Chapter 7 #2
As the doors closed, she caught sight of her reflection in the polished steel. Her hair was a mess, her shirt was wrinkled, and she had what appeared to be a paw print on her jeans. Perfect. This was exactly how she wanted to look when apologising to the Ice Queen.
Bug, cradled in her arms, licked her chin with what might have been affection or might have been an attempt to taste-test her anxiety.
“Thanks, buddy. At least one of us has confidence.”
The elevator climbed higher. Alyssa’s stomach churned in sympathy with the ascending numbers.
Eighteenth floor.
Alyssa took a deep breath. “Okay, Bug. This is it. We’re going to march up there, I’m going to apologize like a professional adult who definitely didn’t call her a condescending arsehole, and then we’re going to get out of there before I say something else stupid.”
Bug sneezed, which Alyssa chose to interpret as agreement rather than commentary on her life choices.
“Yeah, I don’t believe me either.”
The doors opened on the nineteenth floor. A woman in a pencil skirt that looked like it required an engineering degree to walk in stepped in, took one look at Bug, and immediately started cooing in a voice that suggested she’d been suppressing this urge all day.
“Oh my goodness, is this one of the Four Paws dogs? I’ve been dying to meet them! Everyone on my floor has one except me. I think HR hates me.”
“This is Bug,” Alyssa said, grateful for the distraction and the delay.
“He’s adorable! Can I pet him? I promise I washed my hands after the tuna sandwich incident.”
“Sure.”
The woman scratched Bug behind the ears with the enthusiasm of someone who’d been denied this simple pleasure for far too long. Bug immediately melted into her hands, tail wagging, his earlier resistance completely forgotten. Traitor.
“I tried to sign up as a volunteer, but all the spots were taken,” the woman said wistfully.
“That’s unfortunate,” Alyssa observed. It would be too easy to offer Bug, considering he was a “buddy” down, but Alyssa had selected Cyril for a reason. Bug wouldn’t be compatible with just anyone.
“I live with unfortunate all the time. Last month, someone took my yogurt. It had my name on it. In permanent marker.”
They chatted for the rest of the elevator ride, and by the time they reached the twentieth floor, Alyssa had given the Hillary, the elevator woman, her contact information and promised to set up a meet-and-greet.
Alyssa had several dogs in mind that she thought might be compatible for a permanent home with Hillary.
She’d just have to wait until January to apply.
Bug had also managed to charm his way into receiving approximately seventeen ear scratches and what looked like half a digestive biscuit from the Hillary’s pocket.
As Hillary stepped off on her floor, she turned back. “Good luck with whatever you’re doing up here. And thanks for bringing the dogs. It’s made this place feel a lot less…just thanks.”
The doors closed, and Alyssa was alone again with Bug and her impending sense of doom.
“Alright,” she said, setting him down. “No more distractions. We’re doing this.”
Bug looked up at her, then promptly sat down and started licking his paw with the concentration of a surgeon performing a delicate operation.
Alyssa sighed. “Of course you are.”
She glanced down the corridor toward Evelyn’s office. The frosted glass door loomed at the end like the entrance to a particularly unforgiving headmaster’s office.
Lil’s words echoed in her head: “Think of the centre. Think of what we’re trying to achieve.”
Alyssa squared her shoulders, tightened her grip on Bug’s lead, and took a step forward.
Then Bug spotted something—a dust bunny, a shadow, possibly the ghost of corporate dreams past—and lunged sideways, nearly pulling Alyssa off her feet.
“Bug!”
He ignored her with the practiced ease of someone who’d been ignoring people his entire life, trotting purposefully toward a water cooler, where he proceeded to investigate it with the intensity of a health and safety inspector who’d found a serious violation.
Alyssa groaned. “We’re never getting to that office, are we?”
Bug looked up at her, tail wagging, completely unbothered by her existential crisis. His expression clearly said: your human problems are not my concern. This water cooler, however, is fascinating.
Maybe, Alyssa thought, that was the point. Maybe Bug was trying to tell her something. Maybe she needed to stop overthinking this and just…be. Or maybe Bug was just a dog who liked water coolers and she was projecting meaning onto his complete lack of interest in her emotional state.
Either way, Alyssa decided to take a breath. She’d get to Evelyn’s office eventually, but for now she’d let Bug be Bug.
After all, wasn’t that what this whole partnership was about?
Letting the dogs remind everyone to slow down, to be present, to find joy in the small things?
Like water coolers. And sandwich crusts.
And the lingering hope that maybe, just maybe, work didn’t have to be quite so relentlessly work-like all the time.
Alyssa sat down on the floor next to Bug, who had now moved on to sniffing the baseboards with the dedication of someone conducting a very important survey.
“Alright, buddy,” she said. “Five more minutes. Then we face the music.”
Bug wagged his tail in what Alyssa chose to interpret as agreement, though it might have just been because he’d found a particularly interesting bit of dust.
And for those five minutes, Alyssa let herself just be. No apologies, no stress, no Ice Queens waiting behind frosted glass doors.
Just her, Bug, and a water cooler on the twentieth floor of Crawford’s headquarters.