It wasn’t that Melissa disagreed with the policies of Morgan & Morgan investment services; it was that she couldn’t turn away from the train wreck named Doug who worked on the other side of the beige wall separating them. The office had a strict “No peeking” policy instituted after an unnamed software developer threatened a sexual harassment suit over a glue stick. It was settled out of court and the dubious details remain sealed in Bryce Morgan’s office. As a result, everyone is expected to stay in their own work-space and not disrupt others unless given invitation. Exactly how invitations are to be given has never been addressed.
Doug began in July. Melissa remembered well because she had just aced her performance review with Jeri. It was all the talk because nobody ever aced a performance review with Jeri. Jeri was chiseled out of ice; she intimidated women and men found them selves confused by her conical breasts that seemed to accuse them of some unspoken violation. Nonetheless, Melissa had navigated these murky waters with the reckless confidence of a drunken sea captain who took his secrets to the bottom of the ocean.
It all began with a casual glance when Melissa got up to refill her stapler. Doug was researching medical device companies when his phone rang. He answered and Melissa listened. The conversation started out mundane, something about a windshield replacement for Doug’s wife’s Corolla but it quickly took an unexplainable turn. She was leaving him and Doug crumpled. Not metaphorically but literally crumpled onto the floor in the fetal position. He sobbed with abandon but it was as though someone had pushed the mute button on him; Melissa watched him twitch like a spastic mime off gassing his trauma silently. She remembered her staple conundrum and went to the supply closet unsure of how to feel.
After that, Doug was a shell of a man. He continued to perform his daily analyst duties and despite the rule, at least once a day Melissa would peek over the cubicle wall to gaze upon him. If he felt her glance, he never gave indication. It was simple morbid curiosity at first, something to tell the girls over Riesling before book club started, but the novelty unwittingly grew to infatuation. Melissa continually found new ways to study Doug. The contours of his sunken chin, the way he clicked his mouse with his middle finger and his seemingly limitless appetite for market research conspired to plant a seed in Melissa she had never before felt.
Was it love?
Melissa had never been in love before. In seventh grade her math teacher Mr. Connor slid a back room hand down her skirt. It was a trespass she buried deep within her and she never trusted a man again. Her parents wondered why she didn’t want to dress nice and go to dances but they never threw her an emotional shovel.
Is that what Doug was doing now from his swivel chair? Were his taciturn transmissions a sort of emotional back hoe coded to awaken her repressed human desire for love? Did Doug love her? Melissa gasped at herself for allowing the thought to enter her brain. But there it was again and now she couldn’t let it go.
Then came the day for Doug’s performance review; Jeri was wearing her glacier blue dress and black boots. Melissa imagined her like a shark smelling the chum that was her fragile and beloved Doug. She had to do something.
It happened quickly, in a blur that was difficult to recall. She lunged like security taking a bullet for the president and then she was out on the street never to set foot in Morgan & Morgan again. She clutched her cardboard box of belongings and glanced up toward the sixteenth floor. Never again would she gaze upon the man who liberated her.
John Lundquist - Writer & Content Strategist 