I look past where Bert stands, over at Renata and Jada, who are both twisted around, staring, horrified.
It occurs to me here that this Bert really might be able to fire me, after all the work that Soto did to get me in here without letting anybody know who I am.
“Well, let’s get reading, then,” I say, and with an almost superhuman effort, I suck in my lips, point my face at the computer, and pretend to read the PDF.
Bert stands there a while longer, maybe sensing that I’m not actually reading it, sensing, perhaps, that the only thing stopping me from another demerit is the flesh-piercing pressure of my teeth on my in-turned lips.
Finally he walks off.
“Okay, then!” I say once he’s gone. “That guy’s a real asshole!”
The blazing eyes of Workaholic, Control Freak Barbie appear over my cubicle wall. “Do you want to get fired?”
I give her a smile that I know will annoy her. “Not at the moment, no.”
Jada comes to my cubicle doorway, as it were, and looms over me, all five foot two of her. “If you’re here to disrupt things, please just leave now. We need this department to function at peak efficiency.”
“An executive summary is efficient. That’s why they make them.” I say this all very casually, but my pulse is racing and I’m feeling strangely energized.
“Except you’re not an executive, are you? You’re a delivery assistant and office gopher who we desperately need help from, and you nearly got yourself fired on your first day.”
My pulse races. I’m having trouble processing the experience of somebody bossing me. First Bert and now Jada.
“I mean… ‘You’re dismissed’?” she continues. “What’s wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with me…it’s a pretty long list, to be honest,” I say. “The specifics would vary depending on who you talk to.”
Jada’s scowl heats up. “Excuse me?”
I cross my legs and adopt a relaxed posture, but really, I didn’t expect this experience to be so enlivening. “The nature of the things wrong with me would definitely vary from person to person as well, but I’m sure there’d be overlap.”
“You think you’re funny?”
God, those hot, frowning lips. She’s nobody I’d ever be with, but it doesn’t matter—the hot frown is getting me deep down. It’s just how fiery she is with all of that bossy control mania. I want to stir and stir and stir those embers until they go full flame, and then I’d bask in her heat.
“Of course, wrong has its advantages,” I find myself saying. “There are scenarios where, it could be argued, the wronger, the better. If you know what I mean.” I lower my voice to a deeper register. “And I think you do.”
Jada’s color rises, and somehow, she’s even more delicious. “Oh. My. God. I’m gonna pretend you didn’t say that. We are struggling for our lives here and they send us Don Juan the Entitled Delivery Driver?”
“Don Juan the Entitled Delivery Driver?”
“That’s right.”
A nickname. “I like it.”
Her nostrils flare. “Whatever!” She storms back to her cubicle and sits. I stay at my cubicle, fighting the impulse to go after her.
Don Juan the Entitled Delivery Driver.
Renata shakes her head and gets back to work.
I read through the boring PDF. Clearly I do need some pointers if I’m going to blend in long enough to unmask the butt-dialer, but what I really want to do is go over to Jada’s cubicle and be Don Juan the Entitled Delivery Driver some more.
Ten minutes later, a figure looms at my side. I look up to see a young guy with slicked-back hair and a laid-back vibe that reminds me of the surfer boys along the French Riviera.
He introduces himself as Dave, eyes roving over my spiky, blond-tipped hair, glasses, and mole. He looks stunned for a moment, and then he waves a hand between us. “Dude, this whole thing you have going on. This whole presentation. It’s savage.” He keeps waving his hand between us. “Savage.”
“Thank you,” I say.
“The whole look, the attitude, the presentation,” Dave adds. “You keep on doing you.” With that he walks off, leaving me wondering what kind of place I’ve stepped into.
Eight
Jada
Renata comes up to me at the fabric cutting table.
“Whatever, huh?” she says.
I sigh. “We needed another designer, not some office gopher who’s just gonna disrupt things.”
“Right?” she says. “And what’s up with the nineties hair?”
“Maybe he doesn’t know better,” I say, glancing over at his cubicle, mysteriously agitated. It’s more than the disruption he causes. His entire persona is somehow agitating—it’s his insolent attitude, his ridiculous personal style.
“Maybe he’s from somewhere really backwards,” Renata says. “And the nineties only just got there. Who’s gonna break it to him about Kurt Cobain?”
I inspect a swatch. “According to his file, the last place he worked was upstate. A shipping company of some sort, but who knows where he’s actually from. His accent is…not East Coast. Kind of generic.”
Renata tosses it onto the pile. “Seriously, though, who goes to the store and says, yes, these are the glasses for me? Yes, a neon-patterned button shirt is the style I’m going with? And who in modern times does not remove a giant mole? Maybe it’s a religious thing.”
“That guy is not religious,” I say. “He’s way too defiant.”
“Maybe they don’t have proper medical services where he’s from. Not that the mole ruins his looks,” Renata says. “That’s the killer of it all. The mole says, look at me, I’m on this face, but even I, in all my moleness, can’t stop the hotness.”
“Oh, that’s what the mole says? You got some Baileys in that coffee?”
“Don’t you agree? That he’s so hot? In spite of it all?” Renata presses. “He pulls it off.”
“His annoying personality counteracts all hotness. Any and all possible hotness.”
“Also, ‘that’ll be all’?” she says. “‘You’re dismissed’? This is what he says to the CEO?”
“It’s as if he has no normal social skills whatsoever.” I put a swatch in the maybe pile. “Train him on the system. We need to get him up and running. At least getting him filing. Surely he can do that. He can still be an asset to the team.”
“We’ll see about that,” Renata says.
I glare over at him. He seems to be doing something on his phone. I’ve worked with guys like him all my life, guys who put in minimal effort and get twice the credit, while I work twice as hard and get pegged as the blonde bimbo.
“I’m serious. He’s here, and he’s gonna be an asset. I’m gonna make him an asset. He needs to understand how much we need him. Maybe that’ll help.”
“The man got two demerits in two minutes. I’m thinking he’s a lost cause.”
“No such thing as a lost cause,” I say. “That’s what he wants us to think so we let him off the hook, but he is going to be sorely disappointed. And make sure he appreciates the company culture. The only way we get through this is as a tight team. He could be a help to us; we just don’t know.”