She's Lost Control, Page 5

  The answer? Six months and a real job offer. That’s when Mandy finally took her concerns to the GMP project manager. She’d known Jill Parsons for over fifteen years, during which they’d socialized outside of work a total of fifteen times, only at the corporate holiday party. There was no hope in getting her to fire the girl outright. Jill hired the aspiring writer to give the manufacturing group the shot in the arm it desperately needed after the previous year’s merger trimmed three members from the team, and it had worked. Even Mandy couldn’t deny the increase in productivity. But rules were there for a reason, productivity or not, and the temp was nothing if not a habitual rule-breaker.

  Jill wrote down every complaint verbatim, thanked Mandy for bringing the matter to her attention, and asked her if she wouldn’t mind sending the girl her way.

  “Oh please, Jill, I don’t mind at all.” She saluted as if issued a directive from the President of the United States and hurried off to fetch the grinning simpleton from her extended coffee break in the lounge.

  “Do you know what she wants?” the girl asked, following Mandy closely.

  “Couldn’t tell ya.”

  “Are employee evaluations this week?”

  “If it were up to me, we’d have them every week,” Mandy grumbled, and the girl giggled the way girls like her always giggle: head thrown back, teeth glistening, everyone in a one-mile radius instantly entranced.

  “Wait. Is this for my birthday next week?”

  “I doubt it. How old are you turning anyway? Twenty-one?”

  She blasted the saccharine giggle again. “I wish! Gosh, I’d be fifteen years younger in a second if I could.”

  Mandy stopped in her tracks, facing the girl, who snapped her fingers and added, “Like that!”

  “You’re turning thirty-six?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “You’re only four years younger than me?”

  She shrugged. “Am I? Are you a Scorpio too?”

  Mandy grunted and continued down the hall to Jill’s office. If possible, she hated the grown-ass giggling woman even more.

  The door was closed during the meeting, but no one in the Invitrotech campus could mistake the temp for a church mouse. Even during reprimand, her boisterous voice lilted and danced through the door and around the corner where Mandy listened, seething. The conversation was all giggles and Gin Blossoms as Jill explained to the temp the importance of perception.

  “Whether you’re doing these things or not, someone thinks you are. That’s the real issue here.”

  No it is fucking not.

  “I thought you said I could write during my breaks,” said the temp.

  “You can. You have forty-five minutes of personal time each shift.”

  “Okay . . . but that’s the only time I’ve been writing now.”

  No it fucking isn’t.

  “Just during my breaks.”

  And extra-long visits to the crapper.

  “Maybe you could put up a sign to let people know you’re on a break,” Jill suggested. “That might help with the negative perception. Everything is perception.”

  “Oh, that’s a good idea! Yes, of course, I’ll do whatever it takes.”

  The temp’s shit-eating grin had an adhesive odor that honeycombed Mandy’s sinuses and prevented her from breathing clear the rest of the day. The reeking clog lasted into the next day, when Jill received an emergency order—the first since the merger—and requested the GMP group come in on Sunday to fulfill the order. While Mandy was replying, she noticed the temp’s email was included, and her stomach roiled with dread. Was the girl so simple she’d forget temps aren’t allowed to work overtime?

  Of course she fucking was.

  Or maybe filling three thousand vials of water on her own was her means for creating a positive perception. Either way, it made Mandy sick knowing they’d had the same idea. More so when she realized the temp had gotten the head of quality control to double check the materials and issue line clearance the night before when Mandy planned to skip the step altogether. The little brat had even racked up more than a thousand tubes in autoclaved storage boxes.

  Mandy left the racks and most of the pulled materials on the labeling room bench and rolled the rest into the alcove outside the clean-room. She donned her polypropylene jumpsuit slowly, methodical in each tug and cinch—the antithesis of the girl’s process. The temp took as little time as possible to suit up, whining through chuckles about the suffocating material before she’d even finished tying off her boot covers. The face mask was the step she dragged out, sometimes not even knotting the mask strings securely. It was, Mandy suspected, a tactic the girl employed to force her out of the oppressive clean-room into the cool forgiving alcove.

  Since she was out there anyway, why not remove her mask and blot her sweaty face? With her wedding coming up, she really couldn’t risk breaking out. And while she was at it, why not unzip the jumpsuit and air out a bit while her coworker continued manually pipetting one thousand vials of Tween® 20? And hey, why not read another sappy text message from her boyfriend too? She had all the time in the world, didn’t she? Even though she wasn’t much younger than Mandy, the grown-up girl had all the time in the world.

  Mandy had thought about writing a book once—maybe more than once—and believed she still could. The kids were older now, and Jackson had promised to cut down on “boys’ nights out.” He could watch them. She could write. She had been good at it in college. She was good at a lot of things.

  ***

  Officer Bracken handed Mandy a cup of tea and gently urged her to talk about the morning of the murder.

  “I would never hurt anyone.”

  “We know that, Mrs. Miller.”

  “She and I did this stuff all the time. Played around, joked about trapping each other in the labs.”

  He squinted. “So you were friends?”

  Jill had documented proof that Mandy and the temp weren’t friends. And June, Billie, and John would confirm as much when asked, so lying wouldn’t do any good. The negative perception was already out there.

  “No, but you need to be friendly when you’re in there,” she said. “You’d go crazy otherwise. She was only a few hundred in, I think. The automatic pipette malfunctioned, and she was getting ready to come out to find another when I walked by the lab.”

  “And what were you doing there?”

  “The same thing as her, but earlier. I was taking a break from vialing to label in the annex when I realized her car was in the parking lot.”

  “Is that where you normally label?”

  Mandy lowered her head. Rules existed for a reason, and she ignored them because the reception was better in the annex and she could listen to her Savage Garden album without interruption. “No. And I didn’t get clearance for the room either. I know it’s against protocol, but please don’t tell Jill. We might lose OSHA certification if this gets out.”

  “I’m afraid it’s already out, Mrs. Miller, and OSHA’s the least of your concerns.”

  Mandy nodded. And smiled. She giggled like she did the morning Jackson proposed, as the Gin Blossoms warbled “Follow You Down” from the semi-busted speakers of her scuffed Sanyo boombox. She hummed it as the officer crouched at her side.

  “You knew she was severely claustrophobic, didn’t you, Mrs. Miller?”

  Mandy cracked her neck. “I knew her fiancé had to text her every half hour to validate her existence.”

  ***

  The temp’s cell phone was playing a ridiculous Muppet movie song when Mandy stepped onto the sticky mat in the labeling room that morning. Mandy groaned at how dutiful the fiancé was to be at it this early, reassuring his paramour how amazing she was, how strong, how beautiful! But the girl had to settle for being terrible, weak, and ugly that morning because she obviously couldn’t hear her phone over the clean-room’s blasting filter hood. She must’ve left it in the pocket of her hoodie in the alcove again.

  A pass-through window containing a
spray bottle of isopropyl alcohol and a cordless phone connected the labeling room to the clean-room, through which Mandy could see the temp’s head bowed and her arm moving back and forth. Maybe she wasn’t vialing to help the team after all. Maybe she was in there writing about how hard it was to be locked up, yet free.

  Hey Jealousy, I’ll follow you down . . .

  The Scorpio didn’t notice her supervisor until she was in the alcove. She saw her by chance out the corner of her eye and turned with a smile so large and terrible that Mandy actually gagged. She slapped a purple nitrile hand to her mouth and swallowed the bile. It tasted like orange juice and scorched her throat as she glared at the girl heading for the door. She finally heard her phone singing, and her grin tested the limits of her face with such unnatural grotesquerie that the acidic pulp rose again.

  Mandy had only to nudge the alcove door to stop the temp from exiting the clean-room, which she did with a smirk. The temp tugged on the door and laughed nervously. And clearly. The phlegm was gone, not even one string of mucus rattling in the girl’s throat as she brayed and tugged and the panic burrowed deep into the places behind her gaping eyes. She watched in horror as Mandy ripped off her blue shoe cover and wedged it under the door.

  ***

  “It happened sometimes,” she told the officer. “Those booties get snagged on the door and pop right off, and you don’t even realize it till you’re on the sticky mat. Ask anyone. And with the sensors acting up . . . it was a real ‘when it rains, it pours’ moment.”

  It was true there was no way of knowing when the sensors would malfunction; they just did. And yes, there were decisions Mandy could’ve made to keep the girl alive. She didn’t have to open the pass-through door in the labeling room so the temp wouldn’t be able to reach the phone from her side, but it didn’t much matter. The pressure differential was glitching anyway, and both women were locked inside. There was nothing Mandy could do. The system was there for the employees’ safety. Safety was everything, and everything was perception.

  The glitches weren’t as well documented as Mandy’s distaste for her coworker, but they cushioned her fall. Even with the graphic recounting of the girl’s screams and how she beat her fists to sopping bone-meal trying to break the glass, Mandy refused to accept any fault. There were too many variables to consider, too many broken rules beyond her ability to repair.

  But she didn’t have to accept the fault for it to rip the prettiest pieces out of her life, like the panicked temp dug chunks out of her face. How the police and media salivated as they gathered the girl’s shards and slop into a story of a woman so possessed by envy she’d trap her claustrophobic coworker in a clean-room and watch her tear herself apart.

  It was a tale easily digested and condemned, and Mandy believed it would be easily forgotten as well. Even with the sensationalism and conjecture, there was nothing novel about a terrible accident between terrible women. The world would be as lazy as Jackson, call her a jealous bitch, and move on.

  She was fine with that. Locked up, yet free, she had all the time in the world now. She could breathe there. She could even listen to Savage Garden. And maybe she could finally write that book.

  LAUGHTER

  Diana Braskich

  1

  HER GREATEST ASSET was her neutral expression. It betrayed nothing. She had spent her youth tilting at windmills. A righteous fury had burned her from both ends, though it was all for naught, as even the strongest fires eventually fall to ashes.

  The neutral expression was best.

  She could accomplish small things with an expression. A well-timed eye roll was powerful, but generally accomplished little. It might cause a momentary hesitation, or a brief blush from the offender. Assuming he was looking.

  A cold-eyed stare could stop them in their tracks, but she couldn’t really alter their trajectory. Once they regained their step, her judgement meant little to them.

  And if they were not within her sight, she could do nothing at all.

  She’d worked at the firm for twenty years. Started in the secretarial pool, and slowly ascended to the heights of administrative glory: personal secretary to Mr. Brix, the company founder. When she started the job, they came at her like they came at all the girls. The winks, the innuendos, the “harmless” jokes. Hovering above her desk when they spoke to her; perfectly arranged so she both fell in their shadow and had to look up from her subordinate perch to meet their eyes.

  Her husband was a good man; a kind man. He knew the type of men she worked for, and how it weighed upon her. If he had a fault, it was his expectation that she react as he would.

  Like a man.

  When she would avert her eyes, and go about her business, her husband would tilt at windmills of his own. He wanted her to quit. To file a complaint. To fight back.

  She would have none of it. It was a steady job, with good pay. But it was more; it was also a battle of wills.

  She would not let them see her break.

  Eventually, the harassment stopped. She got older. And as she aged, the lower ranks filled with younger, fresher prey.

  Not everyone saw what she saw. To some, the jokes really did seem harmless, the innuendos flattering, the wandering hands and roving eyes at best playful, at worse, something that could be dodged. The men and women all around her turned their eyes aside and said nothing, just as she did. Neutral expressions were abundant.

  2

  One day a new intern joined the company. Young, smart, idealistic. And brave. So brave. The intern’s mask was imperfect; she had not mastered neutrality. So, they’d joke, and she’d smile politely. They’d see the fire in her eyes.

  And then they would laugh.

  3

  When the secretary was young, she’d had a laughing father. A jovial man beloved by all, admired for his charm and his sense of humor. Did she know how lucky she was to have him as her dad?

  Her father was the one who taught her about windmills. All her tilting was so humorous. When she was very young, she tilted to get the laugh. It was like affection.

  When she was older, she tilted to maintain a sense of self. She could not change the direction of the blades, or slow the pace of their rotation, but the windmills were wrong, and to do nothing was a sin. So, she’d tilt. She’d stand against.

  But eventually, she could stand no more.

  Her father would come in the night, after her mother went to bed. The secretary, then just a girl, would watch under her door. When the hall light fell dark, her door would come open, and her father would come in. When all was done, he would laugh.

  Her father always laughed.

  4

  The intern did not last at the company long. This was not unusual. Many employees over the years had tired of her boss’s incessant perversion. Neutrality wasn’t for everyone.

  The last day the secretary saw her, the intern was on her way to dinner with Mr. Brix and some junior partners. As they were leaving, the jokes were particularly predatory. The intern, eyes always so ablaze, looked down. She did not meet their eyes.

  Her downcast gaze stopped the secretary in her tracks. For the first time, the secretary truly saw the younger woman before her, and in that moment, she truly saw herself. A dying flame and one long-since extinguished, briefly united beneath the crushing weight of cruelty.

  And suddenly the secretary was afraid. She remembered when her own eyes had first become downcast, and she feared for the suddenly timid intern.

  She called the intern back, and met the young woman’s eye. She squeezed her hand briefly while she handed her the next day’s itinerary. She asked the intern if she was okay, and tried desperately to convey her concern without arousing suspicion amongst the men.

  But she’d worn her mask too long and too well, and the intern, hearing only politeness, laughed falsely and said she was fine. She turned away. The secretary watched her the length of the hall, all the way to the elevator. She saw her younger self, her truer self, moving out of reach. The
hall was dimly lit, the elevator bright. She locked eyes with the intern as the doors slid shut, and when the light winked out, she saw not an elevator close, but a hallway falling dark and a bedroom door yawning open.

  The intern never came to the office again.

  5

  Previously, when women quit without notice, the secretary had not questioned it. She assumed that they had simply had enough.

  It was different with the intern. Now that she had seen the intern in herself, she also saw her father in her boss. She saw the complacency and the ignorance of the elders of her childhood in her own reflection.

  The intern was not answering the phone.

  From the office, the secretary could hear Mr. Brix laughing.

  6

  The thing about the powerful is that if they stay powerful long enough, they tend to forget that the meek are even there.

  A week later, Mr. Brix and the same junior partners were celebrating the closing of an important deal. Raucous laughter echoed from the office.

  Long trained to be attuned to her boss’s every need, the secretary kept an ear to their drunken conversation. It was as graphic and insulting as it ever was, and their words began to ring in the secretary’s ears.

  For the first time in her tenure, the secretary felt real anger. She shot up from her desk and grabbed her coat, but habit held her. One did not just get up and leave. She must be dismissed. She headed towards his office.

  When she came around the door, the TV was the first thing she saw. It filled her eye and froze her heart. The intern was on the screen. The bruised and broken intern was on the screen, and she was screaming.

  The boss on the screen shouted instructions while one junior manager held her still and the other held the camera. The trio in the office laughed.

  The secretary stepped back behind the door. They hadn’t seen her. She sat back down at her desk. She waited ten minutes, then buzzed his office, her heart pounding in her chest. “Do you need anything else, Mr. Brix?”