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Jay watches me, somehow finding this act to be the most offending of all.
I slap the cup down onto the table, now empty. At once, I feel better, deep relief settling inside my chest, now that the threat is gone.
And inside me, instead.
“I asked a question,” clips Jay, raising his voice. “Why’d you steal my coffee? Oh, I see. You waited until everyone else took a sip from theirs first, didn’t you? You just wanted to … to deprive me. Petty,” he decides, glaring at me. “Fucking petty.”
He’ll never know what I just saved him from.
And he doesn’t have to.
“I’m sorry,” I reply sincerely. “It … It didn’t … They messed up your order,” I finally decide to say, settling on yet another lie, “and I didn’t have the heart to tell you. I’ll get you another.”
But not even the tiny white lie could save me from Jay’s next move. “Spare yourself the trouble, you pathetic, Gayville, strip-club shot-boy.”
All eyes in the room are on me.
I stare at him, all of that peace I just put inside myself, obliterated by his words.
“Say what?” mutters Dave, not following.
“Oh, you heard me.” Jay crosses his arms, ever so satisfied with himself. “This lowlife lives in the slums with a bunch of lowlife whores, and his actual job is serving shots at a scummy strip-club.”
“My friends are not lowlifes!” I shout back, my temperament snapped at once like a ruler.
“What is going on in here??”
The question comes from Brenda, who is also accompanied by two department heads in suits. All three of them observe the scene from the opened door with shock and dismay.
Jay faces them. “He stole my coffee, drank it, and is now attempting to defend the fact that he is employed at a questionable location notorious for drugs, prostitution, and other illegal activities I do not feel comfortable disclosing here.”
Brenda’s eyes go wide. Then she turns them on me without saying a word.
I guess I knew the second Jay sunk his claws in me that this moment was inevitable. “It’s true,” I say in a voice so quiet, yet it fills the room. “I work as a shot boy at a strip-club. It’s how I make my rent. I took his coffee because there was something bad in it.” I close my eyes, then let out a sigh. “I understand if a person with my background isn’t the kind of person you want employed here, even as a measly intern. I will get my things and leave.”
“You’re quitting?” asks Brenda, her tone like a hammer clanging against a stubborn nail.
I don’t answer her. The sharp, uncertain stares of all my fellow interns around me is enough to force my hand. I start to pack away my laptop and notes into my messenger bag.
“Mr. Wales will be quite disappointed,” Brenda tells me, and her voice is not altogether unkind. “I do believe my opinion on the matter of you and your character counts as well, Mr. Connor Hill.”
“And I believe with the nine other perfectly, financially qualified interns here, Mr. Wales won’t miss some country boy from Kansas with a little meaningless pipedream.” I sling my messenger bag over a shoulder. “Thank you for the experience of working here, even if it’s been brief.”
Then I face Jay.
Whatever caustic contempt he held in his eyes has been exchanged for a watery, faraway sort of puzzlement. It’s as if he expected me to stay and fight, or insult him in front of the room, or out him for being a patron himself of said seedy strip-bar not very long ago.
To him, I give a short nod and say, “I’m sorry about the coffee stain. As it turns out, I have an embarrassing history of spilling things on people who don’t deserve it.”
He stares back at me, mystified.
With that, I quietly make my way out of the workroom, head down the hall, and slip into the elevator. I don’t cry, kick something, or even put a scowl on my face. I keep it all pressed down, tell myself I did the right thing by leaving, and pray that Lex’s evil pill doesn’t kick in before I’m home. I doubt a proud erection in my slacks is the proper way to make my final departure through the doors of Wales Weekly.
[ THE TRUTH ]
Connor’s ride home on the subway is long and lonely.
Even people he passes as he strolls the eleven blocks down from the station to Piazza Place under the noon sun don’t seem to look his way. It is as if his inner shame is draped over him like a soiled cloak, broadcasting his failure to the world in its filthy tattered threads.
18
I push my key into the door and shove my way into the apartment with a tired grunt.
The guests from Brett’s weekend-long party are gone, of course. But they might as well still be here, from the crushed cans of beer on the floor, to the bottles that line the coffee table and windowsills, to the pizza boxes covering the kitchen counter.
