Tinsel In A Tangle

by Ainslie Paton

  She sipped her hot lemon drink. It was soothing for her scratchy throat. She watched Adam walk back to his desk, spinning her chair around so she could thoroughly check him out and that was soothing too. Nice butt. Sexy little spring in his step. Those calf muscles would bunch. Look at those shoulders. Amazing hair. She spun back around. Oh crunch, please nobody notice I did that. She must be delirious.

  She went home to bed and had a feverish dream about being married to Felix and Adam walking in on them during a domestic dispute about stacking the dishwasher. The most disturbing part wasn’t that she was Felix’s dream wife or that he never unstacked the clean dishes and always left a mess in the sink—that felt about right—but that dream Adam had been wandering around shirtless and she’d woken just as she was about to touch him for the first time.

  Her t-shirt—Cinnamon rolls, not gender roles—was stuck to her and she was still snuffly, but it was almost worth feeling sick to dream about feeling up her inappropriate, office romances are bad, unrequited but hella thoughtful crush, who she really wanted to invite to her orphan’s Christmas lunch.

  She really, really wanted to do that when it rolled around to her birthday. Because Adam saved her.

  She might have to put herself out there for everyone to see and listen to as part of her job, but personally she’d rather avoid being the centre of attention. That was something Felix never understood. The day before her birthday holiday was always fraught with cake, singing and stupid jokes about her advanced age—twenty-eight, impending incontinence and forever spinsterhood, that were intended ‘affectionately’, but always made her wish she’d falsified her staff record to be birthday-less so no one was reminded. She’d even give up the extra day off if she never had to fake it through the razzing again.

  Last year, the joke had been to give her a blow-up walking frame. She’d put on a smile and laughed along, but as soon as possible she’d stuck a pin in it and binned it where no one would see. This year, Adam warned her.

  He stopped her as she was coming out of a meeting. ‘If you don’t want a fuss about it being your birthday tomorrow, you could find an excuse to be out of the office at three.’

  She was so shocked Adam guessed that about her, she didn’t reply. This was different to hearing her shout or noticing she was sneezing and sniffling.

  ‘Sorry, I’m out of line.’ He shook his head, looked at his boots. ‘Forget I said it.’

  ‘It’s just cake and a bit of joking around. We all endure it.’ Adam had endured his. She’d made a note in his file to say he’d prefer something quieter next year with his closest team members, not the whole office.

  ‘Felix got you a Gorillagram.’

  Odd how you could feel the blood drain out of your body. It pooled somewhere around her knees, making her shiver. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Everyone knows.’

  They did now. How typical of Felix to use her birthday as an opportunity to position himself as the best, most fun boss ever. It was only a month since the guacamole performance review debacle and the war of t-shirt words. If he really cared, he’d have put a cupcake with a candle in it on her desk with a fancy coffee. He was well aware she hated a fuss. It was in her file too, if he’d ever bothered to look.

  ‘I can’t just not be here.’ How bad could a Gorillagram be? Fifteen minutes in the spotlight. Excruciating, but she could do it. Grin and bear it and be grateful it wasn’t something worse.

  ‘It’s Noel’s birthday Friday. He’d love it.’

  The expense wouldn’t go to waste. Her circulation kicked into gear again and she smiled at Adam. ‘That’s excellent because I do have that root canal thing. Almost forgot about it.’

  Adam smiled back. Nice butt. Sexy little spring in his step. Look at those shoulders, wide enough to let him see what others didn’t. Hair that just begged for fingers in it. And a smile that was as good as curling on the floor with a pile of puppies. ‘Thanks for reminding me.’

  Best work birthday ever.

  By the time Melbourne Cup rolled around it was Adam, not Dynamite Diva, the horse she drew in the sweep, she was barracking for. She hoped he got a win, but it turned out his horse was a dud like hers, though from his grin you’d have thought he came out ahead.

  She found herself standing beside him while everyone stood around wearing fancy clothes, eating posh little sandwiches with no crusts, prawns on skewers, and the good kind of cheese with fancy crackers. ‘You look happy,’ she said.

  He’d worn a grey suit with a light blue tie and she’d never seen him so dressed up. She’d planned on dressing like a jockey but switched at the last minute to a proper Audrey Hepburn-esque black dress, and heels that were making her feet sore. She’d had to make a decision not to stand near Adam, so they didn’t look like a couple off to a wedding, but despite that resolve had found herself right beside him. Maybe the room had tipped as the race was called and they’d been shuffled closer by cosmic forces. That had to be it, because she didn’t intend to tempt fate.

  He flashed his phone screen at her. A picture of two men hugging with shocked expressions on their faces. ‘My brother had a win,’ he said. ‘Enough for him to afford a proper honeymoon in Vietnam over Christmas.’

  It was a busy time of year for LuxLife but Stella still wanted everyone who wasn’t essential to customer service to have time off. That meant Shelby got to take a break between Christmas and New Year and since Adam worked on development projects he could too. It was time to end her fantasy of inviting him to her Christmas lunch with some practical details. ‘Will you go home?’

  ‘Not this year. Been feuding with my folks. It’s the reason I moved to Sydney. They’re not ready to accept my brother and Louie yet, and I guess I’m still not ready to forgive them for that. What about you?’

  Pah rump a pum. Deck those halls. Merrily on high. She didn’t need to hear that. It sat the fantasy down in a comfortable chair, plumped up the pillows, pulled up a foot stool and served exclusive cocktails.

  ‘I spend it with my sister. We have this big lunch that we invite orphans and strays to. You know, people who have no family or get left out.’ Or people they had inappropriate crushes on who weren’t going home for Christmas. Adam would have his own friends, and if he didn’t have someone special in his life to spend his Christmas day with other than Feral that cat, she’d be her own Gorillagram. ‘We do it every year. We love it.’

  He gave her one of those puppy pile smiles that stroked her whole body and made it sit up and beg, and it was fortunate she got called away because he was good at reading her and she didn’t want him reading that. No good could come of it or future cosmic room tilts. Woof.

  It was useful the end of the year was always a rush. As though days were robbed of hours, time sped up and there weren’t enough minutes available to get through the urgent tasks. On top of all that time-condensing stress, all her Christmas office party planning worries descended. The good thing was she thought she’d fully tamed her fantasy longings about Adam and his possible planless Christmas day—until that moment in the lift.

  She knew he was there when she stepped in. Half the office was in that lift, coming back from lunch, from hasty shopping, from the volleyball league game. She should’ve waited for the next one, if only to avoid the food and body odour, but she was in a hurry to get back to her desk, almost late for a meeting, so she stepped in and stumbled on the strap of someone’s bag as she was turning to face the doors. It was Adam who stopped her tumbling into a wall of sweaty bodies, into him, his fingertips to her shoulder.

  He didn’t say anything, didn’t call attention to her, he simply steadied her with a fleeting touch that did riotous things to her pulse.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said softly, not sure he’d hear over the raucous recount of the team victory, not wanting to call attention to him either.

  ‘Happy to sort you,’ he whispered back.

  Four words could make you glow. Those four words made being late, the fuss of Christmas pl
anning and their busiest trading season, melt off her. She felt brushed and soothed and fluffed up and bright and ready for anything.

  She was first out of the lift, but they all piled through the office door together.

  ‘Shelby Yule. You’re late.’ Felix stood in the entryway. ‘Hurry up. The Christmas committee is waiting.’

  Felix high-fived each of the volleyball winners as they came past. If she was late, well so was he. He could’ve started without her, but that would mean he’d actually have to run the meeting, not just take up space in it.

  She went to move around him, giving him a hard look as she made for her desk to dump her bag and pick up her tablet, but his next words stopped her short.

  ‘Ooh, judging from that look it must be that time of the month. Do you need to go change your tampon before you grace us with your presence?’

  The expression, stunned silence was nothing on the unearthly quiet that blanketed the space. She knew Adam was somewhere behind her. She knew he’d heard.

  Her whole body went rigid, teeth clacking together loudly in her head. She stared at the floor willing it to open up and swallow Felix in a fiery cataclysm, and then nervous laughter broke the spell and Ravi said, ‘Holy shit, Felix. Don’t be such a jerk.’

  ‘Ah Shelby knows I’m only kidding,’ Felix said. ‘But I won’t be if she doesn’t bloody hurry up.’

  ‘If I said something like that to my wife, she’d stop feeding me for life,’ Ravi responded. ‘Pull your head in and apologise, mate.’

  She didn’t want an apology. She didn’t want to be on the same planet, in the same office, room, existence as Felix. He had wrecked her glow and there was no way to make up for that.

  He had wrecked her glow and there was no way to make up for that.

  ‘Sorry, Shelby,’ Felix said, singsong. ‘I don’t even know if she wears tampons,’ he said to no one and everyone, as if that made everything okay. ‘Just hurry the hell up.’

  She stopped herself looking for Adam. Because if he turned sympathetic eyes on her, if he said something to give her comfort or express his outrage, she might need to do more than invite him for Christmas lunch. She might need to put her head on his shoulder and sob.

  She was frustrated and furious and disappointed and stuck. It was their busiest time and there were reports to finish, rosters to finalise, a party to plan. There were Christmas carols on repeat in her head, gifts to buy and meals to shop for. Tempers were short, and they predicted a heatwave. It was the usual overwhelming seasonal pressure cooker stuff. But for one thing.

  She didn’t need mistletoe as an excuse to want a kiss.

  Shelby: Now

  She’d ask Adam when he got back from being stitched up. What’s the worst that could happen? It was lunch. If he said no, it’s not like her whole world would spin in the other direction. It’s not like she’d spent a year inappropriately focusing on how much she liked his work ethic.

  Oh, stuff his work ethic, she’d mostly been inappropriately focused on how he smiled a little crookedly and made her want to lie in a pile of puppies. How much she wanted to see what he’d look like with his hair loose, and whether he really did smell like green trees after a thunderstorm or if she’d imagined that from their near collision events.

  She’d learned something else about herself tonight. She wasn’t that great at creating fantasies. To think she’d never tuned in to his incredible forearms when she’d imagined what his hugs might be like. She’d never be able to look at his arms again without feeling swirly inside in all the best ways.

  It wasn’t just lunch she wanted to invite Adam to. It wasn’t just touch she wanted, a kiss she was secretly desperate to have. It was the idea of exploring what they might be like together as friends, as more than friends, outside work. It was the outrageous idea they might enjoy spending time together and sharing their lives.

  But Adam had never done anything to encourage her to think this way, other than treat her with the same courtesy he treated everyone with. Filled water jugs weren’t a declaration of undying affection. Steadying hands and words weren’t invitations to anything beyond collegiality, much as she might want them to mean more. And especially after Dave and Christina’s flame out, she’d been hyper wary of stepping over the boundary lines to attempt an office romance. It simply wouldn’t do. Lunch was the compromise her dislocated heart could handle. She could be satisfied with that.

  Liar, liar, Santa pants on fire.

  He’d never done anything to encourage her and she’d never signalled she wanted to be encouraged. But this buzzing current of awareness she had, the one that let her know when he was near, even when she’d yet to catch sight of him, the cosmic room tilt that brought them close, surely meant something.

  She loved her job. She’d loved it all the more this year, despite how awful Felix was, because seeing Adam, hearing his voice, sitting in meetings he attended where she could enjoy his thinking, even pouring water from the jug he’d filled, was a secret thrill, a twitch that ran under her skin, quickened her pulse and lightened her day.

  So she was asking him when he got back from being fixed up because after tonight she might not have an excuse to see him again.

  And that wasn’t all she was doing.

  She had to deal with her forgiveness problem, put it into perspective. Some people didn’t do anything to deserve forgiveness, especially if they kept on making the same damn mistake. She was telling Stella exactly how she felt working with Felix, and exactly why she didn’t want to do that anymore, and if that meant she talked herself out of her own job then she’d deal with it. Same as she’d deal with finding another man who made her feel good just by being in the same postcode as Adam if he said no to lunch and whatever might come after it.

  With that resolve simmering she waited; posting a pic to her social feed of the most unusual nativity scene she’d ever come across and scrolling past other people’s Christmas party pics, the potential harassment suits of which she happily bore absolutely no responsibility. That’s when Stella walked in, dragging her suitcase.

  LuxLife’s founder, CEO and chief incredible person looked completely zapped after a month travelling to meet with investors, and yet she hadn’t gone home. Shelby braced for impact as Stella collapsed into the seat beside her, making the whole row shake.

  ‘Let’s never do Christmas again,’ Stella said.

  ‘I’d vote for that.’

  ‘Maybe we can leave it off the calendar, or take a moral stance against it, or I don’t know, hit people with a designer forgetfulness drug that makes them fuzzy on dates till the new year. Just the dates, they get to remember everything else.’

  Shelby couldn’t help her smile. ‘Did you just suggest drugging your staff?’

  Stella groaned. ‘It’s been a long month. I’m a Buddhist. I don’t even celebrate Christmas. And what happened to peace and goodwill to all men on earth? Where is Adam?’

  ‘Getting stitched up. Felix is—’

  ‘I know how Felix is. We’ve spoken. Joy to the world. I’d like to hear your version of—’ Stella leaned forward and pointed at the nativity. ‘Hey, that’s Spock. Huh.’

  Shelby winced. There was no way to tell the story without throwing Adam out over the shark net. He was fish food already. ‘It might be my fault.’

  ‘It’s been a long year. Jesus is Lego with Spock for an earthly dad. Do not even try that it’s your fault thing on me.’

  ‘Felix is an arse.’ Whoa. She hadn’t meant to say it quite like that, but there it was, no backstroking around it.

  ‘That’s more like it. He told me Adam threw the first punch for no reason. Is he lying?’

  ‘No.’ Felix was too clever to get caught out by telling a simple lie. He wove his misdirections out of elements of truth and strings of good sense and particles of trust that might be stretched thin, but rarely snapped.

  ‘He was telling funny stories, you know how he is, life of the party.’ He’d organised all the men to wear Chri
stmas Hawaiian shirts, but he’d made it a secret, so a lot of the women were annoyed not to be included and had whinged to Shelby about it.

  ‘As far as I know there was no specific trigger. Adam drew him away from everyone and punched him. Felix hit back, he put Adam on the floor.’

  Felix had stood over Adam in his surfing safari Santa shirt swearing at him while everyone else was a stunned mullet. ‘Adam didn’t stay down. His eye was already closed, his brow opened, he was bleeding everywhere.’ She shuddered at the memory; she’d been as gobsmacked as everyone else. ‘He got up, and he hit Felix twice and Felix toppled over.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘Lights out.’

  ‘I’m having trouble believing it,’ Stella said.

  She knew the feeling. ‘I sent everyone home. I didn’t know what else to do.’

  ‘Hmm. Felix is an arse. What did you mean by that?’

  The smart thing to do would be to tell Stella that since they were both tired and it was late, that discussion could wait until Monday, but Felix had been an arse way too long. ‘Felix is our office psychopath.’

  Stella made a sound of surprise and Shelby tried to remember where she’d filed her resume. It would take no time at all to change her status to ‘quick, I need a job’ on LinkedIn. ‘He knows how to manage up, so you don’t see his worst behaviour. He has favourites, he gaslights, he undermines, and he plays office politics.’ He could be rude, insulting and he sulked when he didn’t get his own way, but he was clever. He rarely ever let any of that show to Stella.

  ‘Why didn’t you say something?’

  That made Shelby squirm. She found Felix so difficult to deal with, so ready to put her down and find her work inadequate that she spent all her energy sucking it up and managing him. And that was a kind of forgiveness. She’d let a bully run her around and make her doubt herself. ‘I was wrong to give him a free pass.’

  Stella pushed her hair off her face. She was either irritated with her fringe or with Shelby. ‘Why didn’t you come to me?’