BY ELIAS BAYER
Copyright is held by the author.
SOL WAS still finishing things up at her desk well past six. She started vacation tomorrow and staying late made sense. Eli wasn’t starting anything tomorrow, and it was making less and less sense why he was still sitting at his desk. Everyone else had clocked out an hour ago and shuffled next door to the Tex-Mex restaurant that inexplicably shared one of the office walls. He should probably try to enjoy the tequila soaked networking next door, not pretend to work in silence. But even from his desk, Eli could tell the happy hour was thinning. It had been a full ten minutes since he’d heard Dylan from Marketing’s loud, lawnmower laugh rev up. Soon, he’d lose his chance. Any minute, their coworkers would whirl back through the office to grab their coats or to check that their laptops were off. Even the last hour alone hadn’t seemed long enough.
It was a typical start-up office, which meant that, other than computer monitors and loosely strewn folders, no walls denoted individual desks. Something about the office being agile, or disruptive, or whatever buzzword they’d said at the interview. It hadn’t taken long for Eli to learn that a cubicle didn’t seem any more oppressive than all of your coworkers seeing you, all of the time.
There were large, rectangular grey tables running parallel to each other in the large, rectangular grey room. In an attempt to distract from the office-ness of it all there were loudly coloured abstract murals with the company logo on each end of the room and strangely shaped bean bag chairs occupying the corners of adjacent glass conference rooms. A few months ago, Sol had shown him his two foot slice of table and then had taken his headshot in front of a mural. The company wanted intro videos too, for the website, of new employees and their most fun fact. She’d commented wryly on how it felt like some sort of hostage situation. Like one of those “I’m safe, please send money” videos. Eli joked he should have learned how to blink in Morse code. She’d smiled then, warm and big and real. And he’d lost all hope of trying to forget those dimples, of swimming back to shore and not drowning, gleefully, in her laugh.
They sat at opposite tables, facing away from each other, backs both turned to a moat of blue-green performance carpet between them. It was the one seat where he couldn’t see Sol throughout the day without an obvious 3-60 spin. Not that he didn’t ask every onboarding question he could for the last few months to orbit closer to her desk. It was just never enough time. Even with the geometric obstacles, Eli swore he could feel whenever she sat behind him. There was some magnetic pulse from his heart to hers. Every beat wanted to pull his whole body, draw his chair across the floor until their backs were touching and their hearts could beat as one. Maybe that was a little dramatic, considering Eli still hadn’t asked her out yet.
Which was why he was here so late that Thursday, slouching under the sharp fluorescent white of tube lights instead of enjoying under-poured margaritas and over-salted chips next door. He was running out of things to even pretend to do. Clicking in and out of the same three spreadsheets, Eli only ventured a glance backwards every twenty-seven clicks or so. Was it too weird that he was the only other one here? Too obvious that he was waiting to talk to her? Or was it actually too perfect that they would be alone, right before her big trip? He could finally tell her how he felt. It was simply too romantic to fail. She’d think of him overseas and they’d text back and forth. Two weeks from now he’d be standing at LAX Arrivals with a heart-shaped sign and they’d run into each other’s arms. He just had to tell her how he felt.
His resolve had been tested by so many buts this last hour or so. But what if she said he was crazy or creepy? But what if she said that she hated all their little lunch dates in the breakroom? That he’d made up all the long eye contact? That only he thought their little inside jokes were funny? No, hold on, that was definitely real. They both made each other laugh, even when they sat back to back. Sure, Eli earned the occasional laugh from other coworkers too . . . but not like hers; he was sure of it. Sol’s laugh always washed over him, like a sunbeam on a cold day. Made his whole body relax and melt into the present. They were a real Jim and Pam. Except she was Mexican and he wasn’t tall. And he would definitely support her going to art school.
PING!
Her Slack message burst through happy hour dreaming. Go home LOL. His heart was pulling him towards her, and only a firm grip on his mouse and keyboard seemed to be stopping his whole body from shooting backwards. Eli turned around with a desperate attempt to maintain a cool, casual smile. Sol’s back was still to him. No problem, Eli could be funny and cool on Slack . . . no problem.
Catatonic, he stared at the message for a long few moments. Finally, something convoluted and long and dense began trickling out of him in response. He read it back in horror. She’d know he was trying too hard. Deftly, he deleted it, not incriminating himself with keyboard noise. Instead he just typed out you first LOL. Sent. Impulsively, he added a winky face. There was pinging from behind, but no immediate laugh. Not even a giggle. He shouldn’t have sent the emoji. Too strong. Oh my god, he thought, I’ll have to look for a new job.
After a few excruciating moments, a few mouse clicks, there was a small laugh, followed by shuffling feet. Even before turning, he knew that her dark hair would be swirled around with a perfect few strands caught at an angle on her forehead, just over her eyes. Deep, molten caramel eyes. He’d studied those eyes. The way the office lights tinted them, added just the slightest hint of warm grey. Or how the sunlight from the break room window would ignite their reticent amber. During their lunches they would talk animatedly about travel and concerts and life. She would look at him with her round, gentle face, and he would lose all grounding. The break room would fall far beneath them as they floated to their own private space. Until, inevitably, a co-worker would trespass into company common space with an errant comment about the weather or the parking garage. Sol and Eli would come crashing down amongst the white walls and coffee machines and blue carpet. She would get serious then, and Eli liked watching her features harden right before competence furrowed her eyebrows and mouth. He liked even more when she would turn back to him and her face would soften again, revealing dimples like small islands in a shining, golden brown sea.
Her chair squeaked as it turned around. His heart was trying to push through his ribs, every expanding breath allowed it one centimeter closer to hers. He turned around too, slowly and playfully, with his eyebrows up in what he hoped was a casual look that said: “I’m ready to joke around about working late while keeping it safe for work, but still very flirtatious”. She seemed to have the same look. He had to grip his arm rests to not be hurled chest first.
“What, no weak margs for you tonight?” Sol asked as their eyes met.
“Not tonight,” Eli responded. “I mean I love watered down tequila, I just love unpaid overtime more”. She laughed. His heart pulsed and pulled. Pivot quickly, he thought, I don’t want to talk about the “work” I’ve been doing for the last hour and a half. “Don’t you have a flight to catch?”
She paused for a moment, searching. “Yeah, soon. I’m leaving right for the airport from here. Wish I could stop next door” she groaned, sincerely. Eli admired that she could be so genuine about the mundane, about work and networking. It was almost enough to make an introvert like him want to go to happy hour. “It sounds fun honestly, but I gotta finish this so I can relax on vacation. Such a bummer. I love bad tequila.”
“That sucks,” he agreed. “But good for you, getting it done. I would have left a long time ago. But then I’d also definitely panic and work on the plane.” Then he added with a smile: “very impressive”.
“I know, I just don’t want to think about it at all. Just wince to get things off my chest, you know?” she said. There was that budding tenderness that seemed to show up recently whenever they stopped joking around.
“I do”. There was a lump rapidly conspiring in his throat. “Look, uh, before you go, there was something I wanted to get off my chest actually. I —”
The door of the office swung open and the sounds of elevator-quality mariachi music and loud, work-appropriate-adjacent stories burst in, along with the CFO, Linda. Her grey power suit was only one-and-a-half margaritas off kilter and her intensity had not clocked out. She greeted them with praise laden surprise at their working so late. Followed quickly with a reminder the company was not structured to pay overtime yet. She was a connoisseur of corporate double talk, always that sudden kick of habanero hidden in the mild-complement-salsa. Grabbing her coat and bags from a desk chair, Linda bemoaned having to leave happy hour early. Eli couldn’t quite tell if she meant it or not.
“Anyway,” Linda announced, only really interrupting herself, “I have to head out.” She looked at Eli. “Eli, would you mind walking me to my car? I’m a little scared of the parking garage so late.” Measuring how long it might take for him to comply, she added, “If you were heading out? Otherwise I can wait a few.”
Eli paused, trying not to look at Sol. The heart-shaped magnet that had just been hotly thrumming and pulling in his chest was cooling down. He shouldn’t say no to Linda. Not to mention that his “work” tonight couldn’t withstand C-level scrutiny.
“Uh, yeah, sure. No problem,” he yielded slowly. Sol smiled at him as he put his jacket on, daring some prolonged eye contact. He hoped then, and for a long time afterwards, that there was a glimmer of disappointment from her.
“Bye you guys! See you in a few weeks,” Sol called out as Eli and Linda approached the exit. He saw those caramel eyes fixed on him. Chaotic, desperate pulses from his chest tried to wrench his hand from the door. Tried to lift him off his feet and simply glide him, heart first, across the room.
“Bye Sol, I —” he started, only to be cut off with a stiff, formal goodbye from an impatient Linda as she opened the door herself, motioning him out. Defeated, Eli shuffled through. His heart clunked down towards his stomach. As they walked to the dimly lit garage, any leftover vibrations were smothered with droning pleasantries and small talk about flights.
It was not until after the lights of Linda’s Audi descended the ramp did Eli realize he hadn’t done much of the talking on their walk. He’d probably blown some sort of chance at promotion or recognition. But he couldn’t care now. Should he run back in? And say what? His heart was silent. The moment had surely passed. Whisked away in the airstream of a grey power suit wearing jet engine.
Eli climbed, disheartened, into his car. He stared at the dashboard, gripped in one of those frozen moments of deciding the future. When possibilities of regret and assurance twist around each other until one emerges into the present and the body reacts. Without hesitation, Eli opened Slack on his phone and typed Have a safe flight! He even chanced a smiley face. Eli sat for a while, staring morbidly at the message as if he were online shopping for his own casket. That had been weird, he thought, desperate even. The overhead lights in the car went out and the phone dimmed for an eternity.
Suddenly, like a curtain pulled back to reveal the new day’s sun, the screen illuminated his face and the world around him. Text bubbles! She was typing. His heart jump started, rocking the car, and threatening to lift his body out of the sunroof and back to the office. The bubbles faded, and returned, and faded again. Eli’s soul fell in and out of limbo on Floor Three of the parking garage.
Then, finally, a response: Thank you! See you when I get back! and a return smiley. But not the same, trite emoji he’d sent. No, no, this was the heartfelt version, the one with the rosy cheeks. The one you had to really search for. A page three or four smiley. And for the next two weeks, that was enough for him.
***
Elias is an aspiring writer, dabbling in short story contests and acts of random journal submissions until he can work up the stamina and courage to write a full novel. He is an interior designer from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, U.S., and enjoys writing as another creative outlet.