Welcome back! I hope you had a great week. This Tuesday’s story sample is the entire first chapter from the contemporary fantasy novel, Cubicles, Blood, and Magic. Cheers. (Note- This story is definitely PG-13 for language, so consider yourself warned).
Cubicles, Blood, and Magic: Dorelai Chronicles, Book One
L. M. May
Cubicles, Blood, and Magic copyright © 2012 by L. M. May
Published by Osuna Publishing
This story is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Chapter 1: Magical Poisonings
Mather, Massachusetts
My life began to fall apart on a Friday morning in mid-July, not long after Tim and I discovered the overripe cheese cubes smeared across the conference room table.
Tim had pulled me aside into an empty conference room overlooking the downtown plaza to tell me something. But it went clear out of our heads at the sight of the cheese mess.
From the way he kept swallowing, the smell made him want to puke. Not good. He needed to hold onto as many calories as he could, for lately he’d developed dark circles under his bloodshot eyes from too many nightmares and had lost too much weight. Rumors were circulating that he had cancer.
At least Tim didn’t really have cancer. Just burnout.
Or rather, that’s what we thought it was. It never crossed my mind as I stood there next to him that he might have been poisoned.
As for magic, it didn’t exist.
“Nate’s programmers are going too far with the passive-aggressive crap,” he said. “I’m glad none of my team would pull stuff like this on Stephanie.”
Stephanie was the head office assistant, and had been put in charge of implementing all the recent changes that were unpopular with the programmers. The latest change had been that there would no longer be any snacks stocked in the break room for the programmers to eat when working overnight or all weekend.
I followed Tim’s lead and gathered up wads of paper napkins from a tiny side table that held the supplies for coffee—stir sticks, Styrofoam cups, sugar, artificial sweetener, creamer.
Then I double-checked the industrial grey carpeting. To my relief, there was no powdery stuff of any sort poured across it, nor any cheese. “Good thing they didn’t think to dump sugar and creamer all over the carpet.”
“Just wait until next time,” Tim said.
Surveying the cheddar chunks encrusted all over the table, I could see what Tim meant. The culprits had been furious enough to be thorough—the entire glossy surface had dried cheese streaks and smears. It was going to take a janitor with a bucket of hot soapy water and a scrub brush to get it all off.
The cheese must have been smuggled over from the break room last night, for a plastic serving platter was in the trash can. Leftover cheese platters from a sales meeting had been put out by Stephanie in the break room yesterday for the programmers.
When the reflected light from the summer sky hit the table at just the right angle, I could read:
GRANITE HILLS SUCKS!!!
scrawled with cheese on the table’s surface.
As he was scooping up crumbled pieces of cheese with a napkin, Tim suddenly bent over with a dry heave.
Dropping my cheddar-filled napkin onto the table, I ran over to him and plucked his napkin out of his hand. “Okay, I think we’re going to let Stephanie be the one to worry about getting someone in here to deal with this.” I tossed his napkin in the trash and tried to lead him out of the conference room.
“No, wait.” Tim put a hand on my arm. His shirtsleeve stank of stale sweat, and tiny brown coffee droplets covered the fabric. He took a deep breath, and said, “I’m quitting.”
“Shit,” I blurted out. I tried to stay composed. “That means I’ll be drafted as team leader.”
“I gave two weeks’ notice.”
I resisted the urge to yell at him in frustration for leaving us so soon. It wouldn’t help.
Tim double-checked that the conference room door was closed. “Dorelai,” he said, “I’ve had it with this place. It’s going downhill, fast. Ed’s blocked my attempts to get Jake fired. And Dysart and Wiley know jack-shit about coding—they can’t tell Jake’s work is nothing but crap. That’s why they listen to Ed.”
Dysart was the new CEO of our company, Granite Hills Software. Wiley was the new VP of Development, and had brought in Ed to be in charge of Tim’s project.
Granite Hills had been bought out five months ago, and Tim was right: things were going downhill. Ed had assigned his pet employee Jake from the buyout company (which did financial services) to Tim’s project, despite Tim’s protests about Jake’s weak background as a programmer.
“If they wouldn’t let you fire Jake,” I said, “there’s no way they’ll let me do so.”
“That’s not important anymore. Just keep things going while you look for another job. I’ll warn the others—except for Jake—to get out. From the way the company is bleeding cash, you’ve got less than six months until the layoffs start.”
This would be my first management-type position. Software and computers were my expertise, not human psychology.
Queasiness from thinking about layoffs made me sorry I’d eaten nothing for breakfast. I’d been in such a hurry to get into work this morning, I’d simply chugged a cup of coffee with skim milk before leaving my apartment.
I said, “I’ll keep the project going as long as I can.”
“That’s all I can ask.”
I was happy to see that the nervous tic near his left eye had gone away.
Tim said, “Ed’s agreed to me getting you up to speed later today. Send everyone but Jake to meet me in the conference room next to this one.”
“Sure.” As I pulled open the conference room door, Tim sighed as he regarded the cheese mess one last time. His body was in silhouette against the glare from the windows.
Once he’d had the hint of a double chin; now he teetered on being gaunt.
When I reached our project’s cubicle area, I found Vadin and Monica squeezed into Stuart’s cubicle to exchange whispered comments. Jake was away from his desk.
Jake was the kind of guy who would double-cross you while smiling to your face. He’d done nothing but challenge Tim’s judgment and decisions behind his back since joining the project in March. Since we were a software project of only six people (counting Jake), his behavior had not endeared him to our tight-knit group. Stuart and I had begun sharing fantasies about dumping Jake into the company’s paper shredder.
Monica, our quality assurance engineer, had done such a great job in testing our latest software build that she’d found a huge number of Jake’s coding bugs. She’d written up so many problem reports on Jake’s code that Ed was going to have a hard time pretending Jake was a competent programmer.
“Hey,” I said to them, “Tim wants to speak to you guys. Third north conference room.”
Monica looked down her nose over her glasses. “Is it true about Tim?” she whispered. “He’s leaving?”
The keyboard clicks and clacks from the nearby cubicles slowed or went silent.
“Ask Tim,” I said. “Where’s Jake?”
Monica mouthed Ed’s office.
The programmers eavesdropping on us went back to using their keyboards.
I wended my way through the cubicles to Ed’s office while the other three went off to hear Tim’s dour warnings. The programmer cubicles took up most of the eleventh floor of the Chesterton Downtown building, except for areas such as the walled manager offices, the break room, the conference rooms along the south and north sides, and such.
When I reached Ed’s closed door, from the lingering smell I knew Jake was definitely in there, for he liked to use a musky aftershave.
“—no,” I overheard Ed say, “you need more experience first. Learn what you can from Stuart and Dorelai.”
“But—”
I knocked.
“Who is it?” Ed sounded eager for an excuse to get out of this conversation with Jake.
“Dorelai.”
“Please, come in,” Ed said.
I opened the door to find a smiling Jake looking up at me from Ed’s guest chair. “Dorelai,” (he pronounced it “lay” instead of “lie” because he knew it ticked me off) “how’s it going?”
Backstabbing weasel, I thought. “Fine. Ed—did you already break the news about Tim to Jake?”
Ed coughed. “Yes, I uh, I did.”
“Good,” I said. “Tim’s letting the others know right now.”
Ed fiddled with the printouts on his desk. Then he blurted at me, “You’ll be a fine replacement for Tim.”
Jake almost lost his smiling mask. I could tell underneath he was furious. Ed had just cut short any hope of his for getting the position instead.
“Thanks,” I said. “Tim’s going to fill me in as fast as he can.”
Jake gave me a toothy smile while saying, “Interesting how Stuart hates management so much.”
Stuart had been a coder when Jake and I were still in diapers. He ran rings around the rest of us as a programmer, he’d done project management in the past, and had flat-out told us how much he’d hated it. Without him, our project would collapse—and Ed knew if he drafted Stuart as team leader, Stuart’d quit.
“Actually, it’s a common trait in top programmers,” I said. “Stuart knows more about coding than the rest of us combined.”
That made Jake squirm. He knew I knew his code was shit.
Ed did the nervous cough thing of his. The tension between me and Jake was getting to him. “Well,” Ed said, “status meeting in ten minutes.”
“Right,” I said. “Later.” I left Ed’s office feeling like any moment I was going to feel a pen stabbed between my shoulder blades.
#
The rest of Friday morning stank. Jake tried to act supportive and upbeat at the status meeting, but he was fuming about not getting the team leader position. And the rest of us, except for Tim, were jumpy. Ed sensed something was up, but couldn’t figure out exactly what it was.
Then we found out we were going to have work nights and weekends to get the software release done while we still had Tim to oversee us. I confess that deep inside I was relieved about the weekend work. Things weren’t going well with Dereck. We’d been dating for almost two months, and to his frustration I still refused to sleep with him.
I couldn’t even bring myself to kiss him on the cheek goodnight, and for whatever reason, the thought of having to strip naked in front of him depressed the hell out of me.
Even on dates he had the wireless clip on his earlobe—which he wore day and night to field a constant stream of phone calls—with his mouth moving nonstop, looking like he was talking to himself. It turned me off.
And he had a way of watching me that made me uneasy. He was always texting and calling me, demanding to know where I was, who I was with, and what I was doing.
I had told him that we probably weren’t compatible, but he never got it. He’d show up on my doorstep uninvited, with a restaurant reservation or movie tickets, and out of pity I’d give in to his demands to take me somewhere.
So it was with relief that I texted him that our dates were off for the next three weeks—duty calls, and all that. (Yes, I confess that I lied and threw on an extra week, despite it being just two. I guess I hoped that he’d get restless and go find someone new to date.)
#
To celebrate my unwanted promotion, I decided for lunch I’d grab a takeout Greek salad from the Pomegranate Deli, and do some browsing at Louie’s Emporium. Luckily for me, they were both in the basement of Knossos Tower, which was straight across the downtown plaza from where I worked.
I lived in a city in Massachusetts called Mather. It was dull and provincial compared to cities like Boston and New York, but something about the place drew me in after graduating from MIT. I had gladly accepted a software job at Mather College, then had switched to Granite Hills about a year ago.
Knossos Tower had a mystique I never tired of staring at. Even though it was new (they had only finished its construction three months ago), its style was Art Deco in tan sandstone with red geometric trim, and heavy brass for the lobby doors and door handles.
So stepping into the lobby of Knossos was like stepping back in time. The floors were veined marble, the walls covered with burgundy wallpaper and brass-framed mirrors, the lobby brightly lit by crystal chandeliers along the high ceilings, and potted palms packed into every nook and cranny.
Escalators went from the lobby down to the basement. I loved how the lobby always smelled of hot fries and rosemary chicken because the Pomegranate Deli was below.
As I rode the down escalator, on the up was a Jewish man with a thick black beard who wore a traditional black suit and fedora, but he was missing the details that would identify him as being part of the Haredim. For example, instead of wearing a Haredi-style white shirt, he wore a blue Oxford shirt.
He had the thickest glasses I’d ever seen … and the kindest eyes.
To my embarrassment, he caught me staring at him, and he smiled. “Shalom,” he said as we passed each other, me going down, him going up.
“Shabbat shalom,” I called back.
My father would have had a fit if he’d heard me. Father claimed he was an atheist, but in reality he was an “assologist.” He went with whatever belief system would enrage the most people around him—in a world of atheists he would have become a Catholic just out of spite. He’d insisted Mother give up practicing as a Jew after their civil marriage. She was, however, allowed to keep her ethnic Jewish heritage to pass on to my brothers and me.
I nearly tripped over the ending edge of the escalator from my distraction.
The burgundy-and-brass decor continued in the basement hall that led away from the escalators and elevators. Before reaching the deli, there was a tinted glass door on the left to access some of the service corridors for the building. I’d made the mistake once of going through to snoop around, and nearly got lost. It was a like a grey-tinted labyrinth back there.
The Pomegranate Deli came up on the right as I walked down the hall. Behind its glass walls I could see the deli counters with giant jars of dolmas, pepperoncini, and pickles on top. The blue lighting in the deli made everyone look like they were eating underwater.
I always stuck to ordering salads, which were many and varied at the Pomegranate.
After placing my takeout order, I went on down the hall toward the emporium. I passed by The Dive on the left. The pool hall had no glass walls like the deli did. To me (as I peered into the entrance) the pool table lamps stuck out like islands of light in the smoky darkness. Always there could be heard the click of balls hitting each other, or the clink of glass as someone drank their beer.
Further along the basement hall, on the right, just before one reached the emporium at the end, was Louie McDonough’s management office for Knossos. The door, as always, was closed as I passed on by.
I’d found out Louie was the building manager through gossip at Granite Hills—our CEO, Dysart, had approached Louie about renting office space in Knossos at a cheaper rate than the Chesterton, and Louie had quoted a rate so outrageously high that Dysart had ranted about it at the last senior management meeting.
I peeked through the emporium’s glass door. My crappy day was looking up, for it was Louie instead of Ines behind the main display counter. Ines, who ran the shop for him, was nice, but it was Louie who knew all the dirt on my company.
Ever since I had first met Louie when his emporium opened three months ago, I’d felt drawn to him. He liked to ask me questions about my work, my interests, and my family, and listened closely, often to then ask a question that would throw a whole new light on a knotty problem or situation. But he was reserved about his own life.
During our last chat, as I watched him take apart a cuckoo clock, I’d asked him straight out why he’d opened up a shop in the Knossos basement when he had an entire building to run, and he’d given me an evasive sounding answer that he found just being the manager of Knossos bloody boring.
His emporium was a chaotic mixture of museum, hobby store, and tourist trap that smelled like moldering books and dust. He had all kinds of odd things to catch one’s interest: costume jewelry, wood carvings, porcelain figurines, gags, magic kits, gemstones, collector cards, puzzles, paintings, antique books, et cetera.
The emporium’s brass door handle was shaped like a bull’s head with a lolling tongue. I grabbed hold of the smooth tongue and went on in. As the chimes subsided, I called out, “Hi, Louie. How’s it going today?”
He said, “Good afternoon, Dorelai,” but didn’t look up. He was in the middle of dissecting a music box before him. “You may watch, but don’t touch.”
From his grey-black hair and the lines on his face, I had guessed he was in his fifties. He liked to wear 1940s-style suits with a crisp white shirt, silk tie, and a silk handkerchief tucked in the suit’s breast pocket. He always smelled of sandalwood.
To my surprise, he’d taken off his suit jacket (folded to lay neatly on the display case), and had rolled up his shirtsleeves to work on the music box. I’d never seen him so informal before. An unzipped leather toolkit lay next to him on the counter. He was removing the screws that held in place the tiny ballerina that would spin when the box was wound up.
I studied the interior of the cedar-scented music box. It was covered in white satin, with a central scene of a frozen mirror lake surrounded by sparkly snow and pine trees. The ballerina wore a glittering white ball gown.
“So,” I said, “is it refusing to spin the ballerina, or is the music not playing?”
“It works all too bloody well,” Louie said. “I’m trying to figure out who made it by analyzing the pieces.”
I frowned while studying the music box. “Why?”
“It plays a nasty trick when opened.”
“What kind of trick?”
“The kind that can hurt.”
I was disappointed when Louie didn’t elaborate. He could be quite a tease when it came to taking mysterious objects apart in front of me. I longed to elbow him aside, grab his tools, and dissect this mystery object for myself.
To take my mind off the music box, I said, “Tim’s leaving. He’s making me team leader.”
Louie stopped using the screwdriver, and put it down in the toolkit. “Congratulations, or condolences, or both?”
“Both.” I chewed at my lip. “You were right, the merger isn’t going well. I need to find a new job. Probably time for me to move to back to Boston, anyway—that’s where Tim is going.”
Louie tapped a finger against the counter. I noticed the hairs on his swarthy arms were white, and on his left arm there was a deep gouge of pale scar tissue that ran from his wrist upward toward his elbow and under the folded sleeve. Someone had cut him up badly, long ago.
Louie said, “Perhaps you could work for me.”
Selling stuff in an emporium, or running an office building, didn’t appeal to me. “Um—”
“I have other endeavors besides the emporium and Knossos Tower. Your deep knowledge of technology could be very useful to … projects of mine. But I need to ponder the consequences.” He picked up the screwdriver with his left hand and went back to work extracting the ballerina.
Somehow I sensed from his tone that the project he was contemplating was a tad dangerous. Or shady. Or both. “Sure,” I said. “Take as much time as you need. No rush.” I determined to start searching for a job in Boston as soon I got home that night.
#
Dereck spent the weekend texting angry complaints to me after he showed up outside my apartment, uninvited, on Saturday to discover that I’d told the truth. I wasn’t there. I was at work.
Thankfully, during weekends he couldn’t get into my office building to hunt me down since he didn’t have a security pass. Which was great.
On Sunday night, while I sat in the dingy break room with my coworkers (who were eating Chinese takeout), I set my cell phone ringer to OFF so I could ignore Dereck’s barrage of phone calls and texts.
Monica cheered when she saw me do it. Then she looked at my steamed broccoli and carrots in its plastic container (no sauce, no rice) and said, “Dorelai, that’s no way to live.” She was chowing down on moo goo gai pan. “Here.” She pushed the rice and her carton toward me. “Have some, I’ve got too much. No MSG. No greasy oils. And it’s got lots of vegetables, and the chicken is lean breast meat.”
I found the smell unappealing. “I’m—”
“On a diet,” Monica finished for me. She frowned, and I was shocked to see she was genuinely worried. “You’re skin and bones.”
“No, I’m fine,” I said.
Jake put a steaming cup of coffee in front of me, and another by Monica. He’d made a fresh pot for all of us.
I noticed Vadin was doing sketches in his notepad again—he did them compulsively now. He’d gotten a degree in computer science (as his parents demanded), despite wanting to be a painter. Once Stuart pointed out to him he could make a living in computer animation, Vadin had begun drawing nonstop and taking online animation classes.
Why Vadin felt compelled to make drawings of our boring break room I was never able to figure out. The carpeting was grey, the cabinets were grey, the walls were grey, and the countertops were grey. The lighting was dim, making us all look washed out. The refrigerator had dark stains on its handle from so many hands touching it.
Jake’s cell phone went off. He grimaced at the phone as he stepped out of the break room to take the call.
Tim nodded over his empty coffee cup. Monica, Stuart, and I stopped eating to watch. I wondered if he’d pass out after so many weeks of sleep deprivation.
Then Tim jerked his head back up. “I must be even more exhausted than I realized. Good thing I’m having Betsy pick me up.”
He eyed his Buddha’s delight with renewed interest. “I ought to eat this,” he said, and proceeded to chow down like I hadn’t seen him do in weeks.
Monica pushed her cartons toward him. “You look famished, Tim. Feel free to try my leftovers. They’ll reek if I try to store them in the company fridge.”
The break room refrigerator was in bad shape. Stephanie had made the unfortunate decision to punish the programmers for the cheese incident by implementing Wiley’s long-term plan to get rid of the programmers’ couch, the Ping-Pong table, and the treadmill. She’d seen to it that all of it had been hauled away Friday afternoon, and had been foolish enough to gloat about it afterward. Since she was in charge of keeping the break room clean, in retaliation some of the programmers had deliberately stocked the refrigerator with banana peels, apple cores, half-eaten sandwiches, and other nasty leftovers.
Jake stomped back into the break room. From the looks of it, he’d had another fight with his girlfriend.
Tim swallowed his mouthful of food, and said to Jake, “What’s wrong?”
Jake scowled at his phone. “Veronica had big plans, and now everything has to be postponed until August, when it’ll be too hot to enjoy anything outdoors.”
“Do it in September then,” Stuart said.
Jake glared at Stuart. “She wants to go to the lake now. She had to forfeit the deposit on the cabin.”
Stuart snorted.
Jake seized Vadin’s notepad. “I didn’t give you permission to sketch me.”
“Sorry,” Vadin said while reaching out a hand to get it back. “I did it without thinking.”
Jake kept the notepad out of reach. “Well, sorry isn’t good enough. It’s an invasion of my privacy.”
“Jake,” Tim said.
Jake tossed the notepad at Vadin’s chest. “I don’t see why you bother when you’re in a lame-ass place like this. You need to move to Los Angeles if you want to be a computer animator. Assuming you have any talent, which is still in question.”
We all froze at this last comment of Jake’s. This wasn’t like him—he might think these things, but he never said them to your face.
By the widening of Jake’s eyes, I think he was surprised as well by what had come out of his mouth.
Tim said to Jake, “I don’t know what your problem is tonight, but shut up. We have a release to finish.”
Jake hunched down to sit in his chair. “Vadin, I’m sorry. Stress.”
Vadin looked Jake over warily. I had to agree, the apology was more of the “I’m sorry I got caught” variety than a heartfelt one.
Jake eyed us, and got a pissed look when he realized we could all see through him. He shoved up from his chair, threw out his Chinese food, and left the break room without a backward look.
Tim said in an undertone, “I wish I could have gotten his sorry ass fired before I left.”
#
The next two weeks were: code, curse as our software failed Monica’s QA tests, code, ignore Dereck’s angry complaints about not seeing me, code, watch us again fail Monica’s tests, code, deal with Jake ranting over the long work hours, code, watch everyone get enraged at Jake because we again failed Monica’s QA tests, code, sit with Tim for hours as he gave me info-dumps about our project, code, hitch a car ride home with Stuart or Monica, collapse on my bed, come back to work, code.
I avoided Louie, afraid he’d make me a job offer I’d have to refuse. I didn’t feel I had the extra energy to deal with his disappointment on top of the stress of work and Dereck.
Luckily, we were getting takeout a lot so that I didn’t need to go over to Knossos for food.
Sometimes I brought celery sticks to work to eat for lunch. I stored them in a chilled lunch bag at my desk, because the break room refrigerator had reached the completely disgusting stage, and any food left in it quickly absorbed the flavor of rot. Stephanie had sent out a memo that the fridge had to be cleaned out, or else, but so far the programmers had ignored her.
And at least twice a day, I felt compelled to go to the north conference rooms to look through the windows at Knossos Tower across the plaza. There were times I felt it had an inner glow to it that I could almost see. It was so different from the other buildings of downtown.
Tim’s health rapidly improved, but Monica’s took a nosedive. She started coming in complaining of insomnia induced by horrific dreams. She got Tim’s dark circles under her eyes, and lost her appetite.
#
By Thursday of the second week of long hours, Tim tried to get Monica to go on sick leave. “First me, now you,” he said. “Go home and try to get some sleep.”
“I can’t.” Monica lifted her head from the crumpled printouts on her desk. “I prefer to be awake. Those dreams are horrible, Tim. No wonder you looked like hell after a bit. I probably just have a bad case of stress.”
Tomorrow, on Friday, Tim would be saying goodbye since it would officially be his last day. He’d told us his new workplace in Boston would be hiring in a few months, and to get resumes to him.
Just this afternoon we’d finally gotten the software release done. That was because Stuart had gone through all of Jake’s code and fixed his bugs for him.
Jake sulked whenever he saw Monica, because she had consistently failed our software builds with her thorough QA tests. She’d made Jake look extremely bad in doing so.
Tim continued to fuss over Monica. “Go home,” he said. “That’s an order. The latest build is stable.” He raised his voice. “Actually, I’d like for you all to go home and rest. It’s four o’clock, and we’ve got a build that works.”
I was so exhausted I didn’t have the energy to smile. There were mumbles of envy from other programmer teams as we stumbled toward the elevators.
#
When I pushed open my apartment door, I stepped on a manila envelope that had been shoved underneath.
I was struck by how cheery my apartment looked with the bright August sunlight streaming in, despite the dust on everything. I thought about taking a long shower, then lying down on the couch to reread some Andre Norton to relax.
After tossing my briefcase onto my couch, I picked up the manila envelope and wandered into the kitchen.
The return address, printed on a label, was the company that owned the brownstone with my apartment. I tore the envelope open using my thumbnail. As I pulled the enclosed letter out, a flood of powdered ink poured from seemingly nowhere all over my hand and wrist and arm.
Their printer must be on the fritz, I thought. There’s enough powder here to fill a cartridge.
But then I discovered it wasn’t ink powder, but tiny wriggling dots that were burrowing into my skin.
“What the hell!” I yelled as I dropped the letter and envelope, and ran over to the sink to scrub with soap.
When I checked my hands and wrists and arms again, no sign of specks.
I approached where the mailing lay abandoned on the vinyl floor, and nudged with my foot the letter, then the envelope. Still no specks.
Then I took tongs out of a kitchen drawer, and picked up the letter to hold it over the sink, twisting it back and forth to study both sides.
It looked like a typical memo from the property management office asking if I had any concerns or complaints to make. No signature though, just the main office address and phone number.
I opened the tongs to drop the letter into the sink, then clamped onto the manila envelope to inspect it closely (again, over the sink).
Looked normal. Printed labels, one with the property address, one with my name and apartment number.
I peered inside—no specks.
The eye fatigue of staring at a computer screen too long for weeks must have played a trick on me.
I tossed the letter and envelope into the garbage (still using the tongs though). With anticipation I headed toward the shower.
#
To my aggravation, Dereck called as I was toweling off. It was hard to find my cell phone due to what I thought was wooziness from the hot water and fatigue.
“Dorelai, we’re having dinner tonight at La Belle.”
Somehow Dereck had found out about me getting out of work early. Otherwise there was no way he would have known I was home at a reasonable hour.
I got ready to say, “No,” but then I realized he’d just show up anyway.
Time to end this once and for all. I’ll get through to him tonight, no matter what. My own thoughts startled me. I said into my cell phone, “Sure. I can be ready by seven.”
“Good. I’ll be there at six-thirty.”
He hung up before I could chew him out for not asking me before changing the time.
While I was putting the cell phone down, my eyesight blurred, then cleared. I was struck by how bony my wrist looked.
Then I made the mistake of looking down at myself (I’d wrapped up in a towel to deal with Dereck’s call) and was horrified by what I saw.
I’d been chubby back in middle school, and it had taken effort and determination to diet off the weight. Since then I’d made sure to watch my calorie intake, and had never gained the freshman fifteen in college.
Mother had fretted when she last saw me that I didn’t eat enough.
And now I could see what she meant. I wasn’t thin enough to qualify as anorexic, but I didn’t look good. So I made myself get on the scale I kept hidden in my clothes closet. It had been months since I’d last weighed myself.
I made myself look at the number.
I was underweight.
My skin got all clammy. I went and sat down on my bed and tried to make sense of it all while staring at my bare toes. But nothing came together. It stayed a jumble.
So I tried to distract myself by getting dressed. I pulled out a blue cotton blouse, and black jeans. Comfort clothes. At least I’d feel good in those. And they’d hide my bony frame.
No wonder Monica kept coaxing me to eat.
#
Dereck buzzed to be let in right as I was pulling on a pair of black sneakers.
Grumbling to myself, I hit the buzzer to unlock the hallway door so he could climb the stairs to my apartment on the third floor. I lived in a brownstone on a quiet street with dogwood trees, with brownstones lining both sides of the street.
When I opened the apartment door before he could knock (the stairs were uncarpeted, so I could hear the echo of footsteps as he climbed up), Dereck frowned, puzzled at me being in jeans and sneakers instead of the expected business casual.
The damn clip was at his ear as usual. I resisted the urge to flick it off with my fingers.
He shifted on his feet.
I’d forgotten to open the door all the way so that he could come inside.
Reluctantly I pulled the door all the way open and stepped back so he could stand in the living room.
He looked me up and down again. My casual clothes for La Belle were a definite annoyance to him. My heart lifted as I thought he might give me an ultimatum to change or the dinner would be cancelled.
Dereck made a hnnnh noise through his nose.
I said, “I just need to grab my purse, and I’ll be ready.”
Another hnnnh from Dereck. Finally he said, “You’re not going to La Belle dressed like that, are you?”
As I grabbed my purse, I said, “I’m exhausted. I’d be happy just to grab a burger at a fast food place and call it a night.”
Dereck scrunched up his nose at the fast food mention. He prided himself on his knowledge of haute cuisine, and travelled into Boston frequently to go to the fine restaurants there. So far I’d refused to go to Boston with him on an overnight trip.
His phone went off.
“What is it now?” Dereck yelled into his ear clip.
A deep voice could be faintly heard—Dereck’s paralegal Antonio. Another contract problem from the sound of it.
I got dizzy again, and sat down on the couch, and pretended to ignore Dereck yelling at his paralegal about a contractual dispute that was degenerating into scorched earth threats.
Both Dereck and my brother Thanos were lawyers. But unlike my brother, who thrived in the cutthroat world of corporate law in New York City, Dereck never seemed to be able to separate business and pleasure. Both were blended into a never-ending jumble of phone calls and texts.
Thinking about Thanos got me depressed. He was engaged to be married to Professor Evelyn Perkins, who despised his choice of a career almost as much our father did.
Thanos was the black sheep of our family, for instead of majoring in a “worthy” subject like engineering or science, he had gotten a B.A. in political science, followed by a J.D. degree. Father, who had done his Ph.D. in physics, still groused at Thanos during family get-togethers, telling him he was a parasite on society.
Only a Ph.D. would redeem Thanos, as far as Father was concerned.
“We’ll look over the notes tomorrow morning,” Dereck said, and ended his call. He checked his cell phone. “We’d better hurry. The reservation is for seven.”
Dereck fielded another phone call from Antonio as we got into his sports car.
While riding to the restaurant, slumped down on the squeaky leather, I thought about what words I could say that would get it through Dereck’s thick skull that our relationship was over. Any pity I’d felt over his loneliness was gone. I found myself feeling too exhausted and sick to care if I hurt his feelings.
Dereck didn’t notice my silence during the entire ride, for he spent the time after hanging up on Antonio calling his law partner to bellow about the latest hitch in the contract while he drove.
I got mad. He was going to be damn sorry he’d not been paying attention to how I felt.
************** End of Chapter 1 *****************
Cubicles, Blood, and Magic is a long novel (100,000+ words), so I’m going to post Chapters 2-4 over the next three Tuesdays. (Note: If you are reading this post after April 8, 2013, click here to go to Cubicle‘s main page on this website so you can find Chapter 2.)
This novel is currently available (April 1, 2013) in e-book format from e-bookstores such as iTunes, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Smashwords, Diesel, Sony, and other retailers. This will likely change over time (since an audio and print version will be coming out), so click here to go to Cubicle‘s page if you’re reading this months from now to see what is available.
See you all next week (or further in the future if you’re reading these words long after they were first posted–let me take a moment to wave to you. I hope the future you’re living in is a much happier place for everyone in this world).
Feel free to forward this post or share the link if you think a friend would enjoy getting these story samples.
Cheers, L. M.
Filed under: Cubicles Blood and Magic, Dorelai Chronicles, L. M. May, News, Story Samples
