The next few days are like a cold shower #3
I give my friend the street and apartment number.
I am on cloud nine… I feel like squealing and jumping for joy.
And suddenly, I remember that the apartment is on the fourth floor.
My optimism goes out like a blown-out match.
Damn, after all, Toska is pregnant! I should finally start living in reality, but somehow, I’m not up to it.
Despite the years gone by, I still see Tosia as a crazy teenager with red hair and a nose piercing.
Meanwhile, Antonia Tkaczyk has been a psychologist in one of the better high schools in the city for four years, has a husband who is a developer, lives in a beautiful house near the city and is expecting a baby.
“Tosia, forget it. The armchair has to be carried down from the fourth floor. I’ll call Nina,” I add in a resigned voice.
“Didn’t Nina go to Barcelona for some symposium for anesthesiologists?”
DAMN!!! Of course, she left.
“Then how about Artur?” I suggest.
“He has been on duty at the clinic since two p.m. He said he was neutering a Labrador today.”
I can only manage to squeeze an agonized moan of disappointment out my throat.
“He should neuter my boss rather than a poor dog.” I lean my forehead against the wall of the stall and make a mental survey of people who could help me.
The truth is, however, that in my almost thirty years of life, I have made only three real friends I can count on: Toska, Nina and Artie.
I have a father, mother, brother and sister-in-law, but they are about as helpful as a lifeboat in the desert…
But wait, wait, after all, I still have a boyfriend! Why didn’t I think of him right away?
“Tosia, I’ll call Karol, he has a less fucked up boss than me. Talk to you later.” I hang up and a moment later I hear him huffing and puffing in the receiver.
“Maria? Is something wrong?” he asks, surprised and, in fact, it’s not at all surprising. I never call him at this hour.
“I have to pick up an armchair, and my stiff boss doesn’t want to let me out of work. Can you manage to pop out for an hour? Pi?sudskiego 23, Apartment 35.”
“Gee, not so much. I’m busy,” he replies, and at the same moment, there is a muffled girlish giggle in the receiver, accompanied by a sound like the creaking of a bed.
I tense up in a second. I’m not one of those suspicious people, but these particular noises don’t seem normal when you call your boyfriend in the middle of the day.
“Where are you?” I decide to ask directly.
“What do you mean where? At work.”
“Where exactly?” I ask because Karol works in Marketing and Sales, which employs twelve other men and not a single woman.
“At my desk. Why do you ask?”
“No reason. I just got the impression that you were out of the office. I heard a woman laughing…”
Silence.
“Karol?”
“It was Andrew’s wife. She stopped by with the cake. It’s his nameday today.”
“Whose, the wife’s?”
“No, Andrew’s.”
“It’s February. Isn’t St. Andrew’s day in November?”
“Really?” His laughter sounds nervous. “Maybe he is celebrating his birthday after all…” He sounds hesitant. “Listen, I’ll try to see you in half an hour. I’ll run upstairs for five minutes and give you a relaxation massage?”
I rub my forehead. I’m all tense. And apparently, I’m getting paranoid since I’m suspecting poor Karol of God knows what, when he’s working like a good boy two floors below. All because of fucking Jan.
“No. Don’t come. You don’t have to. It’s just that damn Engler threw me out of balance. I need to cool down.”
“OK. Take care. I’ll see you tonight?”
“I don’t know,” I sigh. “I may have a lot of work to do. An inspection from the tax office is getting ready to go to the customer’s place.”
“OK, call if you need me. We’ll go out and then go to my place.”
“Sure thing. Take care. Bye.”
I hang up, put the phone in my suit pocket, pick up the toilet cover and pee. I feel so powerless I want to cry. If only I found this ad three hours earlier. I could have used the lunch break I wasted on stuffing myself with pastries and gossiping with Agata and Olga in the social room.
Jesus, what a shame. That wing armchair is so beautiful.
“Fucking Jan. What a stiff bastard. Jesus, how I hate him.” I growl under my breath, wipe myself, flush the water, open the stall door and…
Oh, fuck.
A few feet in front of me, right by the sinks, I see Engler, who is washing his hands as if nothing ever happened. I notice his bent face in the reflection of the mirror and immediately duck back into the stall. Maybe he didn’t see me and will leave any time now?
But wait a minute! What the hell is he doing in the ladies’ room? I hope he didn’t hear me call him a stiff bastard. Jesus…
“Have you found the documents I asked for yet?” A firm voice carries through the bathroom.
So, he saw me. Shit, what a fucked-up day. I close my eyes, take a deep breath, then another.
Okay, I’m going.
I walk up to the sink confidently and press the soap dispenser.
“Please don’t get offended, but using a restroom designated for the opposite sex is inappropriate, to say the least. Don’t you think so?” I cast a scolding glance at him in the mirror.
“I am of a similar opinion.” Jan reaches for a paper towel and wipes his hands carefully. They are strong, masculine, with clearly defined vein lines and a bit of black hairs peeking out from under the white cuff of his shirt.
A seemingly trivial activity—wiping hands.
Meanwhile, not knowing why, I’m looking at it with evident interest. This jerk has damn neat fingers.
The kind whose touch can make you shiver.
Especially when they glide up the bare skin of my thighs, tilting back my underwear, dipping between the hot folds, rubbing against the moist spot…
My heart rate speeds up, I feel a tingling in the bottom of my abdomen.
Jesus, what am I doing! I’m having some fucked up visions. After all, this is Stiff Jan! My rude boss!
“What are you actually doing here?”
“I should ask you the same question.” He throws the towel in the trash and points with his head to the wall on the right.
I follow his gaze and freeze. I notice three hanging urinals on the big, brown, shiny tiles.
In a split second, a red light goes off in my brain. Damn it! I’ve mixed up the toilets!
I turn around, embarrassed, seeing my reflection in the mirror—my eyes are as big as the drains in the aforementioned urinals, my mouth is gaping, and my cheeks are pink like a country milkmaid’s. Bravo, Maria, you retard!
Well, no, this is not really happening. I’m about to go down in flames with shame.
“There is a meeting with Spendimex in fifty minutes.” Jan adjusts his tie in front of the mirror.
“Get to work and prepare the documents I asked for. You have half an hour.” He shifts his gaze to me, sweeping me from head to toe.
His face mellows a bit, a strange gleam appears in his eyes, but only for a moment.
Before I can blink, his features become sharp and inaccessible again. “You should adjust it.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your skirt has rolled up.” He turns around and walks out of the bathroom.
“What?” I glance down, but everything is fine with it. I look at my reflection in the mirror from behind and… Holy shit, half of my ass is showing!
I pull the fabric down quickly; my cheeks are burning. No, no, no. Out of embarrassment, I’m about to drown in the toilet from which I emerged with a rolled-up skirt.
Jesus Christ… Could this day get any worse?
Sure, it can.
Immediately after leaving the bathroom, I call the woman from the ad.
And I find out that literally a moment ago she gave my beloved wing armchair to some gofer.
To no avail are my explanations that we had an agreement that she was supposed to wait for me.
The silly bat says that she was convinced that I had sent someone to fetch the chair, and besides, she doesn’t want to bother with it anymore because she has more important things to do, after which she rudely hangs up.
People are full of it!!!
I sit down at my desk, full of fury like a bull in the arena and glance at my watch.
I have less than fifteen minutes left to prepare documents for Engler.
I search through the folders, copy all the files to a flash drive, and let the most important ones go to print to give to Jan for review.
As if to spite me, the frigging printer decides to act up, squealing like a hungry pig seeing pigswill.
It has run out of black ink, and I no longer have time to report to the supply department that it needs a new toner.
I hastily changed the font color in the documents to navy blue, hoping that the piece of crap would print the reports in this hue. It prints, but, damn it, in pink!
I’m about to kill myself.
“What are you doing?” I hear Jan’s voice behind me.
“Printing the documents you requested.” I arrange the sheets in an even pile.
“And this? What is this?” Engler takes one of the sheets of paper the printer has just spit out in his hand and grimaces.
“The documents you asked for,” I repeat, trying to keep myself in check.
Jan catches my gaze and looks me straight in the eyes.
He is neither angry, nor confused, nor amused (although this one should not surprise me, after all, this dour never smiles).
I can’t read any emotion from the expression on his face that I can relate to.
I feel insecure, and at the same time remain ready to fend off a possible attack.
Totally unhinged. I can’t stand this type, it will be the end of me on this job.
I’m not suitable for this kind of work—under stress, in a hurry, needed yesterday, right now, like a machine.
Without any thank you, good job, keep it up…
“Maria. What is it?” he repeats the question in a low voice.