Their eyes met across the boardroom as soon as he stepped into it. She was seated at the far end of the table in a room, that was otherwise full of men dressed in stiff black suits; all of whom might well have been clones of each other. For a few moments, time stood still; the murmurs in the room dissolved and only the two of them seemed to exist. She saw several emotions flit across his face - surprise, joy, a flicker of anger and confusion. Before he could recover and make his way over to her side of the table the energy in the room changed perceptibly; making both of them snap out of the temporary spell. The bosses had entered the room - more men in identical black suits. The meeting commenced soon after; as each member inside the boardroom made their pitches to the investors. The boardroom was a battlefield - invisible daggers were drawn and every person in the room wanted to outdo the others in a bid to win over the investors and get their startup idea funded. She was of course not in the running as far as the others in the room were concerned - hence no one paid her much heed. This was the situation until the time that it was her turn to pitch. As soon as she stood up; she could hear a few sniggers and hurried whispers. She could feel a few eyes look her up and down; check her out; as she reached the front of the room. She was used to this by now but she shot a glance in his direction and noted that he quickly looked away. She started her pitch; she was really good at what she did and she knew it. People started to take note of the content of her presentation and by the time that she had finished; she noted with some satisfaction that the sniggers had been wiped off most faces; now replaced with a sense of unease. This in itself was a small victory, but she couldn’t help but steal another glance in his direction. He was looking directly at her now and as their eyes met he nodded his approval, imperceptibly. Her heart soared.
They were young kids; she ten, he eleven; and since that tender age, they had been inseparable. She adored him and followed him around; he was possessive of her and took it for granted that she would always be around him. She cut her hair short; climbed trees and played cricket with the boys in the scorching sun so that she could be near him at all times. He was protective of her and made sure that the other boys did not bully her. The other boys feared him and no one in the playground dared mess with her. Childhood passed them by in a quick, happy flash and soon enough they were teenagers. He grew into a handsome young man. He had always been arrogant - a go-getter. Life was kind to him. Professors liked him; girls threw themselves at him and he enjoyed all the adulation. Now he rarely had time for her and she felt insanely jealous of all the other distractions that stole him away from her. He was hers alone and she wanted him to notice only her; to love only her but she didn’t know how to win back his lost attention. Teenage was a different game - one that she hadn’t learnt how to play. Whenever they were together now; he would only talk to her about his girlfriends; oblivious to the pain that he was causing her. Once she had tried telling him about her feelings for him and he had laughed uproariously in her face - "Hey, what happened to you? When did you start behaving like a woman?" The rejection had stung incredibly although she had hidden it well. She vowed to herself that one day she would turn herself into the woman that he would desire. That day onwards; she had never again let him know of her true feelings for him. They graduated from college and got busy with their lives and careers; not meeting for several years; till the day he received a phone call from her to inform him that she was getting married. He hadn’t seen this coming; he didn’t laugh this time. In his immaturity and arrogance; he had never imagined that she could ever belong to anyone but him. Suddenly, everything else in his life started to seem unimportant. He dropped everything and spent hours now, speaking with her; trying to convince her that her to-be husband wasn’t worthy of her. Even now, she willed him to tell her just once, that he loved her - she was ready to throw away everything in a moment. He said everything, but those words that she yearned to hear and she was too proud to ask him a second time.
He flew down for her wedding. She had insisted that he had to be present for it. The night before her wedding; he went to their house and threw stones at her window; like in their childhood days. She knew that it was him and opened the window to let him in. As he looked into her moist eyes in the dimly lit room; he felt a sense of inexplicable loss. They stood near the window and held hands; she realized that he was running a high fever. She got him medicines; laid him down on the bed; fussed about him and took care of him; like she always had. As he climbed out of the window that night; they both knew that this was possibly the last time that they were meeting. He didn’t dare to attend her wedding the next day but when it was time for her to leave the house; he hid in the bushes in the garden and watched her from a distance. Her head was bowed as she got into the waiting car and he couldn’t see her face. He followed the car along the highway on his bike. He was delirious with fever and later didn’t remember any details about that day. The only thing that he remembered was seeing her bowed head through the car window. Through the whole car journey; she hadn’t once raised her head. That was the last time that he had seen her...
They met in a restaurant that evening after the boardroom meeting. He told her how elegant and beautiful she looked; that he couldn’t take his eyes off her. He wondered how he could have been blind to her beauty for so long. She preened inwardly at having fulfilled the vow that she had made to herself years ago. He told her that he had hated it when the men in the boardroom had checked her out today and that he wished he could somehow protect her from their eyes. A boardroom was no place for a woman, he said - she was in the wrong profession. She heard what she wanted to hear and swelled with happiness at the feeling that he still was possessive of her. They spoke for hours. They spoke about their life and work. This was a battlefield of a different kind; where both of them tried to outdo each other as they pitched stories about their happiness and success. Neither could afford for the other to see the inevitable cracks in their lives. She told him how happy she was with her husband; he told her how successful he was with his start-up. What was left unsaid between them were the many moments that they still spent thinking about what could have been. He didn’t tell her that on the day of her wedding he had collapsed by the side of the road while following her car on his bike and had been in delirium for a week after. She didn’t tell him that on that day, she had cried the whole time that she was in the car, with her head bowed.
Both of their ideas had been shortlisted that day and they had a final pitch due the next day. She told him about her final idea and he told her his. She loved his idea and the shrewd businesswoman in her now saw an opportunity for a collaboration that would make their collective pitch stronger than all the others. He looked at her indulgently as she spoke animatedly about their collaboration. He could see that she was good - but now that he saw her as a woman; his age-old, patriarchal conditioning was telling him to not collaborate with her. He had been taught early in life that women and business did not mix well. He would win the pitch the next day and he would do it without her. He said nothing to her because he didn’t want to break her heart at that moment.
The next day they were back in the boardroom once more. His pitch was before hers and he opened his presentation by expressing his intent for a collaboration. Her heartbeat was faster as she braced herself to hear her name. He announced the name of his collaborating start-up; deliberately avoiding looking in her direction. A man in a black suit stood up and walked to the front of the room to join him. Everyone clapped as they finished their combined pitch. Needless to say; they went on to win the funding; she came a close second. Her win seemed hollow; she felt deflated; like someone had punched her hard in the stomach. She once again felt like the invisible teenager back in the college yard. She wanted to run away from him and quickly passed by all the other black suits to reach the exit of the board room. He was sitting with his collaborator near the front door - their heads together; engaged in a deep discussion. They had their backs turned towards her and didn’t notice her cross them. As she passed them by; she caught snatches of their conversation and realized that they were discussing her. She was really good too; we could make her an offer to join us - said the collaborator; to which he replied; Are you crazy? Business with a woman would be a disaster...our stakes are too high at the moment...
She quickened her footsteps and exited the hotel lobby, to step into the blinding sunlight outside. She put her shades on to hide the tears that stung the back of her eyes. She now fully realized that she could never do anything that would make her good enough for him. Years ago; he had rejected her for not being woman-enough to be a worthy romantic partner to him. Today he had rejected her once again - this time because she had become too much of a woman to be considered as a worthy business partner.