Under My Skin

by A. E. Dooland

  I nodded, relieved.

  He kissed me briefly. “I’ll head off now,” he said. “Would you like me to make some reservations on Wednesday night, instead? Or will your team be celebrating after the pitch?”

  “I think we’ll all actually just go home and die in our beds after it,” I said honestly. “It’s going to be so much work.”

  He chuckled. “Well, let me know, then. If you’re not up for it, we can just have a quiet night in before I fly off to Seoul.” He made a noise. “Oh, that reminds me. What do you want me to pick up for your mother? More of those weird Coogee jumpers she likes?”

  The knife twisted in my chest. “Sure,” I said mechanically. “I’ll pay you back, just let me know.”

  He waved his hand at me as he climbed off the mattress. “I make twice what you do,” he said. “It’s fine.” He stood at the end of the bed and went to fix the doona; he’d messed it up while he was sitting on it. While he was doing that, a sock fell out of it and he bent down to pick it up, probably thinking he’d drop it in the clothes hamper on his way out. When he picked it up, though, he stopped for a second.

  It was a knee-high school sock, and the step was tiny.

  His mouth opened a little, and he looked from it to me. “She sleeps in your bed?”

  The colour drained from my face. “Yeah, the couch hurts her back.”

  He nodded slowly, looking down at it again. He didn’t seem satisfied with that answer.

  Please ask me, I thought. Please just ask me. Ask me how I feel about her. I am so, so tired.

  For once he didn’t, though. He didn't get out his Masters and use it to pick me apart. He just nodded again, resolutely, and said, “Well, that’s nice of you to let her take the bed. The couch must be even more uncomfortable for someone as tall as we both are.” I sighed.

  I did get out of bed to show him out, though, in my old, ugly t-shirt and his tracksuit pants. He laughed a bit at that. “I can’t believe they fit you,” he said, and then gave me the once over. “It’s kind of nice seeing you dressed-down. You don’t have to always look perfect in front of me, you know. You’re already perfect.”

  My heart. I put my hand to my chest from the discomfort, and that served to remind me that my breasts were unbound and visible. It made me self-conscious, even in front of Henry. “Apart from these, I look like a guy,” I said flatly. “If that’s what you think ‘perfect’ is.”

  He grimaced at how I’d put it. “I don’t know, there’s something a bit attractive about women when they’re dressed boyishly,” he said, his eyes twinkling. At my expression, though, he opted not to keep flirting. “Look, don’t worry so much, you're not in high school anymore,” he said. “And don’t work yourself too hard, okay?”

  He walked me down the hallway to the front door, kissing me as he said goodbye. Just before he left, though, he gave me this long, measured look. “I love you,” he said, and then left without waiting for me to reply.

  I stared at the door after it fell shut, and then down at Bree’s schoolbag. I was so sore, and tired, and drained, and I’d had enough of today. I couldn’t face my laptop or anything related to work; but I also couldn't face lying in bed and having to think about Henry and I. That worried me more, so I sat down in front of my laptop and used every ounce of resolve I had left to turn it on and address the steady stream of emails from my team.

  They started on Friday night with queries, and together the four of them managed to answer most of their own questions but they'd formed this annoying habit of appending everything they wrote with, 'Better just wait for Min to give us the ok'. That habit meant that by today — Sunday — they were all getting pissed off about the fact I hadn't replied to any of them. Ian had even CCed Jason in a, 'has anyone heard from Min?' email and Sarah had replied to it by saying, 'Yes, actually, I have, and she's working on the templates right now'.

  Fuck, I thought, staring at my completely blank templates. Fuck, I'm screwing up, I've got to do this now. I looked up at the clock: 2 pm. If I really knuckled down, I could have the templates for all the material ready for content by tomorrow morning and just pretend I'd been working solidly on them all weekend and hadn't wanted any distractions. But fuck, I'd need to get my act together.

  I usually put music or cartoons or something on while I was doing graphics, but as soon as I thought 'music', it reminded me of Bree and that USB she'd spent hours making for me and I felt like shit. I put it on anyway, partially to torture myself because I deserved it, and partially because she'd made a playlist called 'cheer up' and I wanted to see if it worked. Most of the songs were okay, I guess, but I wasn't completely sold on it until I got to Things Can Only Get Better and saw my head nodding along to the music in the reflection of the balcony doors.

  I was making some progress and feeling markedly less shit about everything when I felt the table vibrate under my tablet. I stopped immediately, looking up. That was my phone. Bree, I thought, and yanked my ear buds out, feeling around under print-outs spread out around me for where I'd put it. When I finally found it, it was from a landline number I didn't recognise and my heart lifted. I really couldn't think of who else would call me from a number I didn't have saved.

  “Bree?” I answered, worried she was going to be really angry.

  Instead, there was a laugh down the receiver. “Yeah, you're not smitten. Guess again,” I recognised that voice, and it wasn't Bree's. “Actually we don't have time for that. It's Sarah. Are you on your computer?”

  I looked across my tablet at it. “Uh, yeah?”

  “Okay, good, I need you to get onto Facebook right now. As in, right now. There's something you need to see.”

  TWENTY

  As soon as Sarah had said the word 'Facebook', the only thing I could think was: Bree.

  “Fuck, has she posted something?” I asked Sarah, immediately reaching across my tablet to the keyboard and switching to my browser.

  “Schoolgirl? Not this time,” Sarah said, and then paused. “And by the way we'll talk more about why you immediately thought of her later, but now you need to type John's name into the search field.”

  Wait, John? As in, work John? “I'm typing John's name in here? Why?” I asked, but followed her instructions.

  “You'll see,” she said cryptically. “Is his profile loaded yet?”

  “Yeah...” I said as it did. “But I don't see what—” I stopped talking as soon as the images loaded, because even without clicking on the thumbnails, I recognised them. They were three of the pictures I'd painted—all test landscapes that we'd decided not to use—along with the text 'The best thing about working at Frost is being surrounded by all these talented people! Check out these pictures that my lead painted! I can't tell you what they're for, though, because it's confidential...'

  I could hardly believe what I was seeing, and I had to click on each one to check I wasn't mistaken. Was he fucking serious? First he's sending unencrypted emails, and then this? I almost couldn't believe it. Could someone actually be that stupid? “Yeah, John, and what the fuck do you think 'confidential' actually means?” I asked aloud.

  “Apparently it means 'upload graphics to Facebook so that my friends-of-friends can all see our theme',” Sarah said. “I only saw them just now because I haven't been on Facebook for a couple of days.”

  I checked the date on them: Thursday. “Fuck, they've been up for four days,” I realised, and then I went to take a look at who he had friended, hoping it was just friends and family. Unfortunately, there were several faces I recognised from Marketing. More than several, actually. “And he's got half of Marketing on his friends list. Fuck!” I said, sitting back and running a hand over my hair. “Why, John?”

  Sarah made a sound like a vocal shrug. “He probably thought we're not using them anyway, and there's no specific details on them, so...?”

  “Yeah, but who uses Australian landscapes to broker deals with Australian political parties?” I asked, only realising the gravity of what was happeni
ng as I actually said it. “Fuck, that's it, isn't it? No one would use landscapes to sell interest in Frost to any Australian political party. This is basically a big neon sign saying, 'Hey, guess what! We're not doing a political pitch after all, everyone!'. And with half of Marketing following him, it's only a matter of time before one of the boys tells Jason he's done this, and people start asking what we're really doing.”

  “On the bright side, at least now you know, you can get in first, before anyone else tells him,” Sarah pointed out.

  “Yes, I'm looking forward to that conversation,” I said. “'Hey, Jason, you know how I said I've got security in my team under control? Well, turns out I'm full of shit'.” I took a deep breath. “How the fuck was I supposed to have guessed John would do this, though?”

  Sarah made a noise. “You weren't. It's not your fault, he's always been kind of dense. I mean, don't get me wrong, he's a genius at analytics and there's no way I could even get close to the stats he burns through in like five minutes, but you know all that stuff he was always saying about marketing? It's like he read the books cover to cover and went to all the lectures, but no one ever taught him how to apply that stuff in real life.”

  “Well, he hasn't been in marketing for very long, has he? Frost is probably supposed to teach him all that he...” I realised what I was saying. Frost was supposed to teach him all that stuff, management at Frost. I'm his management, I realised as my stomach bottomed out. Fuck. Fuck! “Sarah, it was probably my job to be really specific about this stuff to him, wasn't it?”

  “Uh, you can't teach common sense, Min.”

  God, I felt sick. I knew he was like that, though, didn't I? “Did you ever hear me say not to show the pictures to anyone, though? Should I have? Especially when the boys know I have old ones up all over my house, and various places online?” I stared down at my tablet. “Fuck, Sarah, it probably actually is my fault he did this. With the stuff he says, we all knew he had heaps to learn.”

  “You're being way too hard on yourself. Besides, you have heaps going on at the moment, so it's not like you had all that extra time to watch over him and make sure he wasn't—”

  “--should I have, though? Ignore all the fourteen million reasons I didn't, should I have? This shouldn't have been so left field, should it? Fuck!” I leant back in my chair. “I haven't been focusing so much on work recently...”

  “Oh my god, Min, seriously: you’re way too hard on yourself. You work harder than anyone I know, including me, and that's an understatement.”

  Regardless of whether or not I should have paid closer attention to John, it was definitely going to be me that Jason killed. “I'd better call John,” I said. “And tell him to take them down right now. I'll figure out what to do about him tomorrow, if Jason doesn't behead me.”

  “Okay, then. Sorry to be the bringer of bad news, even though you've had a terrible weekend. I just thought this couldn't wait, even though I know you've got heaps to do...”

  “Yeah, it couldn't, good call.” Fuck, though, that 'heaps to do' meant these templates I was already very behind on because I'd spent all weekend lying in bed and feeling sorry for myself. Sorting this out was going to get me even more behind, and on top of everything, I just couldn't be bothered with this shit right now. “I'll thank you properly later,” I told her as we said goodbye. “I promise.”

  After I hung up I sat back in the chair for a second, staring at John's profile pic smiling back at me. It was his employee ID which was a bit of a strange choice, but it wasn't a bad photo. Fuck, though: he looked really young in that picture, and that actually reminded me of Bree. Bree would have done something like this, I thought, and I'd expect it of her. I'd even tell her several times not to and check later that she hadn't. Why didn't I expect it of him? Was I really taking my eye off the ball? Or was this something that I never could have predicted, even if I had been focusing on work?

  I'd usually call Henry if I had questions like this. But I couldn't, not now. I just had to attempt to fix this somehow, and that started with getting John to take the pictures down immediately before anyone else saw them.

  I tabbed through my phone and selected John's number, putting it to my ear while it rang.

  Just stick to the facts and don't get angry, I told myself while I waited for him to answer. 'Take the pictures down off Facebook, this is a serious problem that I need to speak to you about, meet me first thing on Monday morning and we’ll deal with it'. Yeah, that was okay, I could say that. Focus on the facts. Henry always says that—I winced. Henry again.

  I was so busy worrying about me and Henry that it was actually a surprise when the phone rang out. I took it away from my ear to look at it for a moment, and then tried again. John didn't answer a second time, and he didn't even have voicemail.

  I put the phone on the table. If I couldn't speak to John right now, I couldn't get him to take down the pictures right now. Which meant more people would see them, and which potentially meant that when I needed to speak to Jason tomorrow, they would still be up. Fuck, fuck, I needed him to answer his fucking phone. I tried again: nothing. I texted him, emailed him and messaged him on Facebook to take them down and just hoped he'd fucking check at least one of those platforms.

  I left it a few minutes and then tried calling him again, but he kept not answering, and while I was waiting for him to get back to me and trying to get the graphics done, I just couldn't focus. Everything was taking me twice as long because I was fucking stressing out.

  Jason was going to kill me. Diane was going to kill me. They were going to fire me and use me as an example of how not to run a team. All my fucking hard work over the years was going to mean jack shit if I screwed up the one opportunity they gave me to shine. I was basically relegating myself to the Marketing floor for decades. Fuck, after all my work, everything. I gave my fucking soul to this company. I picked up my phone and tried John again, and he didn't answer. It was hours after I'd first tried him, and it was starting to feel like he was actively avoiding me.

  I probably finished the templates at midnight or maybe a bit after, but I stayed awake for ages in bed, refreshing Facebook to see if John had taken the paintings down. I wasn't sure what time I fell asleep, but it wouldn't have been earlier than about two.

  As a result, when my alarm went off three or four hours later, I was so out of it that I almost didn't hear it. After I finally figured out what the noise was and sat up to silence it... fuck, I caught sight of myself in the wardrobe door. I looked like something out of The Walking Dead. I didn't have time to worry about that, though, because I needed to get into work and figure out what the fuck I was going to do about John without losing my job.

  Before I did anything else I checked Facebook and thank god, the paintings weren't there anymore. Thank fucking god. At least there was that, I thought, and went to get ready. I managed to wrangle myself into a dress I hadn't worn for a few weeks and when I was inspecting myself to make sure I looked as uncomfortably female as I was supposed to, I noticed it was hanging off me more than usual which meant I'd lost weight again. Whatever, I thought. That was the last thing that mattered right now.

  I had been rushing out the door so I could beat Jason to work when I nearly fell over what was still in the doorway.

  Bree's schoolbag and her school shoes.

  It's Monday, I thought, looking down at them. It's Monday, and Bree doesn't have any of her school stuff, and she hasn't tried to contact me about it.

  A knot started to form in my stomach, and I pushed the feeling aside. She might have called in sick, I thought, wishing I could do exactly the same. She's probably fine, Min. Fuck, though, I hoped she was fine. It would be my fault if she wasn't. I fought against texting her again as I left for work; I didn't want to end up looking like the stalker I'd accused her of being.

  I hadn't eaten much over the weekend, and as a result of that and all the pressure I was under, I was a bit light-headed on the way to the office. Enough to force me to stop a
nd actually buy breakfast which I basically never did. When Sarah arrived at Oslo before eight and saw me eating, she raised her eyebrows. “Real food?” she asked me. “Food someone else didn't get for you?”

  I shrugged. “Photosynthesis wasn't working for me,” I said after I'd swallowed. “Turns out I'd need to get some actual sunlight for that.”

  I expected her to laugh, but she didn't. “Min, I know you're joking, but you look pretty terrible. Like, pretty terrible.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I said dryly, trying to brush it off. “You're too kind.”

  She looked wholly unconvinced. “I'm getting you about five Red Bulls,” she told me, and then put her bag away and went back out into Marketing.

  I watched Sarah go, and then looked back at my laptop while it booted.

  Bree's school uniform being still at my house... In amongst all this shit with John, I kept thinking about it. Even though she'd been so upset on the train, she'd still replied to my texts on Friday, hadn't she? She hadn't replied to them since then, though. I didn't feel good about it at all. It was really unlike Bree, and—

  “Mini!” The door to Oslo flew open and slammed violently against the wall behind it, scaring the living daylights out of me.

  In the doorway stood Jason, red-faced and fuming, as he stormed into the office and marched right up to me, the toe of his shoes almost against my chair legs. “Mini, for fuck's sake, what the fuck is this?” He waved a piece of paper in my face, so close that the corners of it actually touched me. I had to squint my eyes shut as he did it.

  Normally I was taller than him, but when I was sitting down he towered over me. It was really intimidating, especially when he was shouting. I felt light-headed again. We were alone, and while I was reasonably certain he was at least professional enough to not actually hurt me... god, I didn't believe it right then.

  “I need to talk to you,” was all I managed to say. “About John.”