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It’s like watching a pressure cooker, waiting for the doors to close. As soon as the metal barriers meet, she sucks in a breath and lets it all loose in a stream of warbled distress.
“I’ve been working sixteen hours of overtime a week since he started going to medical appointments before he got approved for his medical leave. I don’t even get paid for it though, because Randy said assistants aren’t approved for overtime. Well, that’s what HR said, but I know it came from Randy. I missed most of my son’s summer league games, and I had to have my sister take my daughter to all her dance classes. We’ve been living off carry out all summer. Even when I do get home in time to cook a decent meal, I’m so exhausted, I don’t have the energy to make anything.”
Swiping her sleeve under her nose is a horror show to my eyes. Snot. I detest snot.
Focus, Pete. It’s just a quick elevator ride. Her hygiene is not your problem.
“Trisha, why on Earth would you work overtime if they didn’t approve you to get paid for it?”
“Because! You know how it is if we fall behind. It’s bad enough when Randy or Mr. Fairway swoop in, demanding results, but now it’ll be Preston too, because you know he isn’t going to lift a finger. I trained him for crying out loud, and he was a complete jerk the entire time, always talking down to or ignoring me. Now, he’s supposed to be my boss? I can’t, Pete. I just…I don’t think I can do it much longer. I can’t afford to quit, though. I’m a single parent. What am I supposed to do?”
The elevator dings, stopping us on the ninth floor. I cast her a get-your-shit-together look with a secret side of why-are-you-snotting-up-this-confined-space. Plenty of people in this company cry on a daily basis, but it's common knowledge that you do it in private, lest you show signs of weakness. You can’t show weakness when you work for vultures that have spies on every floor of the damn building.
Also.
Snot.
Closing my eyes, I inhale new air when the doors open on the ninth floor. Blinking, my gaze lands on our new passenger—the Devil’s Own.
Cameron Fairway, with his stupidly optimistic smile and boyish complexion, joins us in the snot box, stepping in beside Trisha. “Six, please.”
Another Fairway. The newest addition to Fairway Foods’ familial roster. This is why you don’t cry in elevators.
I don’t know the youngest Fairway, short of him being hired late last year, not long out of college. However, he’s a Fairway, and now he’s forcing me to touch a public elevator button used by at least five people whom I know don’t wash their hands after they take a leak. In short, I hate him already.Knocking his number with my knuckle, I grind my teeth at a repeat of one of Trisha’s gurgled sniffles.
Cameron’s brows pinch together just below his sandy hair, covertly glancing at Trisha. I’ll give her credit; the strategic way she’s fingering the corner of her eye is likely an attempt to cover her splotchy, tear-stained face.
My gaze connects with “Baby Fairway”. That cannot possibly be concern on his face. He’s a Fairway for crying out loud. He’ll probably phone up to the tenth floor once he gets back to his cubicle to report Trisha’s crime, and now I’ll look like I’m disgruntled right along with her. I’m absolutely disgruntled, but Randy Fairway and his father don’t need to know that.
Reaching in my pocket, I retrieve my handkerchief and bring it into Trisha’s view, clearing my throat.
“The pollen count has been hell on my allergies lately, too. I hope you can get to the pharmacy later.”
Peeking from behind her hand, her moment of confusion turns to recognition. Straightening her posture, she nods, taking the cotton fabric from me to dab her eyes.
“Thanks, Pete. I…might have an allergy tablet in my purse.”
Focusing on the elevator countdown, I straighten my tie. Crisis averted.
This is the slowest elevator ride in history. And…Trisha just wiped her nose from the sounds of it. Ugh. No way I’m putting that kerchief back in my pocket.
Jesse and Miranda are always telling me that feeling watched is just a part of my intrusive thoughts. What the hell do they know about OCD? They’re not doctors. The eyes I feel on me right now, though, are not a figment of my imagination. That kid is looking at me. I know it.
Is there something on my face? Did Trisha slime my hand when she took my handkerchief?
Giving in to the urges, I wrap the inside of my wrist against the top of my other one. Once, twice, three times. My lungs relax, and the confines of the elevator seem to expand. I’ve grudgingly resisted falling into the counting routines of my youth, but it’s a subtle one that’s enough to make me feel reset in uncomfortable situations. It’s one that allows me to function without scrutiny at Fairway.
The eighth floor arrives, and I muster my manners to let Trisha exit first. We share a floor. Her with her pseudo-management of the Hartford Green account and me with only half the floor to oversee all the staff for my three accounts. Efficiency apparently doesn’t grant you more office space.
Behind us, the elevator doors close on the sandy-haired Fairway, such a striking difference from Randy and his father. He must take after the mother. I’m not sure which floor he’s assigned to, but it makes no sense that it’s lower in the bowels of the Fairway Foods building. Relatives always roost at the top of the nest. I smell a spy. Whichever department he’s assigned to, no doubt, fucked up and pissed off Randy and the old man. The way this family operates their business, you’d think we were selling classified secrets rather than specialty foods.
My phone chimes with a text alert. Palming it, I cringe at another notice from Mom. Then, I cringe for cringing. What kind of son am I that I cringe at the mere sight of messages from my family?
The 3140’s down again. Your father’s fit to be tied.
Why? Why does she tell me these things? Why do I need to know their main tractor took a shit? In the middle of my workday, nonetheless.
ME: Can Jesse fix it?
