“…”
I’d never rendered them speechless with awe either. Hang-ups, while rare, were not unheard of, though. Le sigh. I’d have to deal with Mallory now, after all. I briefly mused that perhaps it hadn’t been the best idea to leave the real cutlery to make my point. I’d essentially armed her for this very confrontation.
…Not that she even needed any more weapons in her arsenal. She had just the right youth, looks, brains, personality, education, clothes, car, condo…
I took a deep steadying breath and swiveled around to greet her, dumping the phone back into its cradle along the way, only to realize I’d been wrong about everything.
She wasn’t leaning or sitting on my desk. She wasn’t puffed up to confront me about the vindictive, petty gift I’d left on her desk when she refilled her coffee. And the client hadn’t hung up on me.
The phone plug dangled in front of my face for a moment, just long enough for me to recognize what it was and what it meant, before it dropped into my lap. The bump against my drawer, the ticks of her nails against my desktop, and the rattling of my pens hadn’t been caused by her leaning or sifting through my files or shifting her position at all. Nope, they had been the result of her ducking under my desk to pull out the phone cord.
She was cold and collected as she waited for my reaction.
I got my mad-face on, and said, “You cut off Mr. Collier.” I pierced my eyes at her, gritted my teeth, and fumed. “Do you know the potential revenue and research dollars he represents to this company? He’d make my quarter!” Hellbound, he could make my year.
And that’s when it hit me. Tit-for-tat, though her tat significantly outclassed my tit.
Uh… You know what I mean.
I’d been banking on Mr. Collier to tip the scales on my first quarter satisfaction achievement reports. Sure, the first month of the quarter wasn’t over yet, but I’d delegated a lot of other clients to the rest of the staff so that I could tackle Mr. Collier. If I lost Mr. Collier now, twenty-five days into October, I’d wrack up a big zero for one-third of the quarter. That’s quite a mountain to overcome in only two more months. Possibly, it was an insurmountable one.
Worst part…the experimental trial period of our co-managership ended on November twelfth.
I’d never recover in time.
I’d lose the job.
She’d win it.
And after this stunt of the retaliation gift, I’d have a lot of groveling to do under her rule.
I opened my mouth to backpedal out of it and got a face full of jack-ass.
Two Band-Aids decorated with cartoony contrite vampires crisscrossed the slash I’d stabbed into my jack-o-lantern’s backside. She held my patched-up pumpkin out to me like a peace offering.
Worse, though, was that with each change of my thoughts, which must have been evident on my face, Mallory’s cold had melted a little more until, full of attrition, she apologized. Twice.
“I’ll get him back,” she said. “I’ll take the blame and make sure he knows you’re the best person for his case.”
“It’s okay,” I told her, feeling mighty small and mousy now, indeed, as I accepted the doctored-up pumpkin. “It’s not like you slammed the receiver down or anything. I’m sure he’ll understand.”
“Yeah,” she said, sounding small herself. “He probably thinks it was his cell service anyway.”
“Maybe,” I said, and hugged my unsophisticated jack-o-lantern.
“Well, now I really have to throw you the best funeral-themed thirtieth birthday party ever, don’t I?”
I couldn’t help it; I grinned. The stupid belly flutters increased. Four days until my birthday with no boyfriend, only a few friends consisting solely of work acquaintances, and no family in the tri-state area meant that her offer was the best in town. It also tapped into that long buried, little-girl yearning for someone to favor me enough to throw me a party.
And yet, I couldn’t help but wonder where she’d put the knife I’d left in my jack-o-lantern’s back.
Apparently, those pesky little flutters obscured a rock hard pit of distrust.
~ ~ ~
I worked an hour past when Mallory left. On my way out, I noted the empty parking lot, especially the absence of her snooty sports car, with proud satisfaction. I ignored the shivers that accompanied the thought that it seemed that everyone avoided the campus outside of daylight hours as if the company hosted plague-parties all night. That purposeful ignorance easily segued into fantasies of a hot shower, hot meal, lackadaisical and indulgent on-line shopping, and, especially, cozying up with a honeyed tea and more of my vampire novel. Those imaginaries swarmed my petty, escapist brain on my reliable drive home. I wound up getting some of that, but not all.
I munched on microwaved leftover pizza and sipped water—because the tea tin was empty, the soda was flat, and the milk smelled bad despite being fine on my cereal that morning—while perusing the sale section of a Swedish home outfitter. I learned quickly that I wouldn’t be able to have anything delivered in time to assemble it myself before the party. I could, however, search for what I want now, check the local outlet’s inventory, and pick a little of it up each day after work. I also learned that, while I wouldn’t be able to afford a total overhaul of my furnishings, I could get a couple pieces to fill out what I already had along with a few accents with lighting and crafty repair and upgrade solutions.
I vaguely wondered how Mallory afforded her sleek sports car, stylish downtown apartment, and vibrant social life. Only a few solutions came to mind to balance out the fact that we had exactly the same salaries. Maybe she came from a wealthy, spoiled family. Maybe she sailed through college without student loans. Perhaps, she had a rich live-in lover. Or, the most likely, she was being buried under mountains of debt she figured she’d eventually be able to pay off.
I may not have had the lavish life that she had, but I had my own humble home linked to a mortgage I could comfortably afford, a car that was paid off and promised to linger on until I could build up my savings again, an enviable book collection, and at least prospects—now—for a respectable and comfortable social life.
By the time I snuggled in with my book—yummy, steamy celebratory love scene—I had detailed to-buy and to-do lists and a cozy feeling of a balanced life on the upswing.
Sleep came frosted with energetic, adventurous, and valiant dreams. In them, I was a feisty vampiress who saved her company from bad press ghouls, her co-workers from a pack of werewolf creditors, and a gorgeous vampire prince from an evil warlock who wanted to steal his immortality for himself. While I am not a prude, what happened next was private.
Tee hee.
…Ahem. Almost thirty.
Only three days away. Ack!
~ ~ ~
Since Mallory liked her sophisticated toys, I gambled that she also liked her coffee to be of the fancy variety as well. I brought her a gift card to a popular chain of coffee markets/cafes. On the outside of the tiny envelope that housed it, I wrote, Go Team Management!
Yes, I realized that reeked of corporate lameness and general dorky ridiculousness… About two-seconds after I finished writing it. In ink. Additionally, I neither had another envelope nor trusted my dexterity to remove the card from its tacky backing without damaging the card itself. Besides, I figured a cheesy cheerleader phrase was better than leaving a pumpkin with a knife in its back on her desk, so I was ahead of the game.
…Yeah… Not my proudest moment.
I shrugged it off in satisfying Mr. Collier’s hemoglobin concerns, delving into mediocre, superficial home improvement, and fantasizing about my awesome upcoming first ever thrown by someone else adult party that weekend. As a result, Wednesday and Thursday passed swiftly. The only hiccups to their passage was a strange glitch in my and Mallory’s standard office screen-savers. We checked; everybody else’s behaved normally.
Normal screensaver activity, in this case, meant that the logo glittered, faded, and blosso
med in and out of view. Sometimes, just Blood would glitter, fade, or blossom. Other times, Conscience would. More often, they both did it in conjunction with each other. However, my and Mallory’s kept alternately highlighting just Blood Con with Blood Science. The Conscience, as a whole, was left out entirely.
Strange, to say the least.
I sent an email to IT on both Wednesday and Thursday morning about it. I believe Mallory emailed them at lunch. After I prodded her into it. She didn’t think it was a big deal.
“It’s a stress reliever!” Mallory said and giggled. “It’s probably just an in-house joke only shared amongst management.” She leaned in, conspiratorially, and added just above a whisper, “You know, so the peasants don’t get too restless.”
I considered the possibility, the rationale, and said, “Middle management, maybe, but not the uppers.”
“Why not?” She asked with genuine curiosity.
It knocked about a dozen points off my previously high estimate of her IQ. Did she seriously think the executives actually mingled that freely with us so near the dregs of their pedestrian employees? As there was still a chance she could end up winning the primary manager position, I decided to not voice that opinion so directly. But, I didn’t want to leave her completely uneducated either, so…
I scoffed—because I had a good, well-practiced scoff—and said, “The executives probably share a lot of off-color office humor with each other. But, to them, we’re barely more than the prod to the cattle, and they’re the fists that wield us.”
She retracted, aghast, almost a scoff, but with much more offense and defense laced into it. “I’m not a peasant,” she said. The look turned to disgust before she added, “And, I’m certainly not cattle.”
Oookay, then.
That thought must have shown more predominantly than I’d meant it to because she gave me a scathing glare, huffed her professionally styled bangs out of her eyes, and said, “You may be, but I’m not.”
I plastered on my best plastic smile and offered, “I know. That’s why I got you the gift card to the fancy coffee place and not the Dippin’ Pastries chain.”
I paled the moment I said it. That statement would probably earn me years of Dippin’ Pastries gift cards for Christmas Secret Santa. I didn’t even like most pastries. Blah.
She pursed her lips a moment before reluctantly saying, “That was a thoughtful surprise. Thank you, Constance.”
I hated how she said my name. Why couldn’t she just call me Connie or Cons like everyone else?
And that reminded me of the glitch in the screensaver. I decided to send another round of emails when I got back from my afternoon break. I also tried persuading Mallory once more by explaining, “If it isn’t an inside joke, then it could be a sign of a virus. It would be just awful if all our reports got deleted by malware—” yes, the emphasis was on purpose in relation to her name “—before they were backed up over the weekend. How many files did you close this week?”
She actually squeaked her dismay as she dropped back into her seat—and out of view over the wall between our cubicles—to get that email sent.
Go team Connie!
Three
~ snitch ~
Friday… The tide went out. I always hated that phrase. Probably because I hated low-tide. That smell made me want to gag when I was a kid. Once I got old enough to skip out of the family beach excursions, I did. Hadn’t visited a beach since. Didn’t eat much seafood either because of it. Canned tuna even got to me on occasion. Unfortunately, the queasy feeling that churned in my belly when I got to my desk had nothing to do with the lackluster tuna salad sandwich I’d packed for lunch and could still smell on my fingers regardless of washing my hands twice after making it.
After maneuvering my way through the glitchy—if scandalously humorous—screensaver, I opened my email to send off another round of inquiries about it to IT. I didn’t get to send that request, though, because something in my inbox stole the limelight of my planned task as well as the happy belly flutters I’d allowed to sustain and blossom in anticipation of my first ever party thrown by someone other than my parents—which ceased at around age twelve—and myself.
Though, granted, I’d never thrown one for myself either.
Ahem… To get back on topic…
The inbox guiltlessly—the jerk—contained a nerve-wracking message with the subject line regarding hostile work environments and improper conflict resolution.
Oh, Hellbound.
Three images flared in my thoughts:
Pumpkin.
Knife.
Mallory’s desk.
Hellbound, cubed.
Hush… I was a child of the eighties. Late eighties, but still the eighties.
I must’ve stared at that email for a long time because I never noticed Mallory’s arrival. It requested that Mallory and I join two of our supervisors along with representatives from Human Resources and Security—gulp—in the eighth floor conference room at eight-thirty that morning. I did, however, notice her frantic gasp and abundance of apologies as she raced around the wall between our cubicles.
“I didn’t report it, I swear!” Mallory exclaimed, shaking me out of my shock. She took my hands in hers and promised, “I’ll set it straight. I’ll tell them it was nothing. You never intended violence. In fact, I’ll tell them you only had the knife in it so it wasn’t sitting out on my desk, that you only put it there because I said I’d give your jack-o-lantern a makeover, spice it up a bit, give it some panache. I’ll explain everything, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, and believed it.
I wasn’t even surprised that I believed it. She really hadn’t ever done anything overtly cruel or underhanded during the entire promotion bid and its subsequent competition. For the most part, she’d played fair, worked hard, backed me when I deserved it, persuaded me to her perspective when her concepts warranted it, and she even took on the task of throwing me my first—and, honestly, both cool and seasonally thematic—party.
It wasn’t nasty, cruel or malicious of her to have the education, personality, professional etiquette, talent, and fortitude to be considered for the promotion after only six months working for the company. It was merely my own jealousy of her success—her stupidly-obviously deserved success when I really thought about it, no less—that had twisted her good fortunes and forthright ambitions into wicked and tricksy acts in my view of her.
Deep down, I knew that all my blustering worries, envies, and petty vindictive musings and acts had no basis in reality. They were all paranoid, childish figments of my overactive imagination. These delusions were likely rooted in my loathing for my own ineffectual behavior, my vast and thorough mediocrity, my fear of risk and success both, and my puerile wishes to be more than I was despite lacking the tenacity to earn them and the patience to cultivate them over time.
As such, I wasn’t surprised when Mallory sighed in relief at my simple acceptance of her heartfelt promise.
However, I was at least a little bit surprised when the first words she uttered as we entered the meeting as a united front were, “If you fire Constance, I’ll quit.”
I’d never been that bold or brave in my life. I doubted I ever would be.
As it turned out, Mallory’s declaration made little difference. They never planned to fire me. The meeting was called because security caught me in my overzealous overreaction during a routine check of the surveillance system. That launched further investigation, especially since Mallory never reported anything, which included subsequent viewings of our interactions and activities for the days following the incident as well as several weeks prior to it. The meeting was called to confirm their conclusion that it was not a serious matter, but also to warn me that it was volatile enough to warrant concern about my ability to hold a position of leadership.
Note, though they didn’t say it, they were talking about my psychological ability to withstand the rigorous stresses of corporate administration.
r /> Yeah…
In other words, despite the fact that the allotted timeframe of the competition hadn’t been completed, I was not going to be the department manager.
Thanks to Mallory’s continual, dedicated, and persuasive support of my worthiness for management, I was permitted to retain the position of assistant manager under her. I was on probation and would be required to see a company-approved therapist to deal with my issues of anger and stress management.
Blah, cubed.
Mallory got the position. She got it with glowing praises over her integrity, her business savvy, her devotion to her fellow workers, and her impeccable customer and client satisfaction record.
She won.
And the truth was…
She deserved it.
I lost. And I deserved it.
~ ~ ~
“I really am sorry,” Mallory said and offered me a tall paper cup of one of those fancy coffees.
“I know,” I said. I accepted the coffee, set it beside my purse, and collapsed—exhausted and strung-out—into my chair.
“Oh, no, what did Mr. Collier do now?”
“He relented,” I said, confused and thoroughly drained. I’d just returned from a lunch meeting with a genuine second assistant of a billionaire entrepreneur and humanitarian. “After an hour and a half of rehashing concerns, he suddenly changed his tune.”
“He agreed to sign?” Mallory asked, amazed and excited for me.
“Not with me, but yeah,” I said, dejectedly. “He had me schedule a joint appointment for him with Reynolds in Acquisitions and Cartwright in Finance right then and there.”
“That’s great!” She said, then asked, “Too bad it’s too little, too late. If not for the whole security debacle, this would have made you a shoe-in for the job. Makes me feel a little like I stole it from you.”
“You didn’t,” I said. I drank some of he coffee, which sluiced a divinely complex swirl of flavors over my tongue, and replaced it back on my desk, this time closer to my computer mouse, jostling it, and setting the screensaver to glitching again. Mallory’s eyes flicked to it, but I ignored it in favor for tucking my purse in one of my drawers.