down to, “Here’s how to talk yourself into believing you can do it.”
But yesterday, I’d pulled up an old podcast from when I’d first started Crescent City Properties. I’d been so intimidated about whether a barely-out-of-college grad could break into New Orleans commercial real estate that I’d had to begin with an even simpler affirmation about basic self-confidence. Act like you’re as successful as you want to be until you are as successful as you want to be.
Today I’d have to take it even further: Act like you were never the teenage girl this man humiliated on national television. Act like you have always been the picture of grace and composure.
“You are a...duck,” I said aloud. One of our sales seminars had used that metaphor, the idea that your feet might be paddling furiously beneath the water, but to the client, you look serene. “You are a swan,” I said next. Even more graceful. Why not? I lengthened my neck like a ballerina.
When Miles showed up, I’d be the picture of composure. Subdued, elegant.
I glanced down at my watch. It was nine o’clock exactly, and there was no Miles walking through the door.
What I would not do was wait forty-five minutes for him the way the whole office had on Tuesday.
He had exactly five minutes before I walked out and texted him to reschedule.
When the minute hand hit the five, I pulled out my phone and started the text as I headed out the door.
Sorry you couldn’t make it. I’m punctual and expect my clients to be as well. Please notify me next time you have a conflict.
There. That should tick him off enough to fire me and go find someone else to cater to his whims.
I pressed send right as I hit the sidewalk and a male voice called, “Whoa!” and hot coffee drenched my chest as I smacked into something hard.
“I’m so sorry,” the voice said as I gasped.
Miles. It was Miles. I’d plowed right into him, and somehow, he was holding two dripping coffee cups and a huge brown stain was spreading across my pristine white shirt.
“Oh, man, seriously, I’m so sorry,” he repeated. “Did it burn you? Are you okay?”
The coffee was seeping through to my skin, and I plucked the fabric away from my body. “It wasn’t hot enough to burn me.”
His phone dinged and he checked his Apple watch. “Uh, that’s from you, canceling on me.”
I refused to feel awkward about it. “Didn’t think you were going to make it.”
“And now I bet you wish I hadn’t. Let’s go get you dried off,” he said.
“It’s fine. I’ve got napkins in my car and a shirt I can change into. Why don’t you look around the space while I clean myself up?”
I didn’t wait for an answer as I continued down the block to my car. I grabbed some napkins and dug into my gym bag where I’d thrown in a black tank top this morning. It was a made of Lycra with white racing stripes down the side, but at least it wasn’t soaked in bean juice.
I walked into the corner Starbucks and caught the barista’s eye, holding up my black tank and pointing to my shirt.
“Four seven one six,” he called, giving me the bathroom code.
I ducked in and stripped my shirt off. There were no paper towels, only an air dryer at the worst possible height for drying my boobs. Next, I dabbed at my damp skin with toilet paper. It disintegrated in my hands and left balled up white tissue lint behind.
“I hate everything.”
Saying it didn’t dry my skin any faster.
Great. Looked like I was getting an early quad workout. I positioned myself in the most awkward possible squat beneath the hand dryer, then kept waving my hands to keep the air going until my chest was mostly dry and the toilet paper lint was gone.
I straightened, my thighs protesting, yanked on my gym top, and tried hard not to storm out, leaving a tip for the barista before I deposited my ruined shirt in my car and headed back to Miles and the property.
“Calm, cool, collected,” I chanted on the trip back up the street. “Calm, cool, collected.” I said it at least fifty times before I reached the door, and even though I didn’t feel remotely collected, I had at least talked myself into faking some calm. I took a deep breath, skirted the coffee puddle on the sidewalk, and walked in.