Under My Skin

by A. E. Dooland

  I immediately started to sweat; that was one of my brochures, and it stood out like a sore thumb in our greyscale office. I’d chosen a really bold colour scheme because the set of companies we were pitching to used similar themes in their own advertising and I wanted them to feel like they were holding their own material. Now that I looked at it, though, the colours were really fucking loud. Obviously too loud for Frost International. Shit.

  I didn’t say anything, not much to anyone’s surprise. One of my teammates spoke for me. “That’s Mini’s work,” he said, indicating me. “She does presentations and print.”

  “’Minnie’?” she asked, looking at me for clarification of my name. Recognition crossed her face.

  I swallowed. No one was going to field this one for me. “Min. Min Lee.”

  She looked down at the loud brochure, and then thoughtfully back at me. “You again,” she said obliquely. “’Min Lee’.” Was she trying to commit my name to memory? When she spoke again, her smile was the epitome of ‘professional’. “Good work, that contract is worth six million dollars.” She nodded her head amiably towards the lifts. “Now get out of here and go celebrate.”

  She gave me one last look before heading back into her office.

  We all just stood there. One of the boys exhaled. “I feel like I just watched a Kung-Fu movie,” he said. “You guys will deck it out now, right? What the hell was that about?”

  I shook my head, my heart still beating like crazy. She seemed to have congratulated us all for the pitch… And I was part of ‘all’, right? Still, I felt uneasy about that whole exchange and more than anything I wanted closure on it. It didn’t look like I was going to get any, though, because Diane had shut her office door behind her and settled behind her computer again.

  Our project manager, who had been working at Frost International for ten years, didn’t look too bothered by what had just happened. “Nah, if Diane was pissed off at any of us, we’d know about it,” he said. “That’s just about as close as she gets to telling us we’re awesome.” He swung his arms around the shoulders over the two reps either side of him. “Come on, let’s go have lunch and then get wasted on the company card.”

  We’d all gone back to our desks to collect our things when a familiar voice greeted me. “Min,” it was Henry. I straightened to greet him and noticed his tie actually matched his suit today. That was a bit of a shock. Just to be safe, he stopped short of kissing me on the cheek; it probably would have been okay, but he didn’t. He put a warm hand on my arm, instead. “I just read the email. Congratulations. Also would you answer your phone? Your mum’s been trying to call you. She rang me to tell you that.”

  There goes any last remnants of a good mood, I thought, and groaned out loud. “Are you serious? Sorry,” I said and took my phone out of my handbag. Sure enough, I had another missed call—as well as a whole series of new comments on the painting. I wasn’t sure what was worse, strangers stressing me out or my mother doing it. “Give me a sec,” I said to him, and put the phone against my ear.

  It barely rang. “Min, why have you been avoiding me?” Despite the fact she spoke perfect English and my Korean was crap, she still refused to speak in English to me. “I’ve been ringing you all morning.”

  Even Henry heard that. He laughed as I said in English, “Because I’m at work.”

  “Henry’s at work, too,” she fired back, very pointedly in Korean. I gave him a look that warned him never to answer the phone to her again, and he threw his hands up in self-defence as she continued. “I’ve been worrying about your presentation all morning.” I bet she’d even put it in her calendar. “How did it go? Did you all close that big contract?”

  “About five minutes ago, actually.” I decided not to tell her about my weird exchange with the Diane Frost, because it would only make her worry even more. “Now we’re all going out to have a big lunch to celebrate, so I have to go soon.”

  “Don’t eat too much,” she said. “Henry will never marry you if you’re tall and fat.”

  Henry snorted. “Don’t believe anything she says,” he whispered, making me feel really uneasy. He didn’t notice my reaction because he was leaning into the phone and saying in perfect Korean, “Don’t worry, she still looks like a supermodel.” I sighed at him. “For now,” he added, smirking at me. “She did just discover Krispy Kreme.”

  Both of them? Seriously. I couldn’t roll my eyes enough and Mum was still having a go at me. “Nonsense, supermodels don’t slouch like Min does.”

  Okay, I’d had it. That was enough talking about me. I looked directly at Henry as I asked Mum, “How’s grandma?”

  While that question stopped the torrent of judgments about me, it unfortunately got Mum started on a long story about their last hospital visit, and grandma’s long list of conditions and medications. With my limited Korean, I could barely understand a single thing and so I just made affirmative noises intermittently to pretend I was following the story. I propped the phone between my cheek and shoulder so I could check that I’d taken my purse. All my co-workers were gathering in the annex to wait for a lift. Henry tapped his watch; I nodded. I wanted to get Mum off the phone, but she didn’t have anyone else to talk to about taking care of grandma and to be honest, I didn’t call her as often as I should.

  When everyone was gone, Henry whispered something about needing to get back to work, kissed my cheek, and then disappeared as well.

  It was twenty minutes before I managed to finally get off the phone with Mum, and as we were saying goodbye she dropped the whole angry mother thing and said, “Thank you for putting up with your terrible mother, Min. I know you don’t like talking to me at all, but I want you to know that I love you anyway.”

  I nearly threw my phone on the floor and stomped on it. I hated it when she pulled that crap on me, fucking hell! Swallowing those words, I said as warmly as I could, “Don’t be silly, thanks Mum.”

  I hung up and managed to not lob my mobile onto the closest wall—but I couldn’t stop glaring at it and the notifications building up in the top corner of the screen. I didn’t do anything about them, though. It was lunchtime.

  My team had wandered down the road to a bar/restaurant on the corner of George Street that fronted Circular Quay. There were nearly ten of my workmates there, and despite the fact they’d only been there for about twenty minutes, they were so loud it was like they were already completely wasted.

  “Hey, look who’s joined us!” one of them called as I stepped in the doorway. “Mini!”

  There was nowhere for me to sit, and while I was scouting around for a chair I could use, one of the boys patted his thigh and said, “I got a seat for you!”

  Someone else laughed at him and warned, “Frost International might not have a seat for you if the manager of HR finds out you’re propositioning his girlfriend.” They all laughed as I went and stole a chair from another table, dragging it over to slot between two of the others. I don’t know what they thought Henry would do about it; we’d already decided between ourselves he wouldn’t get involved in any disputes I had. It would make things too complicated for both of us.

  That pretty much set the tone for the rest of lunch, though. There was some discussion about who was on which project team for the next pitch, but none of us knew what we were doing next so there wasn’t much to speculate about. We tried anyway, but eventually that topic ran out of steam, and as they got progressively drunker, everything became progressively more awkward for me.

  Every time the men would start talking about something other than work—women, money, sport—someone would remind him that there were girls present. Out of those, the only topic I could really do without was ‘women’. I didn’t mind them bitching about their girlfriends and wives, but I just didn’t want to be involved in any sort of discussion about who was hot at work or who hooked up with who from operations.

  Once we’d moved onto the topic of promotions, it was depressing how little they involved me. They all sat
around the table together placing actual monetary bets on which one of them would end up being a project lead next… and no one put a cent on me. Or Sarah, for that matter. The hot favourites were a cocky guy who’d only been working with us for eight months, and the current project manager because he was mature—code for ‘old’—and brought that whole fatherly thing with him to work.

  As lunch progressed and everyone was boastfully handing around their phones with pictures of their wives and girlfriends, I just sat back and kept sipping at my wine. I had been admiring the far wall—someone had painted the stone so it resembled old wooden panels and had done a pretty good job—when I saw out of the corner of my eye a mobile being held at an angle that alarmed me.

  I looked towards it just as it flashed. The guy behind it was the cocky new rep and he looked pretty proud of himself. “Hah, it’s great!” he said, smirking and sending the photo to everyone.

  Just to humour them I took my phone out and looked at it. I wished I hadn’t. In the photo I was surrounded by drunk men, half of whom were shorter than me, and I was glaring towards the camera. It was a bit of an eye-opener because I had felt mostly invisible while they were ignoring me, and I’d had no idea I stood out so much amongst them until I saw that photo.

  As each of my teammates got the message, they all started laughing like it was the funniest thing ever. Even though there was a level of sincere affection in them playing around with me, it kind of hurt.

  “Is this Mini’s happy face when she celebrates?” someone said. “Fuck, I’m sending this to Sales.”

  Yeah, send it to fucking everyone, I thought darkly. I don’t think there’s enough people laughing at me already, better make sure the whole company has it. The project manager, who had been setting a great ‘fatherly’ example by being the drunkest one of all, swung his arm out and whacked me on the shoulder like I was one of the boys. “You’re fucking great, Mini,” he slurred. “My wife would kill me if I did that. But no, you’re totally cool about it.”

  Nope, right now you’re lucky I‘m not killing you, I thought while I smiled stiffly at him. Luckily, the reps quickly got over the photo and moved on to someone’s ‘smoking hot’ bikini-clad wife.

  I watched them, feeling more and more disconnected. No wonder those internet women liked my painting, if this was what their husbands and boyfriends were actually like. It wasn’t that these guys were being cruel, either, at least not deliberately. They weren’t trying to make me feel unwelcome. They were just having a good time and were completely oblivious to how out of place I felt. Or that I was here at all. It just continued to get more depressing. Why the fuck was I here?

  “I think I’ll head off,” I said suddenly, interrupting whoever was speaking. “Bye, guys.” I didn’t turn around to find out what their assessment of me leaving so early was, either. If they were going to be here all afternoon, I was just going to go home.

  While I was waiting at the lights my phone buzzed. I took it out to look at it; it was from Omar. ‘Nice photo, Mini,” he’d texted. “Definitely a character portrait, haha. They should put it on your ID tag.”

  Reading that just made me reach a point where I didn’t even care what happened anymore. Whatever, I thought, closing the text. If that was what everyone thought of me, I didn’t care.

  There were still pending notifications from my painting as I went to put my phone away, so I paused before putting it back in my bag. I wanted to read them and feel good about myself for a fraction of a second, but it was all crap anyway and I couldn’t be bothered dealing with it. The praise wasn’t for me, that person in the painting wasn’t me, was it? Actually, fuck it, I couldn’t deal with any of it, full stop. Without really thinking it through, I uploaded that terrible photo that had just been taken as my ID on Deviant Art. There, I thought, turning off my mobile completely and putting it back in my handbag. Now those women can see who I actually am, be rightfully horrified, and then just leave me alone.

  I felt strangely numb and detached the whole way home, and only started to feel like an actual human again after I’d had a shower and put my comfy clothes on. But then I had the choice of facing my computer, which probably still had Deviant Art open, or turning on my PlayStation. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out which option I chose.

  Black Ops was already in my machine, so I flopped back on the couch and waited for a game to load. It was strange being home in the middle of a work day. I felt guilty, even though I’d been at the office past 10:30 last night, and even though I’d served a long enough sentence with my drunken co-workers.

  I chewed through game after game until there was a knock at my door. It was like being woken in the middle of a trance. I sat up for a minute, feeling dazed. I looked over at the windows; it was dark outside already. What time was it? I turned my head back to the door, walked over to it, and peered through the peephole.

  It was Henry, and he had champagne and takeaway.

  I looked down my front at the faded t-shirt and baggy pants. Fuck, and I looked like crap. I didn’t even have any makeup on. “Why didn’t you give me a ten minute warning?!” I hissed through the door.

  “I did,” he said, not at all bothered by my reaction. “But I guess you’re still avoiding your mother and you haven’t checked your phone.” I scrunched my face up. That’s right, I’d forgotten I’d turned my phone off. My mother was the least of the things I was avoiding, but I didn’t correct him. “It’s okay, Min, I’ll just wait out here for a few minutes. I don’t mind.”

  I raced back into my bedroom and tore open my drawers, searching for the pair of pyjamas I always wore when Henry was over. They had an appropriately pretty, delicate pattern and were made of soft cotton and lace. They were comfortable enough, I guess, but I didn’t really like them. I couldn’t wear this t-shirt and trackies around Henry, though. I looked like such a dag in them, and I should really make the effort for him. Ugh, and I had to put all my makeup back on, too.

  When I finally let him in, I looked presentable again.

  He held the champagne at me as if I hadn’t just made him wait for 15 minutes in a hallway. “Congratulations again,” he said, as he leant and kissed me on the temple before walking past me into the kitchen. “How did you celebrate?”

  “By killing hundreds of people,” I told him. “Mostly with frag grenades, but I did experiment with a variety of assault rifles.”

  “How educational,” he said, putting the takeaway down on my dining table. “Since you’ve bathed in blood, want to consume some flesh? It’s pork.” I came up behind him to peek over his broad shoulders as he opened the container for me. A delicious smelling steam poured out of it. “By the way, the champagne is a really good label.”

  I snorted. “Champagne is for wusses,” I said. “I prefer the tears of my enemies.”

  He laughed. “I love you,” he said, turned and leant against the table. “Now, are you going to tell me why you didn’t return to work after team drinks? Not that it’s an issue given the circumstances, but it’s pretty unlike you.” I had been grinning, but as soon as he said that, it fell away. I had no idea I was that transparent; normally people couldn’t read me at all, not even Henry. He didn’t miss my reaction this time, though. “Are you okay? Did your mother say something to you?” He pulled me close him and circled his arms around my waist.

  I had an internal debate about whether or not to tell him about the painting, but I didn’t. I just shook my head at him. “I’m just being emo again,” I answered, as dismissively as I could. “Ignore me.”

  He didn’t. He never did. Instead, he put my cheeks into his huge hands. “Min,” he said sternly. “I haven’t been with you for three years to not know when you’re hiding something from me. It’s okay, you can tell me, no matter what it is.”

  In the end he coaxed it out of me, including what had happened at lunch and the photo I’d uploaded. I reluctantly switched my phone on and handed it to him, pointing to the notifications in the top corner. He
made a surprised noise and tapped at them with a fingertip.

  I couldn’t bear to look at what those disappointed women were probably saying about my terrible photo, so I turned away from the screen. “You can see my painting there, too,” I told him, flopping back onto the couch and putting my ankles on the armrest and my forearms over my face. Through the gap in them, I could see he was concentrating as he tabbed through what he’d found on my profile. It was painful waiting for his assessment of everything. Really painful. “Don’t read too much into the painting,” I told him anxiously, “it was just something that I did while I was—”

  “It’s good, Min,” he said, interrupting me. “Actually, it’s a bit difficult to look at because of how good it is and how much it looks like you. I might have to question my sexuality.” He glanced back over at me, grinning. “The photo is actually nothing like you said it was, and I don’t know why you’d think I’d have a problem with a painting.”

  There wasn’t much I could say to that. I had no idea what my weird problem with it was. Or why I liked it so much.

  He came over and motioned for me to move my legs so he could sit under them. I lifted them up and put them back down across his lap. He was still scrolling—through what, though, I didn’t want to know. “I think it’s only natural you’d paint something like that,” he said, pulling his psychobabble on me again. “For some completely unwarranted reason, you hate how you look. Of course you wish you were someone else.”

  I groaned. “You know what you can do with your psychology degree?” I asked him, good-naturedly.

  He smirked. “I’m looking at the comments on your actual photo from those girls now,” he told me, as if I hadn’t been about to insult him. “Do you want to know what they say?”

  “No.”

  He turned his head towards me, eyebrows up again. “Really? Because then you might start believing me when I tell you that you’re the only one who thinks you’re ugly.” He held the mobile at me.