“No! Not at all.”
I flinched, feeling very stupid. The toaster oven dinged. Three hundred fifty degrees—perfect for whatever bargain nugget or other sadness dinner I found in my freezer.
June was struggling to find the words. “He’s—man. He’s not . . . Huh.”
I put my hand on the freezer door. “Is he a pervert. Is he going to touch me.”
“No! Calm down—shit. He’s a supervillain, not a fast-food assistant manager.”
“I have never done this, okay.”
“Oh, I know. Look, the office isn’t on a fucking airship. There is a piranha tank, but it’s decorative and not for feeding lazy interns to. The computers are out-of-date and this one personal assistant microwaves fish every fucking day. It annoys the shit out of me. You’ll love it.”
“Okay. Sorry. But tell me about the Eel.”
“Oh right. So, the boss. He likes you to call him E. And he wants to know how you’re feeling.”
“What.”
“Yeah. He wants a ‘real answer’ when he asks how you are. It’s fucking creepy. And he’ll probably tell you what kind of ‘energy’ he ‘gets from you.’”
I felt myself relax a bit and started digging in the freezer. I came across an ancient box of puff-pastry hors d’oeuvres. The box said Perfect for Entertaining! There were dumplings, some kind of quiche, sausage rolls. I dumped the variously shaped beige chunks onto the toaster oven tray and banged the door shut.
“Is he going to talk to me about my chakras.”
“Definitely. While making so much eye contact.”
“All right. I can handle that.”
“When do they want you to start?”
“I’m coming in for a meet-and-greet stealth interview on Friday, and if I don’t tank it, next week.”
“Good luck. I probably won’t see you if you stick to the main floor.”
“I’ll live.”
“Probably.”
“What?”
“It’s just . . . don’t let the retinal scan freak you out. It needs servicing so it might tell you it’s going to incinerate you but it for sure won’t.”
“So I impress them with how cool I am in the face of stress.”
“Exactly. Don’t fuck it up.”
She hung up before I could respond, a retort caught in my throat. I put my phone down on the counter. While the toaster oven continued to hum, I hunted through the crumb-filled utensil drawers, looking for some leftover plum sauce packets from the last time I ordered takeout. Instead, I struck gold:
Taco Bell hot sauce.
A HAND CURLED around the edge of my monitor, startling me. The nails were buffed and a huge turquoise ring adorned the middle finger. I took a breath and tried to make my face as serene and welcoming as I could, despite having been shaken out of deep hack mode.
“Hey, Anna,” the Electric Eel said, too slowly.
“Hi, E.” I raised my eyes and he smiled down at me, sculpted brows arched high over his sunglasses. I hoped that acknowledgment was enough and let my eyes wander back to my monitor. I was not in the mood for a lecture about “our culture’s fear of intimacy,” but I also didn’t want to encourage him. “How are you?”
He let go of my monitor and flexed that hand. “I’ve been really missing the coast lately. I think I’m going to have to head out west soon, get a little beach time in. My partner and I have been talking about opening our relationship, and it’s going really well.” He sat down on the end of my desk and I met his eyes again, resigning myself to the fact I wasn’t going to get rid of him quickly. His mouth, surrounded by a perfect black goatee, became more serious. “But, Anna, how are you?”
“Oh, I’m well. I get quite buried in my work.”
“Mmm.” He steepled his fingers and pressed his hands to his mouth. “Is anything bothering you lately?”
That seemed loaded. I could suddenly smell the sharp cucumber and citrus of my deodorant as I started to sweat. “Nothing immediately comes to mind!” I knew I sounded too chipper but couldn’t stop myself.
He sighed. “Anna, has anyone been bothering you.”
I was taken aback. “Look, I am sorry that my ex called looking for me. I promise that won’t happen again.”
“I don’t think we’re communicating,” he said mournfully. I imagined lighting him on fire with my mind. “This is about someone in the office.”
Oh. “Is this about the Knifefish’s personal assistant?”
“Yes. Jessica.”
“I feel like we resolved the matter.”
“She filed a grievance yesterday, Anna.”
“I can understand why she would do that.”
“And you don’t feel like that should be addressed?”
I considered my words, tilting my chin up. “If she felt the need to file a report, I respect that decision. I do feel like I got my message across to her.”
“You hid her phone in a spooky pumpkin.”
I glanced over to Jessica, sitting a few desks away, hunt-and-peck typing on her phone’s screen. She’d had a habit of leaving that phone unattended on her desk, sometimes for hours, with the ringer on. After listening to it blare a few bars of some awful pop song over and over for weeks, I’d taken matters into my own hands. There was a plastic pumpkin looming on top of a filing cabinet in one corner of the office, a forgotten Halloween decoration. One afternoon I’d picked up her still-ringing phone and hidden it inside. The pumpkin had distorted the sound just enough that it had taken her until the following afternoon to find her phone. I sent June updates via chat for the next day and a half while Jessica searched the office with a coworker’s borrowed phone, head cocked to one side, listening for the ringtone like a bird-watcher straining to hear the call of a rare specimen.
I couldn’t help but smile. “I did indeed, yes.”
The Electric Eel seemed confused. “Do you see an issue with anything that happened?”
“Well, she hasn’t left her ringtone on again.”
“I see.” He took off his sunglasses to give me a long, grave look. “I understand that you were frustrated. So how about you—and Jessica, of course—take a conflict resolution workshop, just to clear the air? Then we can drop the grievance.”
I looked back over at Jessica. She was glaring at me now. I smiled and waved, and she dropped her eyes back to her phone, her lips pinched. “No, thank you. I think the problem has been solved.”
“Then you’ll have to be written up.” E seemed at a loss.
“That’s fine, I’ll have two more incidents before I will have to talk to HR about it formally, and I don’t expect I’ll need that.”
“Well. Mmmm. Okay, Anna, if those are the consequences you are comfortable with.” He stood up and brushed off his trousers, sighing.
I gave him a genuine smile. “It only seems fair.” I thought it was safe to let my attention wander back to the work in front of me, but the Electric Eel lingered, contemplating the drop ceiling.
“Hey, Anna.”
I exerted a mighty effort not to sigh. Interacting with him was like talking to a robot that had just discovered emotions. “Yes, E?”