Lea picked up the phone on her desk, “Its John, um we need to talk, can you meet me in five minutes out front of the building?”. From the tone in John’s voice Lea knew that something was up “okay, I’ll be right down”.
As she exited the elevator she could see him silhouetted against the glass doors leading to the street, making her way toward him she could tell by his body language that something was amiss.
He sensed her approaching and turned to see her stride through the revolving doors, John turned and tried to smile as she came toward him, but he sensed from her frown on her face that she had guessed he had to tell her something. “What is it?” she demanded as came toward him. “Has mother finally gotten to you? Are you going to try to talk me out of going to Hanoi as well?”
“Actually, Lea I have something else to tell you” he said carefully, perhaps we should go for a cuppa around the corner. Lea looked deeply into his eyes and she could sense his concern. “Sure, I could do with a cup after the morning I’ve had” she said trying to lighten the moment.
As they walked to the café in the lane nearby they struggled for conversation beyond the weather and how Chelsea had played that weekend in the English Premier League.
John ordered two cups of tea as he walked in, as a regular they knew exactly what he type he liked and brought over two steaming cups and placed them in from of them. The tea shop was always relatively busy given its central location, although surprisingly few from the office frequented the shop as they mostly crossed the street to the nearby Cafe San Remo.
Lea was first to speak, “C'mon out with it” she prompted, “it can’t be that bad, now can it”. As a journalist who’d done a lot of human-interest stories she was a keen watcher of body language, it came with the territory but she could tell by the lack of eye contact that John had something pretty important to tell her.
Lea reached for his arm and touched it. He gave a half smile and looked into her eyes.
Look Lea, you can’t go to Hanoi…well, not just yet anyway he said almost a little too quickly. Lea’s anger rose instantly, how could she have been so wrong she thought. “What the hell do you mean I can’t go to Hanoi” she said a little too loudly. I thought you said this wasn’t about me and Hanoi. Look Lea I’ve had to send Bill to Bangladesh to cover the disaster there and I’m not sure how long he’s going to be on the ground. Lea’s eyes instantly welled with tears, “Why would you do that to me?” she sobbed. “You knew I was leaving at the end of the week, how could you” she sputtered.
Now it was John’s turn to be defensive, listen I had to do it, my local correspondent is nowhere to be found and I’m afraid that he maybe dead, Bill is the closest guy I could get on the ground and he left this morning for Dhaka. This is business Lea and you know it he said firmly.
She looked up with tears still glistening in her eyes and nodded. Deep down she knew he was right but was feeling unusually vulnerable at the moment. Perhaps it was her own doubt now starting to rise, as it felt that every time she planned to move forward with Bill something always seemed to come up.
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