The next few days are like a cold shower #2
Another day at the desk, another calculation, and to top it all off, the fucking air conditioner has a busted ass because it’s either breathing fire in my face or sending an icy blizzard down my back.
I’ve already sent an e-mail report to Engler that the vent is bothering me, but he insists that he has passed the problem on to the technicians, who claim that the air conditioner is working properly.
It sucks. I hate my job! I try to do my tasks diligently, on time so that the boss doesn’t have any objections.
And in fact, he doesn’t have them, but I also never once heard a word of praise from him.
After making another report and sending it to his mailbox, I decide to catch my breath.
This time, however, I don’t go out for a stogie because Jan is probably already starting to suspect something—he glares at me ominously every time I get up from my desk.
So I stay in my seat and visit a website with “free giveaways” ads.
I browse through dilapidated armchairs, chairs and tables that are just begging to be given a new life.
Suddenly, my gaze is caught by a beige wing armchair.
What a beauty! A classic Louis-style, stately, exquisite!
I zoom in on the photo. Torn-up upholstery, armrests worn out.
It will need a lot of work, but that shape, those legs!
My God, I’m about to have an orgasm. I must have it, I must save it!
What a bargain it is. I grab the phone and dial the number listed in the ad.
“Hello,” I hear a female voice on the other side.
“Good morning. I am calling about the armchair. Is it still available?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Great, when can I pick it up?”
“Right away would be the best. Several interested people have already called…”
OMG.
“What’s the address?”
“Pi?sudskiego Street 23, apartment 35.”
I fly over the city map in my mind, and my heart beats as fast as if I were already running there. Today I’m without my Pandziak car again because once again its battery died.
Pi?sudskiego… It’s not far; on foot, however, quite a distance. But I have a direct bus stop in front of the company.
“I will be there in thirty minutes.”
“OK, but it’s the fourth floor and no elevator…”
“No problem. Please do not give it to anyone. My name is Maria Gabara. I’m on my way now.”
I hang up, slam the lid of my laptop shut, throw my phone in my purse, jump off my chair, turn around and collide with something that smells disturbingly familiar.
“Where do you think you are going?” I hear a gruff voice.
I raise my eyes and meet the stern expression on my boss’s face. Instantly, I come back down to earth.
Shit! I’ve completely lost touch with reality. After all, I’m at fucking work, it’s noon and there’s no chance I’ll be able to get out of work even for an hour.
Unless…
“My mother isn’t feeling well. I have to go to her now.” I nervously adjust the purse on my shoulder.
“Mother?” Jan lifts his eyebrow.
“Yes, she’s old and…”
“Does she have four legs and beige upholstery?” Jan folds his arms across his chest, staring at me accusingly.
Umm… I swallow a glob of saliva.
“I don’t think I understand.”
“I think you understand perfectly. And I do not tolerate lying. If you want to take care of personal matters, then do it after work. Besides, Pi?sudskiego is under construction. You won’t get there in thirty minutes.”
I’m at a loss for words. Engler must have stood behind me long enough to figure out the situation. I feel stupid, but some inner stirring revolt doesn’t let me know I’m on the losing end. I choose to attack to defend myself.
“Were you eavesdropping?”
“I didn’t have to. You spoke so loudly that the whole room heard you.”
Instinctively, I tear my gaze away from him and look around the office. The employees momentarily lower their eyes to their laptops, pretend to look at the window, admire the lighting, the white walls.
I rub my forehead with my hand. I am in a real shithole.
Not only am I going to lose the chair of my dreams, but I’ve also exposed myself to my boss by lying my ass off.
And this is in front of half the department.
Not good. The only sensible thing to do is to apologize, sit on my ass and return humbly to my desk job.
But at the very thought of passing up the chance to gain a beautiful wing armchair, I want to howl.
And since howling in front of Jan means the same thing as packing up my things and saying goodbye to my well-paid job, I choose a different tactic.
I smile as nicely as I can and speak in a fake voice:
“Just for an hour, boss.” I make sheep’s eyes at him. “This is really important.”
“This?” His cool gaze sweeps all over me.
“This chair. I do furniture restoration as a hobby, and this wonder is just begging to be restored. Can I leave? I’ll be back before you know it.”
Jan takes a hard look at me. He is silent. I search for any sign of understanding on his face… And just when I think I see a glimmer of favor in his steel eyes, his cell phone rings. He frowns and shakes his head.
“Please go back to work.” His answer is dispassionate.
He turns around, takes the phone out of his pocket and answers it, walking away toward his office.
Unfuckingbelievable! Oh, no. I’ll not let go so easily.
“But Mr. Engler… ” I’m following him, actually running, because the dickhead has legs as long as stilts. I know it’s impolite to interrupt a phone call, but I’m secretly hoping that he will agree to my request, just to get rid of me. “Please wait… ” I pass him and stop, blocking his way.
Jan pauses. He wrinkles his forehead, then shifts his gaze over me as if I had just dropped the balance sheet of our most important customer into a pile of cow dung.
“I’ll call you right back,” he says into the receiver, hangs up and puts the phone in his pants pocket.
“Can you really not let me go even for a little while? After all, I stay after hours each day anyway…”
I’m answered by silence. A bloody deafening silence.
It’s so penetrating, rumbling that it’s about to bust my eardrums. Only the silence of someone like Jan can drown it out.
I don’t need a third eye in the back of my head to figure out that everyone’s gaze is now on us.
I get the impression the space-time continuum has frozen in a motionless vacuum.
Jan looks straight into my eyes. Piercingly, paralyzingly, penetratingly.
I can’t read any emotion from the expression on his face, although the throbbing vein on his neck just above the collar of his snow-white shirt is unlikely to bode well.
I can feel a drop of sweat running down my back.
Shit, I guess this idea of interrupting his conversation wasn’t as brilliant as I thought, after all.
I nervously adjust the strap of the bag on my shoulder.
I’m getting hotter and hotter. I must finally speak up because this silence, combined with the icy gaze of the Night King from Game of Thrones , is about to kill me.
“Why don’t you say anything?”
Jan squints his eyes and, still looking at me, adjusts his tie (it’s probably some kind of compulsion because he does it about two hundred times a day).
“I am thinking.”
OMG! So there is some chance after all. Bravo, Maria. You see, he who doesn’t risk doesn’t drink…
“Find Spendimex’s reports from the last merger. They didn’t declare their intention to merge, and they’re facing an inspection from the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection. I have to have them in an hour,” he adds coolly, after which he simply bypasses me.
What a cold bastard!
I boil all over. I’m about to tell him what I think of him. Seriously. Here. Now. In front of everyone. Without considering the consequences.
“You don’t have a shred of feeling,” I hiss angrily, seeing him move away. “And please do something about this air conditioner because it’s clearly broken. It’s going to make me shrivel up or I’ll get pneumonia!” I call out after him.
But the bastard won’t even stop, won’t even turn to look in my direction. He only replies in a dispassionate voice:
“Go back to work, Maria.”
Grrrr…
This much is already certain: the devil himself gave Jan Engler the genes to make him look like a seducer, while under the skin lurks a slimy, nasty, unfeeling reptile. A grass snake. A boa constrictor. A rattlesnake. Shoo!
I turn on my heel. My gaze involuntarily drifts over the employees of the department. Some smirk, others look at me with pity, some with sympathy…
And what the fuck are you guys staring at? I, at least, had the courage to confront my boss face to face, meanwhile each of you shakes your ass in front of him, even when applying for leave.
I throw my purse on the desk, pull out my cell phone, then, in a fury, I go to the bathroom, putting together a contingency plan. I’ll cheat the system!
I lock myself in the stall and dial Toska’s number.
“Hi, sunshine!” My friend’s cheerful greeting, which should put me in a positive mood, only agitates me further. After all, she makes me realize that other people have cool enough jobs to keep them in a good mood during the day.
“The fucking bossobot doesn’t want to let me leave the office. I need your help.”
“Bossobot?”
“A boss and a robot in one. A man-machine without a heart!”
“What happened?”
“I found a beautiful armchair that can be restored. For free, to be picked up right now. And this… This…” I’m so emotional that my voice gets stuck in my throat.
“This egotist, this bloated buffoon, riff-raff narcissist won’t let me leave the office.
I beg you, Tosia, tell me that you can manage to drive up to Pi?sudskiego now and pick up this chair. ”
“No problem. I’ve just finished work, and I’m leaving school. What is the exact address?”
OMG, how wonderful!