It might be time for the nuclear option: Tinder. Better that than fantasizing about an unattainable man who is (1) mybossand (2) at least fifteen years my senior.
I sit in the chair across from his desk, which is a mess of crinkled papers, legal pads filled with scrawled writing, and an array of colored manila folders. My hands are sweaty. I stick them under my thighs, then think twice and lay them neatly on my lap. I used to be better at this. Slipping into the costume of a well-behaved and professionally hungry young woman used to be easy.
I learned everyone’s name, wore a bra with an underwireand concealer every day, took my lunch at the table, and made conversation.I made an effort.
The only true, consistent effort I’ve made in the last two months is the daily one of getting out of bed, trying not to think about the closed door at the other end of the house, and taking Ripley on a walk. I love those walks.
We start just as the sun is about to rise. By the time we’re done meandering through the broken asphalt streets, the entire trailer park is painted burnished orange and Starburst pink. My mom used to be able to go on those walks with me. She stopped being able to go at the same time I stopped being able to make an effort in the office.
Confidence of a mediocre white man, I remind myself.
Ellis walks in with a mug in each hand. One he sets down in front of me. It’s the most recent weird wellness tea Jena bought because she saw someone on Instagram say it “balances your hormones and clears toxins.” I asked which of the more than fifty hormones present in the human body it balances. She didn’t talk to me for the rest of the day. The second mug joins the water glass and K&C-themed thermos by his computer.
There’s a joke about him being a beverage hoarder in there somewhere. I do not make it because I am a Professional who Loves to Make an Effort. I take a sip from the drink because I am a Team Player Who is Easy to Get Along With.
“Not a tea person?” Ellis asks when I grimace.
“No, I love… leaves.”
And pseudoscience.
He leans back in his chair and fixes his gaze on me. The weight of his eyes makes me feel small. Like he could cup me in his hands and there’d be nothing I could do about it. He’s tall. Six feet and a few. I think he could hold me down without much effort at all. Alluring.
“I think you know why I wanted to have this talk.”
“I do. This job means the world to me. It’s important to me to do good work, and I haven’t lately. I apologize. I know that sometimes people’s personal lives impact their work, but that’s no excuse. I’m ready to be the employee I was when I started. I promise if you give me another chance, I’ll be the most dedicated employee you have.”
He hums. “I was so impressed with your tenacity when you first joined our family. When your circumstances aren’t preoccupying you so much, you do excellent work. Don’t you agree?”
My circumstances.
Is that what you call it when the mortality of the person whomadeyou is laid bare? He’s technically right. I’m preoccupied with the possibility of losing my mom. I’m preoccupied with being the sole breadwinner responsible for our rent, for our utilities, for my student loans, my mom’s bills, all on a $35,000 salary. I’ll stop being so preoccupied when she dies. Is that what he wants?
There is a chant in my head,don’t hurt him,don’t hurt him,don’t hurt him. It runs in time with the chant telling me I should. Both thump in time with my heartbeat. It would feel good. It would feel good to surprise him with pain.
I smile and think of piranhas gnawing through flesh with razor teeth.
“I know how difficult this has been for everyone. I apologize. I’m lucky to be here, and I want to do my best.”
Iamlucky to be here. After graduation, it took a year of constant applications, interviews, third shifts at Taco Bell, and crying in my childhood bedroom each time I got a politely worded “go fuck yourself, we’re hiring someone else” email. Every day my mom got older and that much closer to having a heart attack from the energy drinks she buys to work twelve-hour shifts before I ever got the chance to take care of her like she took care of me.
Ellis hiring me was like a ray of bright light into a dim world. It didn’t matter that I hated every word of description of every office building and property dimension and zoning regulation that I wrote. I’d succeeded in acquiring an Office Job—which was something my mom and her STNA (State-Tested Nursing Assistant) friends talked about like a stranded swimmer would dream of a life raft. Surely I’d finally be able to repay my mom for the years of constant struggle that was providing for the both of us.
I itch to wipe my damp palms on my pants, to get up and pace, to grip Ellis’s dark, curly hair and shake him until he understands what I’m feeling.
He leans forward like he’s about to pass along a secret. In the warmth of his office, it feels intimate. The hook through my cheek pulls and I can’t help but mirror the motion just a little.
“I’m going to be real with you for a second. You probablythink this”—he gestures to the building around us—“is just another part of a capitalistic hellscape. I’m just some boss looking out for my bottom line. In some ways I am. I want to keep this place running. I want to pay my employees. That takes money. Profit. Which means that when someone’s cutting into my bottom line—”
He makes a neck-slicing motion with his thumb.
“I don’t want to be that person because I’mnotthat person. I like you, Lou. Do you know how long it’s been since there was someone in the office who could make me laugh? Do you think I don’t know how you’re reacting is normal? Someone you love is hurting. When my dad died… I was a mess. I felt like he had so much more to teach me. It’s been eighteen years and I still feel that way.”
He pauses and looks at a picture on the wall of four pale, white men with serious expressions standing together in a wooded setting. Surveyor equipment and a few walking canes rest against what looks to be a large box or crate in the middle of the four. A handwritten label that’s been yellowed by time readsWitten Collieries Co. Mine #3—Scioto County,Ohio.
Ellis is very proud of the story. I know because he tells it at every company event I’ve ever attended.
His great-great-grandad was born in New York. When he was twenty-two, he decided to work his way out west. Through a series of anecdotes that Ellis tells with bright eyes and a smile, he ended up in southern Ohio working in a coal mine.
