They had a K-cup machine, which was an absolute No (unless you’re an Americano fan? I’ve heard some people can make a mean Americano from a K-cup). I managed to rescue an old drip coffee maker from the cobwebs of the corner cabinet, and set about washing it down. I can work with a drip coffee maker.

Katie stared at me with quite a bit of confusion, as I set about my comfortable task of washing a coffee urn. It wasn’t even weird for me to be doing this at 11:30 in the morning. We usually broke down two urns just before the lunch rush.

“I thought you liked tea. I didn’t even know you liked coffee,” said Katie.

Well, fuck.

“I like keeping my hands busy,” I said.

“That makes sense,” said Katie. “That’s why I water all the plants by the windows. That and I think they like it.”

I started scrounging for filters while the urn air-dried. I would probably still wipe the parts dry, but it was good to let the majority of it drip out. None of the drawers revealed anything except paper plates and plastic forks. Not even spoons or knives. Forks. What if I wanted to eat yogurt?

“Do we keep coffee filters in the supply closet?” I asked.

A look of mild distaste crossed Katie’s face, which seemed like an impossible thing to occur until now. Finally she said, “No, we don’t.”

Hmm. What did we have then? Paper towels? Might make the coffee taste like paper. Hmm.

“Katie,” I said. “You’ve worked here for two years, right?”

Katie nodded.

“Why?”

Katie paused.

The fact that she didn’t answer immediately told me a lot. She didn’t feel passionate about the job. It wasn’t immediately fulfilling. Why do I make coffee? Well, I just really like it when I make people happy, and selling coffee is a very direct way to do just that. Why did she do whatever Administrative Planning was?

“Should I not work here?” Katie asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “We’re out of coffee filters so I don’t know what else to do in this room.”

Katie laughed. She genuinely laughed, that sort of laugh that lifts your soul up.

Two more ladies stepped into the room. Both were wearing pencil skirts. One had her hair up and the other had her hair down, but otherwise, they had very similar Vibes. The look they gave Katie told me that she was not part of their folie a deux, and yet, they entered with a smile. They shared a look with each other, and greeted each of us in turn. I only learned one of their names: Katie dared to call the one with her hair down “Lizzie”.

Something was fucky.

“Heyyy,” I said, testing the waters by drawing it out.

The one with her hair up said, “God, I cannot wait for it to be noon.” She plunked herself down in a chair, opposite Katie, and then looked at me. “Where were you this morning, Becks?”

“She probably went on another one of those marathon bike rides,” said Liz. She sat down, in between Katie and the other girl.

The two girls looked at each other and nodded. I decided that I, too, should be sitting at the table with them.

Liz turned towards Katie. She reached beneath her curtain of hair and touched her earlobe. She said, “Katie, I saw you were talking to Ben earlier today.”

Katie nodded, looking down at the table rather than at the two girls, her arms in front of her rather than relaxed like before. Liz had to turn her head sideways to face Katie. Her shoulders were pointed more towards me and other girl. Katie was not a member of this conversation. She was the entertainment.

“What did you say to him?” said Liz.

“Just hi,” said Katie.

“Just?” echoed Liz. “Katie, you need to be more bold.”

Maybe Liz wasn’t actually so terrible. Katie did need to be more bold.

“I tried your suggestion,” Katie whispered. “I tried wearing my hair back. But it didn’t work. I just ended up with flat hair because most of this is just volume. And he didn’t say anything.”

Liz exchanged a look with the other girl again, and then said, “Well actually I said you should show skin. Showing your neck is important, but have you maybe considered more skin? You dress like a prude, and that’s gross. And your skin…you wear makeup, right?”

“Ben is a loser,” I interrupted. “You know who’s a greater catch, right?”

“David,” said the girl with her hair up.

Liz nodded enthusiastically. I had no idea who David was, but I nodded too.

“You guys are so lucky,” said the girl with her hair up. “You guys have David as your boss. You get to look at him every day. Mm, I got to see him once when he got caught in the rain and hadn’t changed his shirt yet.”

“Does he have more than one shirt?”

The girl ignored me. “Abs,” said the girl, “Abs down to here.” And she pointed at her stomach, which were abs normally are, so I’m not sure what was happening.

“I don’t care about abs,” said Katie.

“How can you not care about abs!” said Liz.

“It’s true,” I said, “Arms and shoulders are way more important.”

You usually have to have a bachelor’s degree to work in an office. Why were we talking about men’s bodies when we were all presumably well-educated? At my last coffee break, at a coffee shop, we had discussed the difference between baking soda and baking powder, and talked the new girl into getting an undercut.

“Oh he’s got those too,” said the girl with her hair up, “Have you ever seen him on the days when he leaves in a t-shirt?”

“Why is he changing clothes at work?” I asked.

The girl with her hair up waved her hand at me. “Who cares, as long as we get to enjoy it?”

I didn’t get to answer, because a knock on the break room door interrupted us. A black lady was knocking on the door. She was also wearing a pencil skirt, and also had a shirt with yellow stripes. She had a coiled afro that fell past her chin (my favorite look on a black lady), and looking at her, I suddenly realized that all four of us were white, and so was Ben, and Mr. Choice, and Mr. Disappointing, and the Pink Lady. Every damn one of us was white.

“Ladies,” said the first non-white person I had seen all day. “It’s time for the info-share. Let’s keep the gossip to a minimum, hm?”

The two girls giggled, but Katie stood up, clutching her papers to her chest and sprinting away. I stood up too. Katie was my official lifeline here.

“Becky,” smiled the black lady.

I smiled and nodded, and followed her and Katie to the info-share.

Whatever an info-share was.

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Hey, everyone! I'm so sorry I missed two updates in a row. I had a really, really bad cold, and only recently began functioning normally again. There will be another update this weekend, and then an update on Tuesday. Sorry about that! I hope your Thanksgivings were great! And if you don't celebrate Thanksgiving, then I hope you have a good weekend. -KeysMeys