woman wearing irish linen shirt

This thought made me go crazy.Miss Pender's behavior was explained.

Unlike me, she has always been bold.I almost thought that this was Miss Pan De's nature. With her style and skills, she could be bold enough. Even if she was willing to gamble one day, she would have made a lot of money already.Only those who have nothing else to ask for will be fearless. I have something to ask for from her, so I am naturally trembling.

—I thought so.I thought it was some kind of necessity, the law of the world, the iron law in the steel jungle.

I am presumptuous.

She likes me.

The dodge captured in her eyes that day, her forbearance, and her restraint confused me.Miss Pan De is such an unscrupulous person in my heart, how could she lose from just ten seconds of staring at each other?I even think that she may be in a bad state. Maybe one day when the company's project is over, she will no longer be my partner, and she will no longer be busy every day. We can maintain a longer look at each other, so I might will lose.

I even wanted to meet her eyes.This wish scares me.

She likes me and scares me even more.

I couldn't tell whether I was afraid of her or myself.

"Do you think my idea really doesn't fit into the optimization framework?" I said again.This is a question of knowing what to say, and I can think of a lot of tricks that Miss Pender used to evade me; but I really can't find anything to say.

I have to say something to dispel the ambiguous atmosphere.

"Even if you count the members of our team, it's hard to say that anyone in the company knows more about the giant team model than you." She praised me unsurprisingly, and I don't know if it's true or false, "Your plan It just came at the wrong time ... We'll do it all over again after the new company is announced."

I nodded: "Thank you."

"I didn't ask you right away last week." She looked at me longer than ever before, "I wondered if you were going to be angry, or frustrated, but the next day I videoconferenced with you and found nothing .”

"I'm never angry."

"Seriously?" She looked over almost immediately.

I froze for a moment, the picture looked familiar, but I still nodded and said cheekily, "I'm very professional."

She looked at me without any scruples for the first time tonight, with a gentle expression, a bit like coaxing a child.

After all, I did get mad at her not too long ago.understandable.

Miss Pender uses chopsticks very well, even better than me.Although I feel that my fingers are sensitive in most things-after all, I have practiced the piano for 14 years, and my dexterity is not a problem-but it is really difficult to pick peanuts with chopsticks.I used to love peas very much, but I couldn't pinch them properly, so my mother asked me to eat them with a spoon.

Speaking of which, I haven't eaten peas for more than ten years.

"Can you clamp tofu? The tofu made of peanuts is the kind that is very soft..." I described to her, "It will break when you clamp it."

"Is it like raising tofu?" She said a word in Roman accent, which I couldn't understand, so she patiently explained, "The outside is wrapped in a layer of low-gluten flour and deep-fried, and the inside is very tender. Eat it in a restaurant It usually comes with bonito flakes."

Bonito flakes are also Romanized.I was a little embarrassed to ask her to explain, so I changed the subject and said, "Do you speak Japanese?"

"A little bit."

"What's your 'little bit' standard?" I squinted my eyes.

She tilted her head, smiling slightly.When it came to familiar life topics, Miss Pan De relaxed a lot, and no longer deliberately avoided staring at each other as before, and said, "How far can I order smoothly? At least I can understand Shinji Kanesaka's menu."

She was talking about a high-end sushi restaurant named after the chef, which is super popular here.I went to the branch in Singapore to experience the so-called "Omakase". The owl reviews made it very mysterious, but the actual feeling is average.

"Sounds more than you said." I teased her, "Like 'two dots.'"

Not surprisingly, she was amused by me: "Shiori said that my pronunciation is not bad, but my grammar is a disaster. I still think 'a little bit' is closer to the actual situation."

"Are you a classmate in the boarding school?" Hearing her familiar tone, I guessed so.

She nodded, a little surprised: "Do you remember? I should have only mentioned it once."

I suddenly felt inappropriate, so I said, "Maybe it's a coincidence."

Miss Pan De didn't ask any more questions, and returned to the topic of tofu: "That kind of fried tofu is really hard to pick up."

"Then I finally found something better than you." I said, "I never break my tofu."

She was startled: "is that why you asked me this?"

I was also taken aback for a moment, then laughed and said, "Yeah! Your technique of pinching peanuts makes me jealous."

She sighed softly: "Okay, that's fair. I forgot that you sometimes show...the appearance of childlike innocence."

I feel my face is a little hot.

Miss Pender seemed to have broken out of that wonderful restraint.She was such a natural conversationalist, and it didn't take me long to forget the purpose of our meeting today.But in the face of her, I dare not let down my vigilance. The small recording pen is lying in my coat pocket together with the key. As long as I stretch out my hand and press the pick lightly, it will start working.

I don't know if it is written in the almanac?

It seems that today is not suitable for calculating each other.

Miss Pan De's clothing has always been outstanding, but today she has taken it a step further, obviously she has been well-dressed.We came here from the company today. I met her once earlier. She was still wearing a light-colored suit that only executives would dare to consider. At this moment, it is clearly the same clothes, but the feeling is very different.One more button on the shirt, and what else?

It took me a while to notice.Her earrings are exposed.

She pushed her hair to one side, and she had a bright beauty.I have only seen Miss Pender wearing earrings of a moderate length before, but I didn't expect such a long pendant to suit her so well. I secretly thought that she must not normally wear them.Women in the workplace with excellent external conditions do have an advantage year-on-year, but they are very restrained because of this, and they never want to be sexy in their professional image.And these earrings...

I took a sip of water.

"There is a great coffee and light restaurant on the east coast, but unfortunately alcohol is not allowed in the store now, maybe I should invite you to try their special blend after the lockdown is completely lifted." I said something casually Open the topic.

She was startled, with a complicated expression on her face: "It will be a long time later."

"Yeah, there are more than 4 cases now, and it's hard to say when we will see the end..." I casually said, "Maybe next spring? I think there is still great hope before the end of next year, and the vaccine should be launched on a large scale." Well, one has to expect something."

Miss Pender looked at me: "Would you like to see me, then?"

I was a little lost: "Why not?"

She suddenly withdrew her gaze and looked away: "Sometimes you are really hard to understand."

There was obviously something wrong with these words, I was silent for a moment, and said: "Maybe it was my unintentional mistake."

"It's really hard for people to keep caring about everything." She nodded and said slowly, "But at least people will care about those things that they think are important."

"You're right." I looked at her, "An inadvertent mistake means not paying enough attention."

"Is that what you're trying to tell me?" She raised an eyebrow.

I looked away and nodded indistinctly: "It depends on how you understand it. But Freud also said that there are no so-called jokes in the world, and all jokes have serious elements."

"Sigmund Freud is a male logocentric narcissist." Miss Pender stared at me. "Don't put his words on me."

"Wow. This evaluation is very strict." I deliberately avoided the important ones.

"He deserves this evaluation." Miss Pan folded her arms, her eyes turned cold, "Are you going to hide all the time?"

She was angry.

I was silent: "What do you want?"

"Meet once. Just the two of us," she said. "No more temptation, no more cover-up jokes, no more lies, no more identities—so no worries. I'm not from BCG, you Not a member of the crab shell, just me and you, just me and you, let's meet once under this premise. What do you think?"

She kept looking at me as she spoke.

Miss Pender's eyes were so serious that even though the prevarication words were on my lips, I couldn't say them.It is undoubtedly a great disrespect for her to be perfunctory.

I said solemnly, "I'm afraid that's inappropriate, Sonia."

"There is nothing inappropriate for a single woman to meet another single woman." The aggressiveness in her eyes weakened a little, but a thin layer of joke followed, "Still, are you still learning?" self-identification?"

My heart was overwhelmed, and I didn't even know why I was so calm: "Is this a date?"

"No." Miss Pender shook her head, "I said, without any identity."

I should have said no.I should reject her, I should...

But I was at a loss for words.I couldn't even speak, and Miss Pender, as always, made no secret of her nervousness and anticipation.

After a while, I said, "When?"

"Does that count as 'consent'?"

I'm not used to answering "yes" or "no" directly, but I forced myself to adapt and said, "Yes."

My eyes lit up.She is so happy.

Miss Pender has slender hands.She is very thin, but her knuckles are not clear, and her ten fingers are slender and long, very classically beautiful.Compared with this, her whole body is soft yet strong, as if something independent of her body has become her bone, making her proud in the world.

Yes, she is a dancer.Her dancing must have started a long time ago, and it was one with her, making her a beauty of flesh and blood.

Those trance fragments and familiar scenes did not come out of thin air.

At this moment my intuition once again declared victory: I seem to have seen her.