Love At Mercy Of A Cheeseburger!

I am Ria, a successful Human Resource head at a multinational company. I have the monies and the power to make or break someone’s career. I am also very popular among all the employees in the company.

I owe all to my dad. He is my idol and he has made me what I am today. I lost my mother when I was only 5 years old. He then became my mom as well. Raising a child was difficult for him. He had absolutely no support from the family. He learnt child rearing. I remember he struggled every morning to tie my braids as it was a mandatory rule in the Catholic school where I studied. He could have easily got my hair chopped off but he didn’t as my mom loved my long hair. I remember the time I got my first period, he was as scared as I was. But we stood by each other, learnt many things along the way and today I can pride over the way I have been raised.

“My dad gave me three life rules to live by 1. Always be independent, 2. Learn to face adversities head on and 3. Marry a man who can cook. The first two were easy, but the third one proved difficult all because of a cheeseburger. Let me explain.”

Here enters the new CEO of the company Rajeev. Young achiever, drop dead gorgeous looks, smart, dashing, intelligent – you name it and he has it. Every woman in the company-married or unmarried would drool over him. I was no exception. I was amongst the few fortunate ladies who would be summoned to his office at least thrice a week. Oh, I was envied like how! Women didn’t care that we were being lectured, being in his cabin was a privilege in itself, they said.

Now so much so that I wanted to be noticed by him, I also wanted my man to have all those qualities that my dad had. Also, I have always wanted to live my life as per his rules I couldn’t go against the wishes of my dad who had sacrificed everything for me. He had given up various job opportunities, promotions, a chance to remarry so that he could spend most of his time to raise me well.

I was independent, ambitious and life had been tough so had learnt to face adversities too. Following the first two rules were within my control but the third one wasn’t. I could see that Rajeev had developed liking for me as well but before I advance to express my feelings, I had to find out whether he could cook. This seemed a trivial issue to my friends, in whom I confided my emotions. But this was important to me.

Finally, after months of contemplating about my next move, secretly stealing a look during meetings, observing his moves, dressing up so that he notices me, following his car to his home and basically behaving like a hopeless romantic I had a plan.

It was time for the yearly family day picnic. We had various activities planned for the families of the employees and had a special one for all the unmarried male employees of the company. I organized a cooking competition for all the unmarried men.

Obviously, the CEO believed in ‘Lead by example’ and couldn’t escape the participation. He graciously took on the challenge. That gave me some hope. Now I had to see if he could prepare the cheeseburger.

What do you think? Did he pass the test?

This post is my entry for Day 3 Write Tribe Festival of Words. The prompt for the day is highlighted in bold in the story.

For my previous posts click here:

Day 1: A Confession

Day 2: I Enjoy My Job! #WriteBravely