I knew it was going to be bad. From the moment my alarm went off and my eyelids refused to open, I knew it was going to be bad. I'm not normally one to get premonitions. I can't tell when storms are brewing, or know what it means when one ear is ringing and not the other one. I'm not in tune with future wavelengths. Not usually.
Part of it was the hangover. Part of it was waking up alone. Again. Part of it was seeing that my cat had knocked over my glass of water. Again. I was in a rut. The hot water was out. I went to make a sticky note for myself to yell at the landlord and found I was out of sticky notes. After finding a piece of paper, I couldn't get any of my magnets to keep it stuck to the refrigerator. My favorite stockings had a run in them, so I had to shave. No point going past the knee today, which depressed me even more. My god, where did all that pubic hair come from? Had it been that long?!
Made myself a cup of coffee, only to find out that I was out of sugar. Poured it out and checked the clock to see if I had time to stop at Dunkin before getting in and holy shit is it 8:46?! I shrieked as I threw on the first pair of flats I could find that matched and bolted out the door. I was in the car 2 minutes before I realized that the reason it's dark behind me is cus a storm is coming in. A quick peek over my shoulder reminds me my umbrella broke and I'd forgotten to buy a new one.
Kara was staring daggers at me as I finally made it in the door. Kara used to be a receptionist like me, but she slept her way into a personal secretary/assistant position. Yes, I was doing nothing with my Communication degree. I had no reason to be mad at her for using what was at her disposal to improve herself, but it still ticked me off. As if today was just searching for ways to beat me down. I silently mouthed "I'm sorry" to her as I set my purse and water bottle down and settled in for a long day of answering the phone.
"Finally hitting rock bottom?" Kara quipped after sizing me up when she was off the phone, I looked down, somewhat confused. She wasn't far off; I had buttoned up my shirt wrong.
"Crap!" I squeaked, as I set about unbuttoning and buttoning up my blouse. Kara twisted her lips in an ugly manner for a moment when my cleavage was visible. Kara had very little in the way of boobies and she'd always harbored something of a grudge about that. Not that she ever said anything, but the slight twist of her lips and the sideways glares said it for her. And not to say that she wasn't pretty, but I am certainly more gifted there. Her being jealous of my body was the first thing that had gone right all day, but Kara had a way of making things worse for people that I certainly wasn't looking forward to.
I was backed up until 9:30 with calls. As soon as I had a moment to myself, I set the phone to forward and slipped off to get some coffee. I had to take the long way around to avoid Kara, which would have been worth the extra effort, but as I came up on the break room I saw a guy in dark grey-blue overalls laying down underneath the counter.
"No no no nononono!" I said, as I half-ran the last few steps, but to no avail. The coffee machine was being repaired, or "maintained", or whatever it's called. All I knew was that I was still without caffeine.
"Should be done by 11," said the guy under the counter. Fuck. 11? Doesn't he understand the point of coffee is to help you survive until lunch? In the distance, I heard the phone ringing away, but it was barely on my radar until-
"Don't we pay someone to answer that?" Kara said out loud to no one in particular. Ugh. Bitch. I slumped back down at the front desk and put on my best smile for the few clients that came in, but it's a struggle to cling to even the tiniest bit of perk I had.
12 o'clock, and my lunch break, took at least 6 hours to come. Jenny, another secretary, came to spell me and I decided to take my lunch upstairs today. There are some empty office spaces I like to go to where it's nice and quiet. A few of them have very comfortable chairs left by the previous tenants. Lunch is uneventful, which is exactly how I like it.
I get back and let Jenny go, and almost as soon as I'm settled, I see it. A red 1987 Ford Mustang Boss 502. Fox body. Now, I'm not a car enthusiast by any stretch, but I know what car that is. It's the car Carl drives. Carl has told me all about it. Carl is a freelance IT guy we hire. Whenever he comes, he always stops at my desk to jabber at me about his car and to try and peek down my shirt. Of course Carl is here today.
I hate working at this desk for many reasons, but probably chief among them is that I can't avoid Carl. He's got that greasy leer that must be some kind of hiring requirement for IT guys. The best I can hope for at this point is that Carl's work keeps him here after 5 and that he doesn't need anything else from his car, but I know that's a pipe dream. He'll come out here and stop and stare and
why am I stressing about this so much?
I can't do anything to stop it, so I have to just be at peace with it happening.
My Dad would have called this character building. I think everyone's Dad probably said something like that at some point, but it doesn't make me any less nostalgic when I think about it.
The afternoon plodded along uneventfully until about 3 when I first heard Carl's braying laugh. That's right. He even laughs like an ass. I took a few deep breaths to steel myself, and found something to be focusing my attention on just in case there was no phone call that second. I settled on a list of interoffice memos in my email. I quickly pulled my bangs out from behind my ear to make a curtain to block eye contact with. I was pulled out all the stops.
Carl is talking to someone as they walk out from behind me. I try to stay perfectly still, hoping that he's suddenly a T-Rex and won't be able to see me if I don't move. I was curious to see who he's talking to, but not enough to look up. Then, right as they're passing me, the phone rings.
"Cannon, Smith, and Webster." It's so routine to answer the phone that I don't even realize I've just broken my cover. I could have let that call ring for a few more seconds while he passed, and I called myself all sorts of stupid inside. Someone is standing in front of me now. I think it's the person Carl was talking to, but I'm trying not to look up.
"Jaimie?"
I look up.
Now, when I went off to college I was not what you would call a social butterfly. I wasn't in with the popular crowd in high school, or really any crowd. Although I was looking forward to a change of scenery and hopeful that I could do a better job of making friends there, the fact was that I was just plain bad at talking to girls. Somehow, I always said the wrong thing. I was better at talking to boys, but they hadn't figured out how to talk to me yet. They only knew how to talk to my tits. I tried to cover them up as much as possible in high school, but that just made me look frumpy. Getting a new wardrobe was an ongoing process at college.
I was feeling confident when I saw a poster in the student union for "Take Back The Night". My Dad had given me a talk about being safe, but I was interested to see what they had. Maybe some self defense, or, Ooo! A whistle! Plus it said there would be a mixer, so I was hopeful I could kill two birds with one stone.
There were maybe 100 girls in the auditorium when I got there. I grabbed a seat near the back of the group and settled in. Promptly at 7, a group of young women came out and began a bland powerpoint presentation, chock full of statistics about the safety of young, single women on college campuses. After about 15 minutes things began to take a turn, and it became clearer and clearer that I was at a recruiting drive for a feminist student group. One girl in a bandana started to get a little preachy, and when the others pulled her back to have a quiet conversation about her tone, I decided to make a break for it. I ducked down, sliding along the row until I got to the aisle, and just as I stepped out into it, so did another girl straight across from me. We stopped dead in our tracks for a moment, each thinking we'd been caught in our escape attempt. Then she flashed a cool grin and went first.
"This coffee is terrible," I cried, putting the cup back down.
"The cookies are no better." She said, tapping one as hard as a rock against the plate they were spread on.
"It's probably the same coffee from last years recruitment drive."
"Isn't serving substandard snacks at something like this against the law?" I can't get the taste of that coffee out of my mouth, and the bitter face I'm making is cracking her up. "C'mon," she said. "I know a place." I follow her down the hall and out of the building, and we angle across the middle of campus. "I'm Vera, by the way."
"Jaimie." This is so easy... Why is it never this easy to just talk to other women? I looked over at her, taking long strides in her calf-high boots and knowing exactly where she's going, and it's suddenly perfectly clear. It's a confidence thing. I wasn't not a threat to her. My own self-confidence wasn't shattered by this understanding, either. Interesting. It's not that I think I'm ugly, or unworthy of attention, either. I'm very attractive, if I do say so myself. It took us about 10 minutes to get to a tiny, hole-in-the-wall coffee house on the edge of campus. I spent that time thinking about confidence.
"Have you ever been here before?" She asks. I shook my head, so she stepped up and orders two of some russian-sounding latte. "Trust me," she said with a wink, and I nodded. We headed back outside, drinks in hand, and jumped up on top of a picnic table.
"So, freshman?"
"Yup. Bright eyed, and bushy tailed!" She just nodded. I was only confirming conclusions she's already come to. "Holy crap, this is delicious."
"You from around here?"
"Not far. Millersberg?" She nodded again, so I guess she'd heard of it. "How about you?"
"Washington state."
"Oh wow, so you're pretty far out then."
She shrugged. "It's not so bad," she said, taking a sip, and I could see that it wasn't. She wasn't ruffled by that at all. She's just so... so cool. Like Steve McQueen with boobs. "Did your boyfriend follow you here?"
"Me? No. Boys don't know how to talk to me."
