Chapter 7: Natalie
Friday had finally come. I had both dreaded and longed for today. Of course, I wasn’t going back to the club. But that little voice in my head kept whispering what if.
My days normally passed quickly because I enjoyed working. But today had gone by painfully slow. Every tick of my clock felt more like an hour than a second.
At 4:45, I slammed my head into my desk. It wasn’t just the passing of time at work. I knew when I got home I’d be staring at the clock on my wall until 9:30, waiting for that insufferable moment to pass. Major would be at Vertigo waiting for me to show up.
“You alright in there?” Donovan popped his head into my office.
“I don’t know,” I replied.
“Well, that’s a first from you.”
“Unfortunate, isn’t it?”
“More like a bit disturbing. Something has bothered the Ice Queen.” He leaned in my doorframe, a rather bemused look on his face.
Already fed up with having to run down the clock, I scowled at him. “I’m not an Ice Queen.”
“Ooh, I even got a fierce look from you. What’s got you pissed?”
I’m frustrated because I want to go back to a sex club when I know I shouldn’t. That would go over well. Donovan would be squealing like a school girl asking me for every single detail of my night. I wouldn’t be surprised if he would want to tag along. “Nothing.”
“Oh really? Nothing?” He gave me a skeptical look.
“That’s what I said.”
“Mhm. I think you’re frustrated with Nathan.”
“Donovan, don’t forget I’m your manager.”
“Uh huh. I still invite you to go out with the department every Friday. Even though you shoot me down every time.”
It was brilliant. I’d go out with my coworkers tonight, and there would be no way I could go back to Vertigo.
“Yes,” I declared.
“What?”
“I’ll go with you tonight.”
“I thought this day would never come.”
“The Ice Queen froze over hell,” I stated.
He grasped his chest, feigning a heart attack. “You showed me an emotion and were funny in the same day. I’m not sure how to handle this.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
“Okay, that’s a Natalie answer. You know where everyone meets, right?”
“I do.”
“I’ll see you then!”
Donovan walked out of my office with an accomplished look on his face. He had wanted me to go to one of these stupid work gatherings for a year and a half now. I suppose he’s finally getting his wish. To me, there was no appeal in seeing my coworkers outside of work. We spent forty hours a week together—no need to add more.
And who would want to see me? My job was to boss them around and critique them. The moment they got off work they probably wanted to get away from me. I’d pretend this was something on my adventure list, rather than calling it what it was: a distraction.
I had wanted to get out of the office exactly at five, which would have been a first for me. But at 4:58 I received an important email in my inbox and needed to take care of it. I didn’t get to leave until twenty past the hour.
I cursed to myself as I walked to my car. I wanted to be one of the first people to arrive, as to not announce my presence. That damn email would make me stroll in late. Hopefully everyone would be too busy talking to one another to notice when I walked in.
My coworkers met at Oak’s, a casual bar down the street from our workplace. Silicon Valley traffic was awful, so what should have been a three-minute drive took fifteen. My heart rate spiked as I pulled into a parking spot. Maybe this was a bad idea. Donovan probably invited me out of obligation, not because he wanted me to go. I could start the car and—
My thoughts were interrupted by a tapping on my window. Donovan waved at me from outside my car. There was no getting out of this now.
I climbed out of my car and slammed the driver’s door shut. “Hey.”
“Hey. Not to be mean, but I really thought you were going to bail.”
“Me too,” I sighed and rubbed my temples.
“Well, no getting out of it now!” He linked his arm through mine and pulled me towards the door.
“What are you—?”
“You’re not my manager outside those company doors.”
I shot him a dirty look. “I technically am, I just can’t enforce anything.”
“You’re so feisty today. I’m loving this new, fiery Natalie.”
Fiery Natalie was just borderline distressed Natalie. I had been feeling that way ever since Nathan left me. I wasn’t sure why—I’d been dumped before. But something about this break up had me extremely bitter.
“Don’t get used to it. I’ll be 100% Ice Queen on Monday.”
“So, you and Nathan will have made up by then?” he asked.
Ouch. I hadn’t told him that Nathan and I had broken up. It wasn’t something I was planning on mentioning. Any time Nathan came up in conversation was because Donovan had brought him up.
“Donovan!” I cautioned. I almost lectured him but decided changing the subject would be better. “How’s Steffan?”
Steffan was his boyfriend of a year. He often had Donovan at my desk, sighing about relationship problems. I personally thought they were self-inflicted, but my general response was nodding and keeping my mouth shut.
“Steffan is good. Sexy. But I just want to be more serious, and he…doesn’t.”
“You already live together,” I said.
“I want to get married.”
The statement made me choke on my own spit, and I had to pat my chest to control my coughing. “Married?”
“Well, yeah.”
My judgmental side was about to show if I didn’t reel it in. People should only get married after two or more years of dating. One year was still the honeymoon phase. They might as well write “This will end in divorce” on their wedding invitations if they got married at one year.
Fortunately for me, we had reached the table where my coworkers were. Or should I say, tables. I didn’t realize how many people came each Friday. There were obviously multiple people from the third floor, all of the business departments. But there were also faces I didn’t recognize, which meant they must have been from the first and second floors.
“Hello, everybody!” Donovan said. He slid into a random booth and pulled me along. “Natalie, you know everyone from the third floor. But I don’t think you’ve met Kristen from HR.”
“No, not yet.” I did my best to not appear as nervous as I felt. I had to maintain the “Ice Queen” appearance that everyone knew at work. “Nice to meet you, Kristen.”
“Nice to meet you also,” she responded.
I felt awkward barging in on their conversation. Was I supposed to ask what they were talking about? Fortunately for me, my coworkers quickly picked up where they left off.
“And he’s just so cute,” Kristen squealed.
“You’re very open about your crush, Kristen.” Cheryl, a veteran accounting employee, said.
“I can’t help it. It’s unrequited love.”
“Are you talking about the VP of Marketing again?” Donovan asked.
“Who else?” she responded. “He’s so handsome and charming.”
I had a flashback to Stephanie ogling the guy cutting through our department. The VP of Marketing and I hadn’t met yet, but I had a feeling I knew who he was. I hoped our official meeting went better than our first.
“Ah, we’re in a meeting together soon.” It was more of an absentminded comment to myself, but Kristen took it as help.
She grabbed my hand and put on a puppy dog face. “You have to talk to him about me.”
“Well, I don’t know…” I saw Donovan giving me the side eye and restructured my sentence. “I mean. I’ll see what I can do. The meetings are very professional, so it’s a hard topic to bring up.”
“Thank you, Natalie!” She smiled at me as if I were the best person in the world.
What did I just get myself into? Asking those types of questions was extremely unprofessional. Not to mention asking someone in a position higher than me. I just wouldn’t ask and would tell Kristen there wasn’t a good moment for it.
I sipped on my soda in between talking about life and work. Surprisingly, I wasn’t having a horrible time. I even considered coming back once a month, but coming weekly was just pushing it.
At 7:30, people began to shuffle out.
“They’re leaving already?” I asked.
“I mean, it’s getting close to eight.” Donovan looked at his phone. “Man, the time sure does pass quickly.”
“It only goes faster as you get older,” Cheryl sighed.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Cheryl.” He placed his hand on her shoulder. “I could mistake you and Kristen for the same age.”
“Ha! Well thanks for making me feel better, but you know I’ll be fifty in a month.”
“I’m telling you, you don’t look a day past twenty two.”
“Get out of here, Donovan.” She laughed as she stood up from the table. “I’ll see all of you Monday. You should join us again, Natalie.”
“Yeah, definitely…” I responded.
The few people that remained inside of Oak’s began to file out and I joined them. I glanced at my watch, praying for the latest time possible. 7:48. Major would be there at 9:30. I was going to have to sit in my apartment for almost two hours thinking about him waiting for me at Vertigo. Shit.
I knew I was destined to fail as I drove back to my apartment. Logic screamed at me to go somewhere else. I could go to Michaela’s house—I had a key. The bookstore was open until ten. Hell, I could even go to the mall. If I walked into my home, I was going to get ready and go to Vertigo.
I slammed each foot into the steps as I went up the flight of stairs to my apartment. If I break my ankle, I have to go to the hospital.
“Be strong, Natalie,” I murmured the last words my aunt said to me. Of course, when she said them, it had been in a very different context. But I needed to be strong and not leave my house.
The key clicked as it turned in the lock, and I opened the door. My ears were filled by the silence of my home, and for a moment, it was so quiet I could hear my heart beating.
“Oh, fuck!” I said, running to my closet to change.