On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely would you be to recommend PeriWorks SecureSign to a friend or colleague?

Bushrang had taken me out to a lovely Indian fusion dinner while I was in town, and he was kind enough to walk me back to the train station.

“Well, here we are!” he said, as he ushered me onto the platform. “I guess this is where we part ways.”

“For now,” I laughed, somewhat breathless.

“For now.” He smiled. “Well Grace, it’s been such a pleasure having you in town, seeing you, I hope you come back soon! Maybe next time we can get together with Maddy and the Rooster.”

“Yeah, depends on their timing, but I’d love to see them. And the kitty too!”

“And thanks for the book recommendations.”

“No problem. Don’t worry if you don’t get to them—”

“Oh I will!” He laughed. “I will for sure.”

Just then a synthetic bell chime echoed across the platform. “Train to Sawyer Brook in 1 minute,” announced a chirpy pre-recorded woman. This is when I remembered.

“Oh Bushrang,” I said, “there was something I wanted to say to you, before we part.”

“Oh?”

I didn’t know how to broach this topic. My life had not prepared me for this moment. So I stumbled: “Now this is going to sound kind of weird, and out of left field, but I have to let you know—”

Bushrang smiled. “It’s okay,” he said genially. Did he blush?

“Are you aware of PeriWorks SecureSign?”

The colour vanished from his face. “What?”

“So there’s this corporation, PeriWorks, and they have a product called SecureSign. It’s, uh, sort of like DocuSign if you’re familiar with that. I guess they’d be rival products.”

“No? Um …”

“Yeah, so I was using it last week to sign a PDF and then this survey popped up—”

We were interrupted by the roar of a train. My train. “Train to Sawyer Brook arriving now,” intoned the chirpy woman. A gust of wind teased my jacket and tousled my hair as the six-car train glided to a halt. The double doors slid open, beckoning.

“—anyhow, they’re sort of good, thought you should know. Bye Bushrang!” I waved him a wide rainbow wave and stepped through the double doors.

“Grace?” he cried, but he had already disappeared behind rows of strangers crowding the doorway.