Deity
Page 7
So here Jemma is. Already into week 4 but God does it feel longer. And she’d been looking forward to this, she should have seen it coming, building up to a fall, an anti-climax. Sure it’s better than the bar job, at least in some ways. Can’t believe I miss the pub she thinks as she pops her bread in the toaster. Beryl’s two-faced antics with the patrons, her sly replies to their slurs and laconic wisdom that the managers could never refute with their new methods and ways. She chuckles to herself, thinking of the many times Beryl replied to an order from a new, twenty-ish manager fresh from Tafe, whose age was well short of Beryl's total industry experience.
But she had had her fill of smoky rooms and stale beer and while Uni had been a great time, it would be nice to actually put the resulting piece of paper to some use. Her science degree, she thinks with a sigh. Despite the hype, and confessed need, science seems an ideal rather than a reality in the lucky country. She smears Vegemite across her toast as she thinks of the last year. All the fruitless searching, ‘2yrs+ experience required’. All those futile job applications, ‘Criteria 1: demonstrate your critical thinking as applied to scientific research’. Exaggerating a teamwork exercise as a volunteer and generally becoming tired and demoralized well before a week was worked. Soon enough the police seemed a good option. At first there were lofty ideals of forensics in the future but now after only a matter of weeks, she is already looking for an out.
But she isn’t gonna quit just yet she thinks as she locks the door behind her. Sergeant Cooper probably hopes she will and she can’t give him the satisfaction. He is her trainer or mentor or whatever they had called it and he is often found on the other side of the bar she thinks as she takes a left onto Goulburn St. It’s guys like him that made her never wanna work in another pub again she thinks as she crosses the road to her building. It seems she can’t escape them so easily. Will he be in yet? Hopefully not.
She will know soon enough. ‘BING’ here she is, Level 13, just a few steps away.
She hates to think what he says of her to the others- let alone what he thinks as they sit in the patrol car together. His slovenly form oozing over the edges of the seat, grasping clumsily at his seatbelt or in the glove box, now there aren’t enough buttons on her blouse or inches in her skirt. The situation had somehow mutated into her shying away, tiptoeing around because of his shortcomings. She promises herself every day that she will never become anything like that. Why should she suffer because he lacks a sexlife? God, it pisses her off!
She gets out her security card and beeps through the door, along the hall, a polite smile and good morning to one of the creeps in the drug squad. Around the corner and into the cubicle. There he is, time for the drill, keep it as simple and civil as possible.
‘Morning, how are you?’
‘Great, thanks, and you?’
‘Fine thanks. Will we be in here or out in the field this morning?’
‘Mostly in here. We’ve got a bit of paperwork we should get through, if you don’t mind…’
‘Sure, No worries. How can I help?’
He chuckles, ‘Not yet honey, it’s not even 9, you can get me a coffee though’
Smarmy bastard. It was only ever a matter of time before he says something like this. He continues laughing and Jemma notices his glazed, red eyes. No points for guessing what he did last night. Maybe the guys at the pub understood, she didn’t and she doubted many others did. Maybe they even join in his laughter, I guess he probably doesn’t have to watch what he says there, like everywhere else. Not that he was particularly concerned with being PC.
Jemma bites her lip and disappears behind the partition separating their desks. She hates him. Actually it wasn’t even hate. Now she knows him she can only really feel pity for the miserable bastard. Was that what she was to aspire to here? Is that where, with grit, perseverance and application she could be ‘promoted’ to? She grabs the nearest file and sinks herself into it, far away from Coops and everything else.