| Fan Fiction |
by DTLCT
Traffic strikes as he pulls back into the familiar street, leading back to Ying Ying’s Investment. Half an hour later he manages to pull into the parking lot. He grabs his briefcase and rushes out of his car, locking it in the process. He steps onto the pavement and hurries towards the entrance. The glass doors bang loudly behind him. He runs at top speed towards his destination – the elevator – because he’s late for an early meeting. Before he knows it, he crashes into someone, knocking both him and the other person off his or her feet.
Wallace gets up and helps the other person up also. “I’m sorry, Miss. I’m in a hurry. I have a meeting and I’m late for it.”
“It's all right.” The girl reassured him, putting on a friendly smile. She bends back down to retrieve the pile of papers Wallace just knocked out of her hands during their collision – now scattered across the floor.
He bends down to pick up his briefcase also, helping the girl retrieving some loose papers. Their hands come upon the same piece of paper by accident. They yank their hands back in awkwardness, not knowing what to do for a second. Then she reaches for the paper at last. They both stand up, looking at each other in silence for a moment.
“Um….I’m….sorry….again,” Wallace stuttered out. “But I could make it up to you later if I delayed you also. I’m….sure….you’re….going….somewhere….too. I mean if there’s….anything….I can help. I’m Wallace by the way.” He reaches his hands out to her for a shake.
The girl still has on her friendly smile. “I’m Cyndi. Cyndi Wang. I work next door to you guys. I’m just delivering some papers for my supervisor. It’s okay. You don’t have to apologize so much. I know it was an accident.”
“Um….that’s nice. So we’re neighbors, huh? I never knew that.”
“I’m new actually. The old secretary left for some reason. Confidential information. I’m not supposed to know. But they hired me in a rush. They said I’m still in temporary status since they need to know if I could really work before they secure my position.”
Wallace stops stutts for the moment. “Well, I hope you can stay because I would love to see you again.” Then he realizes what he just said. “I mean so we can go for a cup of tea later!” He laughs out awkwardly, not knowing if he should just go find a hole and buries himself under it for being so dumb at that moment.
“That’ll be nice, but aren’t you supposed to be late for a meeting?”
Wallace looks at his watch again. “Yea! Right! I’ll see you later, okay? Call me!”
“That’ll be great. But…ummmm…I don’t have your number yet.”
Wallace beats himself up from the inside, but slaps on a sheepish smile on his face. “Oh…sorry!” He fishes around in his pocket for his business card. “Here’s my card.”
Cyndi glances at it quickly and looks up at him again. “Well, I’ll see you, Mr. Huo.”
Wallace smiles. “Yes.”
Wallace – who was late for his meeting before and is REALLY late for his meeting now – still stands there staring at Cyndi until after she’s out of the building, with only the glass door closing to tell him she’s gone.
Wallace snaps back into reality finally and continues to his prime destination – the elevators. He stands in front of the elevator, beating himself up for being such a fool in front of such an attractive girl.
“Now she thinks I’m an idiot!” Wallace scolded himself silently – and internally. “What was that? Call me? Yea right! Is she desperate enough to do so? Let’s forget about that. Even if she would call me – that thought already disappear when I open my stupid mouth. Oh my gosh! What are my supposed to do now?” He brings his right hand up to slap his forehead at that time.
The elevator bell dings and brings him back to reality once again. He gets in and punches the button to the 3rd floor. He rushes in the 2nd door to the right. He walks more slowly when he enters the room.
“Susie, how’s the meeting going?” Wallace asked quickly.
“They’re waiting for you, Mr. Huo,” Susie replied, eyeing him suspiciously.
“Okay, I’m going in.”
Susie could see his nervousness. “Are you okay, Mr. Huo?”
“Yes, everything’s fine,” He said automatically. In fact, it sounds so scripted and mechanical even. He couldn’t help thinking to himself, “Yea right! I wish!” But he turns to Susie again, delivering his last line to her, “I’m going in.”
Wallace walks towards the conference room behind Susie’s desk and turns the doorknob, feeling uneasy since it’s his first time he’s late in all five years he’s here.
“Hi everyone,” Wallace said casually. “Sorry for being late. Traffic.” He shuts the door behind him and approaches the conference table, sitting at the 3rd place down from the boss, next to his long time friend and also his boss’ son, Vincent.
Mr. Zhao looks at Wallace in a grim expression. “Mr. Huo, I’m sure you have your reasons for being late. So now would you please present your plans to us?”
“Yes, sir.”
Wallace pulls a stack of papers out of his briefcase and passes it around to everyone. He starts to explain his plans and returns to the calm and confidence man again. When he finishes, Mr. Zhao had turned his disapproving expression off. Wallace sits back down again and waits for Mr. Zhao to speak up.
“What do you think about his plan?” Mr. Zhao asked, scanning the others in the room, waiting for inputs.
With Mr. Zhao’s grant of permission for them to speak, the others begin their statements or inputs or disagreements one by one.
Wallace, obviously finds the time to be right, starts to daydream – a thing in which he never dream of doing, especially while in a meeting like this. “I wonder what she’s doing right now,” He pondered to himself. “Maybe working at her desk and thinking about me?” He puts his chin on his right hand, getting comfortable. “Get real, Wallace Huo,” He scolded himself. “She probably forgot about you already.” His expression changes at that time. “What if she has a boyfriend already?” Wallace asked, feeling a bit gloomy because of the possibility. “Why are you acting like some high school kid who’s got the love virus?” He asked, changing back to scolding some sense into himself. Then his expression changes to shock. “Did I say love? It can’t be!” Just as the other expressions take over to replace the previous, the analytical mode takes over at that time. “Maybe it’s just her cute little smile and how she dresses in that pink shirt and that long black skirt that goes down to her ankle.” He snaps back to the shocked mode, realizing how good his memory is. “How did I remember what she was wearing when I didn’t know what Alice was wearing this morning?” Then as if to make up for it, he tries to remember of his sister’s attire. “Was Alice wearing a yellow t-shirt and jeans this morning? No wait, that was Mandy. Nuh uh. Mandy was wearing sports clothes again. Why am I thinking like an elementary student now? What the heck is ‘nuh uh’? Got to get back to why I’m behaving like this. Hmmm….Cyndi….Cyndi….What a cute name.” He turns on a smile without knowing it. “Her hair is sooo long and silky.” Then his mind begins to fill up with possible ideas. “Maybe I’ll go ask her out for coffee this afternoon.”
“Mr. Huo!!!” Mr. Zhao bellowed, breaking through Wallace’s world.
Wallace finally snaps out of his daydreaming mode. “Ummm….right!”
Mr. Zhao looks at Wallace with disapproval again. “I asked you what the plans are for the following year.”
Wallace clears his throat to get himself into working mode again. He whips out another stack of papers and hands them to Mr. Zhao.
“I’ll take a look at it before presenting it to everyone at the next meeting, which is a week from today. I hope you’re not late again.”
“No, sir!” Wallace said quickly.
“If there aren’t any more questions or comments, this meeting is dismissed. I hope you all will go back to your drawing board and think carefully about what I said today.” He has looked at Wallace while he’s saying the second sentence.
“Yes, sir,” Everyone said in unison before getting up to leave.
“Mr. Huo, please stay,” Mr. Zhao said, his voice stern and his expressions threatening. “I need to talk to you.”
Everyone murmurs among themselves as they walk out the door, glancing at Wallace when they walk by.
“Dad, can we just forget about it?” Vincent asked, turning to his father.
“I know he’s your best friend,” Mr. Zhao said, his tone and expressions still stern and grim as before. “But he is an employee of this company.”
“But…”
“You can’t stay while I’m having this conversation with Mr. Huo. Go back to work.”
Vincent hesitates a little but does as he was ordered anyway. He gathers up all his notes and walks out, giving Wallace a supportive pat on the shoulder as he walks by.
When the door closes behind Vincent, Mr. Zhao directs his attention back on Wallace.
“Mr. Huo, sit down,” Mr. Zhao said.
Wallace sits back down in his chair obediently.
“I know you’d work very hard for this company in the past and you’re one of our best employees. Don’t disappoint me.”
“Yes, sir. What happened today was unavoidable.”
“I trust you to not let this repeat again in any other circumstances.”
“No, sir. It won’t happen again. I can reassure you of that.”
“Good because you’re being put up for a promotion. What you’re doing for the next few months will affect my decision.”
Wallace looks down as Mr. Zhao says all of these.
“You’re the only person to make this promotion happen now. I’m going to be fair on this so I won’t listen to what other employees are saying of you, but only believes in what I see.”
Wallace looks up again. “I know you’re a very fair person, sir. Despite my relations with Vincent, you only focus on my effort and the quality of my work for this company. I know what I should do, sir. I won’t disappoint you.”
Mr. Zhao softens a bit. “Very well then. You may go now.”
“Yes, sir.” He puts some notes back into his briefcase and leaves the conference room. While leaving, he couldn’t help but beat himself up again, “You’d done it this time, Wallace! The man’s going to bring you down. He never liked you in the first place! Now you just presented him the chance to kick you out.”
As he walks by Susie’s desk, Susie stands up to stop him.
“Mr. Huo, Mr. Zhao wants to talk to you in his office,” Susie informed him.
Wallace turns on his puzzled look. “Huh?”
Susie lets out a nervous laugh at her own foolishness. “I meant Mr. Vincent Zhao.”
“Oh! I should have known. Thank you, Susie.”
Wallace walks past her, going out the door and heads towards the elevators again. He rides the elevator up to the 5th floor. He arrives at Vincent’s office in relief, seeing that Vincent’s smiling. He closes the door before sitting down on the chair in front of Vincent’s desk.
“What did my father say?” Vincent asked.
“The usual don’t do it again – like he said to the other employees.”
“What happened this morning? Is everything all right at home?” Then he stops himself. “I mean at your apartment building.”
“Everything’s fine except for the incident last night. But it should be taken care of sometime this week.”
“You have never been late before nevertheless daydreaming in the middle of an important meeting like this.”
“Maybe lack of sleep,” Wallace lied, not looking at Vincent when he said that. It was a half true statement but Vincent wouldn’t know that.
“Let’s hope so because my father is really getting on our case this time. You gave him a very good reason for it.”
“This guy is getting really freaky,” Wallace thought. “How did he know that I was just thinking of the same thing when I was down below?” Then he returns his attention to Vincent again, saying, “I’ll try to watch my back next time.”
Vincent smiles. “Oh. I forgot to tell you when we talked on the phone this morning. But some old friends from our university are getting together for a little barbecue this weekend. You want to come?”
“Is Cyndi going to be there?” Wallace pondered to himself. “No wait, she doesn’t even go to my university.” He snaps his attention on Vincent once more after that little that internal battle. “I’ll see what happens the rest of the week first. Alice just moved in with me yesterday. I want to see how she copes first.”
“Oh? Alice is back? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t even know until she showed up yesterday at my apartment.”
Vincent smiles and shakes his head at the same time. “Alice hasn’t changed a bit.”
“Yea. Same old Alice.”
“You should get back to work now before my father looks for some other excuse to fire you.”
Wallace looks at his watch. “Right. I’ll get back to you on that barbecue event.”
Wallace gets up and exits Vincent’s office. He makes another trip to the elevator and goes back down to the 2nd floor. He steps out of the elevator in time to catch some comments about him.
“But he had never been late before,” One girl said to another.
“Yea,” The other girl said. “I was shocked. Mr. Zhao was talking to him for the whole ten minutes. He walked out of the room in a dazed. Do you think he’s going to get fired?”
“I don’t think so,” The first girl said. “That would be harsh. Since he worked so hard for this company. I like him.”
“Don’t you two have some paperwork to do?” Wallace asked, giving them a glance over.
The two girls jump – not literally – but they were surprised to see Wallace.
“Sorry, Mr. Huo,” The first girl said. “I was just asking her how to do this outline here.” She taps the paper in her hand for emphasis.
“Yes, Mr. Huo, we’re working together right now,” The second girl defended her colleague. “We’ll get back to our desks right away.”
The girls had no idea that Wallace had heard them clear from before. It’s too late to put up this front. But he didn’t want to expose them totally. He nods and walks in the direction of his office. The two girls get back to working – for real this time at their own desks.
Wallace, feeling like he wants to get it out of his system, turns around to acknowledge the two girls and some others that are working at their stations. “And I didn’t get fired yet. So you can still bet the time limit for this one!” He walks straight to his office and shuts the door behind him after that.
The two girls look at each other in shocked. They’re afraid that they’ll get fired because of Wallace’s connection to the boss’ son.
© Friday, June 22nd, 2007
Re-posted: Saturday, October 10th, 2009