Sad Desk Salad

by Jessica Grose

  Her dimples start flashing when she realizes who I am. “Oh my God hiiiiii!” she says, and before I have a chance to appear threatening, she gives me a bear hug. I can feel a dampness from her armpits on my shoulders, and she smells like Clinique Happy perfume, which is what I wore in the sixth grade. I hug back limply. “It is so amazing to finally meet you in person!”

  “It’s good to meet you in person, too.” I stand there awkwardly. Now that my plan to be cool toward her has been foiled, I don’t know what to say. Molly doesn’t introduce me to the woman sitting across from her, but I do get a good look at her. She’s wearing an expensive-looking dress and some worn-in Louboutins; the signature red heels are pretty scuffed. I’m not getting a vibe that she cares to say hello. She’s already taken out her iPhone, which has a bright pink vinyl cover, and appears to be playing Angry Birds.

  I ask Molly the only question that I can think of, which makes me sound like a wizened barfly: “So, do you come here often?”

  “I live in Fort Greene, so it’s not too far for me, and the drinks are so cheap!” Molly chirps.

  We stand in uncomfortable silence for another moment before I say, “Well, I should get back to my table.” Molly is still quite close to me, smiling so widely that it’s starting to creep me out. I take a step away from her.

  “Okey doke! Hey, I am sorry about that Breaking the Chick Habit site. What an old meanie that person must be!”

  “Wait, what? How do you know about that site?” Whatever feelings of strength I had before have completely dissipated. Obviously I know that anyone with Internet access can see the BTCH site, but as long as I was only talking about it with Tina and Rel, I could fool myself into thinking that we were the only ones who had read it.

  “Tina told me! Doi! I barely read it, it was too mean for my blood,” Molly says, shaking her perky little head, while still smiling.

  I’m not sure how to respond to this. Is she trying to make me feel bad by bringing up BTCH? Is she going to mention my blasted a cappella performance? Is she really just trying to sympathize? While I’m attempting to figure this out I realize I haven’t said anything for an uncomfortably long time. “I have to get back to my friend,” I finally blurt out.

  Molly doesn’t appear to notice how weird I’ve gotten. “Okay! I am so glad you came over! We should come here and drink margs together ASAP.”

  “Sure,” I tell her, knowing I would rather drink lighter fluid. But before I can turn around to leave, Molly leaps up and hugs me again.

  “Can’t wait to see you online tomorrow, Alex!” I can’t even manage to respond to this, and so I just start backing away slowly.

  I head outside to my table, feeling off-kilter. Why was Molly so dementedly friendly? Is it because knows something about BTCH that I don’t? And furthermore, who was that woman Molly was with? Was she just some friend who didn’t feel like feigning interest in a stranger? Now that I think of it, she looked sort of familiar. I feel like I’ve seen her ombré dye job before.

  “What’s wrong?” Jane says. “You look constipated.”

  I don’t feel like going into my weird exchange with Molly. I don’t want to sound like a complete nut job by telling her that I think my coworker is trying to gaslight me because she gave me a really big hug.

  “You got me. I have not pooped for like four days,” I tell her.

  Jane orders a third margarita, and I get another club soda, mindful of the hangover I’m still nursing. I also want to be sober when I get home. We linger outside the Cactus Inn for another hour gossiping about our mutual acquaintances (apparently two of our guy friends from college have swapped girlfriends, after a particularly poignant orgy).

  Finally, we each put $10 on the table and stand to leave.

  “Promise you’ll tell me what happens with the video and this hater website?” Jane asks.

  “I promise.”

  “If it turns out that we do know your hate blogger, I will go pee on her doorstep.”

  “You’re a real pal,” I tell her.

  The ten-minute walk home feels longer than usual. It’s not even eight P.M. yet and so the temperature’s still hovering near ninety. Small half circles of sweat stain my once-fresh dress, and I wish that I had brought my iPod so I could drown out the worries that are crowding back into my brain. Talking to Jane was cathartic but despite her go-ahead to post the Becky video I’m still anxious about it. I’m also slightly freaked out by running into Molly. I resolve not to look at my e-mail until I get home, just to ward off the anxiety for a few minutes more.

  The apartment is empty when I get there, and I take off my sundress and put on some of Peter’s old boxers and a white T-shirt. Finally I do check my phone—no word from the lawyers yet, and no further communication from the video leaker. I must admit I’m relieved. I do have a text from Peter, though.

  Peter Rice (7:55 PM): I’ll be home in an hour, can’t wait to see you!

  I flop onto the couch to await his return. I decide to put on the TV and flip until I find something that will take my mind off my predicament. Oxygen is airing their perpetual reruns of America’s Next Top Model, and I’m delighted to discover that Amber’s cycle is on tonight. The models have been flown to Madrid for the last leg of the competition, and Amber accuses another girl of stealing her rice cakes. Weaves are pulled; threats are made. Amber utters that well-worn reality TV cliché about not making friends. “I came here to win, I didn’t come here to make friends . . . or share my rice cakes,” Amber says.

  I don’t remember who was kicked off at the end of that episode, and I don’t get to be reminded, because I fall asleep before the judging panel begins.

  WEDNESDAY

  Chapter Six

  “Hey, babe.” Peter’s hovering over me in the early morning light.

  “What time is it?” I ask. I notice that he’s fully awake already and fear that I’m starting off yet another morning on Moira’s shit list. As soon as my eyes focus I try to locate my iPhone. Maybe there’s an e-mail waiting for me from one of our lawyers telling me I can’t post the Becky West video—thereby rendering all my dithering moot.

  “Don’t worry, it’s only six fifteen. You fell asleep on the couch before I got home.”

  “Ooof. I’m sorry, I wanted to hang out last night.”

  “It’s really okay. I was beat by the time I got back here at eleven. This report on Omnitown is killing me.” This is the deal he’s been working on for at least a week. I know that Omnitown is trying to acquire a media company and Peter’s advising them on it, but that’s about the extent of my understanding.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely. We’ll have time together this weekend. Besides, you looked so cute all tuckered out on the couch, I didn’t want to disturb you.”

  I smile up at him. I don’t have the heart to ruin this moment with my agita over the Rebecca West exposé.

  He smiles back. “I gotta hop in the shower.”

  Peter has already made the coffee, so I pour myself a cup and sit down at our small kitchen table. I want to fully wake up for once before I make the commute to the couch. There’s a binder taking up most of our tiny Ikea table, and before I move it I open it to see what’s inside.

  I realize immediately that it’s a PowerPoint presentation from Peter’s work and my eyes glaze over as they see foreign jargon like “Significant synergies create value” and terminology like “double-digit IRRs.” I’m about to shove it away and get to my laptop when my eyes focus in on the name Tyson Collins—a.k.a. the big boss man, owner of the media conglomerate that owns Chick Habit.

  Peter’s singing an off-key rendition of “Gigantic” by the Pixies in the shower. He generally starts vocalizing halfway through, so I know he’s got a few more minutes in there. I read the report as quickly as I possibly can, stumbling over the business-speak and trying to make sense of the numerous graphs and earnings projections. Maybe the inclusion of Collins’s name is innocuous; maybe he’s just an investor in
Omnitown or he’s on the corporate board.

  But then I reach a slide called “Strategic Rationale: acquisition creates substantial value for shareholders” that I can understand. It’s about how Omnitown can purchase Collins Media’s stable of websites, and its implications make me want to yack up that coffee: “A combination is expected to generate annualized adjusted EBITDA benefits of at least 33 percent, primarily through a targeted 10–20 percent reduction in headcount.”

  I feel my stomach plummet. If the sale of Collins Media goes through, our staff is going to be reduced by as much as 20 percent. Moira’s recent page view pressure now makes a whole lot more sense: If I don’t get my traffic stats up as quickly as possible, my head will be the first one on the chopping block.

  I hear the water go off in the bathroom and quickly shut the binder before I get to the end of the report. I know I shouldn’t have even started reading the thing—it’s proprietary information—but still, how could Peter be working on this deal? He knows that if it goes through I might lose my job. Does he think his work is somehow more important than mine is, just because he makes more money? How can he be singing in the shower right now when he knows that this is happening? Suddenly I feel a whole lot less guilty about being an absent girlfriend this week.

  I chug the rest of my coffee and hustle over to power up my laptop. I don’t want Moira to be pissed at me for being late again, especially now that my employment status is even more precarious than I thought it was. Luckily, when I get online Moira’s not even there yet. I start looking through my RSS feed for something to post on.

  I’m scrolling through last night’s stories when Peter emerges with a towel wrapped around his slim waist. I can’t even look at him directly, even though out of the corner of my eye I can see him smiling. Fuck him for looking so cheerful right now!

  Moira comes online as I hear the sound of drawers closing and opening and then the distinct scrape of Peter’s wing-tip shoes against our hardwood floors. He comes back into the living room before she IMs me.

  “What’s on your mind?” Peter asks, straightening his tie with one hand while he holds the incriminating report in the other.

  “Nothing’s on my mind.” I stand to hug him. I don’t want him to know anything is amiss just yet—if I don’t show him some affection before he leaves he’ll know something’s off. “Just sleepy.”

  “All right. I gotta take off. Seven thirty meeting. But let’s talk tonight, for real.”

  “Okay, see you tonight.”

  I turn back to my computer and listen as the door closes behind him. I don’t want to look at him longer than I have to because I’m so churned up. I’m feeling so low at this point that I can’t help but navigate back to Breaking the Chick Habit before Moira sends me my marching orders. It’s been updated since I checked it yesterday. The latest post has the headline “Alex Lyons Cares About the Important Issues,” and the text beneath it is a complete reproduction of the post I did about the meowing Siamese trapped in the jar. I’m both relieved that this is as mean as the site’s gotten today and also, weirdly, a critical reader. The dig seems slightly beneath BTCH. Her insults usually cut closer to the bone.

  Finally, an IM from Moira pops onto my screen.

  MoiraPoira (6:40:14): Glad to see you’re on early today.

  Alex182 (6:40:43): Sorry again about yesterday.

  MoiraPoira (6:41:02): Let’s not dwell on it.

  Alex182 (6:42:42): Any word from the lawyer yet?

  MoiraPoira (6:43:56): He hasn’t given me solid approval yet, but it’s looking good. He says he’ll let me know sometime this morning.

  Alex182 (6:44:12): Word.

  MoiraPoira (6:45:21): Pickings are slim today, but there’s yet another study debunking the link between autism and vaccines. That’s always good for a commenter brawl.

  Alex182 (6:46:45): Sure thing.

  Moira sends me the link to the study, and I write 312 words about how parents who don’t vaccinate their children—especially if they’re doing it because anti-vaccine bobblehead Jenny McCarthy told them to—should probably be sterilized. “If you’re letting a washed-up, fake-titted former MTV hostess give you medical advice, you don’t deserve to have children,” I write.

  This is even more aggressive than I usually am, but I’m strangely emboldened by the hate blogger. If she’s going to rag on me for writing about kittens, for God’s sake, I’ll give her something to really complain about. Plus being provocative gets me comments, and comments get me page views.

  I also see this as self-training for posting the Rebecca video. If I can handle this small controversy, maybe the bigger one won’t be so bad. I resolve not to read any of the comments on this post—or any post I write for the rest of the morning. I’m not letting anything break my stride. It’s a free country, I tell myself. I should be allowed to state my opinion without being attacked by the judgment police every goddamn second.

  I file to Moira.

  MoiraPoira (7:41:16): The first lady is about to be on the telly. Why don’t you check that out on your beloved Today show.

  Alex182 (7:41:38): kk

  I have a moment of Zen watching Michelle Obama gracefully answer Savannah Guthrie’s questions. She’s wearing a black-and-white patterned dress with bold geometric shapes and a fuchsia belt. I bliss out on her bright voice without really paying that much attention to what she’s saying. Child obesity something something. I know I’m going to have to rewind this portion if I’m going to write about it, but for this minute I am enjoying Michelle’s ultimate composure. I could use some of that myself today. In the midst of this calm, I get an IM from Tina.

  TheSevAbides (8:23:29): So I had time to look into our hate blogger’s identity.

  Alex182 (8:23:49): And??

  TheSevAbides (8:24:15): As I suspected, our hater registered the site to a dummy company—Breaking the Chick Habit LLC—with only a PO box attached.

  Alex182 (8:24:50): Bummer.

  TheSevAbides (8:25:13): But I was able to see that her IP address is from Greenpoint, so at least we know she’s local.

  Alex182 (8:27:34): I have this suspicion that our hate blogger is someone I know.

  TheSevAbides (8:27:55): How’s that?

  Alex182 (8:28:12): She’s been writing mainly about me lately, and she posted this thing from my hometown newspaper from when I was a kid. There’s no way she would have been able to find that unless she knew me.

  TheSevAbides (8:29:32): Hmm, I don’t know about all that. Maybe the hate blogger just figured out where you were from through clever Googling and maybe the newspaper recently digitized their archives. I mean, how do you explain how she got the photo of me from high school?

  Alex182 (8:30:23): I guess.

  Now Tina’s just making me feel like a paranoid loon. Maybe the sleepless night and all the stress of this job have turned me into exactly that. Still, I wish I could get back to the closeness I felt toward her on Monday night (we sang on the subway together!). It’s supposed to be us against them, isn’t it? Maybe she’d feel just as worked up as I do if she knew that some of us might be about to lose our jobs. Not that I’m in the mood to share that with her.

  Alex182 (8:31:24): Whatever, I need to get back to posting.

  I rewatch the clip of the First Lady so that I can accurately transcribe some of what she’s saying and eke out an angle, but as I’m watching I notice that Savannah Guthrie cannot stop giggling dorkily at everything MObama says. “I think that our parents have a right to expect that their kids will not be served pizza and Cheetos at every lunch,” Michelle says, to which Savannah guffaws. Then Michelle says something about fresh produce at schools, and Savannah, absurdly, giggles. I clip together every chuckle and gasp into one big Savannah Guthrie laughing supercut, and post that with the title “Savannah Guthrie Takes Michelle Obama Super Seriously.” I file this to Moira at around nine forty-five.

  MoiraPoira (9:46:22): You’re on a roll today. I love your vigour!

  Al
ex182 (9:47:24): Thanks!

  MoiraPoira (9:47:59): I guess you took my advice to grow a pair. This is good to know, because I just got word back from our lawyer.

  Alex182 (9:48:34): And???

  MoiraPoira (9:49:12): You’re clear to post the video. He says it’s fair use. You just need to be sure to word the post and the headline in a vague enough way so that we don’t sound like we’re asserting the video’s of Rebecca—we’re just alleging it. I still want you to contact Rebecca and Darleen for comment, of course.

  Alex182 (9:50:03): OK. How long should I give them to respond before I publish it?

  MoiraPoira (9:51:23): Reach out to them now and then start writing the post. Send it to me when you’re done with it so that I can go over it with the lawyer. We’ll include their responses if they do get back to you quickly, but even if they don’t we’re publishing that sucker at 1 PM. I’ve already loaded the video into our player.

  Alex182 (9:53:02): Gotcha. Wow.

  My early morning ferocity is slightly diminished by the prospect of actually confronting the intense Darleen West about her daughter’s drug-addled antics. But something inside me has shifted today, and I know I have to publish the video. I could be unemployed by the end of the quarter. My mom will be crestfallen if I lose this job.

  I go to the Darleen4Senate website and locate the “Contact Me” tab. The site’s layout is clean and bright, with flashy blue lettering and Darleen’s tight smile adorning the front page. I click on an envelope icon. She’s got it rigged up so the page announces, “You’ve got mail!” as soon as I hover over the envelope. I quickly type an e-mail: