Anne hurried to her desk. The office looked half empty. She hoped that the majority of the staff was occupied in a meeting or elsewhere. Or, if she were very lucky, they would all be running late as well. Nothing had gone right. The water in her new house ran ice cold, the traffic was heavier than she'd expected, and she'd gotten lost twice trying to find her way back to the building. New jobs filled her with anxiety even under the best of circumstances, but being late on her first full day almost invoked a panic attack. She slipped into her cubicle without attracting too much attention. The cubical walls provided a good deal more privacy than she expected. Her office mates heard her rushing footsteps, but didn't see who they belonged to. Nor did they care, as they all focused on swigging down enough coffee to stay conscious or surreptitiously browsing the Internet.
She took a long, slow breath. A weight lifted off of her. Anne hated the rush of mornings. From the moment she woke up, a constant build of urgency drove her on and on, like she'd been tossed into a pressure cooker with two hours to get out. Every morning, as long as she could remember, it felt the same. The pressure sets in the moment the alarm goes off as her mind struggles to analyze the value of a few more minutes of sleep weighted against the extra time to get dressed. With that battle out of the way, her body lurches up from the bed not too dissimilar from Frankenstein's monster rising to life. Spasms of aches and pains briefly visit her back and neck as she straightens up. She lingers on the bed another minute or two dreading the pressure to come.
The flurry of activity begins as she showers, does her makeup, and tries to find something to eat. She chastises herself along the way for oversleeping and staying up too late the night before, lectures which she has given almost every day of her life. With the deliberations of what to wear and whether or not she should cut her hair done, she enters the world alongside every other person who has just experienced the same hellish morning that she has. Their collective frustrations combine into a vortex of disconnected misery as they merge into traffic. Accidents, weather, forces of God, and other stupid people stand in her way as she treks a very short distance over a disproportionately long amount of time.
Here the pressure mounts to its peak. The only tools to cope with the rush were her immediate controls such as how long to spend in the shower and how many times to hit the snooze, but in traffic those are taken from her. She is left at the mercy of the unintentionally cruel world while she watches the clock tick forward. During this time, she comforts herself with excuses. "There was an accident" or "I got lost" or "the electricity was off and my alarm didn't sound." She ignores that modern technology has stripped these excuses bare. A phone with a standalone battery is her alarm. The same device can alert her to traffic patterns and guide her to her destination. Relief finally comes in the single breath after sitting in her chair. For a moment, peace washes over her. The race is done and she has survived another day. Unfortunately, her prize is being at work.
The breath slipped back out of her lips, and the subtle drone of the office greeted her. She sat up in her chair and straightened out her blouse. Anne rarely fussed over her looks, but she did want to have at least a week of good impressions with her new coworkers. She smoothed out a few stray hairs which had gone wiry in the commute and looked down to make sure her breasts were well contained in her shirt. As she pulled at her bra, she heard a soft tap against the cubical wall. She pulled her hands away from her chest and spun around. "Derrick!"
"Anne - no don't get up - I just wanted to check and see that you were settling in," her boss said as he stepped around the corner.
"Oh, yes, bit of a hectic morning, but I'm here and excited to get to work." She stood up anyway, and he grew suddenly stiff. Derrick had not been the one to hire her. He had been the one she made moon eyes at when she saw him in the hallway, and the one who looked far too young to be the head of the company. Through the whole interview, she kept one eye on him moving fluidly around the office, checking on his workers and giving out instructions. He wore close fitting suits that showed off his broad shoulders and sinewy body. His broad smile made Anne's stomach flutter. His sudden rigidity unnerved her.
"Great! Just wanted to stop by and make sure you were settling in." His voice was strained, and his right hand fidgeted. Anne also started to feel uneasy. She felt her heart quicken and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. A strange scent drifted through the air. She could not quite place it, nor concentrate on it while trying not to embarrass herself in front of her boss. Then she realized what was bothering her. She was getting wet. Worse, it was almost as though Derrick knew. "Anyway, I'll let you get to it." He flashed her the warm smile once again.
Wait, what was that? A trick of the light. Surely, it was just that.
She'd seen something in Derrick's eyes that shouldn't have been there. A golden gleam that flashed in the fluorescent lights right before he walked away.
With him went the delicious smell and the fluttering in Anne's stomach.
Geez. Gonna have to get over that. Can't be overcome with wanting to jump my boss whenever he's around or I won't last long here. I mean, he's hot but...
She considered the dampness in her underwear. After a nervous look around to see if anyone else had noticed the odd interaction, she turned to her desk and tried to put Derrick out of her mind.
***
Anne's morning went by without much more incident. A few times before lunch she felt a little hot, but nothing that the little fan under her desk couldn't address. Around noon, the office started to murmur as people left their work to go to lunch. Anne intended to eat her meager meal of a yogurt and a plastic bag of chex mix at her desk, but Vera, the hiring manager popped her head around the cubicle corner and invited her to the break room. "C'mon, fastest way to get over the first day jitters is to find out how much everyone else hates working here." Vera led the way. As she had during their interview, Anne felt a kindred spirit to the other woman. Vera walked with a graceful swaying of her full hips, her auburn hair swishing as she turned her head to say hello to the others. Vera exuded confidence and approachable, making her a perfect fit for her job. Anne felt comfortable around her and was quietly grateful for being rescued from a lonely lunch.
"Everyone, this is Anne. Anne's the new firecracker that we've hired. I'm sure she's excited to get to know everyone, but don't y'all clamber around her like kids at an ice cream truck. Anne, this is Gina. That's Marie. Over there are Jessica and Kelly. Then those two are Helen and Bobbi. Say hello everybody!" The room echoed back a polite hello. Several of the women waved cheerfully while others, specifically Helen and Bobbi, shrugged and returned to their lunches. "Come over here and sit down."
For the first time, Anne realized that she hadn't seen a single other man at the company other than Derrick. Though the whole staff was not in the break room, seven of them were and they were all women. Anne knew better than to draw too much attention to herself in a room of women who viewed her as an outsider. She followed Vera over to a table on the side and took a seat. "Everyone seems nice," she offered diplomatically.
