Page 37 of I Hope This Finds You Well

Caitlin and Garret both instantly rise from their seats, leaving me in the dark.

The office is a blur of oohs and bright, tender faces, all rushing toward Celeste. I also notice a few stragglers, like Joy and Armin, who are hiding the screen guard and wrist support they each respectively looted from her desk as soon as she’d left.

I sit frozen, still staring at my screen. The three dots in the chat have disappeared. I wasso closeto knowing exactly what she had in store. Why can’t we normalize telling babies and the people who love them to fuck off in some polite way?

Rhonda leans over my cubicle wall and says, “Celeste brought her little guy in, isn’t that sweet?” She stares pointedly from me to the group of baby fans in case I’ve lost all six of my senses. Caitlin’s already at the stroller, front and center. I smile stiffly but make no move to stand and join them.

Then Gregory stomps out of his office, coffee in hand, rocking his chino fucking pants, and nods directly at me. “Let’s go see the baby!”

And it’s certain:notlooking at this little asshole will cost me something.

So much of what I do here has nothing to do with my actual job, yet these little interactions mattersomuch. I trudge out of my seat and make my way toward the shit show. As soon as I reach the coffee-breathed group of people, I lock eyes with the baby and it, predictably, begins to wail.

Celeste picks it up and pats it on the back to soothe it while people continue to ask her boring questions about motherhood, her sleep schedule, and laundry. This little human doesn’t even realize the greatness of this: the only time in your life when people will simply ignore your public outbursts. The rest of us must cry withoutactuallycrying. This child, I learn as Celeste continues to soothe it, is named Thomas. I watch his little eyes dart around the room, taking it all in. Maybe Thomas is just now realizing that eventually he will grow up to spendall his daylight hours under fluorescent lights and water-stained ceiling tiles.

I don’t mean to chuckle at that depressing thought, and I stifle it as soon as I can, but that doesn’t stop a few eyes from drawing my way while I pretend I didn’t just cackle at a technically crying baby.

Then Thomas begins being passed around like a hot burrito. I curl my hands close against my chest and try to back away. When Caitlin takes said bundle, it stops crying in an instant, and her face softens in a way that makes me realize how hard it’s been lately. She inhales the top of the baby’s head—which is a choice—then smiles and says to Celeste, “So how is being a mom?”

Celeste starts describing things that sound dire as shit. Rhonda, who has taken up a position behind Celeste’s left shoulder, nods along while intermittently agreeing or interjecting about how it was with her sweet baby Carl.

Gregory randomly pokes the fucking baby in the belly, and the cries start again in a screeching pitch.

Has anyone ever punched him in the face?

“How was the birth?” Stu for some cursed reason has to ask. I take a step back in order to avoid sticking around for Celeste’s answer.

Rhonda flashes me a disapproving stare. Why is it so socially acceptable to discuss a human getting pushed or cut out of a body, yet somehow, it’s unprofessional for me to simplyworkrather than hold the tiny person I don’t even know, while it’s wearing something designed to catch any fecal matter that comes out of it?

I quietly take another step away. And another.

I pass Joey and am almost in the clear when Caitlin loudly says, “Don’t take that personally—it’s her. We need to catch up aboutthatas well.”

I lower into my chair, and her fractured message chain greets me on my screen. Who does she think she is? Her cackle rattles with the flash of the burning-out fluorescent above her. It’s the cackle of someone who believes herself a goddess.

And that’s it!

I check to make sure nobody is around, and thankfully, they’reall still at the infant show. I flip to her document folder and typeIamagoddess19*when prompted. I try to stop myself from shaking as my heart pounds into my eardrums.

I click, and in an instant her inventory report covers my screen. It’s almost complete. I move a decimal, such a tiny thing. I change a 63 to 64, an easy typo to make if one’s not focusing.

My finger hesitates before clicking. I can’tactuallysabotage—it’s a different line. Deniability, even to myself, won’t be an option.

But as she passes the baby to Garret, I realize there’s no telling what she’s going to say to manipulate Cliff tomorrow. And there’s no telling what else she’s done over the years—how much my reputation has been messed with in silent conversations and quiet sabotage.

This is the only thing I can control.

I save the changes and close out.

Milkshake Brings Nothing to Nobody

As I settle into Cliff’s car at the end of the day, I can’t help but wonder if we’ll be doing this again tomorrow, after Caitlin turns him on me and tells him every horrible thing, real or invented—it makes no difference sometimes.

Cliff shoulder checks me as he turns onto the main road. “You all right there?” he asks.

I nod. “Yeah,” I say, voice shaky.

I bite the inside of my lip. Now is not the time to act sketchy. He’s the fucking HR guy with a unique set of skills to detect if someone is up to no good. He might have taken a course on detecting facial expressions of people who broke into emails. Or maybe he’ll determine that I sabotaged Caitlin’s grid just by spotting my twitching fingers.