“I just don’t know, Suzy,” Gillie said, breaking eye contact to look around the office again. She hadn’t stopped taking in the size of the place since she’d arrived. “I feel like I’d be in over my head.”
Suzy waved it off with a laugh. “Can I let you in on a secret? I felt the same way when I first moved in.”
Gillie bit her lower lip as she let her eyes dance around the room again. The place had an allure to it, and Suzy trusted that the longer Gillie sat here with her, the more her friend would get over her cold feet.
Also, the longer Gillie stayed, the longer Suzy could continue to work her.
“It’s just…” Gillie started to launch another protest, “You had it easy. You were replacing someone who announced they were retiring. I’m going to have to fight for the position.
Suzy hated it when people told her she had had it “easy.” She never remembered getting people to buy into her crusade of bringing massive change as being “easy.”
And in the years since Suzy had moved into the office, it had been anything but “easy” initiating a single one of those promised changes. Most of her ideas were butchered beyond recognition by the time they were implemented.
“Gillie, if I could do this, you certainly could,” Suzy assured her. “I’ll let you in on another secret. Err, maybe I told you already, but…I was always a little jealous over how you just breezed through law school.”
“Really?” Gillie almost gushed.
“Just a little,” Suzy said, playfully trying to save face. “You just always seemed to have your hand raised, and even when Professor Abernathy sprung a new question on you trying to stump you, I always believed you’d come up with the right answer.”
Gillie blushed when she smiled, informing Suzy she was warming up to the idea. It was time to make one last pitch.
“Hey. Remember. I’m going to be in your corner every step of the way. Don’t ever feel like you’re going after this alone.”
If Gillie got on board, as Suzy expected she would (with enough gentle nudges), they’d be in it together for the long haul. Her ideas for the sweeping changes she’d promised to bring about might have been stalled for now, but Suzy had a mind to fix that as soon as she could.
“And it will be so good to have an old friend in the building here,” Suzy added. “The two of us can do a lot of good here,” she said, laying the foundation for things to come.
That was how things got done around here. Years of strategizing, waiting for the right opportunity.
Like this one.
“But…they don’t already have someone else in mind?”
Suzy flashed her friend a smile. To Gillie, it would’ve been reassuring., but Suzy knew its true nature was contentedness. She knew she’d won Gillie over.
“I’m putting in a good—no, great—word for you with the higher ups, and I’m not leaving until they know you’re the best candidate.”
Gillie giggled as she smiled. “Alright, but not too great a word. I still need to talk it over with Marco.”
“Of course,” Suzy said jovially.
After a couple of long years of accomplishing next to nothing, she felt this was her first real step toward the changes she’d envisioned.