Brenda

by Lee Ellis

  “Lucy. It’s always a pleasure. And this must be my new manager in training. Come here, big guy,” Mr. Mankin said with the affable smile of a man trying to act like the people he was talking to were friends who were associating with each other out of choice rather than being forced to by their mutual need to exchange labor for financial support. He then grabbed Jacob in a headlock and gave him a noogie. That’s right, I said a noogie. Jacob’s new boss was apparently eight years old.

  Seriously, what is it with people and touching around here? Jacob thought, pulling away from his boss and using all the restraint he could muster not to punch him right in his smug stupid face. “Um, hey, how are you?”

  “Jacob, this is Steve Mankin. He’ll be your boss here at LDC,” Lucy said, seemingly unperturbed by the fact that Jacob had so far been molested by every person he’d met at the company.

  “Yeah, I figured that out while I was in his armpit. Nice to meet you, Mr. Mankin.”

  “Oh, please, call me Steve. Welcome aboard. I think you’re going to like it around here. We work hard, but we also like to have fun.”

  “Well, that’s not going to work. I hate having fun.”

  Lucy and Steve started laughing, demonstrating that Jacob’s lame offhand comment was apparently what qualified as real, cutting-edge humor around this fun-loving place. “Jacob’s a bit of a jokester,” Lucy explained, despite the fact that Jacob had failed to say anything remotely funny.

  “Ah, good, good. He’ll fit right in around here,” Steve said. Presumably, this meant that nobody else in the building was funny either.

  “Anyway, I’m going to go and show Jacob around. You want to join us?” Lucy asked as Jacob crossed his fingers and prayed that Steve would decline.

  “No, I’ve got work to do,” Steve said as Jacob breathed a sigh of relief. “But hey, I’ll be in a little later to get you up to speed. Alright, pal?”

  If he says that they like to have fun here, that means this is going to blow, Jacob thought as he followed Lucy from Steve’s office. And he insists on being called Steve, so it looks like I can count on a bunch of lame jokes and stupid activities, all within mandated HR policies, of course. Fuck. Has anything fun ever conformed to HR policies?

  The next office they entered contained a tall, wiry man with curly hair and glasses, as well as a bike in the corner. He was eating something out of a Tupperware container when Lucy and Jacob walked in. The office also stunk to high heavens, but since it wasn’t perfume on a fat lady, Jacob didn’t complain.

  “Jacob, this is David Craig. He’s one of your fellow managers in training,” Lucy said, as the man stood up and shook his hand. Finally, a man who understands the amount of contact that’s appropriate upon meeting someone.

  “Two first names. Nice,” Jacob said, quickly catching on to the whole lame joke thing that he was certain would be common in this office.

  “What?” David Craig said with an awkward laugh.

  “You have two first names. David and Craig.”

  “Craig’s my last name.”

  “No, I gathered that. But it’s more common as a first name.”

  “Craig’s a pretty common last name,” David Craig said condescendingly.

  “It was a joke.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  What the fuck is with this guy? Jesus Christ, it’s like talking to a goddamn robot. “Never mind. What’s that you’re eating?” Jacob asked, trying to change the subject and noticing for the first time the pungent order emanating from the man’s lunch.

  “Oh, it’s some fucking Asian dish that smells like shit with primarily broccoli in it,” the pretentious little shit said. Obviously, he didn’t say that per se, he used the actual name of the dish, which I cannot recall on account of it being Asian and complicated. The point is that any remotely normal person would have just said broccoli. Not this dick hole. “Yeah, my girlfriend made it for me. We’re vegetarians, so we cook at home since it’s so difficult to find decent vegetarian food around here, you know?”

  “No. I eat meat like a normal person,” Jacob said, realizing how rude this was but not giving a fuck on account that he’d already decided to hate this guy.

  “Anyway, I’m going to finish showing Jacob around. I’ll see you later,” Lucy said, pulling Jacob from the room.

  “Thank you for that,” Jacob said as the two made their way through the office. “I needed to get out of there before I puked. His lunch smelled pretty gross, too.”

  “Don’t mention it. Hopefully, you won’t have to be seeing too much of him, but if you do you may have to grin and bear it. He’s actually a really nice guy, but you two don’t exactly seem compatible.”

  “Yeah, I typically don’t get along with dick nuggets,” Jacob said. Of course, there was no reason to be so specific, since Jacob didn’t get along with much of anybody, himself being somewhat of a dick nugget.

  Lucy smiled as she knocked and entered the next office where a cute little black-haired girl working frantically at her computer. Now this is a coworker I could get along with, Jacob thought.

  “Olivia, this is Jacob Stanton. He’s the new manager in training. Jacob, meet Olivia Goldstein. She’s a manager in training as well,” Lucy said as the frazzled looking cutie stood up, quickly grabbed Jacob’s hand and shook it, and sat back down at her computer, pausing only to take a sip from a to go coffee cup the size of her head.

  “Hey, nice to meet you. Listen, I have a lot of work, so I’m sorry, but I’m not exactly going to be very sociable at the moment. I’ll have to catch up with you later, alright?” Olivia said, going back to her computer before waiting for a response.

  Or not, Jacob thought as he and Lucy shirked away from Olivia and her work, assuming from her reaction that the world would be destroyed if she failed to complete it in a timely manner. Also, that she was kind of a bitch.

  Jacob stepped back into the hall and time stood still. He could feel his heart racing as he looked up. The sky opened up, the sun shone, and despite being inside, birds started chirping, singing their lovely birdy song. Of course, none of this shit actually happened, because life isn’t a fucking fairy tale. However, he did see Brenda.

  “Who’s that?” Jacob asked, hoping that this would provide the in he had been looking for, albeit not very aggressively, or really at all.

  “Hmm. Oh that’s Brenda Chastain. You know, like the women’s soccer player. She handles our Australian accounts. Why do you ask?”

  “Yeah, the soccer player was named Brandi Chastain. Anyway, uh, I feel like I’ve seen her before,” Jacob said, failing to play it cool and acting like he didn’t know exactly where he’d seen her.

  “Oh, maybe. She does live in our building. Come on, I’ll introduce you two.” Jacob followed Lucy as she walked up behind Brenda, who was making copies, and tapped her on the shoulder.

  “Hey, Brenda, this is Jacob. He’s our new manager in training.”

  Brenda turned around, a bit surprised, and fumbled the papers in her hand. Eventually, she managed to shove the stack of papers she had messily into her left hand so that she could extend to Jacob the right. “Oh, um, pleased to meet you.”

  Fuck. She doesn’t remember me, Jacob thought, more upset by this fact than he had any right to be. “Actually, I believe we’ve met before, albeit briefly. I believe you live in the same apartment building as Lucy and I.”

  “That’s right,” Brenda said in her trashy Australian accent that Jacob, knowing nothing about Australia, found absolutely alluring. “I remember. We met briefly in the lobby. You were talking with that guy, uh, Rock.”

  “Yes, I was. What apartment are you in again?” Jacob asked, knowing damn well it was apartment 405.

  “405,” Brenda said, telling Jacob the answer that he already knew. “You?”

  “801,” Jacob said with a stupid fucking smile on his face, the same stupid smile that all stupid people get when talking with someone with whom they are enamored. Fucking idiot. “Well, cool. Anyway
, I guess I’ll see you around.”

  “Sure,” Brenda said with a weak smile as she turned back to gathering her papers. Lucy led Jacob to one final office and knocked on the door.

  “Alright, this is the last person you’ll have to meet today, then I’ll show you to your office. Promise,” Lucy said as she opened the door to reveal Jacob’s final fellow manager in training.

  “Henry, I’d like you to meet Jacob Stanton, our newest manager in training. Jacob, this is Henry Irving.”

  Henry got up and walked around the desk, and for a moment Jacob started to shy away, fearful of another noogie or some other unwanted contact. However, to Jacob’s pleasant surprise, Henry held out his hand for a good old fashioned shake, then sat casually on his desk like he thought he was cool or something.

  “Nice. Who all you meet so far?” Henry asked, crossing his arms while sitting on his desk still.

  “Oh, let’s see. There was Bethany.”

  “Okay. She’s pretty cool. You’ll find her helpful, once you get used to the perfume.”

  “Heh. Steve.”

  “Alright,” Henry said, apparently feeling it necessary to comment after every person Jacob named.

  “Olivia.”

  “Nice,” Henry said, biting his lower lip and arching his eyebrows suggestively, apparently unbothered by the fact that Lucy was standing right there.

  “And Craig. Or David, whichever was his first name.”

  “Oh, yeah, what a dick hole, right?”

  I think I’m going to like this guy, Jacob thought, bonding over their common enemy as people have throughout history, right before killing a bunch of other people. I’d give an example, but frankly a bunch of people killed a different bunch of people pretty much summarizes every period of history in every part of the world.

  “Oh, and that Australian girl, uh, Brenda,” Jacob said, pathetically acting like he didn’t have her name on the tip of the tongue in an incredibly lame attempt to hide his feelings for Brenda. To be fair to Jacob, those feelings were pretty pathetic and creepy, so it probably was smart of him to try to keep them under wraps. He just should have done a better job of it. Lucky for him, everyone else in the room was too self-absorbed to notice.

  “Aren’t you forgetting someone?” Henry asked, nodding toward Lucy in a possible attempt to either flirt or kiss the ass of the boss’s daughter. It’s possible he was just being nice, but who the hell is nice for the sake of being nice? Unless it was a long game ploy to gain popularity and rise through the ranks that way, in which case the charismatic Henry was doing a bang up job, since everyone seemed to love him. That Machiavellian bastard. Well, everyone except for David Craig, but we’ve already established that he was kind of a dick hole.

  “Oh, actually, Lucy and I knew each other before I started working here. That’s why she’s showing me around.”

  “Yeah. Jacob and I went to high school together.”

  “Oh, alright. So, Jacob, where’s your office?”

  Jacob shrugged. “I think that’s where we’re going next, right, Lucy?”

  “Right.”

  “Cool,” Henry said. “So, what’s Steve got you working on?”

  “I haven’t been given anything yet. He said he’ll be over later today to talk in more detail.”

  Henry laughed. “Yeah, uh, I wouldn’t count on that. Anyway, it was great meeting you. I’ll be here if you need anything.”

  Jacob and Lucy waved their polite goodbyes, then Lucy led Jacob into an empty office. As she opened the door, she turned to Jacob and said, “So this is your office.”

  Sweet. My own office with a door. I can masturbate, and no one will know. Muahahahaha. “It’s nice. I like it.”

  “Good. Now, IT has already set up your computer, and there should be office supplies in your desk. Other than that, Steve should be in later to get you oriented, and if you need anything else, just ask Bethany. Alright, well, good luck.”

  Lucy started to leave, then stopped in the doorway and turned back to Jacob. “Hey, I should be leaving around five o’clock. If you want, I can stop by on the way out and we could walk home together.”

  Jacob shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”

  Chapter 6-Jacob Bonds with a Coworker.

  “How was work today, sir?” Reginald asked as Jacob walked through the door, loosened his tie, and flopped down on the couch. Again. Seriously, like every single time.

  “Lame. Boring. Stupid. I couldn’t get anything done.”

  “Why not, sir? Too distracted by first day, settling-in business, meeting new people and getting accustomed to one’s surroundings and what not?”

  “What? No. Because they blocked all the good websites. I mean, the porn sites, alright, but come on. Do you really have to block the social sites and the comedy sites as well?”

  “Apparently they do, sir. So, did it get you to focus on your work? You know, the stuff you need to do to remain employed.”

  “Uh, no. I didn’t have any work. My dipshit boss Steve, he insists on being called Steve by the way, never came in to see me. I sat at my desk playing minesweeper all day.”

  “Wow. You were that bored, sir?”

  “Oh, it was terrible,” Jacob sat up, suddenly upset for some reason. “I swear, after the third game I lost, I just wanted to throw my computer through the fucking window. That game is so fucking dumb. Sometimes, Reginald, I think that life is not worth living. I think I should just eat a lot, drink a lot, gain a shit ton of weight, then kill myself and everyone else.”

  “I think that may be a bit of an overreaction to losing a game of minesweeper, sir.”

  “Fuck you, Reginald. You’re a dick.” Jacob got up, filled a glass with ice before filling it half with orange juice and half with ginger ale, then throwing the whole thing in the sink. “Fuck it, why am I making this? Reginald, make me a ginger ale and orange juice.”

  As Reginald went about making the same concoction that Jacob had just thrown into the sink, still angry over his minesweeping failures of the day, he asked, “So, sir, I noticed you walked in and walked home with the young Ms. Fontaine today.”

  “What’s your point?” Jacob asked grumpily, still stewing over the fact that he couldn’t beat a simple computer game. His problem was patience, by the way. He didn’t have any. “And how do you know that?”

  “I know everything, sir. Well, at least everything you do. It’s my function in life, sir.”

  “Right. Somehow, I always forget that. Anyway, it still doesn’t answer my second question,” Jacob said, referring to his first question.

  “It just seems you and Ms. Fontaine have been spending a lot of time together, sir. That’s all.”

  “So what? What’s your point, Reginald? Why don’t you just spit it out?”

  Reginald sighed. “Apparently I do have to spell it out for you, sir. I was just wondering if there were any romantic underpinnings to your recent association.”

  “No, Reginald, you cunt-licking faggot,” Jacob said. Apparently suggesting that Jacob may be sexually attracted to an attractive young female of the same species set him off because Jacob was pissed. “I just moved to this town, Reginald, and she’s like the one person I know, Reginald. I’ve also been hanging out with Rock a lot, Reginald. Do you think I’m going to fuck him too, Reginald?”

  “Perhaps, sir. At least, it wouldn’t surprise me. You two do seem to have a bit of a bromance going on there.”

  “Shut the fuck up, Reginald,” Jacob yelled as he responded to a knock on the door. He opened the door, and it was Rock, because apparently Rock has to show up at Jacob’s door every night.

  “Woah, hey, look at you. All professional looking and what not,” Rock said, referring to the fact that Jacob was wearing a shirt and tie, and not the sleeveless shirt and flip flops that Rock himself so proudly donned. “Who you talking to?”

  “Nobody,” Jacob said, welcoming Rock into his home despite the fact that he was more akin to a cockroach than a person. I don’t like Rock
much. “What’s up?”

  “Not much. Just thought I’d stop by and give you an update on Operation Banging Nancy.”

  “Oh my god, Rock, I don’t care,” Jacob said, exasperated but apparently not exasperated enough to use a capital “G” God in his profanity.

  “Yeah, yeah. Anyway, we ended up spending the whole weekend together. Man, that girl is insatiable,” Rock said, licking his lips in a rather revolting manner, since nobody wanted to think about Rock having sex. Gross.

  “Great, so you and Nancy are together now. Is there anything else?”

  “Well, I don’t know that together is the way to put it. We’re fucking, but that’s it.”

  “Right, how could I forget? You spent the whole weekend having sex, you stud you. Is there anything not about your sex life you want to talk about?”

  “Haha, what can I say? That’s how I roll,” Rock said, resting his head on his hands like a cocky douche. “I mean, we didn’t have sex the whole weekend. Saturday night, we just kind of hung out and watched a movie.”

  “What movie? Wait, on second thought, I don’t care.”

  “I don’t know, some romantic comedy bullshit,” Rock said, answering the question Jacob had specifically told him not to. “Then Sunday, we had a very pleasant day. We met up with that Brenda chick, you know, the one from Australia, and had lunch, then spent the rest of the afternoon shopping.”

  “Wait. You were hanging out with Brenda?”

  “Hmm. Oh yeah. Her and Nancy are friends. Apparently, they work together.”

  “Uh, yeah, they do. Well, I guess we do, now. Anyway, so you spent the afternoon shopping and hanging out with her friends, but you’re not dating?”

  “Right.”

  “Because it sounds like you’re dating.”

  “Really? Jeez, I hope she doesn’t think that,” Rock said, getting to his feet and heading to the door.