Chapter Two
KALLEN
While I don’t have an amazing city view from my apartment in New Farm, I do have a view of a tennis court, a jacaranda tree, which blooms beautifully in spring, and a partial teasing glimpse of Story Bridge towering over the Brisbane River AKA The Brown Snake.
A good thing about living in New Farm is that I can walk to work, so sleep-ins are doable until eight o’clock most mornings.
Most weeks, I spring awake on Mondays with a mundane sense of dread. But not today, which I strike as rather odd.
When I step out of my apartment to go to work, a guy I’ve never seen before is waiting at the elevator door.
He’s wearing a navy sweater and cream chinos. A laptop bag is draped over his broad shoulder. He’s a bit taller and meatier than me, with short wavy brown hair.
When he twists his head to face me, I notice the electric blue in his eyes.
‘Hey,’ he says before his eyes revert back to his phone.
I hoist a curious eyebrow. ‘Hey.’
‘Do you live in the apartment building?’ he asks after a painful pause .
‘Yeah. I do,’ I affirm. ‘The floor we just left from.’
‘Oh,’ he chuckles. ‘Neighbours.’
So he owns the chronically meowing cat I’ve been able to hear from my balcony this week. And he’s extremely attractive. Great.
Blush burns to my ears. ‘Nice to meet ya… neighbour .’
‘You too,’ he says.
Enduring a seldom-felt pain, we stand shoulder to shoulder, waiting for the elevator.
Any second now.
The rest of the way down is a gruelling battle of silence, and I try to sneak a glance without being obvious. He’s wearing RM William boots, which makes me wonder what he does for work.
In a delayed response, the silver metal doors open. Thank fucking God.
After a quick, ‘See you around,’ he steps onto the footpath before I do, striding at a pace I am thankful for.
He marches down to Howard Smith Wharves, and I ease my pace to let him get far enough in front, given I’m early for work, anyway.
*
When I emerge from the elevator at the Eagle Street office, Blake’s sitting in the common room like she is most mornings. She sits here so she doesn’t have to be at her desk a minute longer than required.
I wave over to her, and, ‘Happy Monday,’ are the cringe-worthy words that leave my mouth.
Blake stops scrolling on her phone and narrows her eyes on me. ‘Dycock, there is nothing happy about leaving bed on a Monday morning.’
Blake created the nickname Dycock for me from the time we were browsing for books in Dymocks, and my zipper was down the whole time.
To my dismay, I wasn’t wearing underwear because they were all in the wash.
So let’s just say the bookworms in the store got more worm than they were expecting that day.
Blake and I see each other outside of work about as much as we see each other at work.
When I first moved to Brisbane two years ago, she and I clicked on the first day.
In fact, it was both of our first days at Untold Media, thanks to a hiring boom.
We’ve sat side by side in the office from day one.
Blake’s good at adding pathos to my stories and I offer her the occasional advice (she sucks at fact-checking).
We also find solace in each other when our coworkers become difficult. Cough cough: Lisa. After a month, Blake and I became gym buddies. Then we started hanging out on weekends. Now we’re best friends.
If it wasn’t for her, I don’t think I would’ve come out of my shell as quick as I did at work.
With Blake being the proud trans woman she is, and seeing our coworkers accept her without question, made it much easier for me to come out to the office.
Sometimes I envy Blake, though. She’s been with her partner Connor for five years.
They’re in their early thirties, married, and looking for a surrogate so they can have kids.
Then there’s me at the ripe age of twenty-seven.
The one who, based on a track record of eight-hour flings – sometimes less – won’t ever settle down.
Can’t say I’ve ever been in love either, unless the crush I had on my straight male (former) best friend in university counts.
Blake stands to fill her water bottle at the communal kitchenette. ‘You just missed our confused new coworker coming out of the lift like a lost canine.’
I forgot we have a new writer starting today. According to Lisa, the hiring process was quite the competitive one, with Untold Media becoming more of a well-trusted brand these days and all.
‘Oh yeah? What’s he like? What’s his name again?’
‘ Dan seems pretty shy,’ Blake adds. ‘Late-twenties, from what I could gather. Kind of stiff. I thought he was lost, so I told him where to find Christian. He didn’t even thank me, either. Just walked off with his head down.’
We both chuckle, then, considering it’s 8:59, I follow Blake to the office door.
On Fridays, it’s standard for everyone to trickle in late. But not on Mondays. Monday is the day we’re expected to be at work by nine and no later.
We don’t want to end up like our chronically-tardy marketing dude, Freddie. He got a talking to by the boss, Christian, last week. Christian can be scary, so suffice it to say Freddie is now the first to unlock the office every morning.
What welcomes us as we walk through is first, people, of course. Our coworkers, those of whom glance over at us and signal a wave before focusing back on their computers, typing at a pace I am nowhere near ready for as of yet.
But what also welcomes us is the same Disney soundtrack that’s played every Monday morning, courtesy of Lisa, our Head Editor. Moana’s How Far I’ll Go is crooning away. What is this? Team inspiration? Who in the flying fuck knows.
It only gets worse as I step towards my desk. On a regular day, Blake takes the seat next to me, so we can talk, you know, queer stuff. But what – more specifically, who – has replaced her is no one but our new coworker, who in fact does fit the description Blake laid out for me mere minutes ago.
He also fits the description of a certain someone I had been in an elevator with this morning.
For a beat, I stand there staring at him, my eyes narrowed, without sitting down, to which he turns his gaze in my direction, his jaw forming an O as he does so.
It can’t be – my new neighbour, here at Untold Media, sitting next to me.
The mug to my reusable coffee cup slips from the lid and spills on the ground, some of it spurting onto my chinos. At least my new yellow sweater is safe.
‘Fuck,’ I cuss as almost everyone in the office glances over to see the mess I’ve made of myself. Blake snickers as she takes a seat a few desks away from mine.
After slapping my laptop bag onto the desk, I take some deep breaths on my trundle to the kitchenette. I use a blue cloth to wipe the coffee from my pants and from the ground next to my desk, attempting to not look at my coworker slash neighbour in the hope that all of this is a dream.
‘Kallen, I’ve put Dan next to you in case he has any questions,’ Lisa tells me .
As I sit, I almost kick the potted palm tree beside the desk.
Clumsy Kallen.
I turn to Dan, his hand already outstretched, face blotched with patches of pink. A reciprocated knowing. ‘Hey, you. What are the odds?’
I shake his hand. A firm grip. The only word to escape my mouth: ‘ Uncanny .’
We start off sourcing stories that we’re going to pitch in the editorial meeting. Stories based on what is going to be the most engaging to our followers, and ones that, when written as articles, are going to generate the most page views.
By nine-thirty, I’ve collected a handful of story ideas, including a new queer stage play coming to Brisbane, as well as a random art installation of a bin chicken popping up in the city.
I would’ve had a few more ideas, but Dan has beaten me to it with a few, placing them in the Spreadsheet before I can.
Lisa recruits the writers. A whole three of us (four including our newest addition). We step into the meeting room for the morning ritual. The room is small, and the heater is always too hot during the colder months and conditioned too cold during summer.
‘Daniel, this is the editorial team,’ Lisa says, then glances up at us. ‘Editorial team, this is Daniel.’
‘Oh, Dan’s fine,’ our newbie corrects her.
He stands as Blake, Cherry, and I enter the room. He shakes their hands, then nods at me stiffly. ‘Nice to meet you all. ’
Blake types something into her laptop as she sits. ‘So did you guys hear businesses are switching over to the four-day work week?’
‘Big vibe,’ I respond, shaking my head and smiling. ‘Full support. Also, did you see the new all-blue resort that’s opened up at Noosa? I’m literally in love and need to go there.’
Lisa clears her throat, loud enough to make herself heard. ‘Ahem.’ She flicks the end of her hair, which is wrapped neat into a ponytail.
We all cut silent, recoil a fraction, and look at her, standing at the head of the table.
‘Good morning,’ she says robotically, her whole face tightening as though she’s smelt shit. ‘Indeed, as we all know, we have Dan on the team now after Nick’s switch to the dark side at BuzzWords. So, we might start off with some introductions.’
Lisa turns to Dan. ‘Daniel, if you’d like to kick things off.’
‘It’s Dan.’
‘I’m sorry, I just love the name Daniel, that’s all,’ is her attempt at flirting. ‘Well, Dan , if you could let us know your background, and what you’ll be doing at Untold.’
‘Uh, yeah, sure,’ he says, smiling at us.
He raises his voice, even though it’s forced.
‘Hi, everyone, I’m Dan. I’ve lived in Melbourne for most of my life, and only just moved to Brisbane.
I have a background in journalism. But I kind of got to the point where I wanted to create more fun local business content rather than mainstream news, so. ’
‘Well, you’re definitely in the right place,’ Blake winks. ‘Welcome to the team.’