I HATE MY BOSS! #5
I get up from the grass, spread my blanket, pick up a book, put my earbuds in my ears and turn on the most positive song I can think of. Pharrell Williams’s Happy resounds joyfully, and my mood improves momentarily.
Just one last spiteful wish to the universe about my boss.
“Jan, I hope you eat rotten eggs with caviar at this damn banquet, sip soda water that has gone bad and shit your brains out.”
I feel better immediately. May my requests be heard. Karma comes back. Remember this, Jan.
With satisfaction and a feeling of relief, I adjust myself on the blanket and immerse myself into the book. The sun is warming, the cricket is chirping in the grass, the ducks are quacking, the bees are buzzing… Ah, it’s beautiful. Life will be good.
*
I haven’t had so much fun in a long time. After I totally disregarded a text message from my boss, “If you change your mind, I’m leaving at 7 p.m.” I started getting ready to go out.
My friends and I went bowling together and we are now sitting in a restaurant, where we are drinking and eating Chinese food.
I feel sorry for Toska; because of the little one in her belly, she neither played nor drank, but she ate nine spring rolls and double rice with sweet and sour chicken.
Pregnancy is a terrible condition—just like a disease.
Either you’re sick and throwing up like you’ve caught salmonella, or you’re stuffing yourself and getting fat as if you have hypothyroidism.
It’s fortunate that it’s not contagious, because seriously (I know it sounds cruel), my contact with Toska would then be exclusively remote for nine months.
I say a firm ‘no’ to pregnancy. No drinking and no smoking for almost a year?
Definitely not for me. I didn’t cure my ulcers to give up such pleasures.
I glance at Nina and Artur. At least they are tossing down their drinks. Which, by the way, suits me very well—I feel like getting drunk tonight and partying until dawn.
“The guy’s clearly not getting laid, that’s why he’s so anal-retentive.
” Artur gulps a shot of vodka while looking at Engler’s photo on the company’s website.
“No question, the dude is damn handsome, so he shouldn’t have a problem with it.
” He magnifies the image on his phone with two fingers, squinting.
“Tell you what, give me his number. I’ll give him what he needs right away. ”
“He doesn’t look gay to me.” I down my vodka and sip my Coke. It burns my gullet. Strong, dammit, but good. I want more.
“I didn’t look gay to you, either.”
The girls laugh, and Artur fills the glasses.
“I’m telling you, give me his number,” he insists quite seriously. “All I have to do is exchange two words with him and I can feel him in one instant.”
“You’re nuts.” I gulp my vodka and look at Artur indulgently.
He’s pretty (although already crazily drunk) and has a killer smile.
Furthermore, he is openly gay. And I actively participated in his coming out of the closet, and it is one of the worst memories of my youth (we have shared it with each other for the past eleven years).
In my senior year of high school, I was in love with Artie up to my ears.
We had known each other for three years, had been friends for a year.
I had high hopes. Meanwhile, it turned out that my pussy interested him as much as yesterday’s price of eggs.
Before I knew it, however, I decided to invite him to my aunt’s wedding.
Everything was going great until, influenced by the vows of the bride and groom, I let out a cringe-worthy declaration:
“I’d like to do that someday, too. How about you?” I shifted my amorous gaze to him, and he immediately tensed up.
“Not really.” He moved restlessly in his seat.
“Why? Don’t you think it’s beautiful? A woman and a man. Two halves. Together forever.”
Artur made a face as if he had swallowed lemon juice.
“Come on.” I poked him with my shoulder. “I’m not saying it would be with me.” I laughed nervously because I would have given up a kidney at that moment just to make him think of me. “But surely a boy like you will have plenty to choose from. You have a lot of pull with the ladies.”
“And therein lies the problem.”
“In what?”
“That ladies don’t turn me on.” He looked at me with determined eyes, and at the same moment my world collapsed like a house of cards.
No, that’s not true!
“Impossible! Are you gay?” I asked, and I guess I did it a little too loud because the eyes of all the guests gathered in the church turned in our direction.
I immediately realized what I had done. A hot flash hit me. I was as red as Mass wine. Artur, on the other hand, turned as pale as the Holy Host.
This was the end of my great love, but the beginning of a wonderful friendship.
If I had been in Artur’s shoes at the time, I would have nailed the thoughtless Maria to the large cross hanging in the nave with studs.
But he, surprisingly, was grateful to me.
He had finally come out. My forcing him to come out was a liberation for him, something he’d been carrying inside him for several years.
He was scared as hell. And yes, it happened on its own—that is, through me.
Apparently, God wanted it that way—I was inspired in the house of God to carry out this mission.
Evidently, the Creator has a weakness for Marias because He always entrusts us to carry out the difficult tasks.
Well, I’m definitely drunk already.
“So, shall we call?” Artur smiles playfully.
Vodka is coursing through my veins. The offer to make a fool out of Jan is so tempting that it’s a shame not to take advantage.
“I’m for it,” Nina says and sucks the straw of her drink.
“And I am not.” Toska dips a french fry in ketchup and puts it in her mouth.
Jeez, she’s been chowing down a lot. I didn’t even notice that she ordered double fries.
“Why? After all, she’s facing getting fired anyway,” Nina states.
“He may want revenge,” Toska argues. “Instead of handing her a notice of termination, he’ll drag her name through the mud in the industry and spread the word that Maria is incompetent, irresponsible, that she pulls stunts, and then potential employers won’t even want to talk to her.”
For a moment, I feel a stab of anxiety. Would Jan be actually capable of revenge and so cruel? Could he destroy my life in retaliation for a small, innocent prank?
“Toska, after all, he’ll not even know that I’m her friend. He won’t connect us for sure,” assures Artur. “I’ll give him a false name and twist it so that he won’t know his own name. What time was this banquet supposed to start?” He turns to me with a gleam of excitement in his eyes.
I bite my lip in uncertainty. I hesitate for a moment. However, the alcohol I’ve drunk and the excitement of Artur and Nina gives me courage. What the hell. Let it happen!
“Engler was scheduled to leave at five. It’s a four-hour drive to Szczyrk.”
Artur glances at his watch.
“It’s ten to ten. I bet the party started at nine. Your boss is probably partying at full speed.”
I snort.
“Sure, Jan and fun. He’s so stiff that even if they hooked him up to get electric shocks, he would lie motionless like a corpse with rigor mortis.”
“Well, let’s find out.” Artur wiggles his eyebrows, and before I have time to react, he reaches for my phone from the table, types something on the screen and suddenly bursts out laughing. “Is this Jan?” He presents me the display, which shows the contact I saved today under the name Jan the Stiff.
“The same.” I down another shot of vodka.
“Then we’ll see if he’s such a stiff.” Smiling, he types the number into his cell phone.
I look at him and don’t believe it. Artur Borus, a veterinarian, calls my boss with a sexual offer.
“Come on, you’re drunk.” Toska is the only one sober enough to try to stop him, but he’s already putting the phone to his ear.
I giggle. All in all, it’s hilarious, though quite stupid.
We’re acting like we’re ten years old again—poking fun at Jan and having a ball.
Who would have thought that all of us have a college education and are approaching thirty.
But what the heck, let’s blame it all on the booze. The booze made us do it.
Artur turns speakerphone mode on his phone and puts the phone on the table. A beep is heard, followed by another. My heart starts beating faster.
“Hello.” At the sound of a familiar baritone, my stomach clenches momentarily.
“Good evening, this is Olaf Ball,” Artur says in a low, sexy voice, and I roll my eyes.
That’s the name he chose for himself. Just right for the situation.
You really have to be ‘ballsy’ to investigate the sexual orientation of your friend’s boss over the phone. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
“You are.”
Well, yes, Jan to the core.
“I’ll only take you a moment. You don’t know me.
We’re at the same banquet, and I got your number from a colleague in the company.
I apologize for not approaching you directly.
I thought it would be safer to talk on the phone first. I wonder if you have any plans for the weekend in Szczyrk?
I suggest a dinner for two. Or a joint trip to the mountains…
Maybe go to the spa? I’m staying until Monday.
Of course, I guarantee full discretion. I can send my photos to your cell phone. Are you interested?”
Silence. We glance at each other. Jesus, how much I would give to see Jan’s face now. What’s more, I’m dying to know what he’ll answer.
“Hello, are you there?” Artur asks, and the thought flashes through my mind for a moment that my boss has hung up.
“I am.” The low timbre of Jan’s voice resounds, in which, as usual, I can’t read any emotion.
“You’re not saying anything.”
“I’m thinking.”