While We Blossom.

A short story.

Photo by Daniela Andrade on Unsplash

“I love New York on summer afternoons when every one's away. There's something very sensuous about it--overripe, as if all sorts of funny fruits were going to fall into your hands.”

―F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

I first met Fliss in the summer, during a stuffy meeting in a New York office that was fancier than it needed to be. Fliss sat down next to me and had the same look of nervous anticipation that I had. Turns out, she looked that way because she was about to make the most life changing speech in front of a board of white males, all of whom appeared to be wearing clothes bought from the same tailors back in London. Fliss didn’t seem to notice this or care. She had her speech prepared and boy was she going to deliver. I watched her in amazement. I had never heard someone talk with her confidence in a room full of people she didn’t know. I was captivated by her every word. Her accent was northern and the words came out in a soothing string of tones and notes. We had both been invited along to the meeting to observe how these things worked. Turns out Fliss had a different agenda. She had travelled half way around the world to make her pitch about taking over the business, throwing a room into silence with her power.

After the meeting we all filed out the room, men first, and I tried to start up a conversation with Fliss. We were the only women in the room and so naturally I thought she would have wanted to talk to me too. But she wasn’t trying to catch my eye in the same way I was her. She walked out the room along with everyone else, part of the group while I watched pathetically from the side line. I so badly wanted to be noticed by her.