.”
Julia asked another question, “Why are you carrying such a heavy book all along?”
Roman said, “So that I can flip through the book whenever I am taking a break from my work.”
Julia was surprised, “Doesn’t your company buy books for training and employee learning?”
Roman exclaimed, “Good idea. I’ll buy another for the company. That way I don't have to carry the book all day. Thank you.”
Julia was surprised, “You flip through the book in between meetings and other communications?”
Roman confirmed, “Yes. Otherwise I won't find much time.”
Roman asked, “If the neighborhood turns dangerous at night, then why do you keep meetings in the evening? Can’t you negotiate those meetings in the morning and in the afternoon?”
Julia’s answer was vigorous, “I don’t want to lose my morning calms. Just after waking up, the brain is fresh from any influence. I can resolve any problem in the code or I can put my hands on mathematical problems that would help me at work. Seven to nine - in the morning. Before, anybody starts sending emails or pinging in the chat box.”
Roman’s reaction was a little mean, “I can write code whenever I want to, whenever I need to.”
Julia tried to hold her ground, “So do I. I write codes and solve mathematical problems while writing an email, or responding to a chat message or while taking part in a training. But the morning brain, free from any load, works better than a loaded brain under the influence of work, family and news media.”
The mention of family reminded Roman, “Do you have to pick up the children?”
Julia was a little taken aback. Soon she gathered herself and replied, “I don’t have any child.”
Roman asked, “I thought you’ve left them with your husband.”
Julia smiled but did not reply. Roman continued, “Have you told your husband that you’re hanging out with me?”
Julia said, “No.”
Roman threw more questions, “Wasn’t he back at home when you left home this evening?”
Julia shrugged and answered, “No.”
Roman smiled and bantered, “Are you guys fighting?”
Julia refuted, “No. We don’t fight.”
Before Roman could ask another question, Julia asked, “Are you interested in my husband? Wanna date him? Wanna do business with him? That's why are you hanging out with me when your real goal is to cozy up with my husband?”
Roman apologized, “Sorry. I might have asked about your husband a little too early.”
Julia tried to read the underlying hint, “Will he keep pestering me about the loser?”
She stood up and started leaving the cafe. Roman rushed behind her. She flagged a cab and got in from the sidewalk . Roman got in the same cab from the other end. Before Julia could give any direction, Roman talked to the driver and ensured that he would drop Julia off as they planned a couple of hours earlier.
Saturday morning Julia woke up before the rays of the sun touched the ground and started taking care of the things that she must take care of, something that could threaten the existence of her company, her business and herself. She felt thankful to an old friend on an online puzzle community who tipped her off about the situation. Then there was laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping and binging The Big Bang Theory and some thrillers on different OTT platforms.
The expected call from mother came, “What did you do today?”
Julia was chewing a piece of meat and answered, “Usual. How are you? Has daddy’s wound on the left toe healed? What did the doctor say?”
Her mother explained, “That was a cut. Not a wound. He told you as if he was about to get a gangrene and an amputation was imminent. It healed a long time ago.”
Julia wondered how things have changed over the past six years. Till she turned eighteen, she was her mother’s shadow. Her mother was her guiding star. She was the little princess of her daddy. But the day they drove her into the city hall and made her get her marriage license, Julia’s world crumbled, her parents became her tormentors.
Sunday morning she woke up with a call. Roman was on the other side, “I owe you an apology. Can I buy you a meal today?”
Julia accepted the proposition.
She liked basking under the sun all day and roaming around in the central park. They talked about business, technology, mathematics and beyond like literature, painting, music, movies and series on OTT platforms. They even spent a few hours in the Museum of Modern Art.
None of them asked the questions that should not be asked.
Monday morning Lindsey reported that there were five businesses each of which were waiting for a meeting. Julia worked with Lindsey and Laura to schedule meetings with those businesses.
Tuesday evening, Julia met the other son of the father who sought business alliance through marriage. The son did not speak of the marriage at all. As the general manager of the company, he talked just business. His questions about Connect You were very specific to his business. The meeting was very satisfactory. Both parties agreed to close the deal in the following two weeks.
The first decisive meeting in the past two weeks made Julia happy. The man left, leaving her in the stall. She was tidying up her laptop and other documents before leaving. Roman entered the stall and asked, “Off the clock?”
Julia replied, “Yes.”
Her response tailed into a question, “What about you?”
Roman grinned, “At four.”
He suggested, “Let’s hang out in a bar.”
Julia disagreed, “Nope.”
She made her suggestion, “How about the cafe near my place?”
Roman agreed. As long as Julia agreed to spend a few hours in the evening with him, he would agree to any place.
Before entering the cafe, Julia’s phone buzzed. She picked up the phone but did not say a word. The person on the other side of the call asked something and she said, “No need.”
Then she went on with five consecutive “No.” The end was abrupt, “I’m busy now. “
Hanging up she looked up at Roman with a look, “How did I do?”
Roman could not help but say, “Pretty rude.”
Then he teased, “Why are the women rude to their other halves?”
Julia answered, “Because the women are the better halves and the other halves are always worse than the women.”
She giggled a bit, and continued, “By the way, I was talking to my mother.”
Roman seemed flabbergasted, “All my answers to my mother are always yes.”
Julia quipped, “What a good son!”
Roman rectified, “Not at all. The ‘yes’ stops her from pestering me.”
He explained, “If she asks, ‘Have you eaten?’; even if I could not touch my food for the past five hours and they became stale within the delivery containers and I am so hungry that I could have eaten every single piece of furniture and office supply in front of me, I would say, ‘Yes.’ Then she would not keep badgering me about eating on time.”
Julia shared, “My mother’s questions are not that personal. She was curious to know if I’m celebrating LeanTech’s birthday this month, if I’m going to invite special guests, why don’t I ask my clients to join the celebration, if I am asking my husband to be present in the celebration after all he is the emerging hot shot in the finance sector, blah blah blah …”
Roman thought if Julia would have invited LeanTech’s clients and her husband in the celebration of the inception day of LeanTech, then he could have seen what kind of man Julia has fallen for. So far Julia kept avoiding any talk about what kind of person her husband was while she was hanging out with Roman, her suitor.
Before Roman could react, Julia’s phone buzzed again. She did not hesitate to pick up the call, “How are you, Mrs. Coppola?”
After exchanging pleasantries, Julia explained, “I’m building a tradition here, a lean and mean culture. I don’t invite my family to my company events. I don’t even ask my clients to be present on such a big day for LeanTech, though LeanTech has become what it is because of its clientele, too, not just because of its teams. Yet, I keep the clients away and celebrate the team with food and booz and music and shows. I offer the clients dividends and discounts on LeanTech’s birthday. I would in no way breach a tradition in making.”
The call did not continue too long after that. Roman was curious, “Is this your teacher?”
Julia’s face darkened, “Mother-in-law.”
Roman scoffed, thinking, “Too much of a coincidence, she married another Coppola. How many are there in this town?”
Julia spilled, “She was not as distant as to be ‘Mrs. Coppola’ to me, before I was married to her son. Marriage changed everything. I became a rude hater of my mother and of my mother-in-law from a clingy daughter and from a pampered niece.”
Roman asked, “Are you married to your cousin?”
Julia rectified, “Mrs. Coppola was my mother’s friend. Classmate, business partner.”
She talked a lot that evening, “I’m an independent entrepreneur because of these two women. My mother owns an online tutorial service. She designed it with Mrs. Coppola. They started the company so that neighborhood children could find them to be their mathematics tutors when they moved from the city to the rural area with their respective husbands. Later the service for finding tutors grew into an online tutoring hub. The tutoring tools were developed by Mrs. Coppola’s company. The lessons and lesson plans are created by a company that my mother owns.”
She continued, “When I started LeanTech, I got the idea of drawing the salary of a developer and getting monetary benefits of being a CEO at the office from dividends and bonuses plus enjoying other perks as the CEO of the company following their path, their practices.”
Roman uttered his observation, “You seem to be very respectful towards them, at least in your heart, though your words were quite rude to them.”
Julia claimed, “They brought me suffering. They must suffer. From my wrath.”
She suggested, “Let’s not talk about those confused clowns. Let’s have fun.”
Julia kept closing a few more deals over the following months. Her quarter during the summer turned better than all the quarters in the past three years, even compared to the first quarter.
Among the new clients of LeanTech, one was FinanceAI. As Technology Lead of the LeanTech, Julia was accustomed with all the tantrums of the marketing department of FinanceAI. Yet she never mentioned those matters in her after work and weekend rendezvous with Roman.
Roman was aware of the challenges of the marketing team of FinanceAI while they were working with Connect You. He was the CEO of the company. Yet he chose not to bother Julia about those issues while they were meeting after work on weekdays or during the weekends.
In those meetings, they used to talk about the branches of mathematics that have been coming in handy for their work. The books they have been following since college days and still could not get over them and what they have found in the latest edition of their college textbook of Probability and Statistics.
On a Friday night, Roman wanted to go to a bar in Lower Manhattan. Julia disagreed. Roman was curious, “You don’t want to go to any bar near your place. I thought those might not suit your taste. Now it seems, you don’t want to go to any bar.”
Then he expressed his suspicion, “Are you afraid of being uncomfortable if you see your husband drinking with other women at the bar?”
He turned sympathetic to Julia, “That man does not deserve you. Because he doesn't treat you well. You are someone who must be cherished. You are not the person who could be left behind and be forgotten.”
Roman guessed that any mention of husband would piss Julia off for the entire evening. His guesses about Julia’s perseverance were correct. Julia took her path to get back to her apartment. Roman rushed behind her, “It’s not safe in your neighborhood to stay outside after nine. It’s almost nine. I’ll drop you off.”
Julia was furious, “No need. There’s no problem with my neighborhood.”
Roman furthered the fight, “So you said those things about your neighborhood to make me leave early?”
Julia bantered, “Good for you that you know that you’re not stupid.”
Roman hurled back, “I checked on the police department’s website. I knew from the beginning that you had been playing me all along about the neighborhood.”
Julia smirked, “Then why did you keep coming?”
Roman brought in his helpless smile, “Can’t help.”
Julia felt sorry for Roman. The next moment she braced her heart and cursed herself, “He’s married. I need to talk to him to bring him to his senses.”
Julia wagged her ring finger before Roman and said, “You, too, have one. Unless you get rid of that thing you are talking nonsense. Or, you are just a scheming man trying to involve me in your adultery to force a divorce from your wife. You must know, even if I want a divorce from my husband, the reason cannot be adultery on my side, though I don’t care about the alimony. And, I would never become a married man’s mistress.”
Roman muttered, “I still need another year before I can get rid of the bitch.”
Julia muttered back, “The problem is with you. Why curse the woman?”
For the following weeks and months, they argued and apologized numerous times. After a period of peace, Roman would bring about the matter of Julia’s husband, sometimes by deliberation, sometimes as a casual subject.
Each time Julia avoided confrontations. Neither she protested discussing her husband with Roman nor she participated in discussing her husband with Roman. She stopped talking for a moment and changed the subject of talking.
To keep Roman on check, sometimes she expressed her annoyance about the topic of her husband and left with composed anger.
By the end of October, Julia lost her patience. She stormed, “Why do you ask me about my husband?”
“Because I’m interested in you. Because I want to date you. Because I want to have a life with you beyond dating, if we both agree.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure if I can articulate the reason in meaningful words and sentences. I’ve seen that you’re intelligent, attractive, hard working, earning a lot of money. So I am surprised how come your husband let you hangout with me so late and never come to pick you up? After work why don't I see you hanging out with your husband? You mention your teachers, your cousins, your parents, even you have received calls from your mother-in-law, but never your husband? I have seen and heard you talking on the phone and you hung up as I bumped into you and you smiled at me, waved your hand and finished your conversation before you hung up. Every time you mentioned your teacher, cousin, friend, colleague, parents, parent-in-law was on the other end of the phone, but never husband. Why? ”
Too many questions. They made Julia confused and scared. She got cold sweats all over countless times, just thinking about these obvious questions coming from Roman. She had already understood the ambiguity of their relationship - her relationship with Roman. But when the questions were uttered by Roman’s very person, she could not answer them but just ran away without saying anything.
After a week of silence Roman apologized for being rude in a text message and asked Julia out for casual hanging out over a cup of cappuccino. That rendezvous turned out again into numerous encounters over weeks. A month passed and Roman became braver, “I’m a man and I’m interested in a married woman. I’m serious about my feelings for you. Can you give me a chance to be with you?”
Julia avoided direct gazes into Roman’s eyes. First time since she met Roman, first time in her life as an entrepreneur while in conversation with anyone. She gathered herself and pushed back, “What about you the married man? How would you clarify things with your wife?”
Roman was ready with his answer, “We’re not there yet.”
Julia turned furious, “Yes, we’re just sipping coffee and talking mathematics, technology and business. We’re not in a motel room having sex, cheating on our respective spouses. Why would those losers know about our feelings?”
Roman shook his head and shared, “The bitch - my wife - I can’t even remember her name.”
Julia screamed, “Then, go find her. Ask her name and print that on the divorce agreement. And get a divorce first, then we’d talk.”
Roman remained silent for a long while. Then he confided in a soft tone at a very slow pace, “Can you give me one year?”
Julia could not help but smirked, “See. You want commitment from me now, at this very moment. But you cannot get a divorce now. You’re asking me to be your mistress for a whole year. Do you understand how selfish you are? Do you understand you are insulting me?”
Roman scoffed, apologized, “Sorry. My bad. I won’t rush you any more. I’ll ask about what you would do with your husband after I would be able to bring my divorce decree to you.”
Returning to her apartment, Julia thought a little, “How will I show Roman my sincerity?”
The next day she called Eva Coppala, “Are you joining us this Christmas?”
Eva was straight, “Not planned yet. Nor your parents invited us.”
Julia hushed up the “don’t, don’t, don’t” hammer inside her head and silenced her heart, marching in the same rhythm as her brain, as she said, “No problem. Please join us this Christmas in my parents’ home. And please bring your son along. Please tell him, I need to see him.”
Eva braced herself. Five years have passed since Julia and her son married. None of them mentioned that they would like to see each other. She tried to give her son Julia’s phone number but he never called Julia. She never heard from her son that Julia had ever called him.
She could not resist but called Judith Yabbra, “Julia wants to meet my son, this Christmas, at your place. Do you know why?”
Judith had no idea. She just said, “Julie told us that she invited you and your family to our home this Christmas. But she did not mention that she asked you to bring your son along.”
Both the ladies were perplexed, “What this girl is about to stir up this time?”
~~~
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