Dead End Job (25 page)

My mom insisted on staying with me for a few days once I got home. I spent the next week or so in bed riding the manic-depressive high of strong opiates. When I was happy I was either watching TV, chatting on the phone or messing around on my laptop (it was too hard to read or do anything that required any type of concentration) and when the happy haze dissipated, I was either cranky, uncomfortable, or sleeping. I slept a lot—up to twenty hours a day. My mom patiently puttered around the house, cooking me healthy food, doing my laundry and bringing me handfuls of antibiotics and ibuprofens for the swelling.

When I went to my check up appointment, ten days after the “incident,” my doctor gave me a rave review. My injuries were healing ahead of schedule, and even though I would always have a nasty scar, I was promised that if I kept healing at the same rate I would regain full function of my left arm and shoulder within about six months. The doctor patiently reviewed the large stack of leave paperwork that my mom had filled out for me, and signed the appropriate boxes indicating that I could return to work on a part time basis starting the next week, and could go back full time within a month. Joy.

After we got home from the appointment, my mother packed her small bag and returned to her home in Anacortes, a small town to the north of Seattle. I’d insisted that I would be fine, that she had return to her life, and even though I still needed help around, I assured her that I would be able to get friends to help out.

Alex turned up the next evening. I gave her one of my vicodins, we shared a bottle of wine, and we spent the next few hours shopping online in a slightly stoned and drunk state.

The rest of the week flew by: Amanda came over the following day after work, then I had only one day to myself and Beverly was over entertaining me, picking up dinner and driving me around for two nights and three days. By the Sunday before I returned to the office I was alone again, but, feeling optimistic, I took a city bus down to the Gene Juarez Salon & Spa downtown and spent the afternoon having fresh highlights put into my long hair, getting a facial and having my fingernails and toenails painted in a beautiful blush pink. Even though my arm was still in a sling, my wrists were still bandaged and I had some little scabs left on my arms and face, I figured that getting pampered was a good way to put a positive spin on heading back to Merit. It sort of worked, I
was
feeling much better about my appearance, but by the time I got home in a cab I was completely wiped out. I had planned to select, iron and lay out an outfit for work in the morning, but instead I found myself only having the energy to barely glance in the mirror at my $300 worth of services before I brushed my teeth and headed back to bed.

Monday morning came much too quickly. My alarm went off at 6:30 and instead of struggling to get up, I found myself wracked with anxiety, feeling like it was the first day of high school all over again. The fact that I was really headed back to the office was not only surreal but also completely anxiety-inducing. My heart was already pounding as I practically jumped out of bed into the shower, brushed out my newly blonded locks and put on some light eye make-up and a whole shit-ton of bronzer, attempting to cover up the very pale skin of my face that I’d not been able to tan since the accident. Because it was now officially “Seattle hot” outside I donned on a light but long, bell sleeved dress that had an empire waist and large graphic red and pink floral print, matched with my gold strappy flat sandals. I stopped by the coffee shop on my way to the bus and got a cranberry bran muffin and a latte, which I picked at nervously while waiting for the bus on the corner of 76th St. and Highway 99.

The bus came quickly, and I made it into the office by 7:45. I pressed the button for 29 and rode up in the elevator alone. When the elevator bell chimed twenty seconds later and the doors opened up to the Merit reception it was difficult to relate the brightly-lit and immaculate hallway with the carnage and horror that I’d experienced there only a couple of weeks before. In a creepy mind-fuck, the beige carpeting that had been stained by pools of mine and Martin’s blood was gone. It had been neatly replaced with carpet that was the exact same pattern and color, and the glass doors that had been installed were undamaged replicas of the doors that Rocky had put multiple bullets through.

Even though on the surface it seemed that nothing sinister had happened in that clean and bland office hallway, when I walked slowly over to the doors, my body was overwhelmed with a sudden chill as I took my key card out of my purse. A shiver started at my hair follicles and worked its way all the way down to my calves as I pressed my card close to the sensor box. The buzz of the door provided a sharp break to the quiet hum of the fluorescent lighting in the hallway, and I held my breath.

I don’t know what horrible sight I was expecting to encounter when the door clicked open and I slowly pulled it towards me, but as soon as I stepped through it, I was greeted by the familiar early morning sounds of the IT department chatter on the left side of the kitchen and the coffee machine grinding and humming as it brewed up a morning pot. I paused for a moment, standing just inside the door in the exact place I had survived a bullet wound weeks earlier. I turned around and stared at the door where glass had shattered down on my bloody body, and I had closed my eyes readying myself for death, surveying the normalcy with suspicion. Suddenly out of the corner of my vision I spotted a dark mass coming towards me. I gasped and whirled around, ready to defend myself.

But when I completed my turn and jump combo, I came face to face with one of the IT workers—a large, BO-smelling man with a greasy grey ponytail who was merely putting more wear and tear in the already well defined, grimy carpet trail between the IT department and the coffee maker. He looked at me and blinked, probably surprised by my defensive reaction.

“Uh, hey. Good morning,” he said uncomfortably, then passed by me without stopping, making a bee-line to the coffee pot.

I felt my whole body relax. Smiling and flushing awkwardly, I entered the kitchen, stepping around stinky-greasy-pony-tail man and emerged into the quiet early morning peace of the legal department.

As usual, there was not another soul around on this side of the building when I got to my desk. I sat down and stared at the log-in screen, realizing that I could not for the life of me remember my most recent password. I was already on hold with the help desk when I heard the door to the front entrance click open, a swift succession of footsteps and a little voice calling my name.

“Louisa! Louisa! There you are!” It was Priti.

“Oh, hi Priti,” I said, still listening to the hold music. “How have you been?”

“I’m good, but are you coming? Everyone is waiting for you.” She was flustered.

“Sorry, coming to what?”

“The all-company meeting. You didn’t see the invitation from Mr. Curtis?”

“No, definitely not.”

“Oh, it’s going on right now in the main conference room. Come on. Come with me!”

I didn’t see that I had much choice. I put down my headset and hung up the phone, and half a minute later I was in the elevator with Priti headed up to the conference room.

I didn’t even have time to ask her what was going on as we rushed out of the elevator and into the large conference room. As soon as we entered the room the first thing I saw was the projector, displaying a large company logo and my horrible employee ID photograph underneath the words: “Louisa Hallstrom: Special Recognition Award Recipient.”

Oh no. No, no, no
.

The door clicked shut behind me, and hundreds of heads turned in my direction. I bet every single person employed by Merit was packed into that room. Faces that I’d never seen before were staring back at me, clapping and smiling.

Priti had been standing just in front of me, but now she scooted off to the side and disappeared into the crowd, as my fellow Merit employees stood up, still staring at me, and began clapping even louder. My immediate reaction was to flush a brighter pink than the flowers on my dress. I stood in the entrance to the room, not knowing where to go or what to say for a few long seconds until the clapping died down and I heard Mr. Curtis’ voice over the PA system.

“Come on up here, Louisa,” he said from the front of the room near the projector.

I slowly started walking down the center aisle of the conference room towards the front, approaching Mr. Curtis as he motioned with his hand for me to step forward. When I got to the front of the room, he grabbed my hand and shook it, firmly. My heart was pounding as I felt all of the eyes in the room boring into my back. All I wanted was for this meeting to be over so I could get the hell out of there. I shook his hand, then stood there staring at him like an idiot.

“Ah, hem,” he said into the microphone, looking at me.

Christ, does he expect me to give some kind of speech?
My face turned even redder.

When he realized that I wasn’t quite getting it, Mr. Curtis put his free hand on my shoulder and gently turned me around until I was facing the crowd, then began speaking.

“On behalf of the leadership teams at both Merit and NorCom PR, in honor of going above and beyond the call of her duties and position for the benefit of our team and company, we present Louisa Hallstrom with this Special Recognition Award.”

I peered out over my scarlet cheeks at the crowd, and much to my abject horror, saw not only was just about every employee at Merit present, but also Carla Stanton and the entire management team from NorCom PR, as well as the “I am going to eat your baby” face of Detective Rachel Lopez, the “I just smelled a fart” face of Detective Wang, and next to them, the still pretty damn hot and smiling face of Rocky.

I was really trying to get it together, but accidentally looked up at Detective Lopez, making brief eye contact and gulped. She lowered her chin and glared back. I wanted to look at Rocky, but I was too pussy to look back over in his direction with that pit bull standing next to him. Mr. Curtis was still talking about my award, and now he was holding some kind of plaque and pushing it urgently towards my midsection. Oops, I’d been spacing out again. I took it from him amidst more applause. He then turned me slightly to the left, and I was blinded by a camera flash. A young photographer in black was aiming her flashbulb at my face, gesturing for me to smile.

I did, and I was still holding the award when the rest of the leadership team approached me. They stood patiently in line, and one by one they wrapped their arms around my waist and smiled, looking at the photographer while she snapped away. I was a one-woman picture buffet. After a few minutes of this, the entire team gathered together with me in the middle for a group shot and I thought, incorrectly, that I was done with my morning’s duties.

Unfortunately the photographer and Mr. Curtis had other plans, and she began yelling instructions to the entire group of employees to come up to the front of the room for a company-wide photo, starring me.

The nerves and the heat from the flashbulbs combined hadn’t been a great combination for me. I felt tiny beads of sweat breaking out in all the good places: between my boobs, my lady mustache and all down my ass crack.  As the group gathered, I stood to the side smiling like a moron and wiped my arm across my lips as subtly as I could shifting uncomfortably in my dress, and made a mental note to not lift my arms up just in case I’d pitted out, which I was guessing I had.

The photographer was running circles around the group, moving people this way and that, coordinating by color or height or whatever would make us look as presentable as possible.

“OK, Miss Hallstrom! We’ll need you down in front,” the photographer said, getting peppier by the minute. She touched me on the shoulder and pushed me to the front and center of the group. “Now, hold up your award so everyone can see it!” She trilled. “And…Smile!” Flash, click! went the camera. I felt my face squish up, trying to protect my fried eyeballs which closed involuntarily at the flash. Great, I would probably look like a red, sweaty Shar-Pei in that one.

“I think we have it! Great job folks.” And that was a wrap.

As the cluster of people started to break apart, my only thought was evacuating the room as quickly as possible, heading to the ladies room and wiping my swampy parts, then hiding in a bathroom stall until I’d recovered from the humiliation of the morning. I trained my eyes down to the carpet, and headed for the back of the room towards the exit.

“Louisa! Wait!”

Nooooooooooo. But yes. For a split-second I thought about pretending like I didn’t hear him and quickly ducking into an elevator, leaving the office, heading down Union and then driving my car off of the nearest pier directly into the Sound. Unfortunately, that’s not how rational, functioning adults behave, so I took a deep breath, paused, turned around and flashed my best surprised yet smiley-happy face.

“Hi, Clark!” I said brightly, “How are you?”

“I’m great, thanks.” He caught up to me and we started walking together towards the elevators. “You look….sweaty. Are you doing OK?”

I’d spent quite a few of my cognizant hours imagining exactly how this particular interaction was going to go down. I’d pictured breezing back into the office in my cutest outfit, oblivious to my admiring co-workers, and not casually greeting Clark until hours later, like I hadn’t even thought about him or obsessed about our kiss. He would mean nothing to me, and he would want me. My apathy would be so hot to him that he’d confess his love and attraction to me, then pursue me aggressively and relentlessly, and it would be my choice whether or not to give him the time of day. Or…..not.

“I guess so. This whole thing is has been kind of overwhelming.”

“I bet. Anyways, I have to go talk to Scott in Marketing about a new project. We might need you to set up some offsite meetings for us next week at Starbucks headquarters. I know you’re probably slammed after coming back from your, uh, break. I just wanted to make sure that would that work for you before I sent over the requests. Cool?”