Awakening, 2nd edition (17 page)

Alan turned around. Joan was walking towards him from the table where he had spent the last few hours, some papers swinging in her hand .

“Don’t you need this ?” she waved the papers abo ve her head, and he recognized his notepad. “You ’ve worked hard on this, haven ’t you?”

He waited for Joan to come closer and then shook his head.

“I was going to come back for it.”

“Sure you were.” She obviously didn ’t believe him. “Whatever you say, mister, ” and she shoved the notepad into his hand.

Alan took it, feeling for a moment a brief touch of thin, cool fingers, and smiled.

“Thanks. Really, I left it there on purpose. Just wanted to take a walk without having to carry anything around.”

Joan looked at him, squinting. Alan met her look calmly and for a few seconds looked back into her inquisitive bluish eyes in the same studying way.

“So what’re you doing here?” he asked finally.

“I was under the impression I was helping a colleague. Turns out, I ’ve been wasting my time and underestimating your planning abilities and foresight.”

Alan glanced at the notebook in his hand.

“You mean you came here just to give this to me ?”

“Guilty as charged.”

“How did you know it was mine? They ’re all the same.”

“My dear Watson, I thought you were sharper than that. It doesn ’t get any simpler. You ’ve spent the whole afternoon here . Then you were gone, leaving your notepad behind. So I figured I ’d better pick it up in case you need ed it later and before it gets all wet. Now, from my window I can see the table but not this spot, so I didn ’t know that you were nearby.”

Joan spoke without taking her eyes from his face and , for whatever reason , he suddenly felt that two -minute -old touch again, a s if her light fingers had once more slipped momentarily along the skin of his palm.

“But apparently this was just the way you wanted it and the last thing you needed was my help.”

Wrong, Alan almost said, but stayed silent.

“Right?” she asked with a naive expression , as if she really believed that her presence here could be justified only by the usefulness of the little errands she might be able to run for him.

“Of course not, ” Alan smiled, trying to drive away the sensation of the invisible touch. For some reason, it had become persistent.

“Glad to hear that, ” Joan suddenly got rid of her teasing tone and became serious. “There ’s something else I wanted to tell you.”

“Go ahead.” His eyes glanced at her moving lips covered with bright—though not too bright—lipstick.

“You have no idea what a difference you ’ve made today. You should ’ve seen yourself. I was sure you ’d refuse to go to that flipchart and then someone else would refuse too, and the boys would start fighting, and this whole thing just wouldn’t work properly from the outset . But you ’ve done it! And it was so natural and with so much dignity . . . I ’m proud of you. Not that I have any right to say that, but that ’s how I feel. You ’ve made it work!”

The dusk that fell over the lake had almost turned into darkness by now. Joan was more attractive than ever , with that special alluring type of beauty that transforms every woman in the thickening twilight. Alan furtively licked his lips , which all of a sudden felt very dry. She was well within arm ’s reach. “You ’re in my private space, ” a line from some movie , crawled into his mind.

“Then you came up with this idea to use tasks . . . That was brilliant! No wonder we ended up implementing so many things that you ’d proposed.”

She prattled, while he kept struggling with an overwhelming desire to extend his hand and touch this face that was showing up vaguely white in the dark. And not only the face . . .

But Joan obviously wasn’t noticing what was happening to him and just kept talking—about his contribution, and the great job he had done at that flipchart, and how few people would ’ve been able to handle themselves with such dignity. Alan looked at her pale shoulder-length hair moving in the light breeze and felt his muffled heartbeat.

Winning over women had never been difficult for him. In fact, they always clung to him—to his confidence mixed with an unusual maturity for his age , to the youthful freshness of his proportional face, his slender figure, and his ability to be charming whenever he wanted to. But they were all girls—same age as him, same circle, same experience ; girls who hadn ’t seen much, who didn ’t mean much, whose only virtues were their cuteness and their age. He always knew for a fact that he would meet no serious resistance as soon as he decide d to get one of them. And now he wanted —and he was meeting no resistance.

But this time everything was different. The woman standing in front of him was unquestionably more attractive than all those girls combined. She was also much cleverer than they typically were—otherwise how would she ever have end ed up in this place? She, unlike any of them, seemed for whatever reason absolutely inaccessible. And she was wildly seductive ; seductive in subtle and yet extremely powerful ways, sending cold shivering desire down his spine with her every word and gesture.

Her mellow voice, which somehow sounded now more quiet than usual , was almost intimately soft. It was awakening thoughts and cravings that lay many long miles away from flipcharts and whiteboards, in the far-off land where the words ‘management ’ and ‘leadership ’ were nothing but dull meaningless sounds. Entirely different sounds inhabited that far -off lavish land and now they began rising their luring voices in his head. And , as weird as it might be, the fact that the words coming out of Joan ’s lips had nothing to do with this land of overwhelming seduction somehow only amplified her charms.

“ . . . not that anyone would bother voting for me.”

Alan moved his head to shake off the obsession. It flew away into the thick dusk that was ringing with passion, but didn ’t go too far off. Instead, it froze somewhere nearby in the warm air, ready to come back at any moment.

“What did you just say?” he had to make an effort to pronounce the words clearly. “Did you say no one would vote for you? Why?”

Joan shrugged.

“Get real. I ’m good at what I do, but I ’m a woman among men who ’re used to boss ing others around. I ’m no match for Chris, or for you, or for Rob. I ’ll deliver my three speeches, just like everyone else, but I have no illusions about the outcome.”

If she felt any disappointment about the situation, she didn ’t express it in any way. She seemed to have completely come to terms with her inevitable defeat.

“Don’t sell yourself short, ” he said , feeling that in all honesty he wasn ’t referring to her leadership skills. “You ’re underestimating yourself.”

“No, I’m not, ” she answered with a tender smile. “It ’s you who ’s overestimating me.”

The obsession made a sharp leap towards him and hung warily in the air.

Joan smiled again.

“Take it easy. I ’ve got no problem with this. Really. Even if not a single soul votes for me, I wouldn ’t care. It ’s just a game , after all.”

Alan thought that this time he had sensed a subtle false note in the way she said it, but he wasn ’t sure.

“Why don’t we go back?” she asked shortly . “It ’s getting late. And it ’s all your fault—I didn ’t expect us to chat for so long. Let ’s go.”

And she touched his hand.

With a brief growl the obsession dashed back to him, dug its sharp fangs into the back side of his palm and , in an all-crushing wave , rushed throughout his entire body.

“Let’s go, ” he said in a suddenly hoarse voice.

Chris slowly wiped his face with a fresh snow-white towel. The air nicely chilled his freshly shaved skin. He inhaled slowly. It was a good day. Not perfect, but good. Good enough —that ’d be the most accurate way to describe it. Perhaps, it would have been possible to use the time even more wisely and to have gotten even more out of it, but by and large, this long day had gone well. Now they all know who the leader here is, so the main objective of today has been achieved. From now on , the most critical thing is keeping the momentum.

He scrutinized his reflection. A good face. The face of a winner. A great asset that so many underestimate. If you have a face like this , you owe it to yourself to become somebody. Otherwise it ’s a shame.

He looked into the mirror again. Yep, the face of a winner. Confident and charming in a manly sort of way. With these thick—though not too thick—eyebrows, arching under the high forehead, a straight, slightly wide nose, a firmly outlined, decisive mouth and a strong jaw. Equally attractive with romantic three-day stubble or neatly shave n , just like now. People follow a face like this, especially if it ’s backed by a resounding voice and a confident manner.

Say all you want, but if you want people to trust you, looks matter. That ’s why elections look more and more like beauty pageants these days. No face, no place, baby !

So if an owner of a face like this happens to be smart and longing for success, then all he needs is a bit of luck. No, forget success. Success is just bait for those who never look beyond the surface. The real name of the game is power. Everything else is secondary and comes with it. Whoever wrote the ‘P word ’ in that quiz was damn right. That ’s exactly what we ’re after here. Speaking of which , it ’d be good to know who wrote it. Really good. Not that it really matters though. He ’d simply articulated what was on everyone ’s mind.

So what have we got here? We’ve got good cards to play. The ever -smiling fatty is not a competitor. Neither is Kevin with his horse-like face and an overwhelming desire to appear proper. The bodybuilder is smarter than he looks, and he ’s good at concealing his smarts, but he ’s still a lower -league player. After all, we ’re not electing the captain of a football team, so his muscle mass makes no real difference. As for the presence factor, he ’s just a bit taller than I am and , unlike me , hardly a smooth talker.

Then we’ve got two broads. No real threat there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we ’re all equal, blah, blah, blah, but nine men who ’ve been giving orders for years would never choose a chick to lead them. At least not these men, not these chicks, and not in this situation. Stella had a blast talking about Joan of Arc, but we ’re not in medieval France. Plus, there ’s no real Joan of Arc around, although Stella would likely disagree with this claim.

Paul doesn’t care. The guy has no interest in winning —here or in his career. A typical geek who ’s made it to middle management in a typical geeky environment. Not a dork , though. Smart, sharp tongued, and under certain circumstances can cause some serious damage, so it ’s worth keeping an eye on him. But not more than that.

Brandon . . . this one will require some effort. Yet, there ’s nothing unmanageable about him. Taking care of Mr. Mustache won ’t be harder than taking care of any other worthy opponent in the past.

Alan the Youngster is not a threat. He’s a born speaker, he ’s very bright and experienced for his age, he knows how to talk to a woman, and not only to a woman, but his age is his liability. Sorry, boy. Grow up first then come back.

Next, we have Rob. Now
this is a challenge. You can see it at the first glance. You take a second glance and you see it even better. He was the first one to cut to the chase.
“It doesn ’t matter what we discuss ; the only thing that matters is how we vote . . .” Clever. Experienced. ‘Seen it, done it ’ kind of a man. Dangerous. In fact, very dangerous.

And then we’ve got Michael. Michael, the Sphinx. You can never guess what ’s on his mind, what he ’s going to say next. He speaks too little. Little, but always to the point. Straight to the point. Never not to the point. Too much to the point . . . Funny, but it ’s the same rarity of his comments that make them so striking, will play against him. A leader must be visible. An invisible puppet master is a commodity. An invisible leader is an oxymoron. He would be very tough to play against in the real world. But rules are different here and his tendency to stay silent most of the time will help everyone, except himself.

Bottom line, there’re two strong opponents, two second -league contenders and everyone else. The game plan thus becomes clear. You ’ve got to have six votes in order to win. This is the worst -case scenario. In the best case , two votes would suffice, but let ’s play it safe. The strong players would vote anyway for the weak ones to lower the chances of the other strong contenders. At least this is an obvious move. Some sidekicks may use it , too, by the way. Especially because they don ’t see themselves as sidekicks. But then there are those who , for a variety of reasons , will cast honest votes. They are the voters to go after. This is the electorate, so to speak, the electorate to fight for. How do you do this? How do you brainwash these minds so they vote for you and for you only? Easy. All the necessary tricks were invented ages ago.

First of all, you can’t rest on your laurels yet. The laurels are too shaky anyway at this point. But if there ’s any doubt in anyone ’s mind it should be gone by tomorrow. Twenty -four hours from now everybody must understand that , had the situation been not so artificial, only one man here would ’ve been capable of truly leading the rest. Leading, as Clark put it, anywhere. Ah, Mr. Clark . . . What a sly fox! Every single thing he had said so far became , in some shape or form , an important factor. Even his abstract remarks don ’t seem so abstract anymore. It comes as a little surprise though. It was clear that nothing here was random. So , anyway, this is what comes first. The electorate.