Page 35 of I Hope This Finds You Well

“Goodness, no,” Caitlin chimes in, a sickly-sweet smile on her face. “No one wants that.”

Armin winces. “Rhonda, I didn’t mean—”

“I’d love to,” Rhonda interrupts. “My Carl’s beenbeggingme to. He wants me to have more time to travel and help him when he starts a family. But just because I prefer working on a printout, that doesn’t mean I need to be put to pasture. Besides, the tires would fall off this place without me.”

Rhonda pushes back her shoulders and takes a heavy breath. Her gaze flows to Caitlin, who still has that fake grin plastered on her face, then to my area. My first impulse is to cower from her attention. Work shouldn’t involve the constant danger of other people noticing us.

Then I look down at my desk—at the drawer where my secret list sits inside.

Two of the goals:

—Win over Gregory via his tolerable proxy, Rhonda

—Convince Armin I’m normal/give him no reason to talk to HR about me

An idea jangles through my nerves. This could be a good two-birds-with-one-stone situation.

I bolt out of my seat and rip my headphones off. “I can retype the grid for you,” I squeal.

Everyone stops. Armin’s and Rhonda’s wide eyes draw to me at the same speed. Caitlin’s smirk slides right off her face.

My pulse pounds as the room blurs. Only their stares glom to me perfectly clear.

“Pardon me, dear?” Rhonda’s brows narrow.

Heat rushes through me. Why did I have to do that? “Just... I’m sort of caught up with work, so I could retype the grid and Armin can work off that, if it’s helpful,” I croak. My hands ball into fists as my pulse pounds.

Caitlin inserts, “Yeah, that’s a good point. Jolene doesn’t have anything going on, really.”

I blink as I force my face to remain neutral. My knees feel like Jell-O as I stand pathetically, pinned by their shocked expressions.

“That’s very nice of you,” Rhonda begins slowly.

Armin shakes his head. “You shouldn’t have to do more work, Jolene.” He won’t quite look at me as he speaks. “Updating the grid is my task.”

“It’s no trouble! I was actually thinking about archiving all the quarterly reports virtually anyway.”

Rhonda’s eyebrows dart together. “Did Greg ask you to do this?”

I shake my head. “No, in fact, I was hoping you’d bring up the change to digital logbooks to Greg since he trusts you so much. Why?”

I struggle not to flinch as she searches my face. I have a theory that when you get to be her age, you can smell bullshit better than a fly.

“I just wanted to make sure you’d be on board,” I continue quickly. “And if you want, we could make the schedules like that too. Everything, eventually.”

She stiffens as my words land. “But how would I ever use them?”

“Well, if you wanted, I could sit down with you and go through it? Like during a quiet time—or I could email you step-by-step instructions.” Again, she stiffens, her fingers clenching into little bony fists at the bottom of her blouse. “I’m not trying to overstep. I was already doing it with some of the docs Caitlin and I use, and it just seemed like a good moment to bring it up.”

“That would work for me.” A tiny threat of a smile creeps into the corners of her lips. “Thank you, Jolene.”

“Glad we could find a resolution,” Caitlin says, narrowing her eyes at me. With the match officially declared over, we all lower back into our seats. I practically fall into my chair, my skin still flushed.

The DM to Rhonda and Armin appears in an instant.

Caitlin:So tell me that wasn’t creepy??

I can’t breathe.