Someone Else’s Girl

(I have reservations about posting this one for two reasons. 1, I don't think its that goood. 2, It has the least disguised character ever.)


It was a sunny autumnal day when I first met her. She joined our office on a temporary contract, filling in while someone else was away. In the beginning she was just another face, someone who asked me questions about what to do about this or that. It wasn’t as if I was a supervisor or anything, I’d just done so many of the jobs in the office at one time or another that everyone, even my nominal superiors, asked for my advice at some time, so it was no surprise when the newest member of our team did the same. She fitted in easily, and we got on quite well, despite the difference in our ages. We actually had a few things in common, a rare occurrence for me, but I learnt early on that she already had a boyfriend, so I didn’t really think of her in any way other than as a workmate. I suppose we all became a little bit infected by her enthusiasm, and after only a week or two I became fairly fond of her.
And then came the conference. She really wanted to go this conference and the boss agreed she should go, but wanted to send someone else as well. As I said, I’ve done most of the jobs in the office and was reliable so I was asked to go with her. I agreed, mainly on the understanding I was to make sure nothing untoward happened at the after-conference awards. The journey to the conference was illuminating, even if it did exhaust all of my small talk in one go. I learnt a little about her upbringing, more about her ambitions. I told her about my fondness for writing, doing myself down at every opportunity. This upset her a little, making her declare that if I was that bad at everything how come I was always being asked to do things, and she wasn’t going to keep massaging my ego by saying I deserved it or I could do it. This made me stop and think. I realised I had been unconsciously fishing for compliments, and had been trying to impress her. This was my first warning.
Upon arrival at the conference, we found that our hotel was several miles away but a coach would be laid on for the runs to and from the venues. This suited us both as neither of us was keen on too much more driving. It was my turn as we drove to the hotel, so most of the chatting was left to her as I followed the directions. Upon booking in we discovered that our rooms were not adjacent, in fact they were not even on the same floor. We agreed to meet in an hour or so for dinner somewhere. As I unpacked my small bag I began to wonder what I could say to her now, without revealing anything I didn’t want revealed. As it happened it wasn’t too bad, I fell back on the old tales told too me when I started, such and such a thing happened, I did something like this once, etc, etc. The old hand repeating to the newcomer, tales of a different era, and the evening passed without incident. There would be a long day ahead, so we both retired to our rooms early.
We caught the coach in next morning and settled into the conference hall. The speakers varied from interesting and pertinent, through to uninteresting and unconnected, At least that was what I thought, but she seemed enraptured by almost every one of them. I suppose that was my cynicism breaking out, or possibly just boredom. Some of what they were saying was just so much same old same old. The breaks were interesting. Queuing for coffee with some high-powered company directors or government representatives led to some interesting conversations and exchange of business cards. We quickly decided as everyone else seemed to be much higher up the managerial tree than us that we were not going to be merely administrative assistants. She became an assistant projects officer (a wonderfully vague title) and I became the company trouble-shooter, mainly because I’d done nearly every job in the company at one time or another. This seemed to satisfy most people we talked to and made us feel more like we belonged.
And so to the party. I met her in the bar as we waited for the coach to take us. I was feeling more than a little self-conscious wearing a bow-tie and white shirt, although I was surprised that I didn’t look as bad as I thought I would. Then she arrived. Up to this point she had always worn slacks, and now she arrived in the bar wearing what can only be described as a little black dress. I was gob smacked, she looked wonderful! I managed not to stare and carried on a normal conversation as we sipped drinks waiting for the coach. The awards themselves were almost like torture for me. As the drinks flowed I could hardly keep my eyes off her. The meal was fine, the ceremonies enjoyable, the company interesting, and then came the dancing. We danced on a couple of occasions, but as I am a poor dancer, most of the time I could only watch as she danced with some other man. By now I had stopped drinking anything alcoholic as I was due to drive home the following day; she had no such inhibitions and was becoming more than a little merry. The coaches would be arriving soon when she said something about feeling like she’d been mauled. I went straight into over-protection mode. Time we were leaving, lets get your coat, you don’t need that last glass of wine. Too much. She took exception, called me bossy and some less pleasant terms. Nevertheless the coaches were there, so I shepherded her on board. She relaxed, said she was sorry, but she didn’t like being told what to do, and fell asleep, her head on my shoulder.
The coach arrived back at the hotel and I shook her gently awake. She awoke with a start and I had to lead her to the desk to get our keys. We took the lift to her floor with several other party guests. I wasn’t sure about how they viewed us, me holding her upright, her holding my hand tightly. Ignoring their looks I helped her to her room, waited as she took off her coat and shoes, asked if she would be alright, and receiving a quiet yes, left her for my own room, two floors down. As I closed my own door, several thoughts crossed my mind. The first was that it was a good job I had been there to help her back. The second was that I had wanted to kiss her as she had struggled with her coat. Luckily I had been in control enough to save her from me as well as anyone else. I slept little that night.
The next morning we met for breakfast. She looked a little sheepish, and said she couldn’t remember much about the previous evening and apologised if she’d said anything regrettable. I waved her aside, saying she’d done nothing to be sorry for. We decided to drive to the conference so that we could leave when we liked and make our way home. The second day of speakers was much the same as the first and by lunch we had had enough and decided to leave. By now I had used up nearly every anecdote I could remember and she now knew more about me than almost any woman I had known and I suddenly realised I was falling for her. I remembered how jealous I was when someone else was dancing with her, and when I’d thought she was being groped how I’d gone off at the deep end. And she was someone else’s girl. How stupid could I be? I dropped her off at home and then went home myself, worrying about what would happen next.
Luckily I was relieved from office duties at the end of the week and went back to my nominal job. This would have been alright except for not long after our mutual supervisor had to have an operation and it was decided to temporarily split their responsibilities between, yes, you guessed it, me and her. This meant I was in almost constant contact with her, either on the phone or face to face. I could only hope I was managing to keep my feelings hidden. To help me in this I took the other admin assistant into my confidence. She has been a good friend for many years and I asked her to just keep an eye on me and stop me if it looked like I was going to do something silly. This worked well for a week or two until the team meeting in the pub. It was a Friday afternoon and we all gathered and talked and laughed, played a game or two of pool and generally enjoyed ourselves. Except for me. One or two of the others began pulling my leg about not working any more, and about brown-nosing. Normally I would have laughed back, but she was there. They were putting me down in front of her and I didn’t know what to do. I left not long after her and spent a miserable weekend angry with myself and the others.
On the Monday morning I decided I was going to have to tell the boss, if only to explain why I didn’t want to be in the office anymore. To my surprise, the boss already knew. Either my confidante had said something or I wasn’t keeping it to myself as well as I thought. Now things were talked out and I can work in the office and only occasionally find myself staring at her. Sometimes I find I have to write, much as I’m doing now, just to get it out of my system. All I can do is hope she stays happy, and if by some miracle she doesn’t then hope she still likes me enough. That is the only way I’ll get her, because she’s someone else’s girl.