Hell Is Other People

by Danielle Bellwood

  “I assure you, people do it every day,” Phil said. “In fact, it’s what steers the engine of capitalism. Lowering oneself…” He looked down at Arlo on the floor. “As it were, for a chance at more… stuff.”

  Arlo scrambled up, and stood before Phil. He had a good head in height on the little accountant.

  “I think we should renegotiate the terms,” Arlo said.

  Gillian nodded emphatically. “Yes.”

  Phil cocked his head. Glancing back and forth from Arlo to Gillian, he said, “I’m listening.”

  “As you may be aware,” Arlo said, “I’m a Social Media Influencer. I have a considerable following online.”

  “Considerable?” Phil said. “Is that the word you’re using?”

  “Yes. And if you really want to get your book out there, I could help you with that. You want readers? You need promotion. You need influence.”

  “Hmmmm,” Phil mumbled. His eyes squinted slightly in consideration. “Surprisingly, I think you may have an actual point.”

  “Right?” Arlo said, happily. “And I’ve been thinking-”

  “Now, don’t get ahead of yourself,” Gillian said. Arlo thinking was never a good idea.

  “I was thinking,” Arlo continued. “You might be able to reach a broader range of readers if you wrote in a different genre. Say… contemporary romance? Or even paranormal romance? Those seem to be the most popular.”

  Phil’s chest puffed out and his skin began to steam slightly. “If I wanted opinions from the peanut gallery, I would have asked!”

  “It’s just an observation,” Arlo said. “From someone with the power to help sell your books.”

  “I will not sell out my art for anyone or anything.”

  Gillian snorted. “Art. Sure.”

  “You know what your problem is, Miss Frost?” Phil asked. “You’re a snob. My literature makes people happy. Therefor, who are you to criticize it? After all, I don’t see you doing anything momentous with your death.”

  “You mean with my life?”

  Phil shrugged. “Potatoe, potato. What I really want to know is what makes amoebae such as yourselves think that I could possibly need or desire your help in anything?”

  Arlo shrugged. “I mean, we’re already helping you, aren’t we? So clearly, you do need our help.”

  Gillian smiled and nodded in agreement with this assessment.

  “Hmmmm,” Phil said. He looked interested in spite of himself.

  “You said you can’t just let us leave the firm,” Arlo said. “But what if you were to just… show us the door…”

  He let the words hang in the air for a moment.

  Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime, Phil said, “How do you know there’s a door?”

  Arlo and Gillian’s eyes widened.

  “Just a hunch,” Arlo said softly.

  Phil harumphed. He shifted his feet. He looked down at the thick pad of notes in his hands and clutched the edges of the lined paper possessively.

  “I can’t make any promises… but,” Phil said, “If you help me finish the book AND promote it to my satisfaction, then maybe… just maybe, mind you. I might consider it.”

  “That’s fair,” Arlo said. He gave Gillian a sharp look, and the rude words she was about to utter froze on her tongue. She frowned slightly in annoyance, but kept her lips shut.

  “Very well,” Phil said. “I suggest you put on a pot of coffee, Miss Frost. We might be here awhile.”

  ***

  Gillian stretched. Her back cracked pleasantly, and she sighed slightly at the pleasurable feeling of relaxing her joints after holding the uncomfortable poses for the last six hours. Surprisingly, she hadn’t felt nearly as disgusted by Arlo’s close physical presence as she expected too. Huh.

  She glanced over at Arlo, tapping away with both thumbs on his smartphone. His tongue stuck out every once in awhile when he had to concentrate hard on what to write. It was kind of adorable.

  “Well?” Phil said.

  Gillian turned to look at the Accountant. He was glaring at her.

  “Huh?”

  “I said,” Phil said, “How long should we expect to wait until the sales roll in?”

  “How would I know?” Gillian said. “I don’t know shit about promotion.”

  “Not long,” Arlo said as he continued to type so fast on his phone that his thumbs became a blur. “I created a media package and set a timer for it to blast all of my art industry contacts. I also set up a cover reveal and pre-sale ready to go live immediately on all of my socials. That’s over fifty-thousand followers. All you have to do is hit Submit. See?”

  He held his phone up. A book cover featuring a silvery blue skinned foxlike woman and an oozing green tentacle monster wrapped up in a gravity-defying embrace astride a massive horse with three heads was accompanied by big bubble letters that spelled out:

  ‘This book is so hot it will literally burn your fingers as you turn the pages!’

  Gillian felt sick to her stomach at the improper use of the word ‘literally’ but she decided not to say anything. No point dragging this out any longer than necessary.

  “It’s beautiful,” Phil said softly.

  Gillian glanced at his face and she may have imagined it, but she would have sworn that she saw the glisten of a single tear in the corner of his eye.

  “So… about that door…” Gillian said.

  Phil made an absent gesture with one hand and a faint popping sound echoed through the apartment. Arlo looked up from his phone screen, wide-eyed, to glance at Gillian before the two of them both bolted for the living room/dining room/kitchen to stare in wordless fascination at the disembodied door hanging in space across the street.

  “That’s it?” Arlo said.

  “Obviously,” Phil said. “Now, give me the phone, Black.”

  Arlo looked down at the gleaming surface of the smartphone in his hands. His fingers tightened on the edges.

  “Where does it go?” Gillian said.

  “Does it matter?” Phil said.

  “Of course, it matters!” Gillian snapped. “What kind of question is that?”

  “You asked for a door. There it is,” Phil said. “What happens when you go through it is up to you. I can’t help you anymore.”

  “Come on, G,” Arlo said. “Wherever it goes, it has to be better than this, right?”

  “But-” Gillian said, but Phil cut her off.

  “We had a deal. I kept my end. Now, give me the damn phone!”

  Arlo squinted slightly at the angry accountant steaming in front of them. “You just made that door out of thin air. Who are you, really?”

  Phil shrugged. “No one important.”

  “Bullshit,” Arlo said.

  “Cows shit too,” Phil said. “You don’t ever hear anyone bragging about it. None of your questions matter. Neither of you matter. This is all just a construct, and it can be better or it can be worse if you test me. Now, give me that phone this instant.”

  Arlo stared down at the phone in his hand for a long moment before looking back up at Phil with a steely glint in his eye that Gillian had never seen before but that made a warm little knot form in the middle of her stomach.

  “How do we know that you won’t just make the door vanish again once I give it to you?”

  “I keep my bargains,” Phil said.

  “Do it, Arlo,” Gillian said.

  “Excellent choice, Frost,” Phil said as Arlo passed his only link to the outside world to the little Accountant in the three-piece polyester suit.

  “What about Roger?” Arlo said.

  Phil snorted. “I wouldn’t worry about Roger. He’s made his bed a thousand times. He’s quite happy to lie in it. You, on the other hand only have another ninety seconds before that door disappears.”

  “What?!” Gillian and Arlo shouted together.

  “You said you kept your bargains!” Arlo yelled.

  Phil nodded. “And I do. I said I’d show you the door. It
’s not my fault that you never asked how long it would stay open. Tick tock.”

  Arlo just stared with his mouth hanging open, frozen with shock. Gillian, in contrast, was a flurry of movement. She hitched up her tight pencil skirt around her waist and pulled off her high heels, holding them in one hand.

  Phil’s eyebrows rose in surprise at Gillian’s state of semi-undress.

  “Just what do you think you’re doing, Miss Frost?”

  “This,” Gillian said.

  She flung the high heels at Phil’s face. As he ducked comically from the spinning shoes flying toward him, Gillian spun on her bare heel, and yanked open the front door to the street. She shouted over her shoulder at Arlo, “Run!”

  It should be noted that Gillian is one hell of a runner. When she was in high school, she placed first every time in Track and Field. This was not necessarily because she possessed a natural aptitude for sports, but more due to the fact that her natural aversion to people made her exceptionally good at outdistancing them at all costs. Her long legs served her well in this capacity, as did her complete lack of concern for how ridiculous she looked with her skirt hiked up around her waist and her bare feet slapping loudly against the sidewalk.

  Arlo was not nearly as fast as Gillian and she had a head start. He didn’t catch up with her until she was at the door.

  “This is it,” Arlo said, breathing heavily from the short sprint.

  “I never could have done this without you, Arlo,” Gillian said as she grasped the knob.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “You’re really smart, Gillian. I’m sure you can do anything. But we do make a great team. I wouldn’t want to go through this door without you.”

  For a man with narcissistic tendencies, the mutual sharing of accomplishment was a huge step. Gillian smiled and gave him a small nod, accepting the compliment and offering no snarky remark in return. Instead, she leaned into his chest for a side hug, completely obliterating her own personal space bubble with a tight wrap of her cold arm around his warm back.

  Arlo was not prepared for the feel of Gillian’s side pressed against him. Before he could lift his own arms, she’d already broken away. The hug was brief but everything he could have hoped for. For a woman that literally cringed at an elbow brush, it was a huge step. He gave her a wide smile and remarkably, he didn’t even feel the ghost of an awkward laugh.

  She reached for his hand hanging at his side, lacing her fingers tightly in his. They faced the doorway together for one impossibly long moment before taking a deep breath and stepping through it, hand in hand.

  PART VI

  The classically handsome young man ran a hand down the pink silk necktie. The smooth fabric caught the light from the overhead cans, casting a beautiful sheen. The light wool of his charcoal gray suit made a faint shushing sound as he walked, a thin sheen of sweat just beginning to form on his skin from the unrelenting heat of the not so great outdoors.

  The fingers of his left hand fiddled with the no-frills flip phone in his pocket. The thing had no apps, a teensy tiny screen, and no camera feature. Corporate-issued. His job at the firm required him to be reachable at all times. He just wished that the higher-ups could’ve sprung for something a little less Cold War era.

  He approached the coffee shop, his feet slowing at the sight of a long line of customers stretching out the door and down the sidewalk. Ugh. This could take a while…

  He was already dreading another day at the office. The billing firm where he worked exemplified the idea of an evil and corrupt business. They employed a multitude of minimum wage, minimum hour men and women. They offered no benefits. And they operated under the umbrella of a shady corporation whose headquarters took up an entire block of Downtown.

  The young executive thought of himself as a creative, free personality who lived outside of the strict box of societal norms. He would much rather spend every waking moment experiencing art installations and introducing interested Insta followers to local goings on, than sitting in a glass box in a concrete office building nine hours a day, but meh. It was a living. Sort of.

  His flip phone vibrated in his pants pocket and he pulled it out to glance at the tiny LCD display window on the scratched black cover. An orange pixel shaped like an envelope was accompanied by the words: 1 new message. He flicked his wrist to open the phone with a flourish- the only cool feature to owning the clunky thing, and read the text:

  ‘Knowing isn’t even a quarter of the battle.’

  He blinked and checked the sender. Anonymous. Huh. Oh, well. He shrugged and canned the cryptic note in the phone’s recycle bin.

  The coffee line hadn’t moved. He should probably ditch the daily java and hightail it to work since he was supposed to be seated at his desk in five minutes flat but he didn’t think he could survive without coffee so… guess he’d just be late.

  ***

  The beautiful barista wiped her forehead with the back of her arm. It was sweltering in the coffee shop. A line of sweat dripped down her neck, soaking the collar of her off-white t-shirt. She cringed at the image of the moist cotton, dingy and stained from spilled coffee and dust from the consistently filthy equipment. The poor woman abhorred filth with a passion that bordered on fanaticism. She was a bona fide neat freak with a healthy aversion to people, so customer service would definitely not have been her first choice. Or even her second. No choice at all really. Merely a job. One that paid for… well, no perks that she could see.

  She shoved the tall plastic cups of green tea at the old couple before her and made eye contact with the next customer in line. The mid-thirties man looked good in the dark sport coat and matching slim-cut slacks that must have cost an arm and a leg. Compared to her dingy, faded Java Joe’s uniform tee, his clean, pure white button-up collar practically sparkled.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  “I’ll have a…” his words petered out and he squinted at her as though he found it suddenly difficult to see in the buzzing halogens of the coffee haus.

  “A what? There’s a whole line of people waiting, in case you didn’t notice,” she said.

  “Do I know you?” he asked.

  “Have you ever ordered a coffee before?” she said.

  “Yeah… I think so,” he said.

  She waited a moment longer before deciding that he was apparently not bright enough to realize that was his cue to order.

  “You come in this shop every day. Duh.”

  “No…” he said slowly. “That’s not it…”

  “What. Do. You. Want. To. Drink?” She barked at him. So over his line, whatever it might be.

  “Oh, sorry.” He laughed nervously. The faint chuckle set her nerves on edge and it took every ounce of will power not to reach across the counter and wring his neck. “I’ll have a medium latte with a single shot of espresso. Skim milk. Iced.”

  The snarl melted from her face and she stared at him in shock. Her mouth may have even dropped open a teeny bit. “That’s my drink.”

  “Is it?” he said, confused. “Oh well… I guess… give me a large caramel macchiato. Hot. With extra whipped cream.””

  “What?” she said. “I didn’t mean I wouldn’t make it. I just meant… ugh never mind.”

  The handsome young executive smiled and held out a credit card on the palm of his hand, waiting for her to take it from him. The barista stared at the palm and five fingers like it was the strangest, most obscure thing she had ever seen.

  Once, when she was a small child, the barista’s uncle, Jean Paul, took her to see a department store Santa Claus. She begged and pleaded with her uncle to let her stay home. She didn’t want to wait in a line with a bunch of coughing, sneezing, obnoxious children, even though she was a child. She didn’t want her picture taken by some short girl in a pair of ratty elf ears. And most of all, she didn’t want to have a stranger touch her, even if that stranger supposedly had a bag of candy and toys. Not because every after school special on TV warned against that very
scenario, but because she was horrified by germs. And dirt. And crowds. And so much crushed red velvet. Yikes.

  The hand attached to the arm attached to the guy with the wide smile and perfectly combed head of hair looked clean enough but you could never be too careful. As she turned away to prepare his coffee, he lowered the hand holding the card to his side.

  “Slide it yourself,” she said.

  “Oh, sorry,” he chuckled, the sound chilling the barista’s soul like a goose had just walked over her grave.

  Hmm. What does that phrase even mean, really? She shrugged it off. The snapping electricity of her anxiety eased a teensy bit as he swiped the probably germ-infested card through the card reader.

  The executive leaned over the counter to watch as she snapped the stainless-steel cup of grounds in place and flicked the start switch on the brewer. She was really proficient on that ancient-looking espresso machine. Just over a minute and a half later, she sprayed a generous mound of whipped cream onto the steaming surface of hot coffee in the tall cup on the counter.

  She gritted her teeth in annoyance as the guy loomed uncomfortably close, squinting as he looked carefully at her face.

  “Are you sure we haven’t met before?” he said. “I mean, somewhere else…”

  She drew in a deep breath, reminding herself not to lose her cool again like last time. She didn’t actually remember the alleged ‘yelling incident’ but her boss assured her that it was unacceptable. One more poor performance review and she “may not like what happens next,” he said. She snorted to herself at the hollow threat. What could he possibly do to her that was worse than working in this hell hole day in and day out?

  She didn’t know how long she’d worked at Java Joe’s but it felt like forever.

  She grabbed a squeeze bottle of caramel and drizzled it all over the rapidly melting whipped cream and jammed the lid on top angrily. Picking up the tall drink of java from the counter, she held the sweet treat out at arm’s length in a clear sign of ‘here’s your shit, GTFO.’

  As he reached for the cup, his fingers brushed hers and a spark like a bolt of lightning sizzled up her arm. Her eyes widened and she stared at him as an equal expression of shocked clarity illuminated his face a split second before the faulty bottom broke out of the cup and 20 ounces of flaming hot java poured down both of their arms and all over the counter, dripping out in a wide puddle.