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From the pages of Katie’s dictionary:
Silence
Si′l?ns
Noun
The knowledge that anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.
We all shuffled into the conference room at 8:59, as our meetings would promptly start on the hour. I saw two empty seats near the door, rushing to grab one when I turned and saw Chaz make eye contact and give me a head nod. “Suzie?” I called over to the other newer paralegal who’d just transferred to our firm from our headquarters in Montana. “Why don’t you sit with me in case we need to team up on anything?” The look on Chaz’s face was livid. Suzie, who’d been standing next to Chaz, glanced over, and glared at him as she accepted my invitation. “That’s a great idea, Katie.”
Phew. One less creep to encounter today.
The head of our firm, Frank Fink, entered the room, and we all smiled and said good morning. If we were the solar system, Frank would be the sun. While the work culture could be toxic at times for me, being different onthe scale of values, Frank was the reason I stayed and probably the reason everyone stayed. He was a kind, older man who you’d know would never come at you at 4:30 pm on a Friday with a surprise. If something was wrong, he didn’t ice you out. And when you did good, he congratulated you immediately. There was no secretive narcissism in Frank, and nowadays, that is rare with a boss.
Frank cleared his throat. “Good morning, gang. Hope everyone had a stellar weekend. Me and the wife headed to the coast and did a little ice-cold surfing. My teeth are still chattering!”
Everyone let out a laugh, nodding in approval.
“I’ve realized we’ve had a lot of changes this year. Quite a few of you are new to our firm, and other than your names, we don’t know anything about you. I’d like to change that today.” My heart immediately began racing. This had never happened before. Our Monday briefings had always been just that—brief, to the point, andwork-related.
“Let’s go around the room, sharing whatever we want to, nothing we don’t, and let’s make it fun, guys!” His cheer was contagious for everyonebut me.
“I’ll start. You allshouldknow I’m Frank. What you probably don’t know is I collect snow globes—the glass kind. Before you get any ideas for my Christmas present, I only like to buy them myself!” Nervous laughter croaked from my throat. I had a mild sweat breakout along my hairline.
We went around the room, and I learned that Cynthia from Indiana was married with four kids under the age of ten. Surprising in the least, because she didn’t wear a wedding ring and seemed to be always going out with‘the boys,’as the office collectively called the group of male post-grads who worked here.
Darren was a first-generation college graduate and had been working on getting his parents immigrated here from Zimbabwe. Jackie shared that her favorite color was blue, and she and her husband hosted a poker game every Thursday for charity. Michaela commented about her love for snow globes as well, and a few people cringed. Jonathan talked about the weekend that he spent roasting a chicken and perfecting his sourdough bread recipe and walked aroundthe room with a picture of perfectly crisp looking loaves.
Suzie was next, meaning I went directly after her and I still didn’t know what I would say. Suzie stood up and introduced herself while simultaneously whipping out a picture of her calico cat. Suzie told us she was single and identified as a ‘Crazy Cat Lady.’People smirked and smiled,the boyswhispering amongst themselves and laughing.
She sat back in her chair, her expression changed as if considering that she may have overshared information about herself. But I felt like anything I would say was an overshare. Frank nodded at me, giving me a verbal prompt as well. “Katie, you're up to bat. What did you do this weekend?”
Whew.He asked a direct question that I had a prepared response to.
“I adopted a dog.”
The crowd went wild. Like my experience at the pet store, this revelation set off my co-workers in an endearing way I didn’t know they were capable of. They all started bombarding me with theusualquestions for my dog ownership; “What breed and is it a boy or a girl?” “Where from?” “How old?” “Trained or naughty?” “Show us a picture!”Several people backed that up, responding in whooping ‘yeahs!’
I hammered out the answers as if I was reading off her adoption paperwork.
“Miniature poodle. Girl—named Dolly. We think she’s about three. Trained. She’s gettingBytes & Barkkibble,Surf & Turftreats, and getting groomed at the pet store on the 29th.” A few people nodded at the extra information.
I added a few more tidbits, expecting those questions to be next, and was surprised how that sparked another round. Meanwhile, I pulled out the picture I took of Dolly last night for my social media. Frank motioned to Jackie, his assistant, who retrieved a cord to hook into my phone. “Let’s cast that on the big screen, shall we?”
I didn’t expect anything less after revealing the news about Dolly, and once again, I felt more comfortable in my skin with my co-workers than I ever had before.
As Jackie handed me the cord to cast my phone on the screen, it must’ve had a software aneurysm because my phone swiped back a dozen photos and froze in place. I visibly panicked, stood, and said, “Jackie, wait a second.” I put one finger up to stop her, but her back was to me as she and Frank were consumed with troubleshooting the projector.
“Just a second, Katie. I’m just as excited to see it as you are to share it. Aha!” Jackie swapped the cord placement, and you’d think in my lapse of brain function during a panic episode, I would’ve had the wherewithal to simplyunplug the cord from my phone.No, sometimes it’s just not that simple for my brain to comprehend.
In a flash, a photo of me getting ready for work while wearing thathideousshapeless vomit gray coat that I took to show my mother what heatless curls looked like while using the belt from your bathrobe, along with my exuding shame—captured the attention of the entire office.
Katies Biblical Application
..And if I perish, I perish. Esther 4:16
“Oops, Katie, I think—” Jackie now understood what I was trying to prevent.
