Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 46943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 235(@200wpm)___ 188(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 235(@200wpm)___ 188(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
“Laurie, Laurie, Earth to Laurie,” chimed my friend Tanya.
I sighed, spinning my chair around. Tanya stood in the doorway to my cube, her curvy frame propped up against one of the cube walls.
“Tan, you gotta be careful,” I sighed again. “These are cubes, not real offices. If you lean against the wall like that, it’s going to collapse and you’re going to be in a pile on the floor.”
Tanya snorted while twirling a piece of frizzy blonde hair. The gorgeous girl was one of my most beloved friends and had a funky style all her own. She mixed and matched her clothes, coming up with eclectic combinations that clashed but somehow worked. And she always, always wore a pair of statement glasses. Today’s frames were angular and purple, almost like goggles if you asked me but hey, that was Tanya.
And you couldn’t keep my friend down, especially not when she was feeling sassy.
“Good, if this thing collapses and I get injured, then I can file for workers’ comp and retire on the payments,” she snorted. But the blonde straightened, taking her weight off the gray fabric at least.
“How was yesterday?” she asked, a concerned look sweeping over her face. “Your move go okay?”
My friend was the only person at work who knew about the horrible betrayal by Gary, so she was asking with good intentions, inquiring into the fucked-up soap opera that was my life. But how to explain? That Gary had been blown out of my head, my heart, by one amazing experience with a stranger? That I’d let the delivery man come in and fuck me so hard, so thoroughly that I didn’t care about Gary anymore, my past be damned?
But that was hardly a PC answer especially with a million people buzzing away in the cubes around us. So I just smiled and said lightly, “Yeah, I survived. It sucked moving things five stories up without an elevator because I probably strained my back, but I survived.”
Tanya just laughed then.
“Tell you what, we both file for workers’ comp and then take a vacation together. How about it, hon? What do you say?” she asked, crossing her eyes at me.
I had to laugh then. We’d be such a cliché, government employees who milked the system for all it was worth, getting disability checks while sunning ourselves on a Caribbean cruise. But I knew my friend was joking so I giggled again.
“Nah, I’m okay, I’ll survive,” I said. “But listen, what does Saunders want with us today? I thought our signs were really great, I mean people don’t need that much help with restroom directions.”
I was talking about the icons we’d designed with the outline of a man and a woman on them, along with the words “washroom” in various languages. They’d be mounted in various government buildings like City Hall and the public library, but honestly, you don’t need translation for this stuff. People can already tell from the pictures which one is “Men’s” and which one is “Women’s.” But our boss was an idiot of Dilbert-like proportions and didn’t hesitate to create unnecessary work, making things up just to drive us crazy. Tanya didn’t hesitate to mince words either, nailing it on the head.
“That fucker has lost his mind,” she whispered, rolling her eyes. “Saunders is such a fucking douche, always wanting us to stay late yet yelling at us to ‘be more productive.’”
I nodded because of course our manager was the proverbial government lifer who had nothing better to do than push papers around while lording it over us, his subordinates. But he was the boss, so what could we do? I sighed, resigned.
“Listen,” continued Tanya in a hushed voice. “Let’s play hooky today. Let’s leave at four and tell stupid Saunders it’s because we’re checking out those new signs up in the Bronx. That way we’ll have an excuse to leave early, and you know what? I live up in the Bronx so we’ll head there afterwards and drink wine. Wine, baby, wine, everything’s good with wine.”
I giggled softly as Tanya boogied down in my cube, shaking her ass while doing a dance of joy. Normally I would have taken her up on the offer because checking up on our signs was part of the job, and it was only too easy to swing by my friend’s place afterwards for a sip of the good stuff. But I actually had plans tonight.
“Um, thanks Tan, but it’s a no go, I have some business to get to,” I said, biting my lip and going slightly red.
Tanya didn’t even hear me, she was still getting down, twerking against the gray cube wall, bouncing her butt against the soft fabric. I just rolled my eyes again. Seriously, my co-worker really wanted the cube to come crashing down with the way she was bumping and grinding.