None of that mattered to Vera. What mattered was that her boss, Tracy Hase drove her insane.
For the past three months, Vera had only seen Tracy in the weekly all-staff Zooms, rotating from side to side in his desk chair against a virtual background of a red-lipped batfish. Occasionally bits of him would disappear, as if the bat or fish, or whatever it was had taken a bite out of him.
“ . . . tomorrow,” Elle’s voice was monotonous, “Any concerns?”
Walter stuck his hand in the air like a child.
“Tracy quit swiveling. Yes, Walter? You can just talk, you don’t have to ask my permission.”
“Um, what about those of us who are in the risk groups? Are we supposed to just . . . die?” Walter pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
“If that’s a concern, and I mean this for everyone, talk to your manager about a possible work-from-home situation,” Elle clicked on a screen, bringing up a bullet-pointed list, “This is our current plan to resume operations, and you’ll notice that we are counting on some seats being vacant in order to operate safely. Management has offices, but the rest of you will need to observe an every-other-cube configuration with no one directly facing another employee.”
“What if we want to come in?” Sarah’s face pursed in a frown.
“Speak to Tracy, he’ll be responsible for arranging you.”
“We couldn’t, like, I don’t know, have Lynn do that for the whole office?” Sarah’s question was met with chuckles. Lynn Hase was the much more serious of the brothers.
“Are you doubting my spatial abilities?” Tracy stopped swiveling.
“I’m worried you’ll do something weird, like put my desk on the fire escape.”
“That’s a great idea,” Tracy pushed a stray curl out of his eyes, “We have a program that maps where people go, but I didn’t include the exterior of the building.”
“All right, we’re out of time,” Elle was surrounded by a green border as she spoke, “Talk to your managers and be safe.”
Faces vanished from the screen as people logged off. Vera closed the Zoom window with a sigh. She hated to admit it, but the sinking feeling in her stomach made it clear. “I think I miss Trac – ah!” Her phone lit up with his name. She stabbed the speaker button with trembling fingers.
“Veeeera, you are coming back in, aren’t you?”
“I planned to, I mean if the arrangements work out.”
“You have to come in. Who else is going to install the spit-screens.”
Vera cringed, “What? Gross and no. We have a janitor.”
“The janitor won’t do it. Something about it being out of his scope.”
Vera sputtered.
“I’m gonna plexiglass Sarah in like she’s in a fish tank.”
“Count me out,” she hung up on him.
Some small part of her thought it was bad practice to hang up on her boss and it prickled her as she opened her email. A calendar invitation entitled “Set-up office” appeared.
“Fine,” she hit the accept button with as much aggression as her mouse would allow.
The next day dawned with the kind of heat that roared off the traffic and up the city’s cement walls. When Vera arrived, it was only a quarter after seven, but already the ceiling fans were rotating at full speed.
Her desk looked the same except for the plexiglass attached to the top of her cubicle walls. She tossed her purse in the bottom drawer of her filing cabinet.
“Bleagh!” A face smashed against the plexiglass above her.
Vera took her time looking up, “Where’s your mask, Tracy?”
“Oh, you want to see mine? It’s brown to bring out the color of my tan,” he held it up by an ear-strap.
“You don’t have a tan, and you really should be wearing that,” Vera huffed a sigh that made her polka-dotted mask puff out.
“So you think I have the virus?” Tracy’s face puckered in a frown, “Next you’ll be asking me to stand six feet away. Tell me, Vera, how are you going to help me install spit shields if you’re that far away?”
“It looks like someone already installed them.”
“Someone? Someone! It was me. It would have been you too if you had shown up on time,” he stepped around the side of her cube. “We also need to talk about this,” Tracy bent, pulling a recycling can out from under Vera’s desk, “I was going through this – “
“You were going through my trash?”
“It’s recycling, Vera. Anyway, I was going through it and I was disappointed by how disorganized it is.”
“You know what happens to that paper, right?”
“Yes, the magic elves take it. But in the meantime, how do you find anything?”
“Tracy,” Vera took her recycling bin from him, “this is paper that I don’t need anymore. I’m not going to go looking for things in here.”
“Well, I was and I couldn’t make any sense out of it. Like why were your notes on a report that Lynn wanted backward and underneath a pile of paper that all had the word ‘what’ on them,” Tracy giggled, “‘What’ and that was all.”
“The ‘what’ papers came from that giant paper jam we had a week before we shut down.”
“What papers?”
“Hah.”
There was a scream from the opposite side of the office. “Oh, Sarah must have seen her cube,” Tracy glowed with anticipation, “Let’s go see.”
“Put your mask on.”
“But Vera, little strands of hair keep getting stuck in the elastics.”
“Get a haircut.”
“I called my barber and he said he could book me in two months. Two months, Vera! Lynn at least has enough for a ponytail.”
“Lynn has a ponytail?” Vera couldn’t help the mental image that popped into her head. Glasses and a ponytail that curled at the very end. Maybe he was wearing a charcoal grey shirt that set off his eyes.
“If you want to see, you have to walk by Sarah’s cube,” Tracy sing-songed.
“Why would Lynn be over there?” His office, like Tracy’s, was along the inner wall.
Tracy stuffed his mask in his slacks’ pocket, “Unlike you, he was here at seven installing spit-shields around cubicles.”
“What about your mask?” Vera could feel a warmth spreading across her cheeks.
“I’ll wear it if you put it on me.”
“No. Last time I helped you dress, someone saw us and there were rumors for weeks.”
Tracy’s eyes widened, “Well if you put it like that, no wonder there were rumors. I just need some help keeping my hair out of the way while I put it on.”
“No. Ask Lynn for help.”
“Fine,” Tracy flounced across the office. With his long stride, Vera had to scurry to keep up with him.
They found Lynn in Juana’s cube, installing plexiglass. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, tie over his left shoulder, a black bandana fashioned into a make-shift mask. Vera waved at him and continued walking, her heart racing. Tracy lingered behind, his mask in his hands.
Sarah’s cubical seemed to glow under the fluorescent lights like a giant prism. The plastic rear wall was smudged at eye-level as if someone has mistaken it for open space and attempted to walk through it. It was topped with a hinged plastic roof as if the occupant was expected to enter from above. Sarah herself was using a set of wrenches to loosen the bolts that held the plastic in place.
“Wow,” Vera touched the side of the plexiglass, “Do you need any help?”
“Yeah,” Sarah pulled her mask down, “Tell your boyfriend that I’m going to HR. This is a hostile work environment.”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“How do you like your fish tank, Sarah?” Tracy bounced into view, his mask finally on his face.
“Oh, it’s great. I’ve been meaning to redecorate.”
“I thought you’d be pleased. Tracy patted the side of the plexiglass, “Come over later, and let’s talk about that raise you asked for.” He pulled a strand of hair out of the elastic of his mask and winced.
Vera wandered back to her desk. She logged into her computer and tried to focus, but it didn’t work. All she could think of was the look in Tracy’s eyes. “I’m imagining it,” she told herself as she checked her email, “Tracy wasn’t actually sad, or disappointed, especially not because of me.” She read an email, then read it again.
Heaving a sigh, she stood. Tracy’s office door was closed, the blinds pulled down over its interior window. Tapping on his door, she eyed her own reflection.
“Come in!” There was the squeak of the casters on Tracy’s chair.
Vera opened the door.
“You’re not Sarah.”
“Do you want me to leave?” She lingered on the threshold.
“After you caused me so much pain?” Tracy held up his mask. A snarl of hair trailed the earloop like a cobweb.
Vera shut the door behind her, “For goodness sake, cut that rats nest off your mask.”
“But Vera, I don’t know where my scissors are,” Tracy opened a desk drawer. It was a jumble of paper clips, ink pens, and broken clumps of staples. A dried river of coffee traced its way around a hole puncher and into an empty pushpin box.
“How do you work like this?” She snapped the hair off the mask with her fingers.
“I have you. You always know where the scissors are.”
“I know where mine are, but I have no idea when it comes to you,” she brushed back his curls with one hand, sliding the earloop in place with the other. “There,” she did the other ear.
“Vera,” Tracy looked deep into her eyes, “Did you know that the red-lipped batfish has a retractable horn? It’s like the unicorn of fish.”
“Unicorns don’t have retractable horns and I have work to do,” Vera flicked his ear with her finger.”
“How do you know? Have you seen a unicorn?”
“Bye, Tracy,” she paused at the door, “I’m really glad I don’t have to talk to you over a batfish background anymore.”
“You didn’t find it magical?”
“No,” Vera let herself out. She walked down the hall, the sounds of conversation and the clicks of keyboards escaping their plastic barriers, “this is.”
---------------------------------------------------
Cross-posted to Deadlines for Writers
---------------------------------------------------