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“Hmm?” He looked at her after the elevator doors closed. “Oh, Olivia. Hi.”
“Good morning,” she said.
“Morning,” Austin said as he pulled out his phone, flicking his finger across the screen.
The ride went on for what seemed forever, the humming of the elevator filling the silent space.How was your night?she wanted to ask, but the words failed.Everything about his posture screamed:Please don’t talk to me!
As soon as they got to the third floor, she stepped out in front of Austin and walked down the hall, past several voices echoing around her. She spotted an elderly lady up ahead, pushing a cart with cleaning supplies. Olivia smiled. Mindy was the floor cleaner and Olivia had known her since she started working there two years ago. She was a bit plump and short, her hair white like tropical sand. Despite the lines around her eyes, her face still had a certain lightness to it. Her hands were big and rough. “That’s what happens when you do the job of the little people,” she’d said with a smile.
Olivia remembered that awkward first day at the office. She’d felt like she was in high school all over again—the shy new girl just hoping to make friends. She’d walked into an empty break room, and that was when she met Mindy, busy with a mop. Mindy had smiled at her and made a joke, something about how these people ate like pigs. Since that day, Mindy had become her only friend in the building. Spotting her now, Olivia went over to say hi.
“Good morning, Mindy,” she smiled.
“Not yet,” Mindy said, nodding at an overflowing trash can in the hallway, “but it will be once I start on this mess.” It was hard to guess how old she was. Her voice had the vibrant ring of a much younger woman, but Olivia had helped Mindy lift heavy trash bags into the dumpsters behind the hospital too many times to let that energetic voice fool her. If she had to guess, Olivia would have said Mindy was in her late seventies.
“Come get me if those bags get too heavy again,” Olivia said.
Mindy offered her a thankful smile. “You’re too kind for your own good.”
“I have some paperwork to tidy up, but come get me when you’re ready.”
Mindy nodded and went back to work, dipping her hand into the cart to pull out a bottle of disinfectant while Olivia stepped into the office.
The accounting department was a large space with cubicles built into it, each housing two desks. A wide window overlooked the parking lot outside the hospital. Olivia’s desk was next to the window, which she appreciated; she liked staring out at the vehicles moving in and out of the hospital—at the ambulances, sometimes, when they zoomed off for an emergency—and the lush lawns and flowers planted around the grounds.
Clutching her bag, she walked to her desk, muttering greetings each time she passed a coworker typing behind a computer. The office space housed just six people—four men and two women—who were all too busy to notice Olivia. When she reached her empty, tidy desk, she pushed back her chair and settled in, booting up her computer as she did.
Her cubicle mate was a middle-aged, short, toad-like guy named Darryl. He was still living with his mother, and Olivia had overheard her other coworkers joke that he had that serial killer look to him. Bald, pointy mustache, small eyes hiding behind taped glasses, always wearing the same worn brown pants with a pink striped shirt.
Darryl looked up when Olivia got to her desk. She smiled at him. He was an okay guy when he wanted to be.
“You came in early,” Olivia said, and he shrugged.
“I’m always early.”
These tiny chit-chats were the most Olivia ever got out of Darryl. He was more of a quiet guy, and Olivia had given up fishing for more.
The hours ticked by slowly as she worked, moving her mouse and staring at numbers and sighing intermittently. The hospital had lost a fair number of doctors to better-paying gigs last month, and those positions had now been filled with temporary physicians who were all on different salaries. It was a payroll nightmare, one that would take a while to correct.
“Hey Darryl,” she called out softly. He kept his eyes focused on his computer, chewing loudly on a doughnut.
“Darryl,” she repeated louder, and he grudgingly looked up.
“What?” He sounded annoyed.
“Just wanted to ask for your help with something.”
“I’m busy,” he replied and focused back on his computer.
Olivia frowned, but she was used to this by now. “Okay, sure. Later then.”
When Olivia left the office for lunch, a tuna sandwich in her hand, she spotted Mindy again. The woman was bent over the floor, dipping a brush into a bucket of foamy water and sliding it over the tiles. Olivia decided to stop and talk for a few minutes; she needed it.
“Pretty busy today,” Olivia joked as she leaned against the wall close to Mindy. Like most days, the hall was empty. Accounting was the last office on the third floor—the dead-end of the hospital.
Mindy looked up, a strand of her grey hair peeking out of the net around her head.
“I could hear a mouse’s fart,” Mindy said. “Or maybe that was Darryl.” They both laughed. Mindy pressed down on the mop again. “Always working, but without much to show for it.”
