Loathe at First Sight

by Suzanne Park

  “Maybe, but it could also be my personality. I’m always butting heads with my parents about my life decisions.” My voice cracked a little. “What can I say, stubbornness runs in the family.”

  His grin melted my heart a little. “Does it work? The arguing and standing up to people?”

  I shrugged. “I’m a Korean girl working in gaming, against my parents’ wishes. And I haven’t been fired . . . yet. So I guess?”

  “Well, you’ve taught me something. I should butt heads with people more, especially my uncle and my parents, so I can live my life more the way I want.” He placed his elbow on the table and rested his chin on the back of his hand. Then, he leaned toward me, nudged my arm gently with his, sending more electric tingles through my entire body. “You’re a good role model.”

  Tilting his seat as he leaned over more, his cushion toppled to the side, causing him to collapse into me. In one unfluid motion, he elbowed my ribs as he fell to the floor.

  He barked out a nervous laugh. “Sorry about that, boss.”

  Right.

  I was his boss.

  And all these feelings I had? Wrong, wrong, wrong.

  Shoving my laptop in my bag, I barked, “There are some important production meetings I need to attend. Send the files to Ian. He’ll be happy because we finished early, so now you can go to the golf tournament with him.”

  I scooped up all my shit and took off down the hallway. In the faint distance, I heard Nolan say, “You know, I actually hate golf. With a passion.”

  Once I got to my desk, I squeezed my eyes shut and took a deep breath. I felt a little bad about my golf comment, but Nolan was a distraction. He and I couldn’t be together. Period. I was too busy to date anyway.

  Asher was out at an off-site meeting, so I closed the office door and drew the blinds. No more disruptions, interruptions, or diversions. Especially from the intern.

  Chapter Ten

  The fluorescent lights on my side of the floor burned bright the next morning, but the office was eerily silent, like I’d accidentally walked in wearing noise-canceling headphones. I thought I had the place to myself, but Asher sat at his desk, drinking a fucking Starbucks latte. He ignored me, as usual. I couldn’t believe he beat me to the office again. Did he sleep here or something?

  Well, I could give him the silent treatment, but that would be awkward since we were the only two people on the entire floor and we still needed to work together on this game launch. So, I went with the olive branch approach. “Good morning,” I said, with as much exuberance as I could muster at 6:15 in the morning.

  He looked up. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t see you. Too busy entering hundreds of Jira tickets for your dev team. You know, to build all the hundreds of things you painstakingly listed in your annoying Game Design Document for us to do for your little game?”

  Snide jerk. So what if I ran a tight ship when it came to project management, and everyone’s deliverables and tasks were focused and clear? I’d been told by numerous people that my documentation was comprehensive and dummy-proof. Everyone, especially me, had been working long hours, but he was acting particularly whiny, more than his usual entitled self. And that petty shit needed to stop. Pronto.

  “First of all, it’s not my little game, it’s Seventeen Studios’ title. I worked till two thirty in the morning, helping YOU with your Jira backlog. If you have a problem with me, say it to my face. Directly.”

  His head jerked back as if I’d blown him backward with a gust of wind. His eyes widened and his eyebrows rose so high they almost shot off his forehead. Good! I’d surprised the shit out of him. Yeah, this wasn’t my first asshole rodeo.

  “Whoa, holy PMS!” He laughed at his own sexist joke.

  I glared and shook my head. “Well, if we want to throw around sexist terms now, okay. Here you go. Can you grow a fucking pair of balls and stop whining? Do your damn job.” This time his eyebrows jumped so high they went up past the brim of his baseball cap. Maybe he’d shut up now and get back to work.

  “Whatever. Can you stop assigning stuff so rapid-fire that we have to work through lunch and dinner? Some of us have social lives and like to hang out at work.” Yeah, of course you like people here. They’re just like you.

  He snorted and put in his earbuds. I put in mine. No more talking. I tried to log in to my computer to check on all today’s tasks, but my laptop wouldn’t turn on. The power source, the docking station, and the power button all looked functional, but they weren’t. And of course my computer would die way before any of the IT guys I knew came into work. I noticed Asher looking at me with great interest. He disappeared behind his monitor as soon as we made eye contact.

  With my laptop tucked under my arm, I walked over to the IT pod. Please, let someone be there. My home computer had died recently, and my work computer was all I had left. I relied on it for everything now: music streaming, online bill pay, Amazon Prime purchases. Please don’t die, laptop!

  By some miracle, an IT guy was sitting at his desk, using a screwdriver to open the battery cover of a laptop that looked exactly like mine.

  “Hi! I’m Melody. My laptop won’t turn on. I’m hoping you can help.” I scanned his desk for his nameplate. “Damon.” I smiled, hoping a cheery version of myself might make him care more.

  Damon was maybe twenty-five years old, superskinny, with blue, slightly bugged eyes. Ghostly pale with gingerish hair. Wearing a size XL Speed Racer shirt on a size S frame.

  He shrugged. “Did you submit a helpdesk ticket?”

  “No, I didn’t. How do I do that?”

  “Um, you send an email to helpdesk about your problem.” He rolled his eyes and went back to working on the computer battery. He shook his head and softly muttered something under his breath.

  “Hmmm . . . my computer won’t even power on . . . so not sure how I’d be able to email you.” Don’t you shake your head and roll your eyes at me, mister!

  He put down the screwdriver and held out his hand. I passed him my laptop. “I tried to reboot it by holding down the power button, I checked the docking station and the power cord, too. Not sure what happened. I didn’t even get the blue screen of death.”

  He scoffed at the purple, oval “Grrl Powr!” glittery sticker on my laptop cover that Candace had bought me for my first day at Seventeen Studios. He flipped the machine over and tinkered with the battery. Then he took the hard drive out and put it into another machine. “It’s your hard drive. I’ll need to get you a new computer, but none of the ones here have been reimaged. I can get you set up with a loaner, though. It’s a little beat-up.”

  He opened the laptop he’d been working on and typed a few things on its keyboard. Then he said, “Okay, I’ll need you to enter your password.”

  I typed in the ten-character alphanumeric combo I’d been issued when I arrived. Note to self, remember to change that.

  When I got a closer look at the keypad, I noticed that the space bar was missing. Damon noticed that I noticed it was missing. “Yeah, the space bar isn’t there, and it’s not something we can replace.”

  “But . . . everything I type will be one giant word.”

  With a halfhearted shrug, he gave me a not my fucking problem look. I glanced at the shelf behind his desk. Two new Macs in boxes! “Hey, are those employee computers?”

  “Sorry, you aren’t authorized to have a Mac. One is for Ian, the other is for one of the designers.”

  I sighed. “The intern has a Mac.”

  “Well, he’s a special case.”

  Right. Nepotism. “Okay then. You think my computer will be ready tomorrow?”

  He rubbed his head of gingery hair. I fought the urge to smooth it all into one direction. “I’ll come by with your new one as soon as it’s ready.” He opened his mouth, like he wanted to say something else, but then closed it. He went back to his screwdriver and battery, so I took the loaner computer and walked back to my office.

  Asher took the earbuds out of his ears and smiled at me c
oyly with that smug-ass face of his. “In case you were wondering, I didn’t sabotage your computer.” Actually, I hadn’t thought he was involved at all. But now I did. He added, “Good luck with that.” He put his earbuds back in and then went back to ignoring me. Ignoring seemed better than strangling each other. The current state of disregarding each other was as harmonious as we could get.

  A couple of hours later Damon appeared with a Mac. I raised my eyebrow when he handed it to me.

  “Um, one of the designers got fired this morning and I wiped his hard drive. This computer is better than that new one you’d be issued. You should take it.”

  A MacBook! “Oh, wow, so this one isn’t missing any critical keys?” I flipped it open and all the keys were accounted for. Yay! One hundred percent of keys!

  He took the loaner from me and clutched it against his chest. “Same login and password on this computer. It has more RAM and more memory, too, and I can get you an external hard drive if you need it.”

  I swayed in my chair with excitement. “Okay! Hey, thanks, Damon!”

  He left briskly and no longer blocked my view of Asher’s stupid head. Damon had temporarily eclipsed Asher from my view. It had only been a short-term reprieve, unfortunately.

  Asher eyed my laptop like a dieter observing boxes of Girl Scout cookies for sale: with deep desire and hatred. He gritted his teeth and side-eyed me, and I totally knew what he was thinking: Melody got another “free pass” at this company by getting a coveted MacBook. But you know what was unfair? Being on a tight deadline and having a shitty computer that died. And then getting issued a loaner computer with a missing space bar. Writing-sentences-with-no-fucking-spaces-for-a-few-hours. That’s pretty unfair if you ask me. And it was an older, used Mac, not a new one. Asher could go eff off.

  He stood up, slammed his laptop shut, and stormed out of our room. Good riddance.

  I logged in to the network and downloaded my email and calendar. Dozens of overdue and upcoming meeting notifications took over my screen. I’d missed a Gartner game industry Outlook presentation an hour ago. Not a big deal. But I was also ten minutes late to a mandatory sexual harassment training in the Orson Scott Card large conference room.

  Crap.

  I slammed my laptop cover and dashed to the meeting. All eyes fell on me when I opened the door, looking disheveled and panting like I’d just had steamy, mind-blowing sex.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled and scurried to the closest open seat at the large conference table. While the instructor handed out sheets of paper, I surveyed the room, counting twelve dudes, all but one of them white. Nolan was there, donning his signature J.Crew Outlet look, wearing a hunter-green plaid fitted shirt nearly identical in style and fit to the one he wore when we worked together. I looked away before he made eye contact.

  Asher was there, too. He could have told me about this mandatory meeting, but he had been too busy purposefully ignoring me. I would have done the same thing.

  “Excuse me, are you Melody?” The grandfatherly instructor, with a faint British accent, asked.

  “Um. Yes?”

  “Brilliant! We have perfect attendance!” He took a black Sharpie and drew a horizontal line on his pad of paper, presumably crossing off the final name of his participant list. “You just missed our group introductions. I am Charles Sword, your moderator for today’s professional training. I was just thanking Nolan here for bringing me in for this session.” Nolan ran his fingers through his hair and offered the instructor a sheepish grin. He glanced at me and gave me a tiny wave. Unable to resist, I offered him a lopsided smile. I had to give him some credit, at least he was doing his job.

  Charles focused all his attention on me. “I’m thrilled you’ve arrived. Would you mind reading the lines of the female character in the script in front of you? You came just in time for the role-playing exercise.”

  Oh, lucky me.

  He peered down at his list of participants again. “And . . . Asher? Can you play the male character?”

  Lucky me again.

  Charles said, “I’ll be the narrator because I certainly have the voice for it.” The instructor chuckled. “Well, what a serious bunch we have here. All right then, I’ll begin.” He cleared his throat, not out of necessity, but instead for dramatic effect.

  “Jack and Jill work in a relaxed office environment. Jill is typing a memo when Jack enters the room. Go ahead, Asher.”

  Asher/Jack: Have you met that new chick?

  Melody/Jill: You mean Caitlin?

  Asher/Jack: Yeah. She has a great rack.

  The room busted into laughter. What the fuck was this? An intense wave of heat moved through my body. The fire in my cheeks burned like I’d doused them in kimchi juice.

  Charles the moderator said, “The language Jack uses makes Jill feel uncomfortable. What did you as listeners find problematic about his choice of words?”

  Hands shot in the air.

  “Yes? You, sir, in the red shirt?”

  Red Shirt guy said, “Well, he calls that girl a ‘chick’ and—”

  I cut in. “And you just called Jill a ‘girl.’ You’d never call Jack a ‘boy’ in the workplace.”

  Someone muttered, “Daaaaamn, Jill. That’s savage.” All the dudes laughed.

  Asher said, “I wouldn’t have used the word ‘rack.’”

  Charles nodded. “Right-o! The choice of words was not appropriate for the office environment.” Right-o? Did people really talk like that anymore?

  A guy in a Mariners jersey asked, “Should we use ‘chest’ instead?”

  “You shouldn’t be talking about chests at all in the workplace,” I muttered. My fierce, crippling stare made him wince and look away.

  Asher asked, “How about ‘jugs’?” He smirked at me as the room erupted in laughter again. Damn it! I wanted to kill him.

  The instructor could sense my murderous intentions. He said, “Alrighty. Why don’t we move on to the second exercise? In this scenario, Jill is the night manager of the shipping department. One evening Jack approaches her to ask if he can leave early. Jill objects, and Jack offers a massage in exchange for permission to leave and—”

  Asher yelled, “No way, I’d die or kill myself before I’d do that to Jill over there.” He pointed at me.

  I blurted out, “I would taser Jack in the balls.”

  “You can’t say ‘balls,’” Red Shirt guy said.

  Crossing my arms, I replied, “I’d taser him in the genitals then.”

  Charles said, “I love the openness of this discussion, and the suggestions of alternative word choices from our training participants. Bravo! But remember, the original problem to solve was ‘How should Jill handle Jack’s massage proposition?’ Accept or decline?”

  Asher and I yelled in unison, “DECLINE!”

  Our poor instructor. He had no idea how much Jack and Jill mutually despised each other.

  “Let’s move into scenario three, shall we?” He cleared his throat. “Jill and Jack are hanging out in the break room and overhear a couple of employees picking on a new male employee. They overhear one of the employees call the man a ‘homo.’ What should they do?”

  Mariners guy asked, “But what if he actually is a homo?”

  The dude next to him said, “You can’t call him ‘homo,’ you fucking idiot.”

  Charles barked, “Hey! Let’s refrain from name-calling. That is one of the lessons from this exercise.” He wiped his forehead with a monogrammed handkerchief and dabbed it above his lip.

  Asher asked, “Could they call him something else? Like, ‘homosexual’?”

  Red Shirt guy said, “We can’t say ‘fairy’ here. Or ‘homo,’ I guess. They say ‘poof’ in London, right? So ‘homosexual’ is the PC thing to say, right?” He looked at Charles, awaiting an answer.

  Charles slumped his shoulders and exhaled loudly. “The best answer was to not pick on the employee in the first place, and if they chose to address him, they would do so by name, without mentio
ning the new employee’s sexual orientation.”

  Red Shirt guy wasn’t finished. “Before we move on, can we talk about joking around about illegal stuff at work? Let’s say, Rohypnol. Let’s say someone hadn’t actually roofied anyone or anything but said to a few people that it would be funny to spike the coffee machine with it. Is that sexual harassment?”

  Charles shook his head. “No. That’s not sexual harassment unless this person planned to drug the coffee for the purpose of sexual advancement in the office. But spiking anything with an illegal substance would definitely be a severe criminal activity. You know that, right?”

  “Of course.” But the shocked look on Red Shirt guy’s face made me think otherwise. He began shaking his right leg, seemingly antsy to get out of training. Perhaps to go pour out the coffee.

  “Where were we? Oh, right, the final scenario.” Charles skimmed the worksheet and nodded. “Here we are. Jill is nice but has a habit of hugging people when she thinks they are feeling down. Jack appreciates her intentions, but it makes him extremely uncomfortable, because she hugs a little too long. What should Jack do?”

  Red Shirt dude elbowed his neighbor. “It depends on whether Jill is hot.” They fist-bumped. One of those annoying ones accompanied by sound effects.

  Asher looked right at me. “Jill is NOT hot.”

  Nolan Fucking MacKenzie piped up for the first time. “Hey now, that’s not cool to say.”

  I shot him a piercing look. I can fight my own battles, intern, thank you very much.

  Mariners guy chimed in. “Well, from where I’m sitting, Jill looks pretty hot to me.”

  “Some people here would definitely feel that way,” Asher growled, looking directly at Nolan.

  Charles interjected, “Well, everyone, I hate to say it, but it looks like we are out of time!” He had already begun packing up his materials and closed his briefcase, ready to flee in mere seconds. He handed each of us a certificate and a course satisfaction survey.

  Certificate of Sexual Harassment Training