Leaving Drink
She never said much. She came in muffled up in her coat, hat almost to her eyes; she’d unpeel only gradually – hat, coat; later scarf then jacket. Unwilling, I thought. As though unsure she’d stay. At hometime she packed her locker, logged out her screen, buttoned her coat and left quickly, without goodbyes. I thought she looked cool and honest, kinda someone who has a great life through the window, never spoken about at work.
I held on my ruse as office joker way into my thirties: a useful filter, a bright projection bringing to life a blank wall. Worked hard, joked hard, flirted a little; hinted what I might be doing all the nights I waited home wondering why I didn’t do whatever. Watched Lacey come in, take off her coat, work silently and go.
The section got moved around, teamed and unteamed, refocused, redesignated; I sat on another wing, another floor, here and there and back again, to the row of stations behind Lacey. Never worked so close to her before: when I squinted past my screen through the gap of screens opposite I could watch her range her spreadsheets, build databases, her mystic programs of scatterplots and vector maps exotically mocking the drab text blocks that faced me. Patterns announced her expertise. Looking away from another dull report, my eyes would stalk how her fingers dragged her hair into a tail, held two, three beats and let go, repeated while she stared at dazzling paintbox geography. She’d flick away to towering columns of numbers, steady, holding her hair, suddenly diving in on a cell of figures highlighted, scrutinised: so far forward in her chair it would tilt to nuzzle her desk. She’d call someone, press a slender finger at the screen, explain what she saw always too quiet to hear.
Simulacrum of a sociable guy I talked with neighbours, joked across the section, made coffee for everyone. I drank coffee from habit and boredom, five minutes watching water heat no substitute for the smoke breaks of youth. Blood-stained debris in my handkerchief showed how much coffee. Lacey drank coffee, not my coffee. When I toured the section with tray and pleasing smile she’d pause on whatever operation, glance up her espresso eyes. “No thank you. But thank you for asking.” She always thanked me for asking. Not wanting to stare but aware of her walking by me – a compact, uninterruptible walk, I’d see her coffee mug logoed from some conference; in the evening spy on its dark residue where she got busy or ran out of time or realised she didn’t want coffee anyway. She didn’t want my coffee.
I stayed late. Always busy, I wasted time: stayed most nights to catch up. The heat cut out at seven, temperature under the sheet glass fell away quick as hope. Night pressing in all sides, in sniping cold the emptying office clung grimly round me. The lonelies who claimed not to do rush hour ebbed away while onscreen unmet deadlines nagged my attention. Didn’t take statistics to understand staying late was a sad man’s game. Staying late I saw her coffee dregs, grease spots from her salad lunch, her fuzzy dice; the hand massager shaped like Saturn that she’d flip over and back in her palm – occasionally, deliciously, pitching it up to catch.
I always said Hi to Lacey. She answered with no space for follow-ups, every avenue into conversation the guarded borders of a closed state. I guess it wasn’t personal. Just felt that way. Two or three times a day she’d check her cute little slide-up phone. Whatever her messages said never made her laugh or frown or react any way. She read them like stats, and dived back in her graphs.
Each day I did less; I watched Lacey, as daylight dwindled I stayed later to catch up. Everyone said I must be busy. I made tough, I-can-take-it noises. She usually left around half-five but one night was still there at six clicking through sheets of data, importing tables into email that – from one row back – looked informed and persuasive. At six-thirty with most of the screens hung dark, Lacey kept shuffling her numbers and patterns, same pace as the start of the day. Alone in the section it seemed odd not to talk. I got my cup.
“No thank you. But thank you for asking.”
No one else in that stretch of office. “You never let me make you coffee.” Meant as jokey, gonzo-rueful it sounded a whine of lifelong pleading with women.
She stopped clicking figures to examine this random variable. I deserved some smart and hurtful dress-up of ‘Why would I want to?’ But Lacey was analytic. “You use the wrong kitchen. The kitchen at the end…” the kitchen we all used “…doesn’t have sterile water.”
Coffee points and kitchens all over the building, superficially the same but not entirely. The coffee point down the hall had a chill-steriliser. The large kitchen that closed-out the wing had microwaves, coffee systems, but no sterile tap. “Do you prefer sterile water?”
“Do you look at the taps?”
In the half-lit cubby along the deserted corridor I filled the machine from the slender silver pipe, anticipation of coffee spiced with new flavour. I’d evaded border control. I got something about Lacey I guessed no one else knew. I had her preference. I liked it. Next morning I got my tray, grinningly touring the grumpy early orders.
“No thank you. But thank you for asking.”
Yeah sure, but I had the knowledge. “I’m going to the nice place down the hall.”
“I don’t want anything.”
We were working stiffs: what I called myself for a joke long ago, solidified as fact. Good parents and fretful children, my colleagues worked regular hours. Any change to routine flagged big as an outlier. Lacey worked later. I noticed her hours creep: six, six-thirty, later; I spread my time to stay till she went, irritable when others hung on past their usual shift. I sat cold, morbidly tired, beaten to boredom by words onscreen for a step beyond her borders.
Execs were talking cuts. A high-spend operation, and too soon in the quarter to be drawing down reserves: no-brainer that jobs would go. Long-timers dusted off their pension cover; kids posted social network calls, uploaded search-friendly CVs. In the middle – with most to lose and least to make happen – I hoped for the best.
When next I got dealt time with Lacey, cuts were a keen place to start. “I never expected to stay long.” What I might have said at her age. “A new challenge is always good.” She saved and closed. “I’m getting stale.”
Perched on a neighbour’s desk in a youngish sort-of way, I sipped coffee and aimed at worldly. “Yeah, I mean with your skills…”
“I don’t use my skills. There are no mechanisms here to keep up to date. I’ve raised it.”
It was hard to picture her involved in occupational to-ing and fro-ing. “I guess in a professional discipline…”
She batted the screen. “This isn’t econometrics. Nothing like it. I’m years off the curve. Now’s a good time.” She tugged on her jacket. As afterthought: “What are your plans?”
My plans were going to sleep and being alive next morning. After that was all shopfront. “Well… I’ve done about twelve years. Next year. Twelve years next year. If layoffs come… could get a good final. Not a fortune but… an okay final. Might travel, couple of years: see what’s out there.”
“Cool.” She nodded like it was believable. “Travelling’s cool.”
“West Coast,” I said randomly.
“Cool.”
I knew intimacy had rules; I was off the curve how the game got played. Years off the curve. My attempts on coffee run at a jokey distinction of hell from heavenly kitchen got only partial traction. If her lips flickered it was bonus season. When she finally okay-ed a coffee, I was a guy on a date. I got conscious how I acted, tuning out some of the horsing to meet her seriousness; moulding an experienced voice for the few minutes with her caught as the heat vents cooled. I pitched as the in-demand guy in the room, which to her was never more than: “Cool.”
Plans for change crystallised new structures: organograms with hatched lines, different labels, fewer boxes. We got a couple of weeks to say what we thought; that it was already decided made plain when our Director left. A likeable guy, Exec for sure but someone to shoot the breeze with; no surprise he saw it coming and jumped. Though he did nothing more fancy than shout out which bar he could be found, I don’t recall such a rush to tag for a leaving drink. From his round of handshakes at four – clutching my elbow, saying it all was a pleasure – the place emptied out a quick tide across the street to wish him well. My neighbours went, our whole section. Lacey: I got surprised at that. Young, maybe in-demand, I hadn’t figured her as available for after work drinks.
I didn’t go over. A day short of payday I could maybe find for a beer but if colleagues bought for me and I couldn’t buy back I’d be embarrassed. Safer not to go. At every ask I said I might be over in just… a little… while… Till everyone was gone and the heat went down.
Thinking about heading home when the beep of the security door sounded through the stillness. My heart crashed out through the floor.
“Forgot my phone.” Her voice loudened, coarsened a little. She fussed at her desk a moment, fixed me a sharp look. “Everyone’s there. It’s cool. You coming?”
I was out plastic and nothing but cheapskate pennies. “I’m… busy. Just gotta go somewhere. Meeting someone.” That sounded so dumb with her staring unblinking at me. “It’s a… long-standing appointment.” What did men say? What would a man say? “Pity it’s not tomorrow. I’m free tomorrow.”
“Okay.” Lacey went on staring. “Tomorrow.” The lonely click of the security door echoed through empty space.
I dressed with more care next day: something young-flavoured, good for going out. Through the morning I held off emailing to ask where she wanted to go; if we didn’t speak I’d message her after lunch. I felt proud how I showed that discretion, building credit with her I hoped to cash at some early occasion. Around four o’clock I puzzled out what subject line would look innocuous in her inbox, started to type; I noticed her moving, not headed to the kitchen or out on break: buttoning her coat. She stepped aside, her screen blank behind her.
I counted five, walked quickly to the lobby pushing my face neutral everyday hurry. She was waiting the lift, impatiently watching numbers. “Early night?” I called, trying to make her hear what I meant.
The same look that said no thanks to coffee. “Yeah.”
From then, each conversation pressed on the unspoken. Embarrassment was regular life to me, nights we stayed late fraught with what wasn’t said. The place quiet, temperature falling, I asked did she want coffee. I persisted with saying which kitchen though the joke was hollowed through. I put the cup on her desk and – feeling I shouldn’t ought to have to feel so brave – spluttered: “Still owe you a real drink.” I thought the hint of commitment might limit damage.
“I’m leaving.”
She got another job, where her skills would be nurtured, properly channelled; it was closer to home anyway. The idea she actually lived somewhere seemed stupidly bizarre. “In that case,” I lumbered on, “make it two.”
Her notice was short – maybe she got some deal – her last week worked later and later, so focused it seemed crass to interrupt. Night on night, sat one row behind I watched her build intricate charts, hold her hair in its temporary tail, press on with slicing data to email-friendly truths. She said how she wanted to get it all done, for her name not to be mud when she left. I assured her it wouldn’t be, like I could swing that. She talked about the new place, the challenge of complex analysis. One night I tried leaving with her: she stalled me with a flat statement she’d someplace to go. I don’t guess she was colder towards me. I felt cold.
Some have a ball and some slip away. When I started out, everyone who left was old and wore flannel. I tagged to some legendary binges: farewell parties fondly recalled weeks and months after. I got older, the world got sober: now everyone leaves young, booking space in sit-down bars where no one gets drunk. Some just say a round of goodbyes, thanks for the card and walk. That’s what I’d do. That’s what Lacey did.
Through that last week I worked late and disappointed. By Friday I thought perhaps she was so discreet she’d prefer us to see each other after she’d gone. Seemed plausible, based on no knowledge. Four o’clock I got my tray: I made it tradition. Four o’clock English tea. I told her it was maybe her last chance. She okay-ed on coffee, perhaps acknowledging finality as a legitimate parameter.
I watched her throw stuff away, clip papers, tell a colleague they could have her locker. Methodical, thorough: she didn’t spoil it with celebration. Before five she buttoned her coat, fielding workmates’ good wishes into an update on where she left off. No hugs, no kisses.
She stopped by my desk.
“It’s been a pleasure,” I told her extravagantly. “Hope the new place works out.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll send a postcard from Hollywood.”
A twitch worked under her cheek. In the busy office I caught the click of the security door.
I was last to go: Friday, but I was busy. Everyone said so. I pulled what-can-you-do kinda shapes. When it was safe: the sky dark, the floor so quiet I heard the mice down hell’s kitchen, temperature falling and no one around I went over to Lacey’s desk. Her old desk. She left it clear, swept of numbers, scrubbed any information that she’d been there. But one thing: her coffee, the last coffee I made her. Still where I left it, cold to touch; its surface gleamed – a tense, dark skin.
Mark Wagstaff was born by the sea and lives in London. Mark has had around fifty short stories published to date, across a broad spectrum of journals, anthologies and websites in the UK and US. He has also published a short story collection and four novels. Mark’s 2008 novel The Canal has been issued as an ebook by Bristlecone Pine Press of Portland, ME. His latest novel In Sparta – a story of radicalism, conformity and terror – is available in print and ebook format from Troubador Publishing Ltd. Full details of Mark’s work are at markwagstaff.com.
