Men and Meetings

I am Samuel Simons. I am 32 years old and work a shitty job in a shitty city. I don’t talk to my family or friends because they’re exhausting, and I have no interest in being more tired than I am. I have no problems with any of this. But today, it had been the kind of day where everything felt like it had been crashing in on itself.

Work was shit, my apartment was empty, and no one had bothered to talk to me at all. Besides Mathew, but they don’t really count to me. And now, I was sitting on the floor of my apartment eating barely above average microwave pasta and choosing my nicest, least-in-need-of-a-wash suit, to make it look like I was actually up for my meeting. I wasn’t entirely sure why I had been chosen for that meeting since I’d never presented myself as a particularly social man, and absolutely did not have “extrovert” in my qualifications. Maybe the boss just wanted to get me out of the office? Or maybe she knew just as well as I did that I needed to talk to people at least once a week. Who knows.

Eating slowly, I looked around at the state of my home sweet home. And by ‘home sweet home’ I mean a place I lived in because I had to, and also the fact that I had a sign with that exact phrase on my wall to make myself feel better about it. I’d let the dishes pile up far too high around the kitchen counters and the small coffee table that was housed near my sofa, and half of my wardrobe seemed to be spread about the room and into the next, covering my floors and my bed and making it look a little bit like a bomb had gone off. The sink desperately needed to be scrubbed, with grime coating the drain and the tap, and the one house plant I had bought to lighten up the place had begun to wilt and wither, attracting bugs like a fly trap. For some people this may have concerned them with what it said about their mental state, but I was far past caring about all that.

After a while I gathered up the motivation to stand up from my extremely uncomfortable sitting position and I stretched, throwing the plate onto my never-ending pile of dishes. I then walked up to the mirror to gauge whether I looked presentable enough or if I needed to take the shortest shower of my life to save the state my hair was in, and I came to the conclusion that was pretty much out of the picture given how little time I had. Curly hair will most likely be the death of me. Then, I stripped myself of the hoodie and trousers I had previously been wearing so that I could change into the suit I had chosen. Well, suit is a strong word, it was more like a quickly thrown together shirt and tie that was formal enough to pass in the situation I was about to be in, along with a pair of shoes that didn’t at all match the rest of the outfit. I then chose my best coat and walked back to the mirror to look at myself once more, coming to another conclusion. I still looked like a mess, but at least I was a mess with a mask.

I sighed heavily and I closed my eyes for a second, leaning my head against the wall. I often did this in preparation for social situations I didn’t want to be a part of. Did it help? Not really. But I did it regardless. Feeling my breath bounce off of the wall and back onto my face I sighed, which would’ve steamed up my glasses had I been wearing them. I stood there for a while contemplating my decisions and why they had to lead to this specific meeting with this specific person and then stopped as the existentialism of that thought began to get to me. Hugging my arms around myself I smiled slightly and tucked my head even lower and closer to my chest but I decided to stop before I gave in to feeling that pity for myself. It wouldn’t fix any of my problems besides offering some minor comfort. So, I sucked it up and lifted my head off the wall while resisting the urge to just stand there forever. Quickly walking to get my house and car keys from beside my bed I lifted my phone and checked for the message that I knew would be coming. One of confirmation that I was, in fact, meeting a stranger to discuss an electronics pitch I had no interest in. Then… it came up:

Anthony Campbell - Today, 20:23

-Are we still alright for 9?

I stared at the message for a moment, debating whether or not I should just say no and put this off for even longer, but the thought of having to face my boss the day after and make up some bullshit excuse felt even more frustrating than getting this over with. I procrastinated for another couple minutes before finally responding:

Samuel Simons - Today, 20:26

-Yes, that’s still fine.

I briefly relaxed before having a minor heart attack at my phone going off again:

Anthony Campbell - Today, 20:26

-[thumbs up emoji]

Once again letting out a breath, I pocketed my phone and my keys, grabbing the bag with all of the paperwork I needed Anthony to fill out in case he actually said yes to funding the project (which was fairly unlikely). Then, after taking another breath, I left my apartment and locked it, walking down the 5 flights of stairs it took to get down to the lobby and car park. Leaving the building and not bothering to say goodbye to the person at the front desk, I wandered over to my car which was a small blue thing which I’d had for around 4 years. After I got in and put on my seatbelt, started the ignition, and with somewhat of a mental resistance to the idea, started driving the half an hour drive to get to my destination.

Arriving at a quaint, cosy looking pub I stepped out of my car and locked the door, crossing my arms around myself and shivering at the cold hitting my face. Watching my breath hit the air I quickly walked towards the door of the bar and, on my way in, checked my phone to see if I’d gotten any updates from Anthony. After looking at my screen for a couple of seconds nothing came up so I went to find the stranger I was meant to be meeting with. I didn’t see anyone who looked like how I’d expect Anthony to look, but then I glanced towards the front of the pub and I saw a man waving at me, pretty much ushering me over. I rushed over and sat next to him while putting on my best professional smile. While I waited for him to speak I took in his pale blonde hair with some brunette roots just barely showing through, his chocolatey brown eyes and his sharp jawline. Honestly, his whole character seemed too perfect to be real. Objectively perfect; And he spent a couple of seconds just looking at me with a wide eyed stare, but I shoved the idea out of my mind that someone like him could admire someone like me. It just didn’t feel possible.

Eventually he blinked himself out of his almost trance-like state and finally spoke, his voice fairly deep and soft with a faint Canadian accent. “Ah, Samuel Simons, pleasure to finally meet you!” He held his hand out for a handshake and I recognised his tone of voice as the exact one I always use in work meetings like this one. The sort of way of speaking which says “I know we both don’t want to be here but lets pretend like we do so that we can get out as soon as possible”. I returned the gesture with a soft grip on his hand as I shook it.

“Yes, pleasure to meet you too.” I said with a much less enthusiastic tone of voice, keeping up my smile even though it was starting to hurt the corners of my mouth at that point. He nodded and let go of my hand, then rested both of his hands on his knee as he crossed his legs. ”Let me order us some drinks, eh?” He said in this obnoxiously cheery tone as he called the bartender over to get us both drinks. He didn’t bother asking what I wanted, just ordering us both a red wine, of all things. This was enough to establish that he was probably a posh, rich bastard. He didn’t seem to notice my slight judgement as he started up some polite small talk.

“This is a very cosy place, isn’t it?” He said while looking around at the decor. Following his gaze I also looked around at all of the little details of the room; the small plants on the windowsills, the various art pieces, some of which were drawn by children with their names and ages on the corners of the pages and the variety of characters scattered about the tables. Some were presumably doing work on laptops and some were drinking varied kinds of alcohol.

“Yes, it really is…” He didn’t seem to notice how much resentment I held in my expression, though, as our drinks arrived.

“You know, my father used to take me here as a kid, when we visited on occasion. Pretty sure one of my drawings is up there somewhere.” He did a quiet chuckle as he gestured to the wall where all the art was situated. Smiling politely I pretended to think it was sweet, taking a sip of the wine and internally grimacing at the flavour, nodding intently as he talked about this completely unrelated event with no significance to anything.

Anthony shook his head, laughing to himself and sighing before getting on with asking about the main topic at hand.

“Anyway… tell me about this product, then!” His smile faltered a little, settling into a much more natural expression. “Convince me.” I quickly nodded and pulled out all of my paperwork detailing the profit margins and the details of our product, keeping up my act of professionalism in an effort to draw attention away from the state I was still very obviously in. I then put on my best corporate voice. I slid over the blueprints that had been drawn up specifically for this meeting as I began my very long winded, overly detailed explanation. “Well, we have been developing the blueprints for the system for around 3 years now. Our engineers have narrowed down the price as much as possible by limiting the amount of parts needed to make the interface run smoothly,” I rambled on and on about all of the details and Anthony looked almost genuinely interested, though I saw his eyes wander occasionally like he was distracted by something. I decided to ignore it though, since it was incredibly boring, and I really didn’t judge him for it. He studied every paper and document I gave him thoroughly and took everything I said into account, occasionally even adding his own comments and asking questions. It all seemed to go incredibly well.

“So, If this is all up to standard, we can sign the paperwork here and now.” I finished and pulled out the form, a good 10 page long agreement with terms and conditions, and space for a signature on the last page. He intently read through all of the conditions and as he did I finished my first glass of wine, hating every drop but needing the alcohol intake to keep up the facade I had created for myself. After he finished reading he looked back at me, but with a new kind of expression on his face.

“You know, when I said ‘convince me’, this wasn’t really what I had in mind…”

I stared at him for a couple of seconds before he laughed and brushed off the comment.

“Nevermind. Do you have a pen?”

I quickly shook off my confusion and handed him a pen, and he signed in all of the relevant areas, giving me the pen back when he was done.

“Well, thank you very much. Your investment means a lot to us.” I say, giving another overly enthusiastic smile as I stand up, preparing to shake his hand again. Anthony stood up too, taking my hand and shaking it quite roughly. The warmth of his hand seemed to linger even after he let go and I tried to ignore the odd feeling that was giving me.

“It’s a very interesting concept; I’m excited to see it develop!” He sounded… too excited, to the point where it was obviously fake, but I returned a laugh.

I saw that the rain had started to pour as we walked out of the door together, Anthony standing far too close to me for comfort. I still didn’t feel quite comfortable being around him, but that was fine, because I’d most likely never have to see him again in my life. But as I began to walk to my car and say goodbye to him, and god knows why… I got the sudden urge to be nice to this man; not a gesture I’d usually perform for anyone. I swung my keys around my index finger as I stood in front of my car while Anthony awkwardly waited behind me, most likely wanting to be polite and wait until I’d said goodbye to leave. So, I turned around mumbling to myself about how weird this was before actually saying something audible.

“So… Do you need a lift to anywhere?” I found myself cringing slightly as I fidgeted with my hands and waited for his response, and to both my relief and my surprise he seemed thrilled by this simple gesture. “That's really nice of you! Well, I have a train I need to catch and the station’s about twenty minutes from here… only if that's not a problem!” I feigned another smile before unlocking my car and opening the front passenger seat door before opening my own.

“Yes, I know where you mean. It's no problem at all.” And, putting my seatbelt on, I got out my phone to put in the destination and get the directions. Anthony awkwardly got in and we drove off.

After a long drive of awkward silence we arrived at the Lime Street station. It was fairly busy tonight, its brownish stone arches, soaked in water by the rain, being passed through both in and out by probably hundreds of people. I couldn’t help but wonder what they were all doing here, where they were going, where they were leaving to, if they were running from something, or running to something new. But I was getting distracted. I let Anthony out of the car, and he stepped out, his bag in hand which housed all of our paperwork.

“Thanks for meeting with me, Samuel.” And here I thought we’d gotten past all of our fake professionalism. He gave me a smile so much less genuine and so much more forced that I thought his cheeks might’ve exploded if he’d kept it up for too long. I gave him a half-arsed grin back, though,

“No problem… Hopefully we’ll not have to do this again.” I gave a joking look, and I hoped he bought it, because I wasn’t managing to fool myself. He just laughed, though, and nodded. “Yes, yes… but if anything comes up, am I okay to give you a call?” If I didn’t know any better I'd think he was-

“Well, I'll get out of your hair! Goodbye, Samuel!” And before I could even finish that thought, he’d already rushed off into the sea of people, heading off to who knows where I briefly wondered what he’d go and do, with his rich posh mates and his snobby parents. But then I realised I didn’t care. I could finally go home and sleep.