One by one, overhead fluorescents were snuffed; computer screens extinguished, corner office doors shut tight for the night. She sat on, her screen now the only light in the room, its bluish blaze illuminating her paper-white skin and inflaming her tiny cubicle.
She sipped at her green tea, now cold, while going through case upon case, hi-lighting important points and snippets of court transcripts that may have otherwise been overlooked by the distracted lawyers she worked under.
She massaged her sleepy feet one toe at time, while scrolling through site after site, researching proof for each red inked comment she’d written in the sidebars of every document.
When the last smooth, manila folder thwacked the pile that had mounted on the grey-carpeted floor, she stretched her arms up as high as she could, the skin on her hands protesting as the cracks widened with the pull. Handling paper in a dry office all day long took its toll; the raw, tiny slice on her right pointer finger squealing just enough to make her wince.
She got up and wandered slowly; a laze in her stocking’d step, through the grid of carpeted, shiftable dividers across the office to the glamorous window engulfing the entire West-side wall of the firm. It framed the charcoal city skyline etched against the cobalt sky.
Entering the office at nineteen, it had been the first thing to catch her eye. A window to a world she hadn’t really explored, and even now, at twenty-nine, she still came up short.
But, over the years she’d spent in that office she’d acquired her tiny, but decorated just the way she wanted, apartment in Yaletown and a wardrobe that boasted not one, but two little black dresses. Although they’d only been worn, covered with a blazer, to the office so far. A freezer full of Lean Cuisine, a little grey cat that she loved to bits and out one of her windows she could see a corner of the Keg rooftop patio which provided her with hours of entertainment on a Saturday night.
Exhaling, she turned away from the view, knowing it was time.
The sleety kitchen tiles filtered their cool through her nylons, her feet gliding over each one frictionlessly. She took a shiny, white mug from the cupboard and garnished it with a silver stirring spoon and the content of two brown sugar filled envelopes. She plucked a mandarin from the fridge and a packet of shortbread cookies from the drawer beside it. Snatching spray and paper towel from under the sink, she headed back out to the cubicles.
Coming to his, she stopped, heart thudding, imagination conjuring up his kind, green eyes and bobbing Adam’s apple.
Carefully, she set her supplies on his chair and went about wiping his desktop and dusting his screen; the floral smell of potpourri scented cleaner filling the space as she sprayed.
Taking the mug, she set it to the right of the monitor, its spoon clanging as she put it down, plastic crackling as she laid the cookies and mandarin beside it. She scrawled a happy face on a post it with a Sharpie and stuck it to his mug.
Finished for yet another night, she was, as usual in a hurry to leave. The laze gone, she now scrambled to put away the cleaning supplies, sort the manila folders into organized piles on her desk, grab her coat and whip on her flats.
Out in the fresh air, inhaling deeply, she smiled knowing there’d be a few people adorning the Keg deck on this beautiful night, her kitty would be waiting at the door and tomorrow, he’d be wondering, like he had every morning for the last three years since starting at the firm of one hundred and twenty employees, who the crazy nut in the office was.
Hazy Shades of Me 