pink cheeks, gold band

She doesn’t mean to eavesdrop. It just happens. Mr. Kaspbrak is hunched over in the corner of the hallway, speaking softly into the phone pressed to his ear. “I wish you were here, ” he says, his next words punctuated by pauses as the person at the other end speaks. “Yeah, she’s here. You asked her to come see me, didn’t you? Uh hu. I know. Okay, yeah. Okay. I love you.” As she watches this, she wonders who the woman is, that was going to marry him, because his right ring finger glints with a gold band, and she had seen the post-its on magazines for cakes and suits and and flowers on his office desk. And sometimes during a meeting she caught him twisting the ring with his thumb. Who, she thought, made him so gooey, and happy, and made his voice sound that way, and his cheeks and nose dusted with a ruddy, pleased pink?