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“Why is it only Thursday? This is bullshit,” she said.
“Oh, it’s Thursday?” I very often forgot what day of the week it was. Since I worked all the time, I forgot that regular people worked Monday through Friday.
“Yes, and I wish it was Friday so I didn’t have to go in tomorrow. It’s Casual Friday and we have a team-building meeting.” She gave me a fake smile.
“I have never been to one of those, but they sound like nightmares,” I said.
“They are all of that and more. Remind me to tell you about the time when we had to take a personality test based on which animal we were, and then try and socialize wearing animal masks. I escaped to the bathroom and pretended I had food poisoning from Patricia’s macaroni casserole.”
I shoved a handful of popcorn in my mouth and almost choked. “From what I’ve heard about Patricia’s casserole, that wouldn’t have been far from the truth.”
Em tilted her drink in my direction. “You’re right there.”
“Sometimes I do wish I could have office small talk. That seems fun. A group chat isn’t the same thing.”
Em groaned. “It’s not. Believe me. It’s awful. I would love to never do it again.”
I let her bitch about how much she hated her job because she didn’t really have a whole lot of friends around here. She’d had a hard time differentiating herself from her brother, and she didn’t want to hang out with the same people. Unfortunately, that meant that she didn’t want to hang out with the majority of the twenty-somethings in Castleton. There was a whole big group of townies that got together for bonfires and garage parties and any other excuse to sit around and talk about other times they got drunk while they got drunk again.
Sure, I’d gone a few times, but once you’ve heard one story, you’ve heard them all. Just not my kind of people. Plus, Wyatt was basically their king, and now that we weren’t together, I didn’t want to be anywhere he was if I could help it.
Em got a text from her dad to head home because he didn’t want her to be tired for work, so she rolled her eyes and got up.
“I swear, they are never going to treat me like I’m grown. My brother was allowed to go on a plane by himself when he was twelve, but if I’m home a few minutes later than I said I was going to be, they lose their minds and think I’m dead.” I gave her a hug and let her know that she could crash at my place on the couch anytime she wanted to get away, and I’d see her on Saturday to collect shells.
“One more day,” she said with a sigh. “One more day.”
I started humming the tune “One Day More” from Les Mis and she slammed her hands over her ears.
“Don’t, now I’ll have that stuck in my head, lalalala,” she said in a loud voice, and started running for the door as I increased my singing in volume and intensity.
By the time she was in her car, I was standing in the doorway with my arm raised, belting it at full volume as Em shook her head and backed out of the driveway.
* * *
After she left,I made myself another paloma and then spent like a half an hour trying to take a decent picture of it and failing a bunch.
My best attemptI sent to Esme.
Looks great! Make me one?
She probably got so tired of making drinks for people. Anything got tedious if you did it for enough times as a job. I wanted to tell her to come get one when she was off work, but she would probably think I was only joking. And I didn’t know if I was ready for her to see my house yet. We needed to meet on neutral ground first.
You got itI said.
A few minutes later I got another voice memo: “I’m hiding in the employee bathroom right now because I don’t want to talk to another person. I mean, I’m talking to you right now but that’s different. You’re not customer and I’m not forced by capitalism to serve you with a smile on my face.”
THE WORSTI sent back. I preferred texting because recording my voice felt too intimate.
She sent back: “Sorry, I’m grouchy. I feel like I’m always complaining to you. Are you doing anything fun this weekend?”
Trying to force myself to not work, and I’m going to the beach with Emerald to find shells. She makes all kinds of cool things out of them. Definitely reading. You? I didn’t add that I would also definitely be putting in some quality puzzle time. It was just too silly a hobby to share with her just yet. I wanted her to think of me as sexy, not as a person who did puzzles while watching Murder, She Wrote.
She replied: “Mostly working, but Dad is pestering me to go out and have some fun, so who knows. My idea of fun and other people’s idea of fun are two different things.”
What is fun for you? I really wanted to know. She probably had all kinds of interesting hobbies like taxidermy or necromancy.
She said: “You’re going to think I’m a total dork, but whatever. I’m over apologizing for the shit that I like. I have a website where I do book recommendations, and I also love to collect rare books. I don’t have any particular interest there, but I have a ton of weird things that no one else wanted.” She laughed. “If it’s a little twisted or dark or offbeat, I’ll probably love it.”
