The Alien Lover

“Rick, your 2 o’clock is waiting,” reminded Cathy, Rick’s secretary.

“Send her in. I am ready,” replied Rick.

As Sarna Robinson walked in, Rick took a second look at her résumé and congratulated her on her achievements, “I really like the way you are pushing the envelope in the media industry. You have an impressive résumé – Princeton and London School of Economics.”

“Thank you. I noticed you have an all MIT background too, including a PhD in economics. To me, that’s truly impressive. I am surprised you didn’t stay back in teaching. Anyway, you are supposed to be asking me the questions,” remarked Sarna with a measured laugh.

“Ms. Robinson, I am not very good at asking questions. I tend to chit-chat in interviews. I believe you already met my boss Richard Tandy and my research team. By the way, Richard is the EVP and he is in charge of our vertical.”

“I did meet Richard and your team. Now I have a pretty good idea as to what this job primarily entails,” Sarna stated with proper politeness.

“As you know, this research team is fairly new. Currently, all eight research team members are AVPs. I simply do not have the time to supervise them. I was not comfortable in promoting someone from within the team and create conflicts. So we created this new VP position that will directly supervise the research team and work closely with me on various technical and strategic initiatives. In fact, this is quite a high profile position. We always have some turnovers and also some movements within the organization, so you will never feel boxed in,” Rick pointed out her role and then asked, “Why are you planning to switch to the consulting business?”

“Two reasons. The primary reason is that I will get to work with different industries. The secondary reason comes from the fact that you are an UK-based company. I’m an American, but my husband is from the UK. He does not enjoy the US much, so we would like to settle back there,” she replied.

“Thanks for being honest. Such opportunities are not common, but once in a while they do arise. If you come on board, I will keep that in mind. Although each research team member specializes in one industry only, the supervisor obviously will have the opportunity to work with a wide range of industries. For example, the team is now handling projects from nine different industries. Nick is our healthcare expert. He is managing two projects – one from a bio-tech company and the other one from a major hospital chain. The point is that, variety is a non-issue here. Of course, I cannot say with any degree of certainty when a promotional opportunity will come up in the UK,” Rick tried to offer a more realistic counter-picture of her expectations. She was happy with his straight-forward approach.

In about two weeks Sarna got a call from Rick’s office that she was offered the job. She was ecstatic. She knew this job would take care of her professional as well as family needs. She came on board within a month. Rick was equally delighted to have her on board. He decided to concentrate more on management issues and interfacing with clients than answering the researcher’s questions. He arranged for her to work with him during the first week and then she was to take over the team responsibility. He thought she was very sharp, intense, yet witty. While going over the current projects with him, she took extensive notes, asked a flurry of pertinent questions and offered a series of meaningful suggestions. Rick realized that his team would be in right hands.

During the first week in office she recognized that Rick was a powerhouse. He was extremely knowledgeable, precise and always appreciative of quality ideas and suggestions. He was least ashamed to accept counter-views as long as they were more conducive to his department’s overall objectives. He cared more about his department’s welfare than his own ego or arrogance. He was also easily approached and consulted. He was always ready to share his views and knowledge. He found time to reply to all e-mail messages and they were brief, to-the-point and consistently well-thought-out. She also noticed that when he was unsure he would not fake up a half-hearted answer; instead he would sleep on it and then return an authoritative answer the next morning. Richard not only depended heavily on Rick to set the tone for his vertical, but Rick was also the primary brain behind all important ideas and solutions. In spite of having all these wonderful professional and intellectual qualities, he was polite, pleasant and very soft-spoken. He always spoke very highly of everyone on the research team. She realized he was a person above all the silly office politics that she was accustomed to seeing in her prior job. Above all, he always had a smiling face. She started to develop a real sense of respect for him.

As she took over the supervision of the research team, Rick and Sarna decided to have working lunches to keep each other abreast of the daily progress and new developments. Since she was on board to manage the research team, at the end of the weekly meeting Rick announced that he would not be conducting or attending their meetings anymore. From the quiet exit of the team, she was able to figure out how sorely they would all miss him. She even noticed that one of the female members was busy hiding tears. She sat there and wondered how she would ever overcome the image he was leaving behind. She was thoroughly convinced she had an uphill task ahead of her to fill in his shoes.

During their lunch meetings, Rick noticed Sarna was very spontaneous in her expressions. He always liked that quality in woman. She was developing excellent management style. She was impartial, focused, strategic and very client oriented. He really liked the way she assigned priorities to the incoming projects and in order to handle the high priority cases, she managed to put together teams, ignoring individual member’s specific industry concentration; she was thus able to meet all significant deadlines. One day he even told her, “Sarna, you are making Richard and I look like heroes. In fact, all the credit must go to you and your team. You are doing such a fabulous job and I am so proud of you.” She thought it was such a pleasure to work with him.

A few months later, one Monday morning she left a message in his voice mail saying that she had developed bronchitis and would take off the rest of the week off. He was so used to chatting with her during lunch that he unmindfully waited for her to show up. After a while, he felt so restless and agitated with himself that he simply tossed the unopened lunch bag in the garbage can and went out for a walk. He wondered why she needed one whole week to recover and prayed that she came back sooner. He wanted to call her and ask her to come sooner; then again, he realized the ethical and moral dilemma that stood on the way. He felt like taking the rest of the day off, but he remembered the important client meeting at 2pm. He came back to office and asked John to update him on the project status. He was updated but the file could not be found. John had to talk to Sarna to find out the whereabouts of the file. At the conclusion of their phone conversation, she asked to talk to Rick. She mentioned, “I am already feeling better. I will be back on Wednesday.” His heart leapt up in joy thinking that he had to wade through this vacuum for one more day only.

Gradually, she also realized that she had developed a deep passion for him. They both were married, so she rationalized that their feeling was more about their common passion for the work than love. She could not wait to see him during lunch. Once in a while, when he was out on business lunch with a client, she would feel awfully lonely. From the way he stared at her, she all along knew how he felt about her. Often, after the client meetings around 3pm, he would stop by her cubicle and chat for a while. Her cubicle was away from the team cubicles, so nobody would know what they were chatting about. Slowly, that also became part of their daily routine and they began to enjoy the extended chat hours. As times went by, they chatted more about miscellaneous matters than true office issues. While she was curious about his wife and their relationship, she often wondered why he never asked her about her husband and their relationship. Every evening, on her way out, she would tap on his glass door to say bye. She would notice how his face would suddenly go down. She felt especially terrible to see his face on Friday evenings. Just to tease him, on her way out she would point at him and emphasize, “Have a nice weekend.” He knew she enjoyed talking to him, but given her ever-smiling face and cheerful nature, he never understood how she truly felt about him. Of course, they did not talk about their mutual feeling.

Whenever a project got overextended and the deadline needed to be renegotiated, she would just mention it to him. He would not be a bit upset and would smile and say, “Don’t worry. I will take care of it.” She not only knew it was essentially her lack of judgment in failing to handle the timeline that created the mishap, but she also knew the kind of humiliation he had to face with his clients. Amazingly, he never said a negative word that transpired from such incidents. On the contrary, if asked, in his usual soft voice he would just say, “It was a piece of cake.” She however knew he simply went through the ordeal to protect her, or else he would have just sent an e-mail to the sales team to handle the matter. In retrospect, she remembered how annoyed and unpleasant her prior boss would be when something went wrong.

One day during lunch he handed in her annual review. She was thrilled to see that she got a perfect review. Of course, considering it was her first year there and her first supervisory role, she did not expect anything close to a perfect review. She knew it was more a personal review than a professional review. Yet, to tease him, she asked, “I hope your heart has not played any role here.” He answered, “My heart had no role to play here. It was all from my head. You did a phenomenal job and you deserved it. I also recommended you for a merit raise.” She was a bit surprised by the idea of the merit raise and asked him, “I thought one has to be here at least two years before qualifying for such a raise.” He replied, “That is perhaps the general corporate policy. But the department heads always have some flexibility as long as there is money available in the budget.” She realized how much he loved her to go to that extent.

A few weeks later, she got an e-mail from Cathy stating that her merit raise had been approved. But the e-mail did not specify the amount. So she decided to stop by Cathy’s desk and find out more about it. She was elated to know that the raise was for $20,000. As she was ready to leave, Cathy said, “I don’t understand why he did that. He could have easily waited one more year.” Sarna was totally perplexed at Cathy’s comments. She could not resist her curiosity and asked, “I am clueless. What are you talking about?” Cathy replied, “He didn’t tell you how he funded your merit raise?” Sarna felt more confused and answered, “No. He just mentioned to me that he recommended me. That’s all I know.” Cathy gave a comical look to Sarna and said, “After he recommended you for the raise, he found out that we exhausted our budget. So he gave up his personal annual raise to fund your special raise. Please don’t tell him. I will lose my job. Even Richard does not know about it. Moreover, no one gets a $20K merit raise. It is more like $5K.” Sarna felt quite disoriented. She sat in the restroom and cried for a while, wondering how she could ever enjoy her merit raise.

One afternoon an old colleague of Sarna visited her. She had a lot to catch up with him. So they sat in the conference room and started chatting. While passing by, Rick saw them there. He knew it was all innocent, yet he felt very upset that she was having such a cheerful time with him. He decided not to stop by her cubicle later that afternoon, so she came by. By now, she could read him like a book. Just looking at his face, she knew he was upset about something. She asked, “How come you didn’t stop by?” He tried to be evasive and replied, “I was not feeling good. Perhaps I am catching a cold.” She noticed he had no such symptoms. He was simply making an excuse to avoid an answer. To cheer him up, she said, “He was just a co-worker. Nothing more.” They both laughed and his face brightened up. On many occasions she observed that if she gleefully spoke to anyone other than the research team members, he would be visibly upset. He would not talk to her for a few hours; if possible, he would completely ignore her. To snap him out of his trance, she knew all she had to do was sit and talk to him with a big smile for a while and he would be fine. After one such incident, she jokingly remarked, “I wonder what I would have done if we were still unmarried and really in love. You are so high maintenance.” He was equally funny in his answer, “You would have to dump me and find someone easier. Of course, I would have been more open with you, too.” Sometimes just to keep her around he would intentionally mess something up on his computer and ask her to stop by and fix the problem. While she would work on the computer, he would be watching her. She knew he was watching her, but she would pretend as if she did not notice. He loved the moments when she accidentally touched or tripped on him.

“December is a real fun month for us. Almost every evening we attend a Christmas party hosted by a client. In fact, there are some nights I even attend two or three parties. Last December you were too new to our environment, so I did not suggest. Now, by virtue of working on the projects, you are quite familiar with most of our clients. It will be good to meet some of them face to face. I know you have to work with your boys on their homework, but if you happen to get a few evenings free, please come along,” remarked Rick. She also thought it was a great opportunity for her to get to know them better. She happily replied, “This year I will definitely try to attend a few of them. But I also hope I don’t ruin your good time.” He got the hint and said, “I promise I won’t fuss.” They both laughed. But he was delighted to hear that she would come along.

During one of their lunch meetings Rick was going over with her all the new and forthcoming projects. Since Sarna did not work directly with the clients and was thus unfamiliar with their special requirements, she asked him to sit in their next weekly meeting to announce and explain the details. He concurred with her too. Everyone was happy to see Rick in the meeting. As usual, Sarna was conducting the meeting. Rick looked at the meeting agenda and noticed that his part was at the bottom of the list. He was happy to listen to the discussions between the team members and Sarna. That day, in course of their lunch conversation, she mentioned, “In your presence, I was so nervous today. Honestly, I was not able organize my thoughts and, at times, I was not even sure if I was making any sense. After you dropped out of our meetings, Richard often sits in. I don’t feel that way at all in his presence. Next time, I will put you at the top of the agenda.” He was however very comforting and complimentary, “I thought you did an excellent job. In fact, I was very happy to listen to your exchanges. You are doing a much better job with the team than I ever did.” She laughed and remarked, “Here we go again! I have noticed you have fun in de-glorifying yourself.”

In one conversation Richard indicated to her, “Since Rick took over the technical research and project management, our business has literally doubled. Most of our clients love him. They feel they are in good hands. In last two years alone we added over sixty employees here. We are also sending the European projects over to the London office and they are also hiring to stay current. So we cannot afford to lose him. We will face a huge layoff. As you know, if he joins one of our big competitors, he can easily double or perhaps triple his salary. Other than the normal annual increases that we all get, he has not seen a dollar more in past five years. In fact, we never even had a discussion in those lines. He loves this place. He loves the research team. And, he always has very good things to say about you.” She was happy to be reminded again that Rick was the engine behind their company’s growth. On several occasions she mentioned this conversation to Rick and he always laughed it away. His standard reply was, “I am highly overrated here. They just think too much of me. They often forget that I get paid for my work.”

She knew he was the kind of person who would always enjoy weekdays far more than the weekends. One day she asked him, “How do you feel about weekends?” She was shocked to hear his answer, “I hate weekends. Actually, I feel depressed on Friday afternoons. Monday morning has always been my favorite time of the week. During weekdays I feel I have a chance to accomplish something – something new. See, I am running out of time in my life. I know people look forward to the weekends. I don’t. I really don’t. In any case, I go home every evening. I don’t find anything special about the weekends.” She said, “Your body and mind need some rest. That’s why we have invented weekends.” He replied, “Rest is more a function of the state of mind, i.e. how cheerful you feel inside. Depressed people don’t like to leave bed. In fact, lately I feel so good inside, I can easily forego sleep altogether.” She was very happy to hear the last statement, but given their relationship she had to keep quite. She thought he was an alien in disguise. Just sweeter!

One day in early December Rick was getting ready to leave for a party at a night club in downtown Manhattan. She suddenly showed up and said, “Can I come for the party tonight?” Rick was ecstatic. They got in a cab. He was still in a daze that she came along. In the midst of their chit-chat he asked, “What made you change your mind?” She replied, “It will be a good idea to get to know some of them personally. If one of these days you suddenly leave, we will face some severe downsizing. I don’t see how they can keep me around then. I think the entire team will be outsourced.” He laughed and said, “Don’t worry about it. If you think my presence will protect your job, I will stick around as long as you need me to.” She felt somewhat relieved but still wondered, “I know you are worth so much more. Why do you have to stick around for me?” But he spontaneously answered, “Having you around itself is multi-million dollar fun for me. A few things in life are priceless.” Looking at his face she immediately knew it was a total slip of tongue for him. Anyway, she felt extremely flattered and did not want to embarrass him by continuing the same discussion.

At the party he introduced her as his associate. In fact, he gave everyone the impression that while he handled the client affairs, she managed all the research and project management issues. However, she could feel he was not his usual self. After a while, he asked her if they could leave. On the way out he said, “I needed some fresh air.” They went and sat by the Hudson River. It was quite dark, but not too cold for December. She knew he needed some help in putting the fire out, “I understand it was a total slippage. I did not take it negatively at all. On the other hand, it was very flattering. Let’s leave it there.” As she finished the statement, she held his hand and continued, “You did not offend me. You did not offend me at all. I really mean it. By the way, why did you introduce me as your associate? You are my supervisor.” This was the first time that she voluntarily touched him. He felt extremely good. He wanted to put his other hand on hers, but he did not want to make another mistake. He said, “Our clients don’t need to know all of our internal details. They should be concerned with the quality of service we provide. Anyway, I have to take Cathy out for a lunch tomorrow. Why don’t you come along?” She replied, “I can’t stand her. The way she always hugs and kisses you makes me sick. You guys go ahead.” He had a big laugh and said, “You completely misread her. Now and then she just likes to be a bit silly. She hugs me in front of her husband too. She is very simple.” She insisted, “I hate the way she looks at you. She is also so mean to me.” He knew he was not going anywhere with this discussion, so he suggested, “Let’s go for a drink. I know a nice joint around the corner.” She looked at the other way and said, “I am not allowed to drink.” He asked, “Why?” She replied, “I am pregnant.” He sat there speechless for a while and then said, “Let me drop you at home.”

He eventually found a cab driver who was willing to go to Long Island with a stop at her residence in Queens. They sat quiet for a while and then she broke the silence, “You sound upset.” He replied, “No. No. I am very happy. Congratulations. I was just wondering why you even came. You should not have come.” After dropping her at her residence, he told the cab driver, “I changed my mind. Can you please drop at a bar at Bell and Northern?” The cab driver heard their conversation and knew what was happening. As Rick was exiting the cab, the driver gave him a card and said, “My cell number is here. If you need, please call me. I know where you are.” He sat in the bar and kept drinking. He lost sense of time. He knew he was not upset that she was pregnant, but the idea that she would be taking an extended time off for maternity was making him terribly sad. He started to wonder how he managed to put himself in this emotional mess. “Sir, it is getting late. Let me take you home,” remarked the cab driver. Rick turned around and saw that the cab driver was back. Rick smiled and said, “I was just thinking of a cab. Thank you for coming back.” The cab driver remarked, “This late at night no cab will like to go east. So I thought I would stop by and see if you are still around.” Rick was suddenly reminded how some people were always larger than life.

On the eve of her maternity leave, office arranged a party for her. The conference room was full of wrapped presents and bouquets. Of course, she was only interested in seeing Rick’s present. She tried to remember the wrapper of his package. After the party, she picked up that package and brought it back to her cubicle. She was not the least bit surprised to find a beautiful yet a very traditional Barbie doll inside. All these months she had a feeling he wanted her to have a beautiful baby girl. She thought he just finally confirmed it. She wanted to thank him for the gift at their afternoon session. Unfortunately, he did not show up. She went to look for him in his office. The room was dark and the door was closed. She knew he had a meeting with a client. She asked Cathy if he was running late. Cathy gave her a wicked look and said, “He was not feeling good. He already left for the day.” She realized he wanted to avoid saying good-bye to her. As she kept staring at the beautiful doll, she felt terribly empty inside. She did not plan to go on her leave without cheering him up. She tried to call him. Then again, she knew his alien lover would be too upset to talk to her.

Two weeks later she was blessed with a beautiful baby girl. The entire office, including Rick, saw the e-mailed pictures. One afternoon as Rick was coming back from his client meetings, he noticed the research team was having a gathering at the conference room. He knew it was not the day for their weekly meeting, so he took a peek inside the room. To his pleasantest surprise, Sarna was standing, surrounded by the team and Julie was carrying the baby. He avoided going in as he was running a bit late for a conference call. After a while she walked in his office with the baby and asked, “Why did you avoid me that day?” He avoided her question and walked close to them to see the baby. He looked at the baby and remarked, “Wow, she is as beautiful as her mother. Look at her beautiful hair and blue eyes! Let me carry her for a minute.” She knew, having been overjoyed to see them, he accidentally made a reference to the baby’s mother. As she handed the baby over to him, she changed the topic and said, “I thought you did not like babies. Why are you so thrilled to see her?” He replied, “I never said I don’t like babies. I said I don’t like being around babies. When they cry my heart stops. I remember when Michael was a baby, every time he cried I would run to his crib. But I did not know what to do then. I was afraid to pick him up. My wife would be quite cool and shout from somewhere – ‘he is just hungry. I need to feed him. I will be there in a minute’. In fact, during that one minute I would just watch him cry and my heart would stop.”

After she came back to work, they got back to their usual routine. One day during their lunch meeting she mentioned, “When I was on leave, I really missed you. Every afternoon I wanted to call you. But I felt so shy that I could not dial the number. I would simply stare at the phone and wonder how I could start a conversation. I would be upset and cry. Even here at work I feel the same way. Before coming to meet you, I think of saying so many things, but as soon as I see you I feel so awkward that most of them remain stuck in my chest. I know you never feel negative about anything I say, but I don’t understand why I feel that way. Honestly, I never felt that way with any other person. I guess you have an unusual personality.” He answered, “I am an alien. I have an alien personality.” She again started, “But I have the most fun in talking to you. Before marriage when we were dating, I did not feel like this at all. We basically followed the dating sequence for a couple of years and knowing very well we both needed to get married, one day we got married. Here, during our lunch meeting I am so worried that the lunch time would over soon, I keep thinking of our afternoon meeting and so on. I wish I stop worrying and start enjoying our time together more. My mind is totally pre-occupied with the idea of meeting you.” After having listened to her he said, “I feel exactly the same way. See, the problem here is, we broke the norm. Humans and aliens are not meant to be together.”

One morning Richard stopped by. He handed in some papers to Rick and said, “The London office is desperately looking for a fulltime research director. They are ready to offer an SVP title to the right candidate. I was thinking of recommending Sarna. Apart from the SVP title and at least $75,000 more in salary, it will also give her an opportunity to relocate to London. But she has less than two years of VP experience. That’s too light. Anyway, I will leave it up to you. You can talk to her and figure it out.” In their afternoon meeting that day he asked her, “Would you be interested if you are offered this opportunity?” She laughed and replied, “I don’t understand why we are even having this discussion. I don’t have enough experience to qualify.” Rick rephrased the question, “If your experience is a non-issue, would you be interested then?” She replied, “Yes. That will make my husband very happy.” Nonetheless, she knew Rick loved her way too much to let her go that easily.

One Friday evening their company was hosting a Broadway Show for their clients. Rick was very happy to know Sarna was coming. After the show they walked down to the river. While watching the beautiful river, she suddenly said, “I know all the good and bad moments of your professional life. Tell me the saddest moment of your personal life. I don’t want to hear about my maternity leave.” He was evasive, but she would not budge. He again said, “It is going to make you feel bad. We should talk about our happy moments and enjoy each other’s company.” Under pressure he finally started to narrate the saddest moment of his personal life. As he was narrating the end of the moment, she broke down in tears and kept saying, “Rick, I am so sorry. I am so sorry. Now I know why you have such a sad tone about life. Now I know why you always say you don’t want to come back to this world again. Rick, I feel so sick. Please hug me.” While he felt heavenly to hug her, she suddenly felt disoriented; as if the world was collapsing around her.

Over the weekend she kept thinking about Rick’s episode. The more she thought about it, the sicker she felt. She realized only an alien could endure it and silently move on. She felt like calling him and telling him how much she loved him. But her husband was around, so she did not want to take a chance. She could not however wait for the weekend to be over. 

On Monday morning, as soon as she walked in, she got a call from Richard. He asked her to come over to the conference room. She was a bit surprised by the call. As she stepped in, a loud chorus greeted her, “Congratulations New SVP.” There were balloons and banners all around. Trays of foods covered the entire table. Everyone slowly came and congratulated her. Richard said, “Enjoy your final couple of weeks.”  As the party got louder, she started to feel more numb and nauseated. She finally asked, “Where is Rick?” Richard replied, “He is somewhere in Caribbean enjoying his well-deserved vacation.” She asked, “Did he plan for his vacation?” Cathy replied, “It was in his vacation calendar for over a month. I wonder why you never checked it.” She realized he orchestrated it in a way he did not have to face her during her final days.

After the party, she went to Rick’s office. The door was open. She knew he left it open for her. She sat in his chair and started looking through his appointment book. He marked off all the days during those two weeks except the final Friday. In the middle of that page he drew a big heart, with the bottom of the page read, “The Alien Returns to the Alienland”. She took a red pen and started to smooth the edges around the heart. As she struggled with the edges, her tears pierced a big hole through the heart. Through the hole, she could see the passage of the alien!