Chapter 6 – Can’t Refuse Him
Ispend most of Friday morning trying to figure out how to tell my boss that I am required to come in on the weekend. I obviously have to omit that it is for deeply cursed reasons, but I need something real to use.
Fridays used to bring me joy. They were normally full of hopeful sips of my coffee, always in a travel cup and instantly washed up so I wouldn’t be tempting my own fate, and the glimmer that the week is nearly over.
But this Friday?
Mine begins with my fake laughing at Claudia's joke about ghosts in the photocopier while crafting a full-blown, morally dubious lie in my head. A lie about why I need to be in the office tomorrow.
The problem with lying? You must keep up the charade and remember who you have told, what you have told, and all the details.
When I got cursed, after the first couple of times of being caught fucking a coffee cup stuffed with a sandwich or cheesecake, as if it were some sort of depraved discarded fleshjack, I had developed a method of keeping up with the lies.
Keep them simple and effective. I need to figure out something that would obviously be in my wheelhouse of tasks but not too specific or out of the ordinary that I would be questioned.
Claudia’s some sort of walking Bluetooth lie detector - probably tied to her being a psychic - because she sees right through me.
She’s sipping her turmeric latte, waiting for her photocopying to finish, and eyes me with what I think is suspicious serenity.
I feel beads of sweat forming on my forehead.
She narrows her eyes as if she can smell my panic. Knowing her, she probably could.
I keep my tone breezy, like my internal monologue isn’t full of a Shakespearean tragic soliloquy:
“So… I’m probably coming in tomorrow,” I say, pretending to look at my cleaning roster on my phone. “Do a little extra detailing. The carpets need a steam.”
Claudia blinks, and without missing a moment, smirks. She takes another sip of her latte. “You’ve never done extra detailing. You barely detail the things you’re paid to clean during the week…”
Damn it. She’s right. This is fair. I internalise a chuckle and put my phone in my pocket to wipe the sweat off my brow.
I am nervous. And I don’t know why. Claudia likes me, knows about the curse and The Grouch, and is truly my only friend in this place.
She’s probably the only reason I still have a job here too.
No–I need to keep her out of it. It’s one thing to know about my affliction, another to know that I’m going to hang around outside of hours to experiment on it with a bin ghost. I’m sure there’s some kind of HR liability there…
“Well,” I stammer, doubling down on the lie, “we have that event next week with the heads of corporate attending, so I want to ensure the office is spotless.”
“I thought that was the weekend after this one?” Claudia adds and smirks again to herself as she drinks more of her coffee. The photocopier beeps, and she presses a button, causing more things to start printing and scanning.
She taps away at her phone. She hits a final key dramatically and then snatches whatever she had photocopied from the machine. I lean back.
“You’re lying.” She finally says, walking to her desk.
I follow behind her as she continues. “You’re going to have to be a bit more convincing if you’re going to request a weekend pass.
There’s only one reason you would stay here late–well, there are heaps, but only one makes sense given what you said yesterday–is it a date with your bin-man? ”
“What? No! It’s not a date!” My voice cracks like a hot glass being run under cold water. “I just need to spend some time with the floors…and the bins…alone.”
I groan. Why did I say that last bit?
She twists on the spot and gives me a look that is part psychic medium, part office gossip gremlin. “Alright, Oscar. I won’t press. But if you die mysteriously after hours or I find your body stuffed in a bin… I’ll find your ghost and tell you I told you so.”
“Noted,” I mumble back. I can feel the warmth on my face; my cheeks are so flushed.
“Far out. I hope I don’t come into work on Monday and you’ve got a water bottle stuck on your dick. Look, here, take this.” She reaches for a sheet of paper on her desk, scribbles something on it, then hands it to me.
“What’s this?” I ask, turning it around and looking at the form.
“It’s an extra cleaning request signed off by me. Henry will not even think about it if I ask him for it. Especially if I suddenly have turmeric latte stains all over my cubicle’s carpet, which could take days to clean if it sets in…”
Without missing a beat, she takes the lid off her coffee and pours it.
I panic for a second, looking around, but nobody notices her do it.
The yellow liquid quickly seeps into her cream-coloured cubicle carpet, and for the first time ever, I’m genuinely happy to see a mess.
She’s smiling at me. I appreciate Claudia’s friendship and her wing woman behaviours.
She wants the best for me and ensured that it happened.
She pats me on the shoulder and leans forward to whisper. “Tell me all the sordid details on Monday.” she winks.
I thank her and scuttle off to continue my rounds, heart hammering. I immediately walk to Henry’s office, the HR officer, and knock on his door.
Henry’s a middle-aged man who told me he once dreamed of being a detective but settled for Human Resources because here, he is a bigger fish in this pond. He has a permanent scowl etched on his face, not from anger but from administrative fatigue.
His salt-and-pepper beard is trimmed to his own self-imposed regulated stuffy corporate guy length of which I have never seen it grow any longer; his glasses are perched on his forehead, and an open page of the newspaper on his desk has a sudoku puzzle waiting for him to finish it.
His office smells faintly of instant coffee and overly citrusy hand sanitizer.
I always say to Claudia that despite his overly stiff professionalism and a demeanour like a metal scouring pad that you just know he once owned a mug that had the words ‘It’s not an argument. I’m just telling you why I am right’.
A singular gruff, followed by “Enter!” signals me in.
I turn the handle and walk in.
“Oh, Oscar, just the man I wanted to see. We are having a delivery tomorrow, and no one is available to come in. You wouldn’t be free at all?”
All that work, just so I’d be handed an excuse to come in.
Far out. The universe works in mysterious ways.
“Uh, actually, yeah, I am free!” I started trying to play it cool.
“I was already planning on coming in over the weekend, so this works out great. Claudia requested an extra cleaning job that would take a couple of days to do.” I hand him the form, and he snatches it without looking at me.
As he reads, his glasses drop to the bridge of his nose.
“Well, this all looks in order. You OK with handling a delivery?” His tone felt condescending.
“Yes, just tell me where it needs to go.” I reply with a bit of snark he doesn’t pick up on. Why are straight men always so oblivious to good sarcastic humour?
“Thanks for this. So, the delivery is set for nine, but they sometimes get here early. Give me a buzz when it's all done, won’t you? Then you can get to that coffee stain for Claudia.”
“Sure will.” I say, and I leave his office and shut the door. I could have danced towards my janitor’s closet from how excited I am that my plans are working out.