Karolina Waclawiak - The Invaders

My cube neighbor slammed the phone down and tapped his fingers on his desk. Logged his sale without looking up. He had just made money while I was standing there like a jerkoff mocking him. I saw him scribble “$10K” on his legal pad with four exclamation points after it and do a silent fist pump under his desk. He looked around to make sure no one was watching and saw me staring at his fucking winning self. How do you ask a guy like that how he does it? You can’t.

“Nice job,” I said and sat down in my ergonomic office chair. I should have gotten high for this , I thought.

“Oh, your hair!”

People were streaming in from lunch and I didn’t want to turn around but I did. A woman stood messing with her hair at the edge of one of the cubicles. Other women surrounded her and I figured they weren’t much older than me.

“I gave it all to Locks of Love,” she said, waiting for the onslaught of praise. It came. Everyone around her looked at her like she had done something truly wonderful. She said, “My hair feels more age appropriate now. And that’s a good thing, right?” She played with her bangs and then said, “Well, maybe that’s not a good thing.”

They all told her that it was a great thing she’d done. I rolled my chair closer to my desk and hunched over my computer keyboard. I felt them looking at me, but no one said anything. Instead, they started talking to the guy next to me. They traveled in packs, each pack walking over from cubicle to cubicle to chat. I didn’t think I’d make it here. I knew I wouldn’t. I stared at the woman with the haircut while someone else said “Heather” and waved her away like she was being ridiculous. They all lied to her in different ways to make her feel better.

I wondered what her hair looked like before. She motioned her hand at the middle of her back and said, “Remember when my hair was to here yesterday? Do you all remember?”

They nodded in unison and she repeated the words “Locks of Love” several times while she waited for everyone to tell her how good a person she was again. And they did. She told everyone she had baked a special cake for the occasion. Rum raisin. She laughed and said they would be drunk from her cake before the quarterly meeting. They all laughed with her and looked at me as if I didn’t belong there. They offered one another pieces of it, every cubicle except mine. They all ate the cake and Heather asked them over and over again if it was good. If they were enjoying it. If it was delicious. She told them about each ingredient. She told them about the things she included that weren’t in the recipe. The risks she took. She wanted to hear that they had paid off. I looked at her and thought, What the fuck does she know about grateful cancer patients?

I left the office early and took whatever pills I could find in the car. I drove in circles and watched the boats and killed time before I was supposed to go home. I needed to act like I had worked a full and productive day. There was a crowd outside of Milligan’s as I drove by, so I pulled in real quick. Inside, the restaurant’s wooden benches were filled with families eating clam strips and tourists eating the overpriced lobster dinners.

At the bar, a few people recognized me from town and did the back pat. A few screamed out my nickname and pounded the bar. The bartender looked at me with a fucking annoyed expression on his face and I instantly regretted coming in.

I ordered a Guinness and sat at the end of the bar, scanning, looking for anyone good. It probably would have been a better bet to cruise over to Don Julio’s, where there was a chance tourist girlfriends were drinking bowl-size margaritas while their tourist boyfriends watched cable TV in the adjacent motel rooms. I could bring one of them back into my car and I’d never have to see her again, she’d be halfway to Cape Cod by the next morning.

I hoped Pauline wouldn’t show tonight, get grabby and put her ownership trip on me. I didn’t want to risk it. I finished my beer, choking it down while I made my way through the restaurant and to the back patio. It was loud and some radio station was being piped in through the speakers — Creedence, Aerosmith. I knew it was a more townie crowd out here. The patio ended at the edge of the marshes and everyone was crammed together pretending it didn’t smell like rotting fish or lobster remnants. Huge black garbage cans were strategically placed near the railing for beer cups and corncob husks. I walked toward the bar, a makeshift banner with a line of plastic yellow flags announcing CORONA SUMMERS waving above the bartenders.

I ordered a Bud and stood around awkwardly, wishing I’d taken a little bit of a hit before I got out of the car. It was warm and the air was humid, but it felt all right out here. A few families were picking through lobster carcasses but otherwise the tables were emptying because of the early-evening mosquitoes. What the hell was I going to do? What would I tell my father, that the “day in and day out” at that place would fucking kill me? That I didn’t want to be a part of any rat race? I knew what he would say. Suck it up.

“Teddy?”

It was an unfamiliar voice and I was afraid to turn around.

When I finally did, I didn’t recognize the girl, but she was small, with a nice chest and runner’s legs in supremely short shorts. She looked nervous and that made me nervous. Was she from some previous summer?

“Yeah,” I said.

“Tracy,” she said awkwardly.

Still no fucking clue.

I smiled and nodded like she was jogging my memory. I would have remembered those legs, probably. At least the tits. Anyway, she looked too young for me, for sure.

“We hung out on Block Island,” she wavered.

I knew what she meant by “hung out,” but I still couldn’t place her.

I kept nodding like a fucking idiot and smiling wide. I heard myself telling her how good she looked and how it was great to see her.

And then she asked for her wallet back and I knew exactly who she was.

Block Island. Sand. The guys. The reeds. We were wasted. We did it anyway. She passed out and I took her wallet.

I felt fucking sick all of a sudden and leaned over into one of those big trash cans and threw up.

She just stared at me, her hand out. I don’t even remember where I put the wallet. It had been our summer of collecting trophies. Maybe I lodged it into the couch of the summer house we were partying in. It didn’t matter. It was gone now and she was staring at me and waiting. She didn’t give a shit that I just threw up in front of her and the families still outside, trying to enjoy their meals. I was a fucking terrible person.

The song faded and the DJ screamed, “THESE ARE THE SOUNDS OF SUMMER YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR. LOW RIIIIIIDER.”

The music started up again and I felt helpless as waves of nausea hit me and I started to sweat. There was an acrid smell coming off me, like a sickness. I just smiled and nodded my head in agreement to nothing in particular and started moving toward the door, and away from the waving plastic yellow flags advertising endless summer fun.

CHERYL

WE SAW A COMMOTION up ahead as we pulled our golf bags behind us through the club parking lot.

“What now?” Jeffrey sighed.

I could see neighbors pointing and yelling at someone and a dog standing by, confused. As we walked closer, I knew it was the old fisherman and his dog. I picked up my pace and saw Lori yelling at the old man.

“Hey, leave him alone,” I said to Lori and Mary Ann, who was flanking her. “What’s he done?”

Lori looked at me, enraged. “We put up signs. He’s not supposed to be here.”

The old man held his bucket full of fish and looked at me. Jeffrey stood next to me, silent.