The Cubicle Next Door
Page 32
“What?”
“Think about it. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Otherwise she’d be schizophrenic.”
“Schizophrenic?”
The next day he had a different theory. “You know, I was rereading all those blogs and I think I picked something up.”
“What?”
“I think she’s from Boston.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. There’s just an…accent…about the way she words things.”
“There is?”
“Boston. I’m betting on it.”
When he went off to teach, I looked through all my posts, wondering how I’d acquired a Boston accent from just four short years at MIT. And how it had exhibited itself in my writing.
But that afternoon when he came back, he leaned against the cubicle wall and made a pronouncement. “I was wrong about the Boston thing. I think the accent is actually Southern. I think she’s a gorgeous, statuesque, redheaded Southern belle.”
“Really.”
I read the comments on my blog that evening. I counted more than one hundred new guesses before I stopped counting.
The next morning, when I got to the cubicle, Joe was already hard at work. But he looked up from his computer when I walked in. “Hey.”
“Hi.”
“You look tired. Long night?”
“Interminable.”
“I stayed up too. Because I was thinking about the blog. And the thing is—”
“You know what? I don’t want to know. I have work to do. And I have other things to think about. And it’s a waste of time talking about a stupid, juvenile blog and some idiot woman who writes it.”
“I didn’t know you had such strong feelings about it. Sorry.”
Just call it self-loathing.
I only had one more day.
And then I could call it done.
When I got out of bed the next morning, doom descended upon my shoulders. I took a shower. Stood in front of my closet. It didn’t matter what I wore. The outcome would still be the same. Joe would still laugh. He’d probably flash me his dimples. And then he’d vanish into his cubicle and go back to work.
That’s why I chose my flame low-tops. The symbolism was just too good to pass up, even to a computer geek like me. Going down in flames.
There was another Internet party.
Even bigger than the one in February.
I logged into the program and checked my statistics. I’d had a record day for unique visitors to the blog. A record day for total number of visits and number of comments.
If I were going down, then it looked like I was going to do it in front of the whole world. As noon approached, I got ready.
I opened a new entry.
Typed my name.
“Hey. You there?”
“Just a minute.”
“You watching?”
“Yes.”
“What do you think she looks like? Think she’s a blonde?”
I made some sort of unintelligible noise.
“How do you spell pert?”
Pert? As in Kate? Blond, bouncy, cheerleader? Maybe I could beg the colonel to let me move my office to the supply room. If I threatened to crash his computer, I’m sure he’d do it. Nobody ever remembers the backup disks. “P-e-r-t.”
“Thanks.”
I did a last-minute scroll through the comments. One last effort to avoid baring my neck for the guillotine. As I scrolled toward the bottom, one last comment was registered. And it was addressed to me.
Jackie Pert Harrison.
Posted by: theshrink | June 08 at 11:59 AM
I went numb. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. My finger still hovered over the mouse which hovered over the send button on the computer monitor.
He knew.
He knew!
I pushed my chair back. Climbed on top of my desk.
He was waiting there for me.
“You knew.”
He was staring down at me. A stare that was mesmerizing in its intensity. “I knew.”
“For how long?”
“Since the first day I started reading it. If it hadn’t been for that blog, I would have given up on you.”
“But how did you know?”
“Read the post from 5 June.”
I climbed down. Heard him climb down on his side. With shaking hands, I bent over the keyboard. Retrieved 5 June from the archives. The answer had been staring at me the whole time. “Che Guevara.”
“Yep. I’d find him and kiss him if he were still alive!” Joe took my hands from the keyboard, pulled me out of my chair, and then drew my arms around his waist. Released my hands. His fingers pressed into the small of my back, pulling me closer, tight against that splendid chest.
“Maybe you could kiss me instead.”
He smiled that million-dollar smile just before he did.
THE CUBICLE NEXT DOOR BLOG
Who I am
John Smith guessed. He knew the whole time. I’m Jackie Pert Harrison. And I sit right beside him, all day, every day, in the cubicle next door.
Posted on June 08 in The Cubicle Next Door | Permalink
Comments
Jackie Pert Harrison? But that’s what theshrink guessed. How did he know?
Posted by: NozAll I June 08 at 12:16 PM
He knew because he is John Smith, you moron!
Posted by: justluvmyjob | June 08 at 12:17 PM
And? What did he say? What did you say?
Posted by: survivor | June 08 at 12:18 PM
Not very much. We were too busy kissing.
Posted by: TCND | June 08 at 12:32 PM
The best dreams are always the ones that come true.
Posted by: philosophie | June 08 at 12:33 PM
Epilogue
They call our cubicle Courtship Corner. People throw quizzical glances at it as they walk by, as if they’re wondering just exactly what we did back there.
Nothing. And everything.
You know what they say about subdivisions. When your space gets divided, it’s best if you can just make peace with the neighbors.
Did we get married, Joe and I? Of course we did. We had a military wedding at the Academy Chapel. Joe’s father and mother, brother, sisters, nieces and nephews all showed up; they wasted no time in making me feel like part of the family. His mom had even made me a sweater.
Betty did my makeup. Adele did my hair. Grandmother was my maid of honor. Oliver was the best man. All our friends from church were there. Even the priest. People say we had the longest saber arch in Academy history. All the history majors wanted to be part of it because Joe is their favorite instructor.
And I’m growing on them.
Joe took me to the ocean for our honeymoon. To Goa and the magnificent Indian Ocean that changes from sapphire to azure and back again with every wave. And there, after I said goodbye to my mother, I was finally able to say hello to the rest of my life.
And, by the way, the “rest of my life” included skiing some of those black diamond runs the winter after we were married. I even “took the hill” and skied Pallavicini. But please don’t worry. I’m very much alive. And if you’re ever in Colorado Springs on a Thursday night, and happen to catch a movie at the Twin Peaks, don’t look too closely at the back row…or at least have the decency to wait until the lights come back on.
Other Books by Siri L. Mitchell
Kissing Adrien
“The French are always up for romance, so when the crowd saw Adrien striding through the Paris airport toward me, I’m sure they were hoping for a good kiss…I was too.”
Claire Le Noyer, 29, wants a do-over. She wants the life where she majors in history, not accounting. Where she takes two-hour lunches, not ten minutes in front of her computer. Where her pastor boyfriend treats her like an attractive woman he’s deeply in love with, not like a nice pet dog.
But for now she’s a Seattle numbers-cruncher with a wardrobe from REI sent to fashionable Paris to
check out an apartment left to her parents by a mysterious cousin. When her childhood crush—handsome, pleasure-loving, and very French Adrien—introduces Claire to the City of Lights, béarnaise sauce, and kisses in very public places, Claire cautiously begins to embrace another way of living.
Who would have guessed Adrien would also introduce her to the bigger questions she must answer…Who is her one true love? And will she ever learn to enjoy the life God has placed right in front of her?
A fresh, funny novel of faith and joie de vivre—and what happens when they meet.
“A sheer delight! Smart, funny, romantic, and intelligent. Loved it! C’est magnifique!”
—Laura Jensen Walker, author of Dreaming in Black & White
“Enchanting! Siri Mitchell weaves an irresistible tale. Merci beaucoup!”
—Ginger Garrett, author of Chosen: The Lost Diaries of Queen Esther
Something Beyond the Sky
Who knows when you’ll meet your new best friend? She might be just around the corner.
“We came from different states, different backgrounds, and different religions. But we soon learned that first impressions are often wrong, and that, when given a chance, the most unlikely people can become friends…”
Can one woman engage in life-changing friendship with someone she’s just met? Can four? That’s life on an Air Force base, where four very different women share only the common bond of being military wives:
Anne, newly married and with a university diploma in hand, finds herself unprepared for the realities of marriage, her limited job prospects, and people’s strange response to her.
Rachel married beneath herself in terms of money but discovers she is bankrupt in relational skills. She’ll give anything to keep her shaky marriage intact.
Beth resigned her commission to stay at home with her twins. How can she tell her husband that she thinks she made a mistake?
Karen battles an eating disorder while she tries to ward off questions about her husband’s love, her lack of children, and her personal journey of faith.
In this compelling story of love, friendship, forgiveness, and truth, each woman discovers that with a little faith she can believe that yesterday’s heartaches and today’s troubles are nothing compared to what lies beyond the sky.
“Mitchell, a military spouse, looks at the lives of military wives through the eyes of four diverse women…Mitchell is at her strongest portraying the frustrations of women coming to grips with careers and motherhood (or infertility or pregnancy) and the challenges of military life. She is adept with flashbacks and withholds certain key bits of information until the right moment, which adds punch to the narrative.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A profoundly moving book…”
—Joyce Erwin, Senior Protestant Chaplain’s wife, Elmendorf Air Force Base
About the Author
Siri Mitchell graduated from the University of Washington with a business degree and worked in various levels of government. As a military spouse, she lived all over the world, including Paris and Tokyo. Siri enjoys observing and learning from different cultures. She is fluent in French and loves sushi.
But she is also a member of a strange breed of people called novelists. When they’re listening to a speaker and taking notes, chances are, they’ve just had a great idea for a plot or a dialogue. If they nod in response to a really profound statement, they’re probably thinking, “Yes. Right. That’s exactly what my character needs to hear.” When they edit their manuscripts, they laugh at the funny parts. And cry at the sad parts. Sometimes they even talk to their characters.
Siri wrote 4 books and accumulated 153 rejections before signing with a publisher. In the process, she saw the bottoms of more pints of ice cream than she cares to admit. At various times she has vowed never to write another word again. Ever. She has gone on writing strikes and even stooped to threatening her manuscripts with the shredder.
Her tenth novel, The Messenger, follows prior Bethany House releases: A Constant Heart (October 2008), Love’s Pursuit (June 2009), She Walks in Beauty (April 2010), and A Heart Most Worthy (March 2011). She Walks in Beauty won the inaugural INSPY Award for Historical Fiction in December 2010. Three of Siri’s novels, Chateau of Echoes and The Cubicle Next Door, and She Walks in Beauty were Christy Award finalists. Love’s Pursuit and Kissing Adrien were finalists for the ACFW Carol Award.
Table of Contents
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Epilogue