Page 49 of Tell Me What you Think

Olga feels cold all over when she moves away, but her head still isn't working the way it should.

"Of course, yeah. You must be tired."

Marina nods without looking away. How is it possible that at her age she never noticed she's attracted to women? Or is it that Olga is the only one she's attracted to, and that's why she's never had these doubts before? Her head is about to explode. She needs to get away from her and think clearly.

"I really am. I'm glad you found the document," she says, and smiles, and Olga's heart starts jumping around in her chest.

"Thank you — but it was because of you."

The vice president smiles at her and walks out of the room. Olga walks her to the door, and there's no awkward silence because Marina doesn't allow it.

"See you at the office," she says, and steps across the threshold, walking at a quick pace toward the elevator.

Chapter 20

Marina deletes the paragraph from the email and rewrites it for the second time, unable to focus on what she's doing because since Saturday her head has been everywhere—or in one specific place, to be precise—except where it should be. She can't stop replaying that day: standing across from Olga in that room full of boxes, their bodies pressed together, how fast her heart was beating and the tingling that ran through her while they looked at each other. She's still trying to find a logical explanation for what she did, because she could have hugged her to celebrate the good news and stepped back immediately, the way she would have with anyone else, but she stayed there, looking into her eyes, watching with fascination as her assistant's pupils widened—though what's unsettled her most isn't that Olga didn't say what she was thinking, what was running through that mind working at full speed right in front of her, but the urge she felt to kiss her, when she has never been drawn to a woman that way, not in any way at all.

The vice president gets up and walks out of the office because she needs coffee. She doesn't ask Olga if she wants any; in fact, she barely looks at her when she passes by. She reaches the coffee machine, presses the button, and leans one hand against the wall while she waits, drifting back to the conversation they had over lunch—the one where Olga explained that she hadn't recognized her attraction to women until her thirties, even though there had been plenty of signs—and now Marina is even more anxious, because she'd been trying not to think about it under the pretense that, if it were her situation, she would have known. But seeing how long it took her assistant to understand herself, it's entirely possible that she's a similar case, just at forty-five. She exhales sharply. It can't be. She can't discover this late that she's a lesbian. But when she looks back at her marriage and every relationship she had before, a chill runs through her, because even though she enjoyed the sex and loved her ex-husband deeply, there was always something that kept her from feeling completely whole. She could stop driving herself crazy over something so absurd and just accept that she's bisexual, because that would explain everything—she's attracted to both men and women, it's just that until now she hadn't felt drawn to anyone of her own sex. The problem is that on Saturday she discovered the intensity of this pull toward Olga is far beyond anything she's felt for anyone before. That bubbling sensation vibrating in her stomach, the anticipation that cut off her breath, and how unsettled she feels not knowing where she stands.

Olga is like a riddle to her. One of those that leaves ambiguous clues that only disorient you. She kissed her—that should be a very clear clue—but her insistence on forgetting it and the fact that she's never tried anything again in all this time have Marina somewhat confused.

She goes back to the office, and as she passes Olga's desk, Olga stops her.

"I've finalized this week's schedule—everything's in there except anything that might come up last minute, all noted down. I forwarded it to your email so you can review it and let me know if you need me to change anything."

"Okay, I'll look at it in a bit."

If that afternoon in the storage room had never happened, Marina would have asked her to pull it up right there, to open it on her screen while Marina stood behind her chair with one hand on the back and one on the desk. But now she doesn't dare, because her assistant has become a danger to her—an addiction she didn't know she had until she was close enough to breathe her in.

She feels so frustrated she wants to slap herself to knock some sense into her head. She's a grown woman who has always known her own mind. Even when she was younger, people used to say she was very mature for her age. And now her assistant sends her pulse racing like she's a teenager with a crush.

Olga is different too. She's been careful, handling whatever she can with as little back-and-forth as possible, because she also needs to stay away from temptation until her body settles down. Since Saturday—since her boss's hand landed on her waist and those blue eyes were on her—Olga has been floating and trembling at the same time. She's not naive. She knows something is happening between them, that with every minute they spend together they're drawing closer to a line that sits somewhere between friendship and something more, but she doesn't know what to do with that. Marina is her boss, and she's far too professional to think she'd ever be willing to cross it.

"Have you talked to Andrea?" Marina asks just before stepping into her office, needing to have a normal conversation with her—to exchange a few sentences the way they used to before that day, without her gaze going straight to Olga's mouth.

"Yeah, well, not by phone. I texted her Saturday to tell her I'd found the document—well, that you had." Olga turns red again and Marina swallows hard. "She said she'd call me today to set up an appointment this week so I can bring it in."

Marina nods, hesitating, because she spoke with Andrea just yesterday—Andrea had suggested getting a drink this evening. They have plans after work in Esplugues, and it would be no trouble at all for Marina to offer to drop off the documents on Olga's behalf. But if she offered, she wouldn't be sure whether she was doing it to help her or to keep Olga and Andrea from seeing each other. Is she losing her mind? Is she jealous of her friend and this woman she has nothing but a professional relationship with?

"I'd love to see your cousin's face when they tell him the whole thing blew up on him." The vice president pulls a small laugh out of Olga that lodges itself in Marina's brain and plays on repeat for the next hour.

That afternoon, on her way back from a meeting that has dragged on long enough to give her a headache, Olga reminds her that they still need to finalize the agenda for Wednesday's session with Nauta.

"We can do it later if you want," the assistant offers, seeing her boss's exhausted expression.

"No, let's take care of it now and get it off our plates."

Olga nods, picks up the folder with the documents, and walks into the office, and just as they've been avoiding being close to each other all day, they do the same now. Marina points to the small round table in the corner, because if she stays at her own desk, Olga will have to drag over a chair and sit next to her the way they usually do. The assistant pulls out the papers—a copy for each of them—and reads each item aloud while Marina follows along on her own sheet and marks the ones she wants to go over first with a pen before handing them back.

"Okay, I think that covers everything," Olga says. "I'll write up a clean version and send it out."

"Copy me, please."

"Of course."

They both stand at the same time and the assistant gathers all the papers to put them back in the folder, but when she tries to square them up on the table, she misjudges it and the stack slips out, sending every sheet scattering across the floor in front of her horrified eyes.

"Shit, sorry. I've got it," she mumbles, stumbling over the words.