When you’re gone.

She said that to me as I passed her desk the other day. I thought I misheard her, or she was talking to someone, or something else as I passed. Maybe she was talking to her plant, some kind of fern which truthfully always seemed on the verge of expiring.

So I stopped. Looked at her. Looked at the marketing girl, at her unremarkable beauty.

“No one will miss you when you’re gone,” She said, looking right at me.

“Why would I leave?” I said, lamely, fighting the queasy, sliding on wet asphalt feeling I get around beautiful women.

Her phone rang at that moment and broke the spell. She smiled into the phone and I walked towards the coffee maker.