We all deserve a mulligan

That afternoon, Janine sat at her desk deciding if it was too early to shut down the computer and start slowly packing up her belongings. She could make the closing down process take as long as an hour if necessary. Eliza from marketing walked by her cubicle, scanned her disorganized desk with mild disdain and said, “It must be nice to work in such a peaceful part of the building.”

Janine gave a tight, pained smile and said, “Yep, it stays pretty quiet around here. Pre-TEE pre-TEE quiet.”

Since nothing productive could occur in that workspace in the next 45 minutes, Janine began the tortoise-like process of closing tabs and windows, stacking loose papers, hunting for binder clips in a particular size and labeling a few new file folders to hold documents she wouldn’t look at again for months. When she did look at them again, she would debate only a few seconds before they went into the recycling bin. That was insurance for some down time later because the walk to the bin could stretch into 20 minutes if she did it right.

The time had changed, and it was nearly dark before she even left her desk. All week, employees complained about it, swore they had Seasonal Affective Disorder and needed to talk the company into full spectrum lights for everyone.

But it truly was depressing not to see the sunset. She collected them, and to be deprived of one while she sat indoors without even a craned-neck view of a window seemed impossibly unfair.

A young man in an overcoat brushed past her as she stood in the doorway trying to gin up enough energy to walk to her car. “Places to go, excuse me!” he said. “You don’t want to hang out here all night, do you?”

She laughed a little and said, “What? Stay here and miss the Xanadu that is my apartment? Never!”

He blinked at her and frowned before he said, “Whatever,” and sprinted to his car, holding the key fob out at arm’s length to make the vehicle’s lights flash hello like a golden retriever greeting its owner.

She didn’t sprint to her car, which didn’t greet her except to groan as she opened the door. Rain last night had diligently worked its way through the window she’d left open an inch and collected in the carpet. Now her shoes squished into the wet as she settled into the seat.

The next morning, she held the door for a man walking out of the convenience store as she waited to walk in. The man didn’t thank her or make eye contact or so much as grunt. She shrugged and slipped inside.

As she debated the beneficial effects of cinnamon versus Irish cream, a young man on the other side of the counter spilled his coffee and swore. He looked up at her wide-eyed and apologized. She blushed and dropped her gaze, smiling. He followed her to the cashier.

“I don’t usually talk like that in front of strangers,” he said.

“Nothing I haven’t heard before,” she reassured him, turned toward the clerk and swiped her card.

He still wanted to talk. “It’s just that I have this court thing today, and I’m really worried about it. I didn’t want to get coffee on my tie and then I spilled it on the counter and I think I’m going to say something stupid in court and it’s going to be awful.”

“I hope it goes okay. That’s nerve-wracking,” she said. She walked out of the shop and he was right behind her. How did he pay so fast?

“I just don’t want to screw up, you know? If I start jabbering like I do when I’m nervous, I might end up getting into more trouble,” he said, running a hand through his hair so that it stood up in clumps. He set his coffee on the roof of his car and fished in his coat pocket for his keys. He swore again.

Janine was parked beside him, acting preoccupied with her own key search in her purse. When she was safely inside her car, she saw him get into his own with the coffee still on the roof. She sighed before she tapped her horn, smiled at his startled face and pointed up. He looked confused, so she held up her own cup, pointed at it and pointed up again. His eyebrows shot up and then his face crumpled. He got out, retrieved the cup, and sat back in his seat, staring straight ahead for a second before he looked back at her and gave her a sad smile and shrug. What gesture could suggest, “It’s okay. Good luck in court!”? She gave him a head tilt and a thumbs up, and he backed out of his parking space.

Because she felt a little superior to another human, Janine was briefly recharged by the encounter. Maybe she was miserable, but at least she was more pulled together than Talkative Court Guy. What on earth could he be in court for anyway? She pictured him talking sharply to a kitten and being hauled in for animal cruelty. Or perhaps he was too fierce when he stapled something at work.

She hummed along with the radio as she imagined the young man’s benign crimes. By the time she arrived at work, her mood was positive, and spending the day in the office time warp where eight hours might take a full week to pass didn’t seem quite as daunting.

Eliza from marketing was waiting at the elevator. She gave Janine a quick head to toe scan and seemed to find her less than acceptable. She didn’t speak. Janine didn’t feel a need to greet her, either, but not saying anything made the elevator ride unusually awkward. To break the silence, Janine chirped “A lot on your plate today?” but said it just as the elevator door opened and Eliza didn’t hear her. Janine nodded to herself and muttered softly, “Me, either.”

She made the rituals of beginning the day take as long as she could — turning on lamps, booting up the computer, hanging her coat, smoothing her skirt, and unpacking the files she carried home every night (just to give them a little outing). She walked to the breakroom for more coffee as slowly as possible, carrying a piece of blank paper and frowning occasionally so it would appear she was productive. The walk back to her cube was a more circuitous route around the other side of the office floor. All this helped to delay sitting in her chair because once she was there, she was a prisoner tied to a clock.

Outside, children ran through sunbeams streaming through tall trees. Swans swam on mirror-smooth ponds. Hikers achieved summits and stood admiring the vista before them, chewing on celebratory granola bars.

She sat in unflattering fluorescent light and opened her email.

Eventually lunchtime came. As the second hand swept past 11:59, she all but leapt from her seat with her purse already over her shoulder, keys in hand. She was the first of the rush to the elevator, and trotted to her musty car. After idling in a drive through line for food as unhealthy as it was fast, she drove to a side road in a wooded spot between houses where, if she looked carefully, she could see just a little of a creek where the sun made the water sparkle like a Star Trek character being beamed away in the Transporter Room.

She stared through the windshield and chewed. A bird dove into the water and surfaced with a silvery fish in its bill. “Lucky fish,” she said and started her car.

That night she dreamed. Her supervisor was there but silent, arms crossed, brows furrowed, emitting waves of disapproval. Her dream self typed furiously on her keyboard but nothing appeared on the screen. She tried to make the window on the monitor tiny so her frowning boss couldn’t see it. The desktop photo of a beach sunset flooded over the little text window, blotting out her work. Her dream self stood up, put her purse on her shoulder and walked away.

She woke up feeling giddy, as though something wonderful was just about to happen.

At the convenience store, she held the door for another burly man with his hands full of breakfast sandwiches held against his chest and two full cups of coffee. He didn’t make eye contact to acknowledge her help, so she said, “Saying ‘thank you’ makes you sexy.” The man looked startled and then softened and laughed. “I guess you’re right,” he said, and dipped his head in the only gesture his full arms allowed, “Yeah.”

And there again was Talkative Court Guy.

“Hey, it’s you!”

He smiled at her as though they’d shared a lifetime of morning conversations. He seemed nice and she thought maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. She smiled and said, “Yep, it’s me!”

“Today,” he said, “is gonna be awesome.”

“So court went okay?” she asked.

“Better than okay. Not only was the bogus charge against me thrown out, but the bugger has to pay ME restitution and can’t harass me anymore.”

“That’s great,” she said and thought how if she knew him better, she would reach out and push that one chunk of hair out of his eyes and smooth that bit that was standing up straight.

“And that’s not all,” he told her. “After court, a girl watching the whole thing took me to lunch. I…”

He paused for effect and hooked his thumbs into imaginary suspenders.

“…have a girlfriend now.”

Janine blinked, put her imaginary comb back into her purse and said, “That’s wonderful.”

“Isn’t it funny how a day can change completely in a heartbeat?” he said.

“It sure is,” she said as she dumped all the available hazelnut creamer into her cup.

She arrived at her parking spot at the time she should have been at her desk. That should count, she thought.

At the elevator, Eliza was waiting but didn’t look her over or acknowledge her presence. In fact, she kept her face studiously turned away, and Janine thought she saw Eliza’s shoulders shudder just a bit as she took a long breath. But when the elevator chimed and doors opened, she stood straight and strode in ahead of Janine like her usual self and stared straight ahead and silent on the ride to their floor. As the doors opened, Janine told her, “Great shoes! I hope you have a good day.”

Eliza whirled around and stared down at her before she walked away, all overcoat and perfume.

“Isn’t it funny how a day can change completely in a heartbeat,” Janine whispered to herself as she sat in her chair.

She stared at the beach sunset picture on her monitor. The single palm tree leaned out over water that looked transparently turquoise, lapping against sand patterned in wavy lines from a higher tide. Was reality here in a cubicle or was it there on a beach in the dimming sunshine? What would happen if she did put her purse on her arm and walk out?

A mental image of an eviction notice taped to her front door gave her about thirty seconds of powerful motivation to plod onward.

At lunch, she sat looking at the creek and started sketching the scene on a manila folder she found in the backseat. She practiced drawing the reflections of the trees that were just beginning to change color. She tried to draw the surface of the creek with horizontal lines showing the ripples in the water and became so absorbed in adding a bird on a branch and an egret in the water, fish in its bill, that she was a little late getting back to her desk. No one seemed to notice.

The alarm went off too early the next morning. Entirely too early. Who on earth would set an alarm for this early? Why on earth would anyone want to be conscious at such a ridiculous time? Then she remembered. She had work to do. Real work. Her own work. She was going to draw.

After lunch the day before she realized that getting so absorbed in drawing that she lost track of time was a sign, an omen, a reminder of all the things she used to love. On the way home she had stopped at the arts and crafts store, navigated through the wooden plaques, coffee mugs, corrugated metal signs and die-cut script all ordering her to Live! Laugh! Love! Finally she found charcoal and colored pencils, textured heavy drawing paper, sketchbooks, drafting pens with fine tips, and chalk pastels. She bought some of everything, spending all of the money she mentally reserved each month for splurges. She would have to bring lunch from home every day for a while, but it would be worth it. Less time buying lunch meant more time to draw.

She started with a parrot, with a shiny bright eye and jade green feathers. She pulled up a picture online to see how the feathers around the face should be arranged and added a mate for the bird in blue and yellow. A friend for the couple materialized on a vine, and then she drew leaves, so many leaves, with shadows and water droplets and veins and curves. She looked at the clock and was disappointed to realize it was time to get dressed for work. She propped the drawing up on the couch where it would be the first thing she saw when she came home.

At lunch that day, she would sit by the creek and draw whatever popped into her head. She would swoop lines across the page and shade and shadow until whatever she drew stood up and breathed. The morning could not pass quickly enough.

Today she was smiling as she checked off the hopelessly unimportant tasks her job required. She was humming as she stirred her coffee in the breakroom and caught herself nearly skipping back to her desk. Little jobs she had pushed to the next day for weeks on end didn’t seem as daunting, and she finally got them finished and pushed off onto the next sad staffer who would need to handle them.

She realized she hadn’t seen Eliza all day. No matter, but she almost missed the judgment and was eager to see if she measured up a little better in Eliza’s eyes today.

She dreamed that night of floating in warm water. The current carried her along and she was not in control. Wherever the water took her, she was content to go. On the shore, she saw people watching her pass. They were strangers and didn’t seem concerned that a woman was floating by, so she decided there was nothing to fear or fight against. She would just see where this took her.

At exactly 9 a.m. the next morning, an email chime made her look up at the screen, where an all-employee announcement had popped into her inbox. In it, a reorganization notice outlined a list of new leadership, mostly a rearranged list of familiar names, but as she scanned it, she realized Eliza’s name was not there.

Two women from marketing were talking in the break room when she walked in to get coffee. They looked at her, startled, and put their heads close together to whisper as they walked out of the room. All she could make out was “twelve years! And just out the door!”

While she sat at her desk in a middling midmorning mood her supervisor appeared over the top of her cube and said, “Got a sec?”

Janine considered saying, “Oh I wish I could stop now, but could you give me a few minutes?” But since all she was actually doing was highlighting, copying and pasting the same text in a document over and over to pass the time, it didn’t seem prudent to put off her boss.

“Of course! What’s up?” she said, trying to smile in a productive and valuable sort of way.

“I guess you saw the email this morning,” her boss said. Her expression was somber and Janine tensed.

“I did. What changes for us?” she asked.

Her boss smiled sadly and said, “For you, probably not much. But I have a couple of weeks to figure out what’s next for me. I haven’t even touched my resume in years. I wondered if you still had connections at Werner’s and could test the water there for me.”

Her boss’s name wasn’t on that list? Janine hadn’t even noticed. She felt terrible.

“Oh that can’t be! I am so sorry. I think a few people I knew are still there. I can email them and see what’s going on.”

Her boss smiled a little brighter. “Thank you, Janine. You have always been so dedicated and cared about your work so much. They’re smart to keep you.”

Janine sat feeling stung. Did she appear dedicated to this job that she plotted to leave every day? Or was she so invisible that no one even saw the slump of her shoulders or realized that she barely worked? She looked up at the sticky note she had posted behind her monitor. It said, “No one cares about you enough to plot your doom.” It had come true. I would have written “Everyone gives you money” if I’d known that would work, she thought.

At lunch by the creek, she ate a sandwich brought from home and drew abstractly sad shapes with dark shadows and wrinkly backgrounds.