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Seriously, fuck my life.
Chapter Two
The Horrors of an Office Birthday Party
The problems with office parties were too numerous to count, but I still tried as I stood in the corner of the break room and mumbled along off-key while everyone sang happy birthday to Sharon from Accounts.
Singing—that was problem number one. The beer in my cup was lukewarm. That was problem number two. The elastic of the stupid party hat Mindy from Marketing had insisted we all wear was cutting into my jaw. That was problem number three.
Being surrounded by my co-workers after five-thirty was problem number four. I always forgot how clenched up and miserable I got at these things, then I remembered again within the first five minutes. Now I was longing for the solitude of my apartment. I’d take Fernando’s terrible EDM muffled by the wall over the mixed CD of “early noughties bangers” Chase brought out for every office party.
Problem number five: the small talk. The purely work-related small talk, because the majority of us had nothing in common except for the fact that we all worked in this hellhole. When I’d gone out with colleagues back in my previous fun life, we’d talked about everything but work over drinks or meals.
The moment we finished singing, Mindy turned to me and Lance and brightly asked, “Did you see the new brochure design? Becky made some fantastic font choices.”
I almost flung my half-full cup across the room. I was close, I swore to god. I tried to imagine how everyone would react if I actually did it.
Outwardly, I nodded and gave a wan smile. “Great fonts. Really popped off the page.”
I actually liked Mindy. She was friendly and enthusiastic and even though she wasn’t our supervisor, she always told us what a great job we were doing on the corporate PR side of things. But my god, did she actually enjoy this? Did she actually want to talk about fonts at six p.m. on a Thursday? Or was she faking it like I was? Were they all faking it like I was?
I looked around the room. Sharon was cutting her cake into neat slices, flirting a little with Tim from Human Resources. Chase was wearing his ‘I totally understand what you’re talking about’ face as he nodded along to whatever Felicity, the Finance Manager, was saying. Connor and Sayed from Sales were bragging to Gary from Finance and Becky from Marketing about their numbers for the month.
If I climbed onto a chair and announced, ‘I don’t even really know what HutSec does,’ would they all slowly start nodding and agreeing? Would we all collectively say, ‘fuck it,’ and start chugging our drinks and turn this into a bacchanalia? Would it devolve into an orgy?
I took a small sip of tepid beer and nodded at whatever Lance was saying to me and Mindy. I wouldn’t want an orgy with these people, anyway. I mean, Simon from IT was pretty hot. He had a nice ass, at least. But he also used the term “visioneering” unironically, so no.
I accepted a slice of cake on a paper plate from Sharon with a smile and a somewhat enthusiastic, “Thanks,” even though it was lemon cake, which was the cake choice of evil villain overlords hellbent on sowing chaos and destruction, in my opinion.
“You’re having some cake this time, bud?” Lance asked in surprise, already biting into his slice.
I looked down at it—at the pale sponge so dry it was already crumbling, and the thick layer of buttercream frosting with what smelled like half a pint of artificial lemon flavouring in it.
“Maybe I will,” I said, somewhat defiantly. A little frisson of rebellious excitement fizzed in my gut, immediately chased by another stab of soul-crushing despair over the fact that potentially eating shitty lemon cake would be the wildest thing I’d done in years.
“It’s really good!” Mindy said cheerfully. “I love lemon cake. I’m glad Sharon chose it.”
Are you, Mindy? Are you really glad, or is your eye twitching slightly as you eat it because deep down, you know lemon cake is what the devil would choose to torture all the damned souls in hell with?
Oh god, maybe this was hell. And Sharon from Accounts was the devil.
I furtively checked my watch, almost spilling the rest of my lukewarm beer on the floor. Good god, it was only 6.05 p.m. I couldn’t be the first to leave. Everyone knew you had to wait for a manager to leave first—it was an unspoken rule—but it felt like the walls were closing in on me. If I had to stay for much longer, I was pretty sure I’d end up doing something unhinged like ripping open my shirt and smearing lemon cake all over my chest while laughing maniacally. I’d snap.
Mindy and Lance were still talking about fonts. Someone had just said, “Thought leadership,” across the room. One of the managers was describing how the new “outside the box” ad campaign really “resonated” with the board of directors.
I glanced over at Devil-Sharon, trying to project my thoughts to her. Okay, Satan, I’ve figured it out. Maybe it’s time for a new kind of torture? I don’t care what it is, as long as it gets me out of this room. I’d take standing in line at the DMV over this. I’d take public speaking over this. Want me to give a presentation on the kind of porn I like? If it means I can leave, gladly. I’ll even time stamp the key moments that make me nut, if it helps.
Sharon didn’t even look over, back to flirting with Tim from HR. I was pretty sure Satan would have better taste in men than Tim from HR, so maybe she really did just like lemon cake.
“What do you think, Taylor?”
I blinked and looked at Mindy. She was smiling at me, sipping rosé from her plastic cup. I hadn’t been paying attention whatsoever. Was she asking about the cake? I looked down at my untouched slice.
“I haven’t tried it yet.” I smiled ruefully and held up my cup. “Gotta finish this first so I have a free hand.”
She laughed. “No, not about the cake. About the back page of the brochure! Lance just said you two might rewrite the copy so it aligns more closely with our standard boilerplate, which I think is a great idea. The directors prefer there to be synergy across all our public-facing outputs to really leverage the HutSec brand, you know?”
Was I having a stroke? I just blinked at her, not even trying to make sense of what she’d said. How had I been here twelve years and I still had no fucking idea what anyone was talking about half the time?
