Short Story: Stockholm
“Harassment isn’t the right word. It’s just that, sometimes, working for Di can be terrifying.”
The Keurig makes its sounds — it reminds me a bit of connecting to dial-up internet — and the artificial smell of cinnamon fills up the kitchen. Starbucks coffee pods and a bagel sandwich from the deli downstairs make Mondays more bearable, something to look forward to when faced with the almost impossible ordeal of getting out of bed at 6am and fighting my way onto a crowded subway car for an hour-long commute.
I like the office like this, completely quiet, at most one or two other people who are still too groggy to engage in conversation. I could stay at home for an extra half hour of sleep or the same mindless scrolling I’m about to engage in at my desk, but that would mean coming into the space when it’s already full, and something about that makes me angsty. Like when I spend the holidays at my parents’ and wake up to find everyone already having breakfast. I don’t like it when things start without me.
I hear the door and I immediately get moody. It’s too early! I grab my cup and peek out into the hallway. It’s Nat. She’s also not a morning person, which I love, but I’m her boss, so I’ll need to pretend to work while she’s around. Fuck. I dump an extra Mini Moo in my coffee as a treat to make up for it, and head back to my desk.
Nat is a recent hire, but in her short time here, she’s already become my favorite. She’s rough on the people skills and not a great listener, but she learns things fast, she does them faster, and she doesn't require much hand holding. There’s something kinda cute about how unpolished she is, and I feel protective of her, like she’s a little sister of sorts.
I would still prefer her to not be in the office at this hour.
She turns around as soon as she hears me come into the cubicle, frozen in the middle of unraveling the gigantic scarf around her neck in a choreography I almost know by heart now (at one point the scarf goes down to her waist before finally going out over her head).
“Hey,” I say as I put down my coffee, wondering what I’d rather do less: look at my inbox or talk?
“Hi.”
She resumes taking off the scarf, but in a hurry, messing up the movements. Is something off?
“How was your weekend?” I can’t bear my inbox.
“It was okay.”
“How was Belle’s wedding?” I had a great excuse to not go. Well, not great, obviously I don’t relish that my father has cancer, but no one would ever dare question me when I say I can’t go to something because of him (even though I don't really explain how his sickness interferes with the plan). Not that Belle would question it — I bet she was relieved I didn’t show up.
Nat isn’t answering me. Maybe something happened? Too much booze, an embarrassing office hookup? I get excited at the anticipation of gossip. But when she turns back around, her face gives me a bad feeling: something is off, and it’s not fun.
“Can I talk to you?” she asks. “In the conference room?”
It’s somewhat ironic that the office’s largest room is the only place we can have private meetings; the millennial open-floor plan doesn’t take into account the possibility (or I should say, certainty) of office intrigue. I close the sliding door behind me, coffee cup still in hand, which I immediately realize could signal that I’m not taking the moment seriously.
But should I take it seriously? Despite her twisted expression, I hold out hope. Maybe she got another job. I would hate that, I guess, but it’s not a “bad” thing. Not the kind of bad that her face is implying. I don’t want that kind of bad for her.
I sit down slowly, hoping my demeanor will communicate that, in spite of the cartoon llama making a pun on my coffee cup, I'm taking this seriously. Then a thought crosses my mind: I should tell her that, depending on what she says, I may have to report it — it’s the law. But that feels too stern without knowing what the conversation is about, the wrong foot to start on.
“What’s up?”
“Something happened at the wedding.” She’s not meeting my gaze, and her breathing is clipped. Her hands are holding one another, as if to stop themselves from trembling.
“Is everything okay?”
She takes a moment. “My weekend has been terrible, honestly.”
That last part sounds a bit off. Not untrue, but like something she thought she’d say to make herself more comfortable, like when I admit I’m nervous during a presentation to get the audience on my side. How bad is it? My brain is running a predictive algorithm. The wedding was Friday. Something happened that ruined her entire weekend. She came in early to talk to me about it. I feel almost certain that it’s office-related.
I should say the reporting thing.
“You can tell me anything.”
“It’s about Di.”
Okay, I definitely need to say it. It’s about Di! My boss, therefore her boss’ boss! It’s so clear that I should say it that I almost feel like a character in a tutorial: If she reports an incident of harassment, I must a) keep her secret, b) tell her to get over it, c) report her allegations to an HR representative. A and B result in a translucent red filter that reminds you of the information in the slide you didn’t pay attention to earlier.
But it’s about Di. Am I... excited? Why would I be excited? Di is the reason I work here, the reason I want to work here. Something wrong happening between her and Nat is one of the worst possible scenarios I can imagine for my life. And yet…
“What happened?”
Nat takes a moment, during which I should interject my disclaimer. But I don’t, and she starts talking.
* * *
“That’s bad.”
Ooof. I was stupidly hoping he’d say it wasn’t a big deal. That’s the problem with talking to Lucas: he disagrees with me (and most people) so often, that when he agrees it feels like it has to be true. I’m glad I can’t see his face, eyebrow probably raised, or it’d make me worry even more.
“You think?” I feel like hanging up before he answers.
“I don’t know that it’s harassment, but it’s bad.”
“So you don’t think it’s harassment,” I cling pathetically to the reassurance.
“I would have to look up the definition. But your boss got her high—”
“She didn’t get her high, she offered weed. Other employees were smoking too.”
“Yeah, but your assistant may not know that she can turn down an offer like that from Di without endangering her job.”
“Di is not like that.”
“Well, then she gave Nat a ride — high by the way, so she put her life in danger — and in that ride gave her feedback on how Nat’s failed to live up to expectations and needs to shape or else. And when she had a panic attack in the car, all Di could do was leave her at home and speed away.”
I don’t know how to respond, because it sounds really bad.
“Nat’s not my assistant.”
“Wait I thought she was.”
“She’s the department’s assistant.”
“I don’t think that helps.”
“No, I know.” I let out a big sigh, and feel the sting of tears approaching. Whoa. “What do I do?”
“Get the fuck away from it.”
“What does that mean? Keep it to myself?”
“If you’re sure this isn’t gonna come out at all, sure, that’s safest. But if it does come out and then they find Natalie told you and you didn’t do anything...”
I hyperventilate. Or at least that’s how it feels. How do I normally breathe?
“I don’t even know if this is gonna turn into a thing.”
“It feels like it’s already a thing, if she felt the need to tell you.”
“Yeah but that was more about unburderning, sharing it so she could feel better.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Jesus! Can you be more supportive?”
“I can, but you didn’t ask me to be supportive, you asked me what to do.”
“Lucas.” He has no patience with me when I’m needy, but he should know better than to try to be right.
He puts on a softer tone. “You want me to ask Radia if it counts as harassment? She probably knows.”
I say no. I know it won’t. Harassment isn’t the right word.
It’s just that, sometimes, working for Di can be terrifying.
* * *
I tell Lucas not to tell anyone. He says he doesn’t know anyone who’d be remotely interested. He loves to shit on my job like that. As always, he’s right — we act as if the eyes of the word are upon us, as if we’re an essential part of the cultural conversation, when in fact most people would be hard pressed to even remember we exist. But I still swear him to secrecy. It’s not about being rational. Things aren’t rational right now. The smallest sparks are starting fires that burn entire places down.
And even if the average person doesn’t know who we are, the industry does. And they do pretty much because of Di. She put us on the map — granted, by putting herself on the map, but still. The trades love her. Every time someone needs a quote about disrupting/upending/reforming/including/challenging, without fail: a picture of Di wearing a pair of her stylish earrings, next to a big statement about surviving her time at an Ivy League school and not giving a shit about the way things are usually done, focusing instead on putting out truly innovative work and modeling a better industry in everything we do (that is, if she remembers to say “we”). The board just gave her a seat so she wouldn’t take a job at a bigger shop — that and a raise that ate a big chunk of our budget. I don’t think she would’ve left; scrappy underdog fits her much better than establishment. But it was no contest: if she did leave, we’d be pretty much back to square one.
Di is also the reason I didn’t quit two years ago. Before she came in, I was wasting away at my desk, occupying my time with sending out resumés and resenting any of my friends who showed signs of happiness. I love what I do, but I hated doing it here. And then someone got fired and Di came along, and the first thing she did was schedule coffees with every employee. I was skeptical of her, but she scheduled mine at The Drama Shop, completely disarming me: “I saw on your website that you write plays.” It was a little too much, sure, but the attention didn’t fail to make me feel special. We didn’t have coffee (they don’t sell coffee there), but she let me talk for half an hour about why How I Learned To Drive was the best play ever written and she was (or very convincingly pretended to be) interested, her spotted red earrings bobbing as she nodded along. She told me she had been an actress in a different life, and cried talking about an experience of abuse at the hands of a renowned director. Coming from someone else, it would’ve felt like TMI, but from her, it just made me believe she truly understood why I liked the play so much.
She also somehow found a way to tie the playwriting back to my job and asked an explosive question: “why aren’t you manager yet?” I fumbled to respond, but it was rhetorical. She said she knew the company had been “dicking me around” and asked me to hold off on leaving — if I gave her a little bit of time, she would get me what I truly deserved. She held my hand as she said it, and it felt tender, like we were long-lost siblings who had finally found each other. I stopped sending out resumés.
Within a year, she fulfilled her promise, promoting me to manager after Belle quit. It wasn’t quite how I imagined it — none of us thought Belle was a good boss, but I felt queasy taking her job, considering the way she left. The official reason was that the stress of planning her wedding on top of the job was too much to handle. But there was also the fact that after a few months working under Di, Belle developed an eating disorder; her throat closed up whenever she tried to eat in public. She scaled back at work, and Di slowly transferred all of Belle’s responsibilities to me, until one day there was nothing else for her to do.
It wasn’t long before we were gathered in the conference room, Di announcing that Belle was leaving for good, and that I would be stepping up. Belle smiled throughout the meeting and spoke up only to express gratitude for her time with us.
* * *
Nat’s been making a wounded deer face all morning, which is deeply annoying. I know I should feel bad for her. From what she told me, Di was pretty unfair, saying stuff like the company had “taken a chance” on her (which seemed like a dig at Nat’s CUNY education, if not worse) and that so far “people weren’t impressed.” Which was plain untrue, because sure, I sometimes bitched about Nat to Di, and maybe I didn’t relay praise as often because, I don’t know, it’s not as natural for me. Nat can be a pain in my ass, is a pain in my ass most of the time, but that’s why I love her? The two are inextricable. I hate that Nat now probably thinks I don’t like her, and I hate that Di took it upon herself to deliver that kind of feedback, and I have no idea why she would do something like that. That’s not the way things go around here, or at least it’s not how they should go.
But Nat’s innocence-lost face is grating on me. It’s making me feel like I have to do something. And it’s a Monday. And I didn’t go to the wedding in part so that I would not get involved in this exact type of situation. It’s like I resent Nat for telling me.
Not “like,” I do resent her for telling me.
I eventually pull her aside and ask her if she needs to take the day. She says no. I push back, saying she doesn’t look well. She falls silent. “We can manage without you,” I assure her, and then clock that it’s probably not the best thing to say. “I mean, I just understand that being here today could be triggering, and we can pick up the slack if it means you’re taking care of yourself.”
“What would I even do?”
My toes curl inside my shoes. “I don’t know. Talk to friends, watch a movie. Treat yourself.”
“Yeah, maybe I can go to the gym, sweat it out.”
OhMyGodPleaseStopTalkingAndFuckingGo. “Sounds great.”
* * *
Nat leaves, and barely a moment later, I see Di gliding across the hallway, sunglasses still on. I wonder if they crossed paths.
I check the clock — 11 AM. What happened to arriving early to show commitment? I’m really on edge. I decide to step out for a cigarette. Will that help?
Fuck it, I need it.
She walks by me, flashing a smile and preparing to say some morning greeting when she stops, seeing the cigarette in my hand. “I’ll join you.”
We often take cigarette breaks together, a sort of informal meeting, extra time that I get with her that others don’t — cancer is a concern for another day. Which reminds me:
“I think I cracked the story thingy,” I say as we pass the turnstiles and walk out onto the grass.
“The ‘story thingy?’ Is that what writers call it?” she mocks me, letting out a beautiful stream of vapor. She looks gorgeous when she vapes, Juul should pay her for doing it. It’s great advertising.
“The climate change problem? Making people care about something that’s gonna happen in the future.”
“What you got?”
“I remembered there’s this fable, the ant and the grasshopper?”
She’s already googling it. Hasn’t she ever heard of it? I try to picture her as a child, someone reading stories to her before tucking her in. I feel almost certain that never happened.
“I think we’re still coming up against the same issue: I hate that ant,” she says as her eyes scan a Wikipedia entry. “What an asshole. Why couldn’t it share some of the food?”
“Well, because the grasshopper didn’t do any work—”
“That’s white supremacy.”
She’s serious. There’s a silence. Then she softens.
“I don’t think your idea is totally off-base, but… what about ‘for a rainy day’? Noah’s Ark? We show all the animals that would still be around if people had believed him?”
“That could work. We could make it funny. Really funny.” My cigarette is done, and I’m a bit disappointed. I’m having a good time. This is my favorite part of the job.
“Think about it,” she says, putting away her vape. “I’ve decided you’re gonna present this to the board yourself, so you better have something great.”
I freeze mid-movement. “Are you serious?”
“Dead serious. I talked to Aditya at Belle’s wedding this weekend and told him you’re my number two. They’re looking forward to meeting you.”
“Wow… Di, I don’t know what to say…”
“From now on, you should act as if you were gonna take over. Because you know I’m gonna graduate from here at some point, and when I do, I’m taking you with me — but, if you decide to stay, you shouldn’t settle for anything other than my job.”
I can only manage a nod and a “thanks.” I’m ecstatic. I wanna call Lucas.
But thinking about Lucas gives me a bad feeling, and then I remember, and the joy evaporates as it all comes rushing back. I wonder if she’s gonna say anything.
As if on cue, she taps my shoulder before we step back in. “Speaking of which — Belle’s wedding.”
My heart’s beating like crazy, and I almost can’t hear her next words.
“We missed you.”
“Yeah, my dad—”
“I know, but you need to find a way when it’s something like this. I can’t introduce you to people if you’re not there, and it makes it look like you’re not taking the job seriously. Aditya was very disappointed you didn’t show.”
“Belle doesn’t work here anymore… I didn’t know board members were going.”
“You should’ve asked before you decided to skip it. It was really unprofessional.”
“How would I have known to ask?”
Her voice changes. Not louder, but more intense. “If you want this, it’s gotta show. They expect the extra mile from me and from anyone I vouch for. You embarrassed me. I talked you up as my successor and then you didn’t show up. Don’t make me regret choosing you.”
I don’t know what to say, and I can’t hold her gaze, so I focus on the earrings — a golden hoop around a jade stone.
“Do we understand each other?” she presses.
I speak, but my mouth is dry, so it’s more of a croak. “Yeah. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t don’t let it happen again.”
Then she smiles, grabbing my hand. “I’m so excited for that rainy day idea! Can’t wait to see what you come up with.”
* * *
“So she blames you for what happened with your assistant.”
Lucas says this matter-of-factly as he begins collecting the debris of the meal I just inhaled and putting it back in the take-out bag. I hate it when he does this, stating things as if they were obvious, making me feel dumb even when it’s not clear I should. “What? No. How— what makes you think that?”
“She didn’t make any sense. On the one hand, whatever she said about you to the board members was so successful that they want you to present your work to them personally, but on the other, your absence was so noted that it jeopardized your status at the company. Which one is it?”
“That’s just how she talks. She’s always a bit over the top. I don’t see how it relates to the thing with Nat.”
“She knows she fucked up, and she thinks it wouldn't have happened if you were there, so she’s letting you know how much is at stake.”
I notice he’s still in his underwear and hasn’t changed into sweatpants. Does he want sex?
“Hmmm I think you’re reading too much into it.”
“So she’s never done that? Blame you for her mistakes?”
I feel my body reacting before an answer forms in my brain, a wave of anger crashing into me. A meeting a few months ago with a trendy designer. She initially sent me to deal with them and expressed very little interest in their work, but when they came to her directly, she told them I had failed to pass on their materials and scolded me in front of everybody. I was so angry I felt like I couldn’t speak to her ever again. I fantasized about all the ways I would tell her off when she asked me what was going on. She never did; she didn’t even notice I was angry. Eventually I began doubting whether I should be mad at all, and decided to let it go.
“I just don’t think that’s what’s happening now,” I say, ignoring the memory. I don’t wanna agree with Lucas and his matter-of-factness.
He sits next to me and puts my feet on his lap, my pinky toe grazing his crotch. He does want sex. Do I want sex?
“Do you think she means it? All this ‘successor’ talk?” He starts massaging my feet.
“I think I’m good at my job, and I know she thinks so too.”
“And do you want that? To be her?”
I commend him internally for still engaging with the conversation, in spite of his visible semi. “Well not be her. But have her job? Absolutely.”
His fingers dig into my feet, and the pleasure of the massage complements his words: “Then maybe let the Natalie thing go?”
“I guess… if it doesn’t seem like she’ll press it…”
His hands make their way up my legs.
“Babe, I just ate… my stomach…”
“I’m not interested in your stomach.” He pulls my underwear down.
Before I cum, I think of Di scolding me in that meeting, and the remembered shame pushes me over the edge.
* * *
Natalie looks progressively worse each day. I try to ignore it at first, giving her lighter tasks and engaging in banter that I hope doesn’t betray the effort I have to put into it. But the dark circles under her eyes keep growing, and her personality is turning more and more aloof. She was never particularly interested in office friendships, but I could always rely on her for some witty commentary, saying out loud the snarky things we all thought and weren't brave enough to verbalize. But now she’s socially dead. It’s sad to watch, but it’s becoming more difficult to look away.
Against my better judgement, I call her into the conference room for a check-in.
“You’ve been so quiet lately.”
“Yeah…”
“Is everything all right?”
She takes a while. She hates talking about her feelings, something with which I relate.
“I’ve been struggling. Mentally.”
“How so?”
“Panic attacks. It’s just hard to predict when they’ll come. I’ll be in the middle of doing something and, like…”
“What?”
“Just this… fear. I feel terrified.”
“Of what?”
“... I don’t know.”
I have to read the next question off my notebook. Reading it feels like I’m not the one speaking.
“Is this related to the incident you reported to me? With Di?”
“Uh… I just think that... maybe I can’t handle pot that well?”
“So why did you smoke it?”
“Because, you know, everyone was doing it, it seemed fun.”
I again read from my notes. “Did you feel like you had to? Did someone make you feel that way?”
“No! No, I just… it put me in a weird place, and then when Di was saying all that stuff…”
Fuck.
I hesitate.
“Do you want me to tell someone else what you told me? Escalate it?”
Nat perks up, for the first time looking me in the eyes. “Have you?”
“No. I wanted to respect your privacy, protect you from any fallout.”
“Fallout?”
“You know, whatever… I don’t know, HR stuff.”
“Like what?”
“Well, they will probably want to get Di’s version of events.”
“So she would know that I said something?”
“I mean, it’s only you two in that story.”
“There were other people smoking pot with her.”
“But there was no one else in the car.”
Nat falls silent, and I feel like throwing up. My hands are sweating as I grip my notebook, staining the ink.
She looks down again. “Don’t say anything, please.”
“Thing is, Nat, you don’t look well. And your work has been… people are noticing. If this has impacted you seriously, I may have to say something, even if you don’t want me to.”
“... No, I’ll work on it. I don’t want her to know.”
She gets up to leave. I don’t feel relieved. I thought I’d feel relieved. I can’t stop myself: “Do you wanna take some time off? A vacation? We can prorate it.”
She slides the door open, gazing ahead. “Sure. That’d be nice.”
* * *
A few weeks later, back from vacation, Nat tells me that on the advice of her therapist and her parents, she’s quitting. I swallow the questions I’m too afraid to ask (Has she always seen a therapist or it did she start after the incident? How much did she tell her parents?). I try to argue, but everything I say comes out phony, and I eventually let it go. I say I’ll recommend her for whatever job she wants. I feel disgusting.
I rehearse the big speech with which I’m going to confront Di. I suspect Lucas is more amused than supportive when I ask him to coach me, but he does it nonetheless. “No, don’t make it personal. No, stick to talking about you, not her. Yeah, that’s good, focus on the situation, don’t go big.” When it feels like we’ve arrived at the perfect version, the one in which I tell Di how much I valued Nat and how much I wished she hadn’t interfered, and instead given me the opportunity to lead, he asks me one last time: is it worth it? I say yes. I say Di will respect me for sticking up for my subordinates. I feel like I believe that.
The next day, I can barely tell her that Nat is quitting before my mouth dries up and I’m out of breath. She nods. “Yeah, Nat didn’t feel like a good fit. So snarky, with those comments. It’s not really our culture.”
I wanna tell her that I saw her laughing at those comments, when they were about people that she didn’t like. I wanna tell her that she’s snarky too, that she’s been very unprofessional during some of our meetings, trash talking colleagues that, as my boss, she should never disparage in front of me. But my throat is parched. I pour myself a glass of water from the snack table by the projector.
Di keeps talking, playing with her left earring, a string of pearls. “Did you know that at Belle’s wedding, she made a joke about what time I come into the office? In front of Adytia? How fucked up is that?”
The water feels like it’s gliding past my throat, not being absorbed. I wanna say that she’s the one who told us we were friends first, coworkers second. And the one who said punctuality mattered. My voice is almost a whisper: “I don’t think she knew who Aditya was.”
“Then she shouldn’t have made that joke.”
I take another gulp of water. “Did you say anything to her about it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you… tell her that the joke had been inappropriate?”
“... The wedding went pretty late, I can’t remember all of it. Maybe. Why?”
“Just… she… she didn’t seem like she was in great shape lately. Before she quit. And it kinda started after the wedding. So I wondered if something bad happened.”
Di takes a while to answer.
“If she can’t take feedback, she’s in the wrong industry.”
I allow the silence to grow uncomfortable, which is probably what prompts her to speak again. “She needs to learn to take responsibility for her actions.” She looks me in the eyes. “We all do.”
I nod, telling myself that this is her way of admitting guilt. That I’ve delivered my feedback.
Then I change the subject, complimenting her outfit.
* * *
I’m running late. I barely slept all night but somehow managed to sleep past my alarm. Today. The day I’m giving my first presentation to the board. I am never late, but of course today would be the day.
When I swipe my ID at the turnstiles, I almost expect it to not work. It’s a running joke in the company, that our IDs won’t work if we’ve been fired and haven’t been told yet. But my ID works. After all, it’s only 9:05, the meeting was at 9. It’s not that bad?
I come in, and the office is empty. For some reason my brain takes it as a clear sign that I have, indeed, been fired, but then I realize how stupid that is. Where is everyone? Maybe I got the date wrong? Is it still the weekend?
Am I going insane?
I hear some voices, and follow the sound to the conference room. I try to get a peek through the blurry glass pane — it looks like it’s full. I go in.
Aditya is addressing the whole staff. Di is standing next to him. Some board members are nearby, as well as the other directors. Is she giving my presentation for me? But why would the staff be invited? I look around and see Grace nearby.
“What’s going on?” I whisper.
“Di is leaving.”
The pit in my stomach doubles in size. Is she being fired? Is this because of Nat?
Grace whispers again. “She’s going to MTE. Probably triple her salary here. Too soon, if you ask me.”
The room bursts into applause, and someone pops champagne. People line up to hug Di.
When it’s my turn, she smiles, tears in her eyes, her earrings (two silver spirals) swinging as she shakes her head with a “can you believe this” look. Like when politicians spot someone in the crowd and point, as if to say “I see you. Everyone else is a stranger, but I know you.”
Our hug lasts a long time, and it feels really good on my body.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask.
She breaks it off, still smiling. “I couldn’t risk it getting out, I’m sorry.” Then she leans in, not quite whispering, but still intimate. “Give me a few months to get settled and I’ll steal you away.”
* * *
Eventually she stops responding to my texts, though she sometimes hearts them. I wonder how much of what she said to me was true; when I asked Aditya if I am being considered for her job, he gave me a look, and I quickly realized he had no idea who I was.
I don’t think she’s going to reach out. I feel like I’ve turned her off somehow. I wonder if there’s a new me over at MTE, a new doll she wants to play with while I collect dust at the bottom of the toy chest.
I send a message to Belle on Facebook:
Congratulations on the wedding! I was so sad to miss it. I hope you’re enjoying married life?
If you have some time, I’d love to get coffee with you? I don’t feel right about the way you left.
To my surprise, she agrees. We meet near the office. It feels risky, but I keep reminding myself that Di is gone.
Belle looks good. Different. Won’t shut up about all the “healthy” changes she’s made in her life. I remember why I didn’t like her: she’s just not that smart. I almost feel like not apologizing, but I sorta said in the message that I would.
“So, about you leaving. It felt a bit like you were struggling and instead of supporting you, Di pushed you out. I felt kinda guilty for taking your job, like I was condoning her behavior. I didn’t speak up and maybe I should’ve?”
Belle falls silent. I wonder if it was a mistake to bring it up. Did she come here to yell at me?
Her face changes. “She used to terrorize me with you. Before the end. She would bring you up all the time, compliment your work, compare me to you. I thought you were in on it.”
“Oh, no! She just gave me your projects and said she was ‘changing the scope of your position.’ I didn’t know you were leaving for good until it actually happened.”
Belle scoffs. “It was… I never knew where I stood. In the beginning she treated me like some sort of co-conspirator, like we were gonna change the company together. I mean, that's literally what she said. And then… I don’t know what I did. I felt like I was failing all the time without even knowing what exactly I was failing at.”
I exhale, feeling some knot inside me being untied. “I hear that. When she liked me, I felt like I was the most special person in the world, but when she didn’t... she would berate me for not doing things she never even asked me to do. And I still felt like it was my fault!”
We make jokes, laugh together. I feel good. Then I remember I have to go back to the office after this, and the feeling’s gone. I really wish the company didn’t feel so boring now that’s she’s gone.
I think back on what I said, grabbing my coffee to go. “Well, ‘berate’ is not the right word.”
“Right,” Belle nods as we get up. “She never yelled.”
* * *
Her face still pops up every once in a while. I don't think she’s as special at MTE (it’s a big pond), but the trades still love her.
In one of her quotes, she talks about the fable, the ant and the grasshopper. I feel angry that she used me. I feel proud that she remembered something I said.
I draft a text telling her I miss her, and that we should get together. I hesitate for almost half an hour, then send it without looking, telling myself it’s not a big deal unless I make it a big deal.
I check every couple of minutes. Still no answer.
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Illustration by Deepti Sunder, revision by Lilly Camp.
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