A Very Long Night...

Last night from 8.30pm onwards, I sat across Mr Designer at Starbucks, Bangsar. His partner was seated at a sofa on my left and his right. Mr Designer was working on his laptop, he was more than 24 hours late on the designs to be presented to my MD on Monday morning.

As I watched him in action... casually dressed in a white t-shirt and blue jeans... eyes down in full concentration... his curvy eyebrows and the lines on his forehead became more prominent... his blue sneakers thumping lightly on the floor from time to time like a kid... a question kept coming to me.

Why is it so difficult to pull the plug? What was stopping me from ending this hopeless relationship there and then? I looked at his innocent face and pictured telling him that... I imagine what it'd feel like with him no longer in my life... and my eyes started to water.

While the answer is staring at me in the face, I am still not making any decision right now. Things are just too unsettled with him. He seems to have lost his direction again. I want to see him when he is stable, without a hurricane throwing him around. And then, I shall decide for good.

Last night too, his partner finally admitted what he really thought of us. He told me that he agreed with everything my ex-roommate had said, that Mr Designer was not good enough for me. Last week, he already mentioned to me about the lack of 'give and take' with this guy. Their older partner had advised him not to interfere but since I asked him directly, he decided to be frank. He didn't tell the man about us but the man guessed, he said it was obvious that we had something going between us.

Mr Designer has always been a bit late with his work and in terms of punctuality, but his designs had always been up to the standard, if not excellent. Unfortunately, lately, his performance has suddenly dropped rapidly. His partner has broken down a few times with all the trouble that they are in with their clients. They are very late with everything. It is so bad that their older partner is pushing his partner to take back his Mac Plus and terminate whatever agreement he has with the guy.

He was 3 hours late for their meeting that afternoon and he had not even started working on my designs yet when he arrived. He said he fell asleep after they called him, he'd been up working all night. Their older partner was so pissed that he walked out there and then. He's not going into his military regime to shape up the guy as planned. He said Mr Designer is a real hopeless case and he didn't want to get himself entangled.

And what's this thing about not sleeping during normal hours everyday (he likes to sleep from 7pm to 2.00am, or less hours)? He's a designer, not a newspaper sub-editor who works night shift. If something is due during office hours, why can't he go to bed by midnight and wake up by 7am and continue work?

His partner and I came up with several possibilities on what is actually going on with Mr Designer. With this guy, everything is possible. Could it be...
1) He's having 2nd thoughts about living in the real world and is considering returning to his ex-fiance and their cushy life or...
2) He found another partner, one of his oldest friends, but didn't have the heart to tell his partner because the guy has been so nice to him or...
3) He owe so much money and is in deep trouble with a loan shark or...
4) He is having an affair with a client and is wasting time going to that client's office unnecessarily (not me, okay) or...
5) He had picked up drinking again and often konked out till morning because of that or...
6) Beats us, like I said, with this guy everything is possible.

At midnight last night, we were thrown out of Starbucks and had to adjourn to Devi's Corner. When I had dinner with him at Chawan earlier that night, he told me that he had to leave by 9 or 9.30pm, he had another client's job to attend to. That was after not noticing that I had asked for the bill. Sad, but that was the only weekend that we'd spent together, and I was trying to chill and enjoy being with him before we start work again. The Nasi Lemak with Ayam Goreng had never tasted that good, and he enjoyed his Mee Rebus Tulang too.

I was really pissed when I saw his designs, they were far from my brief. I lost my temper and told them both off. I ordered him to make amendments on the spot and made it clear that nobody was leaving the place until I was satisfied. For some reason too, he always takes very long to make amendments on his designs. And we had to baby-coach him through the minor changes, he seemed fixed on doing things the way he was used to. He wasn't open to different ways and new ideas, he thought he knew better. He didn't, I had done that with a former client before and I knew it was do-able, despite his excuses. I even showed him samples weeks earlier. Did he have a memory relapse or something?

I could not feel any more foolish than I did when we left Devi's at 2.30am. That was after closing my eyes several times, it was hot and I was damn sleepy. Then too, the designs were only 90% done. 6 whole hours just to make amendments? That wasn't how I intend to spend my Saturday night either. His partner and I are going to learn how to use the software so we know whether he is conning us with the speed or that is just normal. His partner agreed to try to 'dig' and get to the bottom of things when Mr Designer sent him home after dropping me off. I can't wait for the updates...

p/s: His partner had just smsed me that he managed to talk to Mr Designer. He will update me later. Of all the possibilities, I know No 1 would hurt me the most. Though that would make things a lot easier as I won't have to make any decision, especially one that could ruin my future.

And yikes, despite getting an ideal spot upstairs for breakfast, the waiter had just spilled lot of water on my table. I have to wipe my mini-laptop and cable dry.