“In the old days,” The Old Coot continued, raising his voice to be heard over the groans, “we’d plug in the Crock-Pot in the morning and have hot bubbly chili by lunchtime. Rolls from the bakery, cheese to sprinkle on your chili, all the twenty-five-cent pop you could drink . . . a proper lunch.”
“Followed by department heads farting and belching the rest of the day,” an unseen voice said from one of the cubicles on the left.
“Disaster,” another unseen voice added from the right. “Have you ever tried to proof a P and L statement when all you can smell are chili farts? Hell. Hell on earth.”
“I like bagels,” Linus said, which was true. Also, The Old Coot seemed to be waiting for him to contribute to the conversation. “And I can’t believe there’s actually a thing called a watercooler, around which employees can gather and make pop culture references, as we appear to be doing right now.”
“Free water,” the first unseen voice said.
“Yeah, Hailey put ’em in, so we all just bring our empty water bottles from home and fill ’em here at the cooler.”
“Another fabbo perk brought to the good people of Ramouette by HR goddess Hailey Derry.” Linus made the comment with total admiration.
“Ha!” Unseen Voice Number Two said. “Goddess, right. Says the newest minion, who hasn’t been here long enough to really be terrified of her. Your time’s coming, l’il minion.”
He thought about letting it go, but couldn’t. It seemed at best unfair, and at worst, ungrateful. “You guys, what’s the problem? She’s pulled all these great bennies for us, she—”
“Can’t get her ass to work on time to save her life—”
The disembodied voice from the right broke in. “She can’t go more than three weeks without pulling a sick day—come on. Anyone who gets sick that often should live in a plastic bubble.”
“Paaaaaperwork!” another unseen voice contributed. Linus had the impression of swimming in deep dark water, knowing there were sharks but not knowing how many . . . or how hungry they were. “That girl loves her paperwork.”
“She sends out memos reminding all of us to complete our shifts while she gets here late and leaves early . . . adds new codes to time sheets practically every week . . . nauseating.”
“In my day,” The Old Coot began, and ignored the groans, “memos were on paper. Real paper! From a tree and everything. And we had to fill out real paper timesheets. In ink!”
“Thank God those dark days are behind us,” Linus said with a shudder.
“You kids are soft.” The Old Coot leaned forward and scooped a paper cup out of the dispenser, then carefully filled it with water and drank it down, his glug-glugs not quite as loud as the watercooler’s. “You’re the soft-boiled eggs of the breakfast world.”
“Oh, not this again.”
Linus turned, delighted: it was Hailey! He could practically hear mouths snapping shut behind cubicles all over the room. Wonder if she overheard? “Hey.” Wow, smooooth. You’ll have her swept off her feet in no time.
She nodded. “Hey. What’s wrong, Coot, are you reminiscing about PalmPilots again?”
“Now those kept a person on schedule. And speaking of schedules, what the hell are you doing here? Prepared for a budget meeting? And on time—no, early.”
“Better keep watch for the other horsemen of the Apocalypse,” she said dryly.
Linus laughed as Coot rolled his eyes, but was well aware he could be contributing to the conversation, and wasn’t. Say something!
(Nope. He had nothin’.)
Say anything!
He gulped a breath and managed, “Apocalypse was actually a girl’s name thousands of years ago. It didn’t always mean the end of everything. It meant revelation . . . uncovering truth and finding out what’s really going on. It was”—he knew they were staring and gamely finished—“it was a good thing. A good name,” he finished. “It wasn’t weird to have a girl in the family named Apocalypse.”
Okay, say something that isn’t the thing you just said.
“What’s this?” Hailey teased. “Trying to restart a baby name trend?”
He shook his head, relieved she didn’t think what he’d said was off-putting. Or if she did, she didn’t seem to mind.
“Ohhhh, great,” The Old Coot muttered. “New guy’s as big a weirdo as Derry.”
“What a nasty thing to say,” Hailey replied mildly, if absently. She was staring down at a yellow Post-it note. She must leave herself notes . . . She’s always walking around with one of those.
Her hair was lightening toward strawberry blond, something else that was odd that the people around them didn’t notice or, if they did, didn’t think was interesting. When they’d met earlier, her hair was dark brown. It set off her pale skin, and made her face seem more striking: wide creamy forehead, straight nose, and lush mouth. No freckles, but a beauty mark riding just above her upper lip; he spent an alarming amount of time thinking about kissing it.
But in a week, her dark locks had lightened to reddish blond. Why anyone would dye their hair a slightly lighter shade every single night was a mystery to him, as beautiful women and their secret tribal rituals always were.
“Jeez, Hailey, you even remembered your laptop. We didn’t used to lug entire computers into meetings, y’know. Hell, computers didn’t used to be portable! Desktop computers . . . give me a break.”
Another chorus of groans by unseen listeners, but The Old Coot was practiced in ignoring them.
“Hey, you know what we had before desktops? Actual desk tops. Tops of desks. And blotters. Blotters will make a comeback. I guarantee it. What’s old is new, and all that.”
Linus was wondering if he dared ask Hailey out right there, or if it would be better to try to catch her after the meeting, or maybe meet up with her on her way out the—
“Oh my God!” Another hidden voice, this one coming from the kitchen, which was two doors down from the watercooler. Before he could wonder about it, The Old Coot was saying, “It’s good you can make this meeting.”
“Of course.” She shrugged, took one last look at the Post-it, then crumpled it. “I’m right here; let’s get started.”
“Okay, great. Because with the new rollout next year, marketing’s gonna be all over us, and we’ve got to find a place in the budget—”
“Mighty crap, people! Have you heard?” Audrey the Receptionist bounded out of the break room like a puppy with earbuds. A puppy checking out her iPhone and eating a Hot Pocket. “Some dumbass plowed into a garbage truck, the truck overcorrected and hit a bus, and now the bus is, like, surrounded by toxic waste or something!”
“Jeez,” he said, shocked.
“I know. It’s going to utterly screw my commute.” Audrey took another look at the small screen and shook her head, disgusted. “I’ve gotta take the 494 ramp not even a mile from there. Why can’t more parents drive their kids to school? We wouldn’t even need buses if they’d step up.”
Hailey turned back to The Old Coot. “You tell marketing that I loathe them with everything I have, do not care how many ads they want to run for the rollout, and will not set foot in that meeting until that entire department agrees to stop sucking.” Then she whirled and stalked off.
“Whoa,” Linus said.
“Yeah, she really hates the marketing guys.” Coot shrugged. “I dunno; what’s it to her? She’s always picking a fight and then doing her ice cube impersonation.”
“Knock it off.” Linus was startled at how sharply that came out, and consciously softened his tone. “She’s got a tough job.”
“If she was ever on time, it’d be an easier job.”
He opened his mouth to argue, but was still reeling from a) the odd conversation, b) the abruptness of Hailey’s mood shift from friendly and pleasant to pissed and abrupt, and c) the fact that The Old Coot didn’t look a day over thirty.
(“Why is that?” he asked Audrey the Receptionist the night before.
“Because thirty is ancient in twenty-first-century tech years,” she explained. “Thirty is the new ninety.”)
“What just happened?” he asked aloud, and no one answered.
CHAPTER FOUR
Toldja: If You Don’t Act, We Will.
Hailey limped back to the office. Shoving the bus to safety had ruined her clothes: torn pantyhose, scuffed shoes, torn skirt, torn blouse. Grease all over her hands. The heel of her left shoe wobbling at every staggered step. Left bra strap broken and dangling. Hair looking like she’d combed it with a wire whisk. And unbelievable dry mouth.
And so, so hungry. Not to mention late for a budget meeting that likely ended over an hour ago. She hadn’t even finished writing herself up for being late this morning, and now this.
Audrey the Receptionist greeted her with a, “Whoa! And hey—before I forget, Edward was looking for you. Something about his PO request for more internal fans for the server.”
“All right . . . I’ll call him.”
“Did you pick another fight with the Chipotle guy?”
“No.” She limped past.
“The Subway guy?”
“No.” Now she was hurrying as fast as she could without breaking into a jog.
“The KFC guy? The bookstore gal? The Caribou Coffee guy? The Dunn Bros gal? The car wash guy? The bakery gal?” Audrey was on her feet, hollering after her. “The gas station guy? Wait, the car wash guy and the gas guy are the same guy . . .”
She was in such a rush she didn’t realize she’d knocked Linus over until she . . . well . . . knocked him over.
“Ow!” He was gasping on the carpet, rubbing his nose. “Jeez, you’re really bony.”
Stupid, stupid, she inwardly raged. You haven’t completely drained the batteries; you could have put him through the wall! Mortified, she bent to give him a hand up; he was back on his feet in less than a blink, which made him stagger against her. Given the state of her clothes, that should have been embarrassing, but wasn’t. More thrilling than embarrassing, truth be told.