I write fiction. Short stories, mostly. This is one I finished not too long ago. I’ll be posting it here, in installments.
Safely at the office, he sat behind his desk, probing the sore spot on the roof of his mouth, checking the morning’s headlines and his email. When he heard the heavy main door of the suite fly open and then slam shut, he held his breath. At the familiar “Good morning!” he exhaled quietly and went out into the common area.
Kate had thrown her things on her desk and was wobbling to the kitchen on pointy red shoes with no backs to them. They slapped her heel with each step. His own shoes were silent as he followed her.
“Good morning,” he said, softly. Politely. He hadn’t meant to, but wound up addressing her rather impeccable arse.
She turned and smiled, crinkling her eyes to hide some of the redness. “Hi!” she said, and busied herself with a cup and a stirrer. “How was your weekend?”
“Fine.”
“Good!” she said, turning away from him to reach for a bottle of water in the fridge.
“And yours?”
“Good, thanks!” She set the bottle on the counter, removed the cup from under the coffee spout, poured a vast amount of sugar in, and stirred.
Clive said nothing, only looked at her curiously. She looked up at him. She had been crying, for a couple of hours, at least.
“Did you get to do anything fun?” She said it a bit too loudly.
“No.” It was a simple fact. Like gravity.
“Oh!” she said. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
He looked down and shrugged, then grabbed a cup and pushed the buttons on the coffee machine. When he spoke, he was looking the floor tiles squarely in the face.
“Everything alright?”
“Yes, thank you,” she said.
“Mmm.” He nodded.
She wobbled back out into the hallway, leaving the water on the counter and Awkward Clive staring after her. I’m a real stand-up guy, she liked to say. Partial to clingy sweaters, heels and red lipstick, she was a sporting sort of fellow, albeit one with an arse that wouldn’t quit. She was personable; bubbly, some would say—Clive would not, as the word made him want to gouge his eyes out—but she knew when to reel it in. She was smart but didn’t fear looking stupid. She was usually laughing at something.
Clive had kept his distance upon her arrival, three weeks after his own start date. It was nothing personal. Experience had proven that even when one has a big title, it’s best to hang back and observe before commingling with the outside world. He kept himself and his wry observations to himself. And when at last he began to get comfortable, it was because Kate had taken over the position of newbie, and he could safely squirm away, out from under the communal—and oftentimes cult-like—magnifying glass of the department.
The bureaucracy had been tough to get used to. After fifteen years at a much smaller company, Clive was still surprised that the most mundane of tasks seemed to require a phone call to some committee or another for approval. Accustomed to smaller companies as well, Kate liked to joke that here, scooting the chairs back from the desks was strictly forbidden unless permission had been granted in advance by the Ministry of Dangerous Actions.
“It’s bollocks,” he had said to her on more than one occasion. “But what can we do?”
“Not a bloody thing, mate,” she would answer, perfectly mimicking not only his accent but his cadence, even the way he maneuvered his lips around the words.
On the way back to his office, he set the bottle down gently on her desk, where she was pretending to read emails.
She jumped, looking up at him as though expecting a ghost.
“I think you forgot this,” he said.
“Thank you,” she smiled.
He stood looking at her for a moment, saying nothing. Then he turned on his heel, went into his office and shut the door.
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