Chapter 4 - Overtime
By Friday morning, I had discovered the consequences of sending Adrian Vale the wrong attachment.
Apparently, the punishment was work.
A lot of work.
So much work that I was beginning to suspect he was trying to kill me through architectural documentation.
"Ms. Stone."
I closed my eyes.
There it was.
Again.
I turned.
Adrian stood several feet from my desk, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a folder.
"Yes?"
"My office."
Of course.
He turned and walked away without waiting.
Ben looked over his monitor.
"What is that, four?"
"Five," Maya corrected.
I stared after Adrian.
"It's nine forty-three."
"Five times before ten," Ben said. "Impressive."
"He hates me."
"We established that yesterday."
"I think he's escalating."
Daniel walked past with a coffee.
"Vale again?"
I pointed toward Adrian's retreating back.
"Apparently I've been summoned."
"Should we send help?"
"Send a lawyer."
He laughed and kept walking.
I pushed away from my desk.
This had been happening ever since the attachment incident.
Suddenly, Adrian needed me for everything.
A revision.
A drawing.
A question.
Another revision.
Something that apparently couldn't have been communicated by email despite the fact that email had been successfully serving humanity for several decades.
And then there was the work.
Every time I finished something, Adrian seemed to materialize with something else.
Nobody had explicitly said it was punishment.
Nobody needed to.
I'd fucked up.
Adrian didn't trust me.
So now I was apparently going to spend the rest of my natural life proving I knew how to attach a PDF.
I reached his office and knocked.
"Come in."
He was behind his desk.
Deep blue eyes lifted to me for half a second.
"Close the door."
I did.
He pushed a folder across the desk.
"I want you to review these."
I picked it up.
My soul left my body.
"This entire package?"
"Yes."
"Today?"
His eyebrow lifted.
"Is there a problem?"
"No."
"Good."
I hugged the folder against myself.
"Anything else?"
He looked at me for a moment.
Then back at his screen.
"No."
Beautiful.
I turned toward the door.
"Ms. Stone."
I stopped.
Of course.
"Yes?"
"The revisions from yesterday."
"Already sent."
A pause.
"I didn't ask if you'd sent them."
I frowned.
"What were you going to ask?"
"Whether you'd checked them."
Oh.
Asshole.
I smiled very politely.
"Three times."
His eyes met mine.
"Good."
I left before my mouth destroyed my employment.
Something strange happened around eleven.
People kept smiling at me.
Not normal smiling.
Suspicious smiling.
The kind of smiling people did when they knew something you didn't.
The receptionist waved when I passed.
Someone from interiors called, "Hey, Angel!" from across the office and then immediately looked away when I turned.
A guy from another project team walked past my desk, looked directly at me, grinned, and kept walking.
I watched him go.
"What the fuck?"
Maya didn't look up.
"What?"
"Why is everyone weird today?"
"Nobody's weird."
"You're weird."
"Thank you."
"That wasn't a compliment."
"I took it as one."
I narrowed my eyes at her.
She kept typing.
Ben was suspiciously quiet.
I turned toward him.
He immediately picked up his phone.
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Whatever you're doing."
"I'm checking my email."
"You're holding your phone upside down."
He looked at it.
Then at me.
"No, I'm not."
"It literally is."
He rotated it.
"Problem solved."
I stared at both of them.
Something was happening.
I just didn't know what.
At eleven forty-five, Maya appeared beside my desk.
"Come with me."
"Why?"
"Meeting."
"What meeting?"
"Conference room."
"What conference room?"
"The one with walls."
I stared at her.
"Maya."
"Angelica."
"What are you doing?"
"Walking."
She grabbed my wrist.
"Come on."
"I have work."
"So does everybody."
"That argument makes no sense."
She dragged me anyway.
Ben followed.
Which immediately made the entire thing more suspicious.
"Why is Ben coming?"
"I was invited."
"To my mysterious meeting?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I'm important."
"You're neither of those things."
We reached the large conference room.
The door was closed.
Maya opened it.
I walked in.
And approximately thirty people screamed at me.
"SURPRISE!"
I nearly fucking died.
My hand flew to my chest.
"Oh God!"
Everyone started laughing.
There were balloons.
Actual balloons.
Streamers.
Food.
A giant cake.
Someone had taped a ridiculous silver HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANGEL! banner across the glass wall.
People were packed around the conference table.
People from my team.
People from other teams.
People I saw every day.
People I only spoke to occasionally.
People from reception.
Interiors.
Administration.
Someone from accounting was holding paper plates.
I knew almost every face in the room.
And almost every face was smiling at me.
I turned slowly toward Maya.
"You bitch."
She beamed.
"Happy birthday!"
"You knew."
"Obviously."
Ben appeared with a sparkly plastic crown.
"No."
"Yes."
"Absolutely not."
"It was twelve dollars."
"You got robbed."
He put it on my head.
Everyone cheered.
I covered my face.
"I hate all of you."
"No, you don't," someone called.
"No, I really don't."
That was the problem.
I looked around again.
And something warm squeezed painfully inside my chest.
They'd done all this.
For me.
"You guys..."
"No crying," Maya warned.
"I'm not crying."
"You're doing the face."
"What face?"
"The emotional face."
"I don't have an emotional face."
Thirty people disagreed at once.
Apparently I had an emotional face.
Someone shoved a card into my hands.
It was huge.
Not because anyone had purchased an unnecessarily large birthday card.
Because so many people had written in it that they'd taped additional paper inside.
I started reading.
Happy birthday, Angel!
Thanks for always saving me when the printer decides it hates me.
Lunch next week. My treat.
Happy birthday to the only person who remembers everybody else's birthday.
Thanks for making this place less boring.
Love you, Angel!
I stopped.
Oh.
Okay.
Maybe Maya had been right about the face.
Ben immediately pointed at me.
"She's going."
"I'm not."
"She is."
"Shut up."
Maya hugged me.
I hugged her back.
Then somebody else hugged me.
Then another person.
And suddenly I was being passed around my own office like an emotional support animal.
By the time I escaped, my crown was crooked and I had lipstick on my cheek from somebody.
"I didn't even know you people liked me this much."
A chorus of boos answered me.
I laughed.
Nicole handed me a plastic knife.
"Cut the cake."
"Why me?"
"Because apparently it's your birthday."
"Allegedly."
She rolled her eyes.
I cut the cake.
Badly.
Ben complained about the size of his piece.
Maya told him he was lucky to receive one.
Daniel stole frosting from the edge and I slapped his hand.
Someone turned music on quietly.
People ate.
People talked.
People kept coming over to wish me happy birthday.
It wasn't some polished corporate celebration.
It was messy.
Loud.
Warm.
And completely ridiculous.
I loved every second of it.
At some point, I heard someone say,
"You know we've never done this before, right?"
I turned.
"What?"
"This."
They gestured around the room.
"Of course you have."
"Nope."
"Someone must've had a birthday party."
"Cake in the break room, sure. Maybe a card. Not..." They waved toward the balloons, food and approximately half the company. "This."
I looked at Maya.
She shrugged.
"I mentioned doing something small."
Ben snorted.
"Then everybody wanted in."
"Seriously?"
"Angel," Maya said, as if I were being particularly stupid. "You know everybody."
"That doesn't mean everybody likes me."
Ben stared at me.
"Do you want us to throw you out of your own party?"
I laughed.
And that was when the room changed.
Not dramatically.
Just enough.
A few people straightened.
Someone lowered their voice.
I didn't need to turn around.
I'd become disturbingly good at recognizing the Adrian Vale Effect.
I turned anyway.
He stood outside the open conference-room door.
For once, Adrian looked-
surprised.
Not dramatically.
His face didn't suddenly discover emotions.
But he'd stopped walking.
His eyes moved across the room.
The balloons.
The banner.
The food.
The cake.
The ridiculous number of employees crammed into one space in the middle of a workday.
Then his gaze landed on me.
I was holding a paper plate with half a piece of cake on it.
Wearing a silver plastic crown.
With frosting on my thumb.
Excellent.
Exactly how every employee wanted to be seen by her CEO.
His eyes stayed on me for one second.
Two.
I swallowed.
Nobody seemed entirely sure whether we were about to be told to get back to work.
Then Adrian looked around the room once more.
His expression returned to its usual unreadable state.
And he walked away.
That was it.
I looked at Maya.
"He hates birthdays too?"
Ben took another bite of cake.
"He probably hates balloons."
"He probably hates happiness."
Daniel nodded thoughtfully.
"That explains a lot."
I looked toward the empty doorway.
Of course.
The man had just discovered I was born and somehow seemed disappointed by the information.
Whatever.
I had cake.
By two, the balloons were still up, but everyone had reluctantly returned to work.
My crown remained on my desk.
Ben had attempted to make me wear it for the rest of the day.
I had threatened violence.
At two seventeen, my phone rang.
I looked at the extension.
Of course.
I answered.
"Hello?"
"My office."
Click.
I stared at the phone.
Not even hello.
Apparently birthdays didn't come with basic human courtesy.
Maya glanced over.
"Vale?"
"Who else summons people like a medieval king?"
I stood.
"Maybe he's going to give you a present."
I looked at her.