章節 4: 33 hours before
Karen wasted no time getting us back on track. She grabbed the coffee out of Daniel’s hand and said, “We’ll brief in ten minutes.” She took a huge gulp and then, as if apologizing for stealing Daniel’s coffee, she added, “I’ll make more coffee. Make that five minutes,” she said as she turned the corner. “Brief in five minutes!”
“Wait, doesn’t she already have coffee?” I asked as I meandered towards Pat.
Luke gave us both a sympathetic look. His eyes said more than words could’ve.
We knew. I knew this moment was going to feel about as good as ripping off a bandaid. I didn’t need Luke to say it.
He gave me a tiny thumbs up and then left us to reunite.
“Hey,” I said.
Pat pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Hey.”
I tried to find the words to tell her I was sorry for letting Karen pounce on her like that. But Hallmark doesn’t make cards for situations like sorry-I-let-our-boss-turn-you-into-a-zombie-glad-you-got-better. Maybe they should start!
She played with one of her many bracelets. “It’s ok,” she said.
“They wouldn’t let me come see you,” I began. “I tried. Pat, I really tried. But they said you were in quarantine and that it was in the paperwork…”
She shook her head and smiled. “Did you know that Lee Minho is back from military service?”
“Oh?” I feigned. I searched my brain for the last time she’d mentioned him, but it had been almost a month since I’d seen her and I had trouble keeping up with all of her crushes.
“Yup. And he’s already been cast for his comeback drama.”
“Does it sound good?” I asked.
She nodded, causing her glasses to slide down her nose. “But it won’t be out until next year.”
“That’s a long time to wait for a drama.”
She shook her head. “It’s perfect, I’ll have time to wrap up the others and give them all a proper review before I start campaigning for his return. So I’ll be busy.”
I frowned. Maybe I should study up on this guy. Maybe I could fangirl with her for a bit. Eat some ramen, drink beer, complain about gaining five pounds and having puffy faces. With the tips of my fingers, I touched my cheekbones. Maybe I could gain eight pounds. Pat was worth it!
She reached for my hand and pulled it away from my face. “It’s not a bad type of busy. Busy is good, Sandy. It means between work-type-work and then with the blog I’ll be so busy I’ll just crash every night. Does that make sense? I won’t have any room left for thinking about things.”
I smiled a tight small smile and felt her words bounce inside my head. “I get it,” I said. It wasn’t like I didn’t enjoy a good binge here and there.
She giggled. “I’m ok, Sandy. Ok?” she said and gave my hand a squeeze. Then she pointed toward the remaining work stations. “I know you don’t want direct sunlight because you’ll worry about wrinkles and stuff. So I’ll take that one. It’ll be good for my cactus, Fred.”
“He’s still around?” I asked and smiled.
She nodded and we made our way to the work stations.
“Coffee’s ready people. Oh and boxes, boxes are arriving later on this afternoon.”
“What kind of boxes?” Daniel asked.
“Our things from the old office. Damn it, Pat, I do not want to pick up Fred again. Got it?” Karen said.
“Yes ma’am,” Pat called from behind her desk.
“Meeting in two minutes,” Karen shouted. She was already in the common planning space, writing an agenda on the transparent board. If we left her alone for too long she’d have the whole month planned down to the minute. And this included bathroom breaks, which is bad.
Let’s just say that a certain someone may have chosen to try out a popular detox. Let us then suppose that this certain someone had to pee almost every hour. Do you know how hard it was to convince Karen that I had to pee--err--this person had to pee every hour?
“We can’t let her schedule bathroom breaks again,” I huffed.
“Better hurry,” Luke whispered and grabbed his tablet. “You’re not cleansing again, right?”
I shook my head.
“One minute,” Daniel called. “Is she cleansing?”
“No,” said Luke.
“I’m right here,” I snapped.
We gathered in the common meeting space, which was a combination of mix-matched chairs, a sofa, a coffee table, and a clear board. The open seating was unlike our previous lock-in office with the long table in the center. This felt a bit more hipster and reminded me of college. Any moment Karen would talk about how important it was for us to select our holiday trip and that during spring break we would either build a shelter for the homeless, plant a garden, clean a park, or clean a beach. The beach sounded nice. I could almost picture the cleaned beach, a sunset that stained the sky red and bruised purples, drinks around a fire...I’d vote for that one!
Karen took a deep breath and began, “Alright.” She closed her eyes, fanned the air around her as if to gather strength. It was nice to be normal again, as if nothing had happened, as if all we needed were a few minutes to get warmed up, as if we hadn’t nearly killed each other. I looked over at Pattie. Could she really ever forgive me? Would I if things were the other way around?
It was nice to pretend.
“This is our schedule of events for the week before we launch into project mode,” Karen said.
In Karen’s tight writing, the week loomed ahead like some green-Expo monster. There was a press conference to attend, the local school district had invited us to their school board meeting, there were vendors clamoring for attention, new vendors, new employee applications, a trip to the warehouse for inventory inspection, a radio show appearance, and a pitch to our own board of directors for implementation and training programs.
Karen surveyed us with her tight smile and leaned back, fanning in the air as if she were wafting in some essential oils that gave her meditative properties. I made a note in my planner to inspect further. Maybe she had placed the oils on her inner wrists. Wasn’t that like a special pressure point, right? Or was that the Chakras? Better look it up later.
Luke raised his hand.
“Yes?” Karen said.
“Is this seriously just for the week?”
Karen added to the board and said, “Sorry, I forgot about the award ceremony.”
Silence pressed down on us. I felt the muscle beneath my left eye start to twitch. Daniel fidgeted with his notepad. Pat swiped an app away on her tablet. Luke frowned, a fingertip tapping against his upper lip.
“Seriously people. We are good at this,” Karen said.
“We are?” Luke whispered.
I shook my head. “Karen, we've never done anything like this before. This is...well...don’t we have a new project? I could pick the font,” I said and dared her to change it this time.
Daniel put his pen down and brushed his hair back. For a moment he looked like his former self: well put together, thick hair slicked back like a CEO. Then his hair flopped back down across his forehead and into his eyes. He shook them away for a moment. His eyes became steady and piercing. At last he said, “I think the problem is that we need to prep before we can divide and conquer these appearances. Get our story lined up and pre-approved by E.O.W.”
“Good point,” Karen said. She rolled the marker in her hand and sighed. “We should discuss boundaries as well. Things that are off limits,” she said and her gaze landed on me. “Point one must be that the zombie survival guide was made for a hypothetical situation. Not the other way around. We all agree.”
“Wait. Why would it be the other way around?” I whispered.
“But it’s not hypothetical anymore,” Luke ventured. “Somehow there really is a zombie virus now.”
“Exactly,” said Karen.
Luke beamed as if he’d earned a sticker in class.
“Now people will be more interested in Sandy--I mean our work. Not just regular customers. Governments too. Not just our own either. People are clamoring for information.”
“Copy cats will be coming out soon,” Daniel muttered.
“Right,” Karen said. “Actually, Pat?” Karen said and attempted to snap her fingers a few times. She settled for pointing at Pattie with her expo marker.
Pat looked up at her.
“Can you get that one on your radar?” Karen asked and added it to the board.
“Yup,” Pat said and made a quick note on her tablet.
Luke raised his hand again and spoke up when Karen rolled her eyes at him, “Does anyone else feel like duck-and-cover drills all over again?”
“What?” I asked. “Like school drills?”
“Exactly like school drills, only I don’t know, do people really need survival guides like this? Is this really going to help people? Isn’t this a bit beyond us now?”
“That’s our job,” Daniel snapped.
“But it’s still a good point,” I ventured. “Karen, you said we had to get our story straight. Why? Are there different versions? That’s kind of suspicious, isn’t it?” I whispered to Luke.
“It is,” Luke nodded.
“It’s not,” Daniel said.
“We?” Karen said. Her lips thinned as they pressed together, vanishing into her mouth, and her eyes trembled in their sockets.
Pat adjusted her glasses and shook her head at me. It was a small motion, but her pigtails wiggled with movement.
Karen smiled, a tight fisted thing. “Not we,” she said at last. “You. You have to get this story straight.”
Luke swallowed and looked at Pat, who adjusted her glasses. Daniel, for just a moment, gave me a side glance.
“Me? What? No, the team, I mean we were all there…”
Karen made a guttural noise in her throat. I flinched. It was as if she remembered how to be Zombie Karen.
Daniel, sighing, took the lead. “It was your project, remember? Each of us submitted what we thought would be the next evasive crisis plan. Yours was the zombie outbreak in an office building.” He sighed and then muttered, “I gambled on making schools safer.”
“So it’s you the rest of the world wants to see,” Karen snapped. With a squeak, she put messy asterisks beside most of the events. Each asterisk felt like one of those laser targeting dots that snipers use in movies. Each asterisk was pointed at me. Except they were green instead of red.
I tossed my ponytail over my shoulder and sat up straighter. Posture was very important.
Daniel tossed my ponytail back at me. “Right in the eye,” he mumbled.
“Sorry,” I said, feeling my ears turn red.
Luke nodded, “I get it now. Sandy’s going to be the face.”
Karen straightened her blouse, which hadn’t moved. “Unfortunately, she’s who everyone wants to talk to.”
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