Page 8 of All of Him
“That’s a shame,” he said sincerely. “We could use more of her.”
I turned to walk away, barely hearing him mention a new chair again, but I was pretty sure he wanted me to leave him alone. He seemed like the type of guy who followed no rules but got away with anything, one who had been tenured into doing whatever he wanted. I also had an urge to get to know him better—the old man who’d made me smirk for the first time in a while.
“Oh! There you are!” Amanda stood in front of me, her long hair in a haphazard ponytail.
She still wore a nice shirt, tucked into her perfectly fitted jeans, but I could tell she’d either had a rough night or overslept. Bags rested under her eyes, though I tried not to stare for too long. She was friendlier than anyone had been with me, and I didn’t need someone invading my personal space.
“I need a new chair,” I said quietly. “And I can’t get into my computer.” Amanda looked behind me, realizing where I’d come from.
“Did you meet Oscar?” she asked, trying not to laugh.
I shrugged.
“Did he refuse to help you get into your computer? Because that’s something he’d do.”
“He threw my chair wheel out the window and demanded I ask for a new one.” It was more words than I’d thought I could form with the way I’d been feeling, but it was refreshing to speak.
Amanda laughed and gestured for me to follow her back to my cube.
“Oscar has been here a long time. If you become friendlyenoughwith him, he has some nuggets of wisdom worth hearing.”
“Like?”
“He told me once that nobody is entitled to my business but me. It sounds silly, but it helped me out with some coworkers who kept asking questions they didn’t need the answers to.” She paused and looked at my chair. “Oh man.”
“Yeah,” I responded, clearing my throat. It was on its side, the saddest sight I’d seen in a while. In the process of the fall, another wheel appeared to have vanished.
“Come on,” she sighed. “There’s a chair graveyard on the other side of the building. We’ll steal you a good one.”
Amanda did find me a new chair. It looked to be a few years old, ditched by someone who had been fired, but it felt safe to sit in. She attempted to ask me more questions about my life, though all I could give were one-worded answers. It was probably infuriating, but I’d rather her find me that way instead of interesting. I couldn’t afford friendships; bringing people down with me wasn’t in the plans.
I hadn’t thought it would be a problem I’d have to deal with—anyone wanting to get to know me. I still had no right to assume that was what she even wanted. From what Claude had said, she was trying to get his job in middle management after he retired, so maybe she was just buttering up coworkers.
Still, Amanda didn’t seem like the type of girl to be disingenuous. She talked to Penny, albeit as little as possible, but she didn’t intentionally engage with her, like she did with me.
I’d asked her for help a few times throughout the day, and she’d been more than eager to assist. The first two times, I had written off her friendliness as showing that she could be a good leader. The third time was what struck me.
I was having trouble figuring out a spreadsheet, so she came over. After trying and failing to explain it sufficiently, she leaned over and used my keyboard herself. I shifted a little to the side, but there wasn’t much room to work with.
As I kept my eyes on the screen, my face burned in awareness of how close she was. I hadn’t been that close to anyone in a long time, especially not a woman. Amanda paused, frozen in her position, leaning over my desk, even after the task was complete.
Why is she not moving away? Did I do something wrong? Did she show me the wrong page?
“Sorry,” she said, backing away and clearing her throat. “I really need my afternoon coffee. Are you good?”
I nodded slowly, still looking at my computer. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed her absentmindedly running her hands over her jeans but tried to ignore it. There was no wayI’dmade a woman nervous.
“Okay,” she said breathlessly before retreating.
In an effort to calm down my nerves and stop the overanalyzing before it began, I discreetly grabbed a Xanax from my backpack. I hated that I needed it, but it had saved my ass more than once. I took a deep breath, testing to see if I could smell myself. I smelled like deodorant. When I looked at the taskbar on the screen, there was nothing suspicious that she would have been looking at. Whether or not I wanted to believe that I had the power to make a girl flustered in my depressing state, something about me threw Amanda Bette off.
And she was starting to do the same to me.
The first few weeks of working at Peabody went as smoothly as expected. I learned what I needed to and required less help as time went on, which was how I wanted it. I also picked up on a few snippets of office dynamics as the days droned on as well. Listening in on other people’s gossip made me forget my own issues—at least temporarily.
Amanda did in fact want Claude’s job. He was going to retire at the end of the year, and she was being prepped for it.
Oscar had the desk that he did to avoid everyone, not just Penny. Apparently, he was supposed to have been fired for having a bad attitude, but he had threatened to sue for age discrimination. Every encounter that I had with the man was brief and usually just involved a nod. I was okay with that, but I still wanted to hear one of those “nuggets of wisdom” Amanda had mentioned.
