“Dear Zabloomers, we’re gathered here today to remember our dear colleague Tim Buchanan,” Hayley intoned, trying for solemn. “Unfortunately, Brad couldn’t be here, but he sent me a few words to say on his behalf.”
Morgan glanced around. Maybe now that she’d shown her face, they could sneak out and take advantage of the distraction? But she’d stepped into the room to accept the coffee and now Ayumi from Accounting stood between them and the door. Ayumi looked like she might burst into tears at any moment, but Ayumi always looked like that.
Hayley took out her phone and cleared her throat. “Tim’s dedication to the company was unparalleled. He was always ready to give a hundred and ten percent. In today’s world…” She scrolled down a little. Morgan wondered why she hadn’t printed it out, or at least gotten a bigger screen to read from. “… a good marketer knows when to push the envelope to deliver success. And that’s exactly what…” scroll, scroll, “…he did. I remember the first time I met Tim, at a conference in Aspen for visionaries. He saw my vision for a future where—”
“Excuse me,” broke in one of the guys from the solar panel group from the other side of the floor. “Can I kinda get through to the, uh—”
“Oh, sorry,” Carter mumbled and stepped out of the way of the refrigerator. A few people glared at the interruption.
“—HR departments would no longer rely on outdated methods for sourcing qualified candidates—”
“Are we out of two percent?” Solar Dude asked.
“Shhh.” Kelly looked at him like he was dog poop on her shoe.
“—but a new dawn of intelligent filtering, driven by predictive analytics—”
“Sorry, I need to put it back now.”
Carter shuffled back out of the way.
“—which Tim truly took to heart. In fact, when I was asked to give the…” scroll, scroll, “… keynote at the symposium, he—”
“Wait, this is oat milk.”
Next to her, Luke shifted irritably. His eyes glowed, and Solar Dude blinked. “Oh, oat milk’s got a better carbon footprint anyway.”
She wondered if Luke was trying to be respectful or just trying to move things along.
“… knowing that somewhere out there, Tim is relying on us now to carry our dream to success. Goodbye and god…” scroll, scroll, “… speed, buddy.”
Everyone looked around nervously, trying to figure out what to do next. Vijay hesitantly clapped, and everyone joined in. Luke looked confused, and then gamely slapped his hands together a few times. From the floor above came a noise like someone whacking the Liberty Bell with a sledgehammer. Kelly flicked the fallen sawdust off the shoulders of her summer blazer.
“And now, a musical interlude.” Hayley pulled up another page on her phone. From the speaker in her hand, a tinny piano intro emerged. The lyrics were only vaguely familiar, although they seemed both appropriate in their bleakness and wildly inappropriate for playing on behalf of a colleague. It wasn’t until the refrain came around that Morgan was able to identify the plaintive vocals of Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel.”
Hayley would stop after the first refrain. Wouldn’t she?
She did not.
They stood there, awkwardly, no one making eye contact, as the song continued on. And on. Luke’s eyes flared again, but nobody said anything. Ronaldo clasped his hands in front of him, phone in his palms, occasionally glancing down to check his mail and fooling no one. Kelly looked somber, her gaze distant. Every time the song transitioned from refrain to verse and back, Carter twitched. Morgan counted ceiling tiles, praying for this to end and feeling terribly guilty about that. It wasn’t that she was actually going to miss Tim—if he’d been fired, she probably wouldn’thave given him a second thought—but surely there was a song that would have been more Tim-ish. Maybe she should actually say something. He deserved to have someone talk about him as a person, not about his faked passion for marketing results.
Finally, the last notes faded out, to be replaced by a YouTube ad for Grammarly. Hayley silenced the phone quickly. “And now, Morgan can—”
“Delivery for Zabloom?” The bike delivery guy knocked on the doorframe with his elbow, his hands full with an insulated bag.
Hayley looked puzzled. “I didn’t order anything.”
Panic crossed Luke’s face and his eyes flashed yet again.
The delivery guy shrugged. “Says it’s from a Brad?”
“Well, that was thoughtful of him,” Kelly said, briefly looking surprised.
Morgan hoped no one emailed Brad to thank him as the office locusts descended. Luke grabbed her elbow and steered her toward the door.
Hayley gave up on whatever else she had planned, momentum broken by free food. “I set up a GoFundMe for his family. I’ll send around the link!”
“That’s, like, really nice,” said Vijay as he unpacked containers. “That the company’s doing something for the family.”
