‘Want me to heat up your lunch for you?’ Salman interrupts me when I’m mid-sentence. When I go to finish the sentence, I forget what I was writing entirely, the thought vanishing as if it was never there at all. Shit. What was it? Was it something to do wit—
‘Come on,’ Salman continues, ‘you know you can’t focus when you’re hungry.’
He’s right, but I can’t stop now. IknowI was about to hit a goldmine and now it’s gone because he dared to interrupt me. And why? So he can once again show that he’s a nice guy?
‘My food doesn’t need heating. It’s just a sandwich,’ I respond, still looking at the papers in front of me, shuffling them as if that might help me to see more clearly when all it does is create an even bigger mess. ‘I’ll eat soon. Stop interrupting me.’
I feel slightly guilty at dismissing him, but at the same time I don’t have the brain space to be confused by his every action.
Unless that’s been his plan all along. Is he deliberately trying to throw me off course so that he can make himself look better in front of Sadia? Maybe he’s messing with my head, being all nice to me, so that I’ll mess up and he can swoop in when we present the matches to Sadia, showing just how good he is at the job. Although what his ulterior motive is, I still can’t figure out.
I lean back in my chair with a deep breath, allowing my eyes a reprieve from the letters in front of me. I look into Sadia’s office. She’s pacing the room with her AirPods in, her hands franticallywaving as her lips move. She must be on a call to a client or a vendor. Other teams around the office are hard at work, some wearing over-ear headphones to help them focus.
And Salman? He’s playing with a Rubik’s cube. He used to play with that cube all the time when we were growing up when he was bored. How can he possibly be bored when his job is riding on this bet? Why did he even take the bet if he wasn’t going to take it seriously?
Stop worrying about him!
I get back to work, trying to match up the strangers in front of me, but it’s impossible to focus when, out of the corner of my eye, I can still see Salman playing with the stupid Rubik’s cube. It shouldn’t bother me – the more time he spends with the cube, the less time he has to do any actual work and win the bet, but all the clicking noises he’s making are pissing me off so much that I have no choice. I walk over to his desk, wordlessly grab the cube out of his hands and throw it in the bin. I sit back down, triumphant, but the feeling doesn’t last very long because a moment later he pulls out another cube.
And then he winks at me, as if he knew that was exactly how I would react.
If I could scream, I would.
Instead, I put in my AirPods and dive back in. It’s a drag, and the longer I go without my lunch the more exhausted I feel. I need energy, but at the same time, I don’t know if I can eat right now.
I rise from my chair and head into the kitchen, opting for a coffee for the time being.
I’ve not used the fancy coffee machine in the staff room before, but I don’t think a cup of tea is going to cut it this afternoon. I stare at the display screen on the machine and select a cappuccino. Baba would always order one and I like to think that when I have one that maybe he’s having one too.
If only this damn machine would work. I press the display screen again, harder, just in case the sensor isn’t working as it should, but still nothing happens. I stab the screen a couple more times until the little pictures of the drinks disappear, replaced by text:SYSTEM MALFUNCTION, CONTACT SUPPORT.
‘Oh, come on,’ I mutter. ‘You literally have one job!’
‘It’s not going to work if you’re mean to it.’
I jump and let out a yelp I’m not proud of.Of courseSalman is here to witness this moment.
‘It’s not working. It deserves my anger,’ I say, turning back to the machine. Maybe if I stare at it hard enough, it might decide not to blink with an error message and actually give me what I want instead.
Salman comes up behind me, peering over my shoulder at the display screen. ‘Let me give it a go.’
I gesture for him to go ahead and step to the side, my arms crossed as I watch him fiddle with the screen the way I did only a minute ago.
‘I’m telling you, it’s not going to work,’ I say with a frustrated sigh.
‘Did you try turning it on and off again?’ he asks and I damn near permanently roll my eyes into the back of my skull.
‘What? I’m being serious!’
‘No, I did not turn it on and off again.’
Salman switches the machine off at the plug and counts to ten before switching it back on, but the error display remains the same. ‘OK. I was hoping that would have fixed it, but let’s see what else we can do.’ He pushes up the sleeves of his shirt, a thin baseball-style top in navy blue and white, and starts to remove various parts. ‘Maybe the filter just needs changing. Could be that something is stuck in there or –’
Suddenly the machine comes to life again. There is a low hissbefore it sputters and sprays a stream of coffee across Salman’s white shirt.
My hand immediately flies to my mouth. Although I shouldn’t laugh, I can’t help it. Salman’s mouth parts with confusion as he looks down at the stain on his shirt, and it makes me laugh even harder.
‘Really? You’re laughing?’ he asks with disbelief.
