His assistant was calling from inside his jacket

He arrived at coffee apologizing for how hard his assistant had worked to fit me in. As a woman whose biggest scheduling conflict was laundry, I was weirdly impressed. Then his phone buzzed. He glanced down and said, “Brenda needs a decision.” He typed with both thumbs. A second phone buzzed in his jacket. This happened four times. Finally he excused himself to take a call, stood behind a decorative fern, and said, in exactly his normal voice, “Brenda, hold my afternoon.” Then, slightly higher: “Of course.” The fern was about knee-high. We maintained eye contact through most of this. When I asked whether Brenda was also him, he said she was “an executive mindset” and that I seemed threatened by successful men. I stood up to leave. His jacket buzzed again. He read the message and said Brenda had flagged me as a poor fit. I told him to give her my thanks. She was the only person there making good decisions.