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Esther always made a point to bring her lunch every first Friday of the month. Beyond the special of the day, the other choices on the menu were pretty dire: a selection of sad, soggy, plastic-wrapped sandwiches that had been sitting around for god only knew how many days, and a pitiful salad bar with wilted lettuce and no sneeze guard. Someone had once found a dead garter snake in the salad bar, so Esther would rather starve than eat anything out of it.
She’d forgotten she needed to pack her lunch until the last minute this morning though, so all she had was a hastily prepared peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It was a pretty sad lunch, but it was still better than the cafeteria’s goulash. She’d console herself later with some Oreos from the vending machine.
Yemi sat down in the chair across from her and sighed at the steaming pile of goulash on his tray. “I forgot my lunch today,” he said glumly. “I have to eat the goulash.”
It looked like someone had eaten dog food and vomited it onto a plate. It smelled kind of like it too.
“Here, have half my sandwich,” Esther said, pushing the other half of her peanut butter and jelly toward him.
He reached for it gratefully. “You’re very kind. You’re welcome to have half my goulash if you want.”
“Pass,” Esther said. “But thanks.”
“I’ll bring you some of my mother’s yam pottage on Monday.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a stew made with yams, tomatoes, dried fish, and ground crayfish.”
Esther wrinkled her nose. “No disrespect to your mother’s cooking, but that sounds terrible.”
Yemi shrugged. “You don’t have to eat it if you don’t like it. But you’ll like it.”
She nodded, frowning at her peanut butter and jelly sandwich. “Do you think I’m too honest?”
“No. I like that you’re honest.”
“Thank you.” At least someone she worked with liked her.
“You’re welcome,” he said. “I’m probably the wrong person to ask though. People complain I’m too honest all the time.”
Esther wondered if Yemi had ever been told he was too aggressive in a performance review. Probably not. He was so soft-spoken and polite, it was hard to imagine him being described as aggressive, even when he was being blunt. Also, he was a man, so he had that going for him. Although, he was a black man, which added a whole other layer to the issue. Maybe that was why Yemi was so polite and soft-spoken. So he wouldn’t be seen as aggressive or threatening.
“It smells like a squirrel crawled up someone’s ass and died in here,” Jinny said, sitting down next to Esther. She’d brought her lunch today too: some kind of healthy-looking quinoa salad.
“Yemi forgot his lunch,” Esther said.
“Here, you can have some of my salad.” Jinny pushed the Tupperware into the middle of the table. “I’ve got orange slices too.” She set out a Ziploc bag of orange segments.
Yemi helped himself to an orange slice, but didn’t make a move on the quinoa salad. “Thank you.”
“Do you think I’m too honest?” Esther asked Jinny.
“I’m gonna need more context,” Jinny said, taking back her quinoa salad.
“At work. Am I overly blunt and aggressive?”
Jinny frowned. “Is this about your review?”
Esther nodded.
Jinny’s eyebrows lifted. “She actually used the word aggressive?”
“I know, right? She might as well have said abrasive.”
“And we all know what that means.” Jinny shook her head as she stabbed at her salad. “Sexism blows.”
“You told me your review went fine,” Yemi said.
