Camy Tang - Sushi for One?

“If you make the mess, you clean it up!” The administrative assistant’s bellow resonated from the entrance foyer down the hallways to the managers’ offices.

“I had a family function to go to!” Cari, the newly hired intern, had plenty of the head-wagging thing going on.

Lex’s entrance through the glass doors didn’t even pause the argument.

The middle-aged woman gave the hip intern a look that lowered the air-conditioned area to below freezing. “You spilled the entire bottle of soda. At least you could have gotten paper towels!”

“Somebody pushed me! It wasn’t my fault!”

“It doesn’t matter! Grow up and take responsibility or don’t come to the afternoon office parties.”

Cari’s blue and purple glitter eye makeup glinted in the fluorescent overhead lights. “Even you can’t keep me from going to the office parties, you old hag.”

Good going, girlfriend, insult the Gorgon. Make her difficult to work with all day for everybody else.

Lex kept to the periphery of the foyer and managed to nip back to her cubicle. She guessed she wouldn’t be asking Cari about her favorite singles’ hangouts this morning. Maybe this afternoon. She wouldn’t be able to hold a civil convo with the admin all day – she’d have to ask someone else about real estate agent recommendations.

She passed two of her coworkers – privately she called them the Gossip Twins, GT1 and GT2 – huddled as usual in a cubicle furthest from the managers’ offices.

“Did you hear that she got called in yesterday?” GT1 always thought her voice didn’t carry, but Lex could hear her two cubicles away.

“I heard she got reprimanded for rubber-stamping the documentation.” Smug and superior, GT2’s softer-pitched voice still rang audibly.

“Was she too lazy to check it?”

“She got distracted when her boyfriend called.”

Both Gossip Twins were young and sociable. For a flickering moment, Lex considered asking them about a good place to meet guys, but… She walked past their giggling session.

Lex arrived at her cubicle and found a large note scrawled on her yellow sticky pad: See me. – Everett.

What now? Lex had finished her CAD work yesterday – ahead of schedule, thank you very much – so what could Everett complain about now?

“What do you need a new chair for?” Everett dispensed with any greeting as soon as Lex appeared at his office door.

“My back is giving me problems, so I need an ergonomic one.”

Like, duh.

“Your chair is fine. It’s not broken, is it?” His bald pate had begun to glisten and blush. Great. Temper tantrum ahead.

“Well, the back adjustment screw is stripped – ”

“Then get maintenance to fix it. You don’t need a whole new chair.” Everett tossed the purchase order onto his haphazard desk, where it disappeared in the sea of other white papers.

“Mark looked at it, and he says – ”

“Who the heck is Mark?” Everett’s violent head-rearing dislodged a few combed-over wisps.

“Mark is our head of maintenance.”

“Oh.” Everett harrumphed. “So, what’d he say?”

“He said to get a new chair.”

“Why can’t he drive down to Office Depot and pick up a chair?”

“We went last week, but none of them fit. My desk is too high and my legs are too short.”

“So you need this $250 chair?”

“It was the cheapest ergonomic we could find.”

“You don’t need a special erko – ergic – nomic chair.”

“My old chair is causing my lower back to hurt.”

“Nonsense! It’s all that volleyball you do.”

That did it. An ume-red haze dropped over Lex’s eyes. “I played for years before coming to work for this company and never had back problems until I got that computer chair at my desk.”

“Delayed reaction injury. The answer’s no.” Everett somehow found the purchase order from his desk – or maybe he didn’t, but he thought he picked up the right paper – and crumpled it up.

Lex considered screaming “Avalanche!” and flinging the layer of papers over the edge of his desk. Or maybe she could dump him out of his posh leather chair like a dump truck and run off with it to her cubicle. Or maybe she could yank out his computer cables and hold them ransom until he gave in.

Lex’s teeth ground against each other. She whirled and exited the Chamber of Torture.

She almost collided with someone rushing past. “Oops, sorry, Anna… What’s wrong?”

Anna dashed at her eyes, and her blotchy face scrunched up even more. Her nose turned neon.

“Oh, no. Is it your manager again?”

“Yesterday we were working together so well… laughing and joking. This morning, she yelled and threw her flowerpot at me. She said I did shoddy work.”

Lex rolled her eyes as she walked down the hall with Anna back to the cubicles. The more distance from her manager’s office, the better.

Lex walked close to a sniffling Anna but balked at putting an arm around her shoulders. She wasn’t as uncomfortable touching women as men, but she still didn’t like the physical contact.

The tears gushed from Anna’s swollen eyes. “I just don’t get her.

She’s so moody whenever I talk with her, I never know if she’s going to smile or bite.”

“If you want me to help you – ”

“No, it’s not the work. It’s the mental anguish of working with her.” Anna broke down into wrenching sobs.

Lex’s desk didn’t have tissues, so she reached into the cube next door to snatch some from her box. Anna crumpled them in her hand and dabbed her face.

Lex stayed with her until she calmed down. Anna blew her nose -loudly – and looked around for a trash can.

Lex followed her gaze. What had happened to her trash can?

“Uh…” Lex peeked into the cubes on either side of her. Both missing trash cans. What was going on?

Anna’s hand flapped around, still searching for a landing spot for her tissue.

Lex swallowed a sudden upsurge of bile, but held out her hand. “Here, give it to me. I’ll find a trash can.” Poor girl. Lex couldn’t make Anna feel worse by letting her anti-bodily-fluids phobia show on her face, although her cheeks felt clammy.

Anna shuffled away, and Lex zigzagged through the cubicles, searching for a trash can. Who had pilfered all the trash cans?

“Aaaieeeeee!” Cari’s shriek pierced through the cubicle walls like a spray of bullets.

Despite Cari’s obvious distress, Lex would have avoided yet more drama, but just her luck, she stood a few cubes down from Cari’s. The girl bolted out of her desk, hands chicken-flapping, mouth wide open and emitting more screams, legs pumping up and down like on a stairmaster.

Jerry followed behind her, weaving slightly, face pale. “I’m sorry,Cari…”

Cari ignored him, instead wailing and flicking her purple manicure at the beige and mauve design on her skin-tight T-shirt.

No, not a design. The streak that splashed from one shoulder across her chest was vomit.

From Jerry.

“I was sitting! At my computer! He was standing! Behind me! And he just bleaugh!” Cari erupted into fresh hysterics.

Lex clapped one hand – not the one holding the dirty tissue, which seemed rather insignificant now – to her mouth. Her stomach roiled. Don’t breathe. Don’t look. Right now, that morning cereal didn’t want to stay in her tummy. No, don’t think about the cereal! Lex needed to get to the women’s restroom.

Jerry sagged against a cubicle wall, which tilted precariously. “I’m sorry, Cari.” He heaved a long, slow sigh. “I only had a few beers last night…”

Suddenly his eyes grew large. His face dulled to Elmer’s glue. He pressed his large, loose lips together.