by Jamie Knight
Under all these thoughts, it’s a wonder I manage to do any part of my job correctly, but I suppose I have ten years of doing the job to thank for my lack of errors.
Finally, though, the end of the day arrives. I say goodbye to a lot of the coworkers that come through. I make additions and subtractions to Kane’s calendars as he asks me on his way out. When I’m not doing that, I’m downstairs, making security has everything they need for the night and watching the separate “pools” of workers bubble out from the elevators to the ground floor and head out for the day.
Just yesterday, Tommy used to be counted among them. He used to be clocking in and out with the rest of them. But not today. Today he will come down from the top floors, along with the rest of the big shots. I sigh, remembering part of the conversation I overheard from Tommy and Ms. Vanacore’s table at the restaurant. The conversation about image, and making it as a fully-fledged lawyer.
I just hope that Ms. Vanacore doesn’t treat him like a chess piece or like a little office slave.
I’m particularly sour at this point since I heard her jabbing at me, about how “chummy” Tommy and I seem to be and how unprofessional she thought that was.
The types to criticize things like that are usually the type to indulge in them more than the rest of us, I think bitterly. Dennis was the king of doing that. The King of criticizing me for doing something, and then turning around and being the biggest abuser or partaker of said thing, and acting like he had every right to do so. I let out a sighing growl, realizing I’m feeling shitty again.
Isabella turns to me. She is on her way out of the office for the day. “Easy, girl. My goodness. The boyfriend must’ve really done you wrong for you to be growling like that, Melissa.”
I murmur an apology. “Long day. That’s all,” I say. “The boyfriend and I are fine.”
I don’t know that for sure. I’m not feeling that way now, but I did send Dennis a string of texts when I was out to lunch. Texts asking if we could connect before he goes off to work today or tomorrow, to make up for the rushed visit we had this morning.
Isabella shuffles out behind me. “Okay. Whatever you say, darling,” she says and bustles away. “Don’t hang around here too late, chewing over old bones.” With that oddly apt expression, Isabella is gone.
But I quickly see someone else I hate to admit I’ve been looking forward to having pass by me on his way out: Tommy. He looks exhausted and pale like Ms. Vanacore has been doing more than just inundating him with paperwork or new responsibilities. It’s almost like she sucked the life out of him. He’s so pale, I’m almost tempted to look for a bite on his neck.
“Hey.”
At first, Tommy doesn’t act like he’s heard me, and then he suddenly stops, walks back toward me. “Hey,” he says, sounding just as exhausted as he looks.
“Rough first day?”
He leans against a planter in the foyer, pushing the fronds of the fern a bit with his big arm. It’s not on purpose, and I’m glad he stopped. After the thoughts I’ve been having for the last four or five hours, Dennis can stand to be put on the back burner just a bit.
“Yeah, but it’s good. It’s fine. It’s better than being down on the legal aid’s floor.” He sighs. “Though I will have to go down there tomorrow and clean out my desk and move my stuff.” He purses his lips. “Not really looking forward to it. They haven’t really been the friendliest toward me down there, you know?”
I do know. I know what they say about me down on that floor. That I’m just the girl with the accent and acts like she’s better than everyone else or something. “I’m aware of the swamp,” I say.
For the first time since he came back from lunch, Tommy laughs. He smiles. “Swamp. I like that!” He pauses, shaking his head. “What I wouldn’t give to drain it!”
Nothing passes between us for a few moments. Then I ask, “Would you want any help? With clearing out your desk on the legal aids floor, I mean?”
Tommy shakes his head. “Nah.” He pauses and then bugs out his eyes when I give him a look that says, “it’s because I’m a secretary, the secretary your boss doesn’t want you hanging out with.”
“And it’s not because, you know, I’m not appreciative of the offer. It’s just Ms. Vanacore…” I can see him playing with the words in his mouth. Moving his tongue anxiously across his teeth, across the roof of his mouth. “Ms. Vanacore offered to help me tomorrow, so…”
I try my best to give him a smile and a look that says I believe him, even though we both know what Ms. Vanacore really had to say about him and me. “Oh, well then. I guess she’s got you covered.”
“Yep.” He shifts awkwardly on his feet. “Thanks again for all your help today.”
“Sure,” I say, folding my arms in front of my chest and looking away for a moment. “Glad to do it.”
“I wouldn’t have reached that milestone,” he whispers.
“I know,” I whisper back, not sure why we’re whispering, and not stopping to care. “And I’m getting you back for that.” Tommy’s eyes widen in shock. “Paying you back,” I clarify. “For the meal, you so graciously covered for me.” Tommy goes to object. “You can’t fight me on this. I may be just the secretary, but I’m not going to be in debt to one of my bosses.” I hold him with my gaze. “I’m not going to let a favor be given without a favor returned.” I pause, locking him in my gaze further. “I will be paying you back, Tommy. And I don’t care what it makes us look like.”
With that, I turn away from him and head back towards the bathroom — not to relieve myself. Simply to splash some cold water on my face, and hope to God that Tommy doesn’t see the blush I have on my cheeks.
He doesn’t even have to be doing anything at all, and that big, overshadowing frame — those large, soft eyes, even softer lips — it all overwhelms me. Calling him my boss, that also affects me in a way I’m surprised by. I didn’t think I was one of those people. I didn’t think I got a turn-on of using titles and stations as attention builders. But with Tommy? It seems to fit.
It takes all I have not to start using my time in the bathroom to fantasize about just that. About him “being the boss” of me really and truly, not just in the title or an insinuation. Taking me as his, regardless of what Ms. Vanacore has to say about it.
Chapter Fifteen
Tommy
The next day, I start my morning the way I have for the last couple of years of my life. I arrive at the office and take the elevator up to the legal aid’s floor. Despite landing a job as an associate lawyer to the head of the new legal department, Ms. Vanacore, yesterday, my work in the legal aid cesspool isn’t finished.
Like a bad relationship, it comes back to haunt me, make busy work for me, and just when my life is starting to look up. In order to make my official “move” up to the upper floors, I’ve got to clear out my desk and my files from the fifth floor and leave my desk open for another poor sap. Someone who’s no doubt been “promoted” to my position as an unofficial “head” of the legal aids.
The elevator bings open on the floor too soon for me. I’m inundated with the smell of this place — sweat, cheap cologne, and desperate, flimsy dreams of advancement. The minute I step out of the confines of the elevator, my single brown box clutched to me, the eyes of my fellow legal aids fall on me. Women more than men, though there are a few hyenas who immediately smell blood, my recent success, and come to shit all over it.
This is, after all, Cubicle Hell. More like Cubicle Purgatory, since, once you have a desk here, you’re not likely to get a desk higher up. Most of us legal aids are like report-writing mules. We write all the legal documentation, procedures, and whatnot that the CEOs don’t have time for. We are like the slush pile, but for corporate offices.
A guy named Ben, with heavy-style long hair and beads all throughout that long hair, comes up and says, “Finally get fired?” For all his hippie, peace-and-love vibe — something he only offers the ladies — he’s an asshole.
I
looked right at him. “No. Promoted, finally, unlike you, Ben.”
Ben gives me a look of surprise, but it’s not warm or happy for me. It’s mocking and jealous. “Oh? And with whom?”
A young woman with blond hair, and ridiculously, perfect frosted nails walks by. “Ms. Vanacore. I heard she finally found someone, and I’m assuming that someone is you?” She looked sideways at me like I’m a pile of dirty laundry, not a human being. She grimaces at my wrinkly, frumpy suit. “I can’t believe she would hire you looking like that. You look like a reject bin at the Goodwill, not someone who needs to be working for one of the partners.”
And you look like a faker bitch than Barbie.
Out loud, I say to her, “She did hire me. As much as that surprises you, clothes are not everything. Brains count for something. But you would know that if you had enough brain cells in that head of yours.”
The young woman with frosted nails walks away, scoffing.
I hurry over to my cubicle and began packing things. As I do, I notice Ben following me. The rest of his “clan”, other guys who fit into the hippie/hipster subculture around here, follow him as well. They crowd around me like the bunch of hyenas they are. Each one of his friends has some kind of health food drink with them, by the distinctive cups.
“I doubt your brains got you that job, Tommy,” says one of Ben’s posse. I believe his name is Orion, Aura, or some new-age thing like that.
I ignored his suggestive tone and keep packing my things. Thankfully, there isn’t much. But unfortunately, it will be enough to keep me here for a while. Long enough to be fucked around with.
Another guy chimes in. Not from the click of Ben’s, but from across the way. He has a crew cut and bleached hair. He’s got a fake tan too, which is stupid. Especially since we live in a part of the country that gets more than enough sun. “Ms. Vanacore? I heard that boss likes to use her assistants and not just for paperwork.”
My jaw clenches under the assumption he’s just hurled at me, but I keep packing quickly and furiously.
“I bet you to really hit it off during the interview, didn’t you?”
I don’t answer, knowing he’s nothing but a troll, and that under no circumstances do you feed them. I keep jamming stuff in my box, but I’m shaking.
Some of the other guys with Ben have begun to agree with Crewcut over there. And in a very cruel way, despite the peace and harmony vibe, they all go for. It’s fake, just like everything else on this floor.
“What you want to bet that Tommy, here, gave her a fucking?”
I’m not sure who says it, but I don’t care. I keep packing, though I’m beginning to see red and black around my vision. I’m beginning to feel hot, cold, and sweaty.
“I’d blow my whole wad on a bet that he gave her something more than just a good resume to get that job,” says another guy.
“Hey!” That’s Crewcut. Against my better judgment (my judgments not all that good right now, considering I’m feeling hot and dark all over), I look up at him. I look him in the eyes, and this is all he needs. He immediately goes on the attack, bringing the whole rest of the office in with him. “Hey, everybody! Tommy here has just landed himself the most important job! Yeah! The most important job, with the oldest boss in the entire company, the cougar chaser.” He says this with such sweet cruelty, I can’t believe he’s human. He’s more like a demon. “And I bet my money he got that job because of a favor.” He pauses and stands up taller so I can see him beginning to pantomime fucking. “I bet you gave good old Ms. Vanacore some good fucking for that good job, didn’t you, Tommy?”
I hear myself growling at him, but don’t say anything.
“We all know you did, fatty,” he says.
Some girl giggles. “He must have. He’s so fat, he is not good for anything else!”
I close my eyes, talking to the animal that’s waking up in me — the beast meshing its teeth, telling me to lash out and go on the prowl for these people, my job be damned. It’s not worth it, Tommy. I know you want to pound their heads in, slam their heads and faces against their monitors and cubicle walls, but that’s going to cost you too much. Ms. Vanacore’s faith in you, as well as any chance of working in the free world ever again. And forget about working in law. You’re going to need a lawyer if you do that.
Still, my monster growls. It demands a tribute or a sacrifice.
The Granola Gang — Ben and his crew — stare at me. For the first time ever, they actually looked terrified of me, and they should be. I’ve opened my eyes now and have put big x’s over each of their faces and others too.
“Admit it,” Crewcut bates. “You fucked her hard! You took all that old cunt could give you, didn’t you piggy?” He pantomimes me again, though I’m too livid to see it clearly. “Then you ate her out, just yummed all of her cum like a good little dumpster, didn’t you?”
I don’t answer. Somehow, I have enough of a brainstem left to grab my box and find my way toward the exit — toward release from this hellhole, before I become the archdemon of it all and go berserk on everybody.
“Didn’t you?!”
Somehow, I keep walking. Though I can still hear myself growling and puffing air like an angry, frothing boiler.
“He did! Told you!” Crewcut laughs. He cackles like the jackal he is. “Look at him! Look at him run!” He whoops. “Shake that fat ass, boy! It’s going to be putting in more work over Ms. Vanacore’s desk than that precious brain of yours!”
Right as I’m about to snap, drop my box of shit I actually don’t need and go pound Crewcut’s face in for shit I’m not going to take, I get slammed from behind. I don’t see by who or by how many. I just know I’m down on the ground, my box of belongings scattered and shattered against the ground.
“Get down on your knees, fatty!” Vaguely, my brain registers that its Crewcut. But it’s also someone else. A woman. She goes out of her way to step on some of my possessions.
“In the dumpster is where you belong,” she says. “You don’t belong here. You don’t belong anywhere, fatty. Getting promoted and rubbing it at all of our faces!”
In some part of my head, I wish for Vanacore. I pray she had kept her word to accompany me instead of sending me down here by myself. But I quickly lose that in favor of an insatiable desire to break the bitch’s legs. Break it off and shove it up her ass, and at this point, I’m scrambling to get to my feet. I’m scrambling to get after someone, anyone, as long as I can land a few punches on them. Even with as close to murder is I’ve ever come in my eyes, no one is afraid of me. They’re laughing at me, commenting on how lumbering and stupid I look, even when angry.
Just when I’m about to lose all control and go lunging for someone, I see Melissa. Her bright pink dress burns through my fog of red and black like a flame from heaven.
“Tommy! Oh my God, what’s happened?”
I’m not thinking clearly, and I can’t really see her face, but I see Melissa bending down to help me. She picks me up from the ground, and I grab onto her. The moment I do, the buzzing in my brain stops. The noise in my head compelling me to reach out, and maim my tormentors stops. It numbs, and the only thing I feel clearly now is Melissa’s hand in mine. Her fingers on my suit, pulling me out of the mud.
“Here! Let me help you?”
Unsurprisingly, the taunting of me has stopped. But taunting of Melissa has started in its place. Quietly, but I can hear things about her arrogance, her foreignness. I even hear people mocking her accent and the way she talks. They exaggerate the accent in her voice, as well as the stereotypical British woman with the overly proud attitude, though she doesn’t have one.
Melissa starts to hear me growling at them, and she just continues to pull me onto my feet. She holds onto my hand, saying, “Never mind them. Pay no mind to them, Tommy. Come on. Come on. Let’s get you packed up again and out of here.”
I stand still, stunned, and brainless. It’s what happens when I get this angry. I lose all ability to think or move. I
t’s like my brain isn’t the only thing shorting out. It’s my whole system. I don’t know why, but I’ve been like this ever since I was little.
As Melissa begins to quickly pack what she can of my things back into the brown box, my vision begins to clear. My senses come back to me, though they’re not one hundred percent. I’m still a little warped and floaty, but enough to be free of my bloodlust, my nearly-blind fury.
Finally, after what seems like an hour, Melissa puts my box under her arm and grabs me with her other hand. She pulls me along, even as more people join in and whisper about us. They are making fun of Melissa. Her voice. My size. How the two of us look together, and more nasty insinuations about us. That we must be boning each other.
Melissa pulls me along with her. “Come on, Tommy. Come with me, don’t pay attention to them. Don’t worry about them. They’re going to be gone after I report them.” With these words, she pushes me out of the legal aid’s office, the big cesspool of desks and dividing walls, and tells me to go to the elevator. That she’ll be there soon. But I don’t move that far, just enough to be out of sight.
When I do, I turn around. I watch Melissa as she straightens herself. She fixes her clothes and redresses the room. “I got a good look at you. All of you who participated in what you did with Tommy, and those of you who refused to step in and stop this despicable behavior on one of your own. HR is going to get good and familiar with all of you, and if I have my way, you’ll be out of here and out of a job by the end of the day.”
As I watch her speaking and standing there, she looks regal, heroic. Despite being in a designer dress and fancy, pointed shoes, she looks deadly. Like she is a force to be reckoned with. Someone who midnights as a vigilante, while serving as a secretary by day. My heart, still roiling from my mistreatment, is lifted. It’s shined and polished by her selfless defense of me.
