Under My Skin

by A. E. Dooland

  Recognition passed across her face. “Oh, that's right, that's where you were,” she said. “And hey, go us! You should buy us lunch to celebrate.”

  She was probably right. “I should, shouldn't I? Maybe I'll go down at lunch and buy Chinese from the place around the corner for us all or something.” Just talking about food made me feel ill, I didn't relish the idea of having to deal with the smell of it.

  “Looking forward to it,” she said, and then she watched me intently for a few seconds. “So,” she began in a playful voice. “I noticed you didn't delete your Facebook last night as promised, so I sent you and your friend an invite for Friday.”

  She did what? I leant back in my chair and sighed at her. “You're lucky I'm way too sick to bother doing all the paperwork required to fire you.”

  “There's more...” she said, and then turned her laptop toward me. She had Facebook chat up, so I leant towards the screen.

  Sarah had hit up Bree on Facebook last night about the invite, and when she'd told Bree where the venue was, Bree had replied, “wow thats really close to here”.

  Sarah looked smug. “Close to 'here', Min,” she said. “Not 'close to Min's'.” She closed Facebook while I was glaring at her. Why had she asked about Henry if she knew who was with me last night? “Anyway, I was actually thinking that stunt I pulled with Henry in getting you out of the office might also work with Bree. But she was pretty hesitant and wouldn't accept the invite on your behalf.”

  That made me smile a little. If Bree was angling herself towards more quasi-expensive jewellery, it was working. “Good,” I said. “At least I know who's on my side and who isn't.” I gave her a sideways look. “Anyway, I think I actually agreed to come drinking with you when the project is done. You don't even need to pull any stunts. And you don't need to go using Facebook to check up on the location of my friends or invite me to stuff, either.”

  She shrugged as we both reluctantly got ready to start working. “Maybe not, but it's more fun this way.” She grinned at me and then turned back to her screen.

  I swung my chair back towards my own. I had trouble focusing on work because of how crap I felt, though. I might have ducked into the bathrooms to put a wet towel on the back of my neck for a bit, but there were giant mirrors facing the basins in there. I was pretty sure seeing myself in a dress and plastered in makeup had zero chance of making me feel any better, so I ended up deciding just to push through how sick I felt.

  Moscow had gotten back to me to set up a video conference at 4pm which meant that I needed to hurriedly book meeting rooms and equipment and find an interpreter. Jason insisted that the stream shouldn't run on the main network, and it turned out to be a nightmare trying to get wireless coverage from Oslo reaching down to the meeting rooms.

  Because of all that hassle, I didn't get to see Henry. About half an hour before the video conference started and while I was sitting in the meeting room with Jason and worrying myself half-to-death that I wasn't ready to set up a pitch, Henry texted me.

  “The suspense is killing me,” it read. “Is Bree okay? Are you okay?”

  I looked up; Jason was busy on his tablet and wasn't paying any attention to me, so I texted back, “Yeah, it's something with her brother, she didn't say what but at least it's not physical.” I wasn't sure what else to tell him and whether or not I should say she'd run out, but I knew what else I wouldn't be telling him: 'Bree and I got drunk together, she slept over and we ended up in the same bed. Also she wasn't wearing pants when I woke up.' Oh, and the part where I was dressed up as a guy the whole time, too. I shouldn't forget to mention that.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and groaned. I'd better just change the subject. “Actually I have some work-related and Bree-related stuff I need to discuss with you. I'll probably need to sleep tonight but do you want to come over tomorrow?”

  “No can do,” he sent back, “tomorrow I have to fly down to Melbourne and help interview graduates again. Frost had so many applications this year that they almost need to hire more HR staff to chew through them all. Sunday is looking good. Want to catch up then? Maybe we could do something a bit more romantic than usual and go and see a movie. I'm thinking Horror. Nothing more romantic than Horror.”

  I chuckled, and then smothered it when I remembered who was in the room with me. “Sounds great. Come over after lunch.” After I'd sent that, I put my phone away and got straight back to stressing that I would fuck up this meeting.

  I had expected Jason to run the teleconference, but when I'd asked him what he'd planned to say, he said he hadn't planned to say anything because it was my meeting. “It's just a first contact meeting,” he'd said, checking NRL scores on his tablet. “Aside from actually insulting them, there's probably not that much you can stuff up.”

  “But you're here,” I'd observed.

  He grinned. “In case you stuff up anyway.”

  I didn't stuff it up, though, the interpreter arrived on time and Moscow called in a few minutes later. The three people I ended up talking to on screen were a guy who was obviously the boss—he introduced himself to me as the contact I'd emailed—a female personal assistant who looked about Bree's age and another guy who didn't say much.

  I explained in as little detail as possible about the products we were planning on selling and timeframes around the construction and operation of the mine. All three of them listened carefully until I was finished. Then, my contact and the other guy with him had a brief quiet discussion, too quiet for the interpreter to get much of it. When they were done, I asked, “So, can you think of any companies or people I should approach who might be interested? And if so, are you able to introduce us?”

  The quiet guy finally spoke. “You know of Sasha Burov?” he asked me in excellent English.

  “Of course I know about him,” I said immediately. His name had come up repeatedly during scoping, it would be remiss of me to not know who he was. “He's one of the top diamond brokers in Eastern Russia. He buys for those intricate Korzhakov collections and that Russian-Italian designer,” I thought for a second. “'Poletti-Pisani', I think it is? There are a whole host of even Western celebrities that commission jewellery from those collections.”

  The quiet man looked very impressed. He nodded once. “I am him,” he said simply. “You can speak with my assistant here. Make me the appointment, book tickets. Frost International will put me in a nice hotel, I think, give me a good view of Sydney while I am there.” He smiled, showing two rows of perfect teeth. “I look forward to meeting you. Perhaps we can do some business.” He shook hands with my contact and then stood up out of frame and walked off.

  Jason had looked up with surprise in the middle of that whole exchange, and then across at me. I must have had much the same expression. Had I just accidentally booked a sales pitch on my first contact?

  I hurriedly checked dates with the young assistant, penned in Mr. Burov for after Easter and then ended the call and dismissed the interpreter.

  For a minute or two Jason and I just sat back in our chairs. Had that just happened? Had I really just booked a sales pitch on my first contact?

  “How the fuck did you do that?” Jason asked, lapsing back into his habit of swearing. I shook my head. He blew a stream of air through his lips. “I need a cigarette.” He stood up. “Fuck. Good work, Mini. Very nicely done,” he said, but his congratulations seemed more of an afterthought to his surprise.

  I followed him upstairs, and went back with him to his office to lock up the tablet. His office wasn't empty, though: Sean Frost was seated in his chair, playing with a set of perpetual motion balls Jason had on his desk. Sean had obviously been waiting for Jason.

  “Don't you do any actual work?” Jason asked him as he took my tablet from me and locked it with his in the filing cabinet.

  “Jason, Min,” Sean greeted us cordially, standing up. “If I'm not mistaken, supporting and socialising with my employees is part of my role?” He grinned. “Cigarette?”

  “You
fucking bet,” Jason said, grabbing a packet of them out of his jacket. “Ms. Genius right here just scored us a pitch.”

  Sean looked over at me and smiled. It was really warm and genuine. “I'm not surprised,” he said. “I hear good things about her. Congratulations, Min.”

  I was still completely spun out about what had just happened, but wow that felt good. The other co-CEO congratulating me, too? I could hardly believe it. I could actually hardly believe the whole last hour. I beamed at him.

  Jason didn't look quite as sold on me. “Yeah, you hear good things from her boyfriend, right?” He laughed. “If he wants to get any ever again he's kind of obliged to say she's fantastic.” Instead of inviting him to shove it, I laughed appropriately like Diane would have wanted me to as they walked out together.

  They kept joking all the way to the balcony, and I watched them for just a second, wondering if Sean knew the things Jason said about him behind his back. Jason lit Sean's cigarette again, and Sean leant into the lighter. I watched as Jason grinned broadly at him; there was something predatory about it. If they weren't sleeping together, Jason was certainly acting like he wanted them to be. Why, though? Was he just trying to cover all his bases by cosying up to both CEOs? He worked pretty closely with Diane, and I remembered Diane saying he was the only other person she'd trusted with regard to the project.

  I made a face. Whatever, I wasn't going to learn much by standing here and staring at them. I also really couldn't be bothered with the sort of teasing I'd get if anyone else in the department caught me staring at two attractive men.

  I had better things to be thinking about, anyway. Like the fact I'd booked a sales pitch on my first contact. I might actually have skipped back into Oslo, if not for these goddamn heels.

  Since my team were all probably going to work through the evening and I was fucking ecstatic that I'd somehow managed to fluke a sales pitch, I shouted them to dinner, too, in order to congratulate them. Hell, I'd shout them to as many meals as they wanted as long as we kept pushing along at the pace we were tracking at. I hadn't even spoken to Vladivostok yet.

  While we were preparing for that meeting the following day I bought food for everyone again, and later I found Sarah with her head in her hands over a half-finished rice and black bean stir-fry. “This project is going to really put me off Chinese takeaway,” she said, and then tried to soldier through the rest of it as she copied and pasted some stats to me.

  Unfortunately, when I did have my meeting with Vladivostok on Thursday, it didn't go quite as spectacularly. I did get a few names and a few numbers to follow up on, however, and my team spent all the rest of that day doing research on those people. Meanwhile, I went and read up as much as I could on this Sasha Burov to try and decide what sort of material we should develop for him. I thought over what he'd said: 'Give me a good view of Sydney'. Maybe he didn't get down to Australia very often? That might be something I could use in the marketing materials.

  I went home on Thursday night and watched about four hours of Tourism Australia commercials and some related documentaries. Bree even sent me a few links on Deviant Art to the ads her extended family in Europe really liked when I told her what I was doing. And, as soon as I was sure Moscow was open on Friday, I called in to speak to Sasha Burov's assistant in order to ask about the last time he'd been down here. She had to double-check, but she actually thought it might have been more than a decade.

  That settled it, I thought, lacing my fingers behind my head and spinning around in my office chair. I was going to exploit my country's natural beauty to get his name on that dotted line.

  I spent most of Friday evening tabbing through thousands and thousands of images of Australian landscapes. I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to use or how I wanted to use it, but usually in this sort of circumstance I would just come across something and get an idea. There didn't seem to be any reason to work late in the office if I was just looking at photo collections, though, so I went home and spent hours using up my bandwidth on high res landscapes, dressed comfortably in clothes that didn't make me feel like everything sucked.

  Around midnight, my stomach started to grumble. It was annoying, because I only had a few hundred photos left on this particular site and I didn't want to leave it half-finished before bed. I tried to keep working anyway, but I kept being distracted by how hungry I was so I decided I'd just duck down to the late night pizza place on Cumberland. It would take me ten minutes and then I could probably keep going for another hour or two.

  I went into my bedroom and opened my wardrobe, automatically going to get the same dress I'd worn all day so I could change into it before I left.

  When I picked it up, I had that familiar wave of resentment. I didn't want to put it on again. I'd have to put on stockings and a bra, and makeup... It was almost enough to drive me back to the fridge to just eat Bree’s crusty old birthday cake that was still in there. I really felt like pizza, though, and why the hell should I have to forgo it just because I couldn't face putting on any of my girly clothes again? I'd done my time in them this week.

  Stop being ridiculous and put the damn thing on, I told myself as I looked down at the innocent fabric in my hands. It's not rocket science, Min. Just take off your comfy clothes, put one leg into it, followed by the other and zip it up. That's all you have to do.

  I couldn't, though. I couldn't do it. I just couldn't spend one more second today dressed like something I wasn't.

  I left the dress in the wardrobe and closed the door to the reflection of me in my jeans and hoodie. It was a relief, especially since I'd decided to try the bandages on again this evening. I probably didn't really need to wear them with anything except those tight button-up shirts, but I'd put them on earlier anyway, just to see what they looked like. They were actually quite uncomfortable; maybe I was wearing them wrong. Still, they weren't as uncomfortable as heels had been when I'd first started to wear those, and they did make my chest look completely flat. I turned sideways for a moment and held my hoodie against my stomach, admiring the smooth plane between my collarbones and my hips.

  Fuck it, I thought, I'll just wear this down to the shop. It had been a complete non-event yesterday when I had been running around after Bree in this, and it was the middle of the night now. No one was going to see.

  I did put my hood up as I went through the lobby, though, because I was still a bit worried the staff or other new employees staying at the hotel would recognise me. And while I was sure the staff saw some pretty dodgy stuff come in and out of the hotel, I didn't want to be anyone's 'Hey, you'll never guess what I saw at work today' story.

  It was beginning to get a bit chilly outside; the breeze was pleasant, though, even this late at night. If it was nice weather again tomorrow, maybe Bree and I could sit out on the balcony after all. I'd made a pact with Bree over text message that for every episode of her TV show we watched, she'd have to watch one of my cartoons. She'd pinkie-sworn, so it was settled. We could relax with the balcony door open, eat junk food and watch stuff. Sounded like a great Saturday, to be honest. Just like the last one I'd had with her.

  Walking around in the dark like this reminded me of when she'd run out, though. I hoped again that nothing had happened to her while she'd been home the last couple of days. Maybe I should buy her something to cheer her up just in case? Not jewellery, though, something she didn't have to take off or put away.

  I was so busy trying to decide what an appropriate Cheer-Up-Bree present was, that I didn't notice someone staring at me from the other side of the street. When I did notice, I didn't want to stop and turn my head around towards them because I was worried I'd get drawn into a conversation. I still wasn't convinced I sounded like a guy, and I really didn't want to find out how people would react to the discrepancy. I had enough fucking trouble dealing with it myself.

  I'd hoped she'd give up if I just kept walking, but she didn't. She followed me all the way up the street, jogging as I walked faster. I could see her sil
houette out of the very corner of my eye, and I could hear her heels clopping on the pavement.

  It was completely irrational because I was much bigger than she was, but I was actually scared what would happen if she caught up to me.

  Ahead of us, there was a pub on the corner and people were sitting along the walls of it, drinking and laughing. I exhaled. Maybe I was wrong; maybe she was just rushing to meet someone in there.

  My relief didn't last very long though, because she crossed the street to get to me and reached up to pull my hood back, laughing. But as I faced her, for some reason absolutely certain I was about to cop a torrent of abuse like in high school, a familiar voice caught me really off-guard by saying, “Min! I knew it! It is you!”

  I recognised that voice well before there was enough light for me to see who it was. You'd hope I would; I spent enough time at work. My stomach bottomed out as the silhouette stepped into the light. I saw her big grin before the rest of her features, and that her long hair was braided for once instead of loose around her shoulders. She was wearing significantly less than she did at work; no wonder I hadn't recognised her.

  Now, I did. While I was frozen solid to the pavement, she grabbed my forearms—as touchy-feely as she always was—and looked delighted. “Fuck, you actually came, I can't believe it! This is insane!”

  “Sarah?” I rasped, because it was all I could manage.

  Shit.

  THIRTEEN

  “You look so different!” Sarah said as she held me at arm's length, looking me up and down. It was too late to stop her. It was too late to do anything about what she'd seen, so I just stood there, panicking. “Sorry for chasing you up the road, but I didn't want to yell out at some random person if it wasn't you. Wow, though. Bit of a difference from you in corporate getup...”

  There was an implicit question in that and instead of answering it, I wanted to just turn around and run home. It was too late for that, too, wasn't it? She'd seen me in these clothes, and it was probably really obvious what look I was going for. Fuck. Fuck, I hoped she wouldn’t tell anyone at work. Why did she have to find out now? Like this?