Octavia Girl

Chapter Two

Calamity Looks Like Kismet

The scene where Jenna was introduced to Armen was the opposite of a meet-cute. All that happened was that he was ushered into the bullpen and everyone stood up while the boss yelled all their names at him, finishing with, “Armen, this is everyone.”

Never in a hurry to rush anything, Jenna sat back down without stepping forward with her coworkers to make a more positive first impression. Besides, she had never had to pursue a man in her life. Even if they worked together, why would she need to do anything differently?

Contrary to what was best for her personal development, Armen approached her the next day at the office fridge and introduced himself again.

“Yeah. I met you yesterday,” she drawled as she hunted through a basket for a pack of artificial sugar.

“Well, it’s good to meet you,” he said in deep mellow tones. “You’re famous.”

He was about to retreat to the sound booths when Jenna spun around to face him. “What do you mean, I’m famous?”

“Oh, you know,” he said after he cleared his throat. “I’ve been told so much about you.”

Jenna was annoyed and looked it. “What could anyone around here have told you about me?”

He looked amused instead of embarrassed, which inflamed Jenna’s annoyance into peevishness. “Oh, you know, just that you’re perfect,” he said, giving her a studying glance that suggested she was far from it.

“Who, may I ask, gossips about perfection?” she questioned in a clipped tone.

“Who doesn’t?” Armen asked with a wicked smirk.

It was on the tip of her tongue to say something about how he could use some work himself, but when she looked for something about him to use as a barb, she couldn’t find anything. Everything about the way he was groomed and styled was above average. Another person might have made something up to twit him about, but Jenna was not a liar or a bully.

Instead, all the irritation and upheaval left her features. A corner of her mouth made a jump toward the ceiling, “Maybe you could teach me how to be perfect sometime.”

“You’ll accomplish it better if you smile,” he said, with a charming grin of his own before leaving her gawking in front of the microwave.

***

It was then that Armen did something no other man had ever done to Jenna. He left her alone. She had assumed that his leaving the kitchen was only a temporary retreat, and he would be back to invite her out for lunch or a drink.

A week later, he was still behind glass, doing his radio show without taking more than a professional interest in her, or anyone. He was one of those men who came to work, and then, just worked? Was he married? Did he already have someone special in his life? Was that the reason he was so aloof? Jenna did not have the pluck to ask questions about him. She simply kept her ears open and waited for the information to trickle in.

It soon did.

No girlfriend. No wife. No significant other. Not even a roommate.

Apparently, he lived on a boat he kept in the bay and was particularly fond of stargazing. It had been his idea to incorporate information about what celestial activities were happening on clear nights along with the weather forecast.

Other than that, no more information about him was forthcoming. Jenna waited, but three weeks went by with nothing new surfacing.

She was on the verge of forgetting all about him when she once again met him in front of the microwave.

He kept looking in the fridge and closing it again.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“My lunch is gone,” he admitted sourly.

“Someone took it?”

“Maybe 'gone' is the wrong word. My lunch is not in the fridge and instead, it’s on the counter… back at my place.”

“There’s a really nice Asian fusion restaurant around the corner if you have time to nip out.”

“I don’t,” he admitted, even more sourly.

“Are you dying? Do you want me to fetch something for you?” Jenna offered when she wouldn’t normally. Skipping a meal was not one of the things Jenna would normally have classified as a hardship. It was just that he looked so dismayed, so she wondered if he had missed breakfast, and what if that was compounded by having missed dinner the night before? She found herself suddenly worried sick that he was wasting away in front of her.

“Would you?” he asked with the most beautiful smile following the words. “I have to do a segment with Miles in ten minutes, but I should be finished with that in about an hour.”

“Fine. I’ll get you something. I assume you like noodles,” she said dryly.

“I love them,” Armen said, just as Miles stuck his head around the corner and waved him back.

Jenna went to her desk and phoned the Asian fusion place. She was about to order noodles for both of them, but then backtracked and canceled the meal for her. She had not forgotten her lunch that morning. Besides, he didn’t want to eat with her. He just needed to eat something. It was a humanitarian mission, not a date.

Forty minutes after their conversation, Jenna popped down to the restaurant and picked up the Vietnamese noodles. Traversing through the office, she set the foam container along with the chopsticks on Armen’s desk. The first time she placed them, she had stuck the receipt between the lid and the chopsticks, hoping that he would realize it would be good manners to pay her back, but then suddenly, she didn’t want to be paid back.

She pocketed the receipt and returned to her desk, where she reluctantly gnawed on a carrot she had not cut into sticks before placing it in her lunch. Now she understood why Bugs Bunny always had half a carrot. It was the food accessory that never went away.

She was awakened from her stupor by Armen as he wheeled an office chair into her cubicle. He had his noodles in hand. “I see you haven’t finished eating,” he commented. “Mind if I join you?”

She nodded to him and he took his seat.

“Thank you for this,” he said as he opened the lid.

She smiled. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen a man eat like he enjoyed it. Most of the men she went out with were so afraid of making a mistake that they made all the mistakes. Armen obviously didn’t care if he had a noodle trailing from his mouth and ate like he meant it.

“Are you just eating that little carrot?” he asked when his mouth was empty.

It was so big around that she could just barely touch her middle finger and thumb around the circumference when she held it. “Little?” she replied.

“Okay, it could obviously feed a starving village. Why are you eating that instead of this?”

“I didn’t forget my lunch. Besides, I have other things,” she conceded and showed him the lunch box she had brought with her. It had tiny little compartments with fruit, meat, cheese, and crackers.

“So again, what’s with the carrot?”

She dropped it on her desk. “I’m trying to lose weight, so carrot first, lunch afterward.”

“If you can eat anything after that carrot!” he laughed.

“That’s sort of the point.”

“I think leaving the carrot on the desk is a mistake. I think you should stuff it in your bun. I bet you could hide all kinds of stuff in there and no one would be the wiser. It’s so big, you could have a black hole hidden in there.”

Normally, a comment like that would have thrown Jenna into a rage. She did not enjoy it when thoughtless men made jokes about her bun. Surprisingly, a rage did not seem to be on the menu. Armen had not meant anything by it. He was merely flirting with her and looking for a logical opening. Five seconds ago, he had been talking about the carrot.

“I hide stuff in there all the time,” she laughed back.

“Like what?”

“All my secrets,” she said evasively.

“I’d love to know all your secrets. They sound as inviting as a trail of gummy bears in the woods,” he commented pleasantly. He cleared his throat and continued, “I want to repay you for this food. You didn’t have to do this for me. I was dying and I want to show my appreciation. What sorts of favors, gifts, or shameless plugs on the radio tug at your heartstrings?”

“You don’t have to do anything,” she scoffed.

“Let me give you a list of things I can do. I’m good at getting new bands on the radio,” he said with an eyebrow wriggle.

She laughed. “I don’t have a band.”

“Then, your little sister’s band.”

“I’m an only child.”

“Okay, that’s out. I could take you stargazing on my boat.”

She looked around the office blankly, looking for somewhere to hide her discomfort. She was so shaken that for the first time since she started working at that office, she did not notice the discoloration on the ceiling which always irked her perfectionist leanings. Was there a reason to say no?

They did not work in the same department. Check.

Neither one of them had authority over the other. Check.

There couldn’t be any of the normal office romance objections. Check.

Besides, it was just stargazing in the bay, not sex in the south booth. She added a check after that one for good measure.

“I guess we could do that,” she said slowly after she checked all the boxes in her head.

“Then, tomorrow at nine. I’ll take you out on the ocean. You’ll look perfect, and I’ll try my best to keep up,” he said with a smile.

He tossed his empty container in the garbage, saluted, and wheeled his chair back to his corner.

Jenna was breathless as he disappeared from view. The fluttering in her heart surprised her. Who knew what other surprises were waiting for her?

***

Jenna went home that night and went through her clothes. She was not the kind of girl who needed to go shopping because she had just been asked on a date by the man of her dreams. All of Jenna’s clothes were already awesome. It came from meticulous planning all year round. She put together an outfit from her closet with accessories and shoes. Then she put them together in a garment bag and hung them on a hook for her date with Armen.

Armen asked her to meet him at a cafe near the bay, he said he would meet her there, and walk down to the boat with her. He didn’t want her to get lost, so he would escort her, saying marinas could be hard to navigate if you weren’t used to them.

The outfit came out of the closet. It was a pink and white horizontal striped shirt with a gather above one shoulder. It had the added benefit of doubling as a dress due to its length, so she paired charcoal leggings with it. She wore light brown boots that looked pink, only because there was pink near them. She wore a blush-pink ribbon in her bun, which was a slightly more extravagant design than the usual messy bun she wore. This one incorporated a thick braid.

She went to meet him and her breath caught when she saw him on the other side of the glass through the coffee shop window. Without a doubt, he was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen and when she stepped through that door to join him, her life would be forever changed. He was the exact person to make her throw everything out the window.

Armen got to his feet when Jenna entered.

“I already ordered for you,” he said with a sly grin. “We’ve got a lot of sailing to do if we’re going to make it to the right place by the time the sun sets.”

Jenna smiled. “What did you order for me?”

“Apple cider.”

“Sounds perfect.”

“It’s going to be more perfect once we’re out on the water. Even in the summer, it can get chilly.” He placed the warm cup in her hand and offered her his arm.

With a blush as golden as the sunset, she took it.

Together they left the cafe and walked the tree-lined sidewalk until the ocean came into view.

“Where did you learn how to sail?” she asked.

“It’s not a sailboat,” he replied.

“You said ‘sailing’ earlier.”

“I probably did. It has a better sound to it than boating. The thing is, I’m not good at everything I try to do, and learning how to manage all those knots and pulleys was not happening on such short notice, so I got a boat with a motor instead. The ocean can be really unpredictable and sailing against ocean tides or being pushed along by them is too much for me. I need to be where I’m supposed to be when I’m supposed to be there.”

She was about to ask him a question about that when he continued.

“Do you see that boat with the blue stripe down the side?” he asked, pointing.

Yes, she could see it. It was one of the larger boats parked there. It was no small wonder he could live there. It looked perfectly comfortable and she felt this feeling of luxury pass over her. Like she was being treated better by Armen than she had been by any other man. He was taking her on a sunset cruise to watch starlight. Suddenly she felt like she’d never seen either of those things before.

He jumped onto the boat first and delicately lifted her aboard to join him. Efficiently, he moved around the vessel, untying ropes and taking his place behind the wheel in a way that struck her as a hundred times more masterful than the way a man looked when he drove a car.

She was about to do something daring. Daring for her. She was about to come up behind him and rest her elbow on his shoulder when he turned around and took her out of the cabin and onto the deck.

“The real show is out here,” he said, seating her in the front and covering her lap with a blanket.

He left her and a minute later the engine was running and they were fast leaving land behind them.

Soon they were out of the bay with the mountains surrounding them and onto the fiery mirror of the ocean. Jenna sipped her cider and watched the changing colors of the tilting light reflecting on the clouds, the emerging stars, and an inexplicable feeling of wonder and adventure enveloped her. It suddenly occurred to her that she had not experienced a feeling like she was exactly where she needed to be in a very long time.

She glanced back at Armen with the sun making half his face bright and half his face dark. He looked very confident in the way he piloted the ship. Trustworthy even.

Then he cut the engine, grabbed a blanket of his own, and joined her in the front of the boat.

“Are you having a good time?” he asked as he sat next to her with his blanket folded on his lap.

She nodded comfortably. “This is already such a good date, but I can’t help but wonder if you have anything else planned.”

“Of course I do,” he said pleasantly.

“Like what?”

“Anything you want.”

That comment made Jenna suspicious. He sounded like the man who was looking for the missing dog in the park—like he would have said anything to get Jenna to go with him. She pushed off the thought. She was being paranoid and it had to stop. But when she saw Armen’s face, looking unexpectedly anxious to please, she had the feeling again. To cover it, she asked, “Why don’t you tell me more about yourself? How long have you lived on a boat?”

“About three weeks. I started living aboard The Windstorm when I came to Victoria,” he explained.

Jenna squinted. Had that been the name on the side of the boat? She felt that it wasn’t. Hadn’t it had a woman’s name like The Lucia? Or The Margaret? It was too late for Jenna to check then. She couldn’t very well swing her whole body over the edge to see what was written on the side of the boat. Nor could she challenge him on the name of his own boat.

“Why did you buy it?” she asked, keeping to her line of questioning.

He didn’t answer but looked her up and down. “It’s getting darker,” he said cryptically. “Tell me something. Are you as attracted to me as I am to you?”

Her heart hit a hitch, but she managed to nod.

“Are you aware that I can’t place a finger on you until you place a finger on me?” he challenged.

She wrinkled her nose. What was he saying?

“I can’t do more than offer you my arm. If you want to get involved with me, you have to make the first move,” he said, tilting his nose to the side and offering her his lips.

Jenna placed one arm over her stomach, scratched her ear with her opposite hand, and took a cleansing breath. She hesitated, waiting to answer, toying with her options. “So you are giving me all the power on this date?”

“All of it!” he confirmed. “I can’t bring you to this remote location and let you think that I’m not making any moves on you because I don’t want to. I’m being courteous.”

She stifled a laugh. Though it was not a kind laugh. It was an annoyed laugh. He wanted her to make the first move and he asked for it using those words? She laughed to prevent herself from rolling her eyes.

He made amends with the smile he gave her that was without question the most adorable one she had ever seen in her life. He was using his eyes to persuade her to kiss him and it was a far better tactic than using his words.

Jenna burst out laughing. She wasn’t sure if she even remembered the last time she had made out with a guy. She was always thinking about bloody fingers and severed tendons.

Well, not tonight, even if he was acting like he deserved her affection just because he had taken her out. It was presumptuous, but… she was in the right place at the right time.

She kissed him, and his kiss was so warm that it made her forget her fears, who she was, and how to stay seated.

They fell on the floor.

She would have gone on kissing him if an alarm on his phone hadn’t gone off. It was the worst sound she’d ever heard and she practically jumped off him in her hurry to escape the blaring noise.

He retrieved his phone from his back pocket and silenced it.

“What was that?” she gasped.

“My virgin alert,” he replied. “Good thing I shut it off,” he said, reaching for her.

“Don’t joke. I need an explanation as to why your phone, or anyone’s phone, would ever make that sound. No one ignores their phone enough to warrant that sound.”

“It was to remind me of a celestial occurrence that is going to take place in a minute,” he said, looking up at the near-black sky. “It would be a pity if we sailed all the way out here only to miss it.”

“Okay,” Jenna said, steadying her breath before wrapping herself up in the blanket and looking up at the sky. “What are we looking for?”

He settled as close to her as was humanly possible and pointed up. “We should see color.”

At that exact moment, Jenna did see something. It was like the twinkle of a satellite, a slightly off-color point of light moving across the sky quickly when it suddenly turned and fell toward them. It got larger and larger like a crimson comet descending with a sparkling tail behind it. As it got closer it stopped looking like a comet. The shape and style were more like fireworks.

“Did you do this?” she asked, feeling like she’d never seen anything more beautiful.

He didn’t reply. He just looked up into the sky with a look that could only be described as the opposite of wonder. His expression caught her attention more than what was happening in the air above them. When his eyes met hers, it was obvious that he knew a lot more about what was happening than she did, and he did not savor the phenomenon.

When she looked up again, she saw other lights—white lights. The thing had a shape and control over its movement. It was hovering.

She felt the prick of a needle in her arm.

Armen caught her as she fell forward.

Her last thought was that whatever was above them... it did not look like a flying saucer.