Page 6 of Tell Me What you Think

"I've been negotiating the terms for a few weeks, but I didn't want to say anything until everything was locked in. HR is going to start the reassignment process next week, but you know you'll always have a place in this company — any manager would be thrilled to have you."

At Alcyone Consulting, the rules around position coverage work in their own particular way, and Ricard retiring doesn't mean she'll automatically stay on as executive assistant to whoever takes his place. She'll enter the rotation pool, like he said — company policy is to encourage people to work across different departments. So Olga gets to decide whether she stays put or requests a transfer.

"Thank you." The executive assistant's cheeks warm a little. "Do you know who they'll put in your position?"

He shakes his head.

"No, and honestly I don't much care." He sounds so sincere that Olga laughs.

"Fair enough. Your only concern now should be enjoying a well-deserved retirement."

"Anyway, I just wanted you to hear it from me."

"Thank you for telling me. And congratulations again." She stands and leaves the office, pulling the door almost shut behind her.

She sits back down at her desk and sinks into her chair, feeling a kind of fizzing pressure at the pit of her stomach. Her moment has come, and she intends to take it. When she first started to suspect her boss would retire early, she decided she'd request a transfer — not just to a different department, but to a different floor. Now that she won't have a direct assignment, she gets to choose, and Olga wants any position that will let her seriously cut down on the number of times she runs into Marina Cardona. A different floor would eliminate half the risk right away — no more chance encounters in the hallway — and depending on the department she picks, she probably won't have to see her more than twice a year at the joint semiannual meetings.

It's a perfect move — and a cowardly one — but if she's looking out for her own emotional well-being, it's the only thing she can come up with, because if she stops seeing her, chances are the crush will slowly fade and leave her free to start dating women who are actually within reach.

She decides that tonight, at home, she'll draft the letter making the formal request and submit it to HR first thing tomorrow, asking for a position in some quiet department, with some manager or other and a schedule that won't force her to see Marina. It's a reasonable idea — it lets her keep her salary, her seniority, and her battered heart in one piece.

She picks up the phone and dials Silvia's extension.

"Want to meet after work at our usual place?"

"Sure, yeah. Is something wrong?" her friend asks.

"Nothing major. We'll talk later."

The bar where they usually meet is half a block from the building — a narrow little spot with tables packed too close together for Olga's taste and an espresso machine that makes more noise than a jet engine. But Silvia loves it because it's one of the few bars in Barcelona that actually serves a properly cold draft beer, and for her — used to near-frozen beer from summers spent with her boyfriend in a small town in Andalusia — that counts for a lot.

Olga waits at the bar for their two beers and carries them over to the table Silvia has claimed.

"Thanks," Silvia says as Olga sets one in front of her.

Ricard's assistant — for just a little while longer — sits across from her, they clink glasses, and Olga takes a long sip.

"Perfect," Silvia says appreciatively. "Okay, talk to me. Are we here because you've finally decided to ask Marina out for coffee?"

Olga rolls her eyes.

"Ricard's retiring. He told me this morning."

Silvia's surprise mirrors whatever Olga's face must have looked like when she found out.

"I thought he still had more time. How old is he?" she asks, curious.

"He's taking early retirement, so his age doesn't really matter — and he's gone by Monday."

Silvia lets out a low whistle and immediately furrows her brow, because she knows Olga's plan for when this moment came.

"Please tell me you're not going to do something dumb like requesting a floor transfer."

"It's not dumb, it's survival."

Her friend shifts in her chair and pulls off a small feat of gymnastics to cross one leg over the other without slamming her knee into the edge of the table.

"You know I love you and I respect you, Olga, but I think you're taking this a little far. Are you really not going to try anything? If you run away and stop seeing her, I'm pretty sure you're going to regret it for the rest of your life — and not because it won't work, because there's nothing like putting distance between yourself and someone to get over them, but I think you'll look back and wish you'd done something different."