“What if the elevator stops on my floor?” Because after that shit show, the last thing I need is for someone from work to see me crying in the elevator.
Reb tips her head to the side as if she’s considering the question and then pushes the call button on the elevator control panel. “Hey, Steve, can you make sure this elevator doesn’t stop on the 23rd floor?”
“You know you’re not my boss, right?”
“Please?”
Steve’s voice comes back to the speaker. “Reb, you are a pain in my ass.”
“I know,” she says. “Do you need me to bring you some croissants from that bakery down the street?”
“Yes. And macarons.”
Reb turns to me and beams. “Problem solved.”
“You are genuinely weird,” I tell her. What I want to do is yell at her again and make her leave me alone, but that’s clearly not going to happen. Also, I’m afraid if I say that, I’ll start crying again.
“Thank you.” She looks genuinely touched by what she obviously takes as a compliment.
Five minutes later, I’m sitting in Reb’s office on a ratty old sofa. An intern appears with mugs of hot tea. I leave mine untouched, sitting with my knees pulled up to my chest, my arms wrapped around my knees, my chin propped on my knees to hide the way it’s still trembling, as I glare defiantly at Reb.
Despite our years of friendship, I’ve never been in Reb’s office before. It looks like it was decorated from a Goodwill in the 1980s.
This sofa, for example, is at least forty years old, and there’s a spring poking me in the ass that is probably going to give me tetanus. There’s a Ms. Pac-Man gaming console in one corner and an enormous bean bag in the center of the room. The only sign that any work gets done in here at all is the whiteboard that spans the entirety of one wall covered in notes and the standing desk in front of it with one of those curved computer monitors that looks like it belongs on a space shuttle.
Reb rolls over a yoga ball and sits down on the other side of the coffee table.
“Okay, talk.”
I glare harder. “This sofa is gross. I thought you were supposed to be the lead developer at this company.”
“I am.”
“Then why haven’t they bought you better furniture? I think I got hepatitis just sitting here.”
She smirks. “A) you suck at being mean. B) you can’t distract me. Now tell me why you’re crying.”
“I’m not—”
She cuts me off with a wave of her hand. “Yeah, yeah. Not sad tears. Mad tears. I get it. But those were definitely tears and you’re definitely upset.”
“I’m not upset. I’m just mad. And humiliated. Because I should be able to be mad like a normal person and not get so upset that I’m crying in the elevator like a crazy person.”
“Um, I’m pretty sure it’s not okay anymore to say things like ‘crying like a crazy person’.”
“How is that helpful? That’s not helpful!”
“So don’t think of this as crying in the elevator at work like a crazy person. Think of this as a much needed opportunity to normalize emotional expression in a male-dominated workplace.”
“Okay ...”
“Look,” she cuts me off with a swipe of her hand. “I am the only woman in an office of forty-three men. These guys need to know that every time I display an emotion, it’s not a sign of the apocalypse.”
When she puts it like that ... like I’m doing her a favor and not the other way around, I can’t say no, can I?
Clearly, I can’t, because she makes a speed-it-along gesture as she sips her drink. “So what has you this ... not sad, but angry?”
I’m trying not to cry as I grapple for an answer. If I tell her the real reason I’m upset, I’ll definitely start crying again, and I don’t want to do that. Of course, I have plenty of non-Keegan related reasons to cry.
