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I was late, and I knew it. The traffic was horrendous, and even though I had woken up unusually early, I still arrived outside the company building half an hour after I was meant to. All the time I had sat in that cramped bus had been spent restlessly going over everything that had happened with Lady Sam.
I had joined Diversity with the hope that I could grow closer to her - the same motive that had driven almost every decision I had made since I was ten years old. I had an idea of who Lady Sam was - a very detailed picture, in fact. However, when I joined the company, it seemed that I may have filled in the colors myself, with little regard to the truth. The kind soul I was sure I remembered was nowhere in sight, and in her place stood a fiery, yet cold woman. I had defended her to my coworkers, my family, my friends - but after just my first day, I was reconsidering my entire reality.
That had all changed, though. One bizarre thing had led to another, and I had seen so many different sides to Lady Sam, sides I never could have imagined. We had slept in the same bed, stayed up talking, laughing - we had eaten together, and called late into the night. I had learnt that she rarely meant what she said, and had stroked her hair as she lay on my lap. And the most recent change in Lady Sam and I’s story was that we had begun… biting each other’s lips. Which friends do, of course. So it wasn’t really a big deal. At all.
The bottom line was that Lady Sam was a far more complicated woman than I had initially given her credit for, and my relationship with her was growing more confusing by the day.
I let myself into the building, and quickly walked up the stairs to the office. Before I opened the door, I checked my watch. Thirty four minutes late. Sighing, I pulled the handle and walked in. The office was in chaos. My coworkers, my new friends, were running around aimlessly, looking pale. I recognised that panic in their eyes - I had seen it there on my very first day at the office. Three guesses who caused it.
‘What’s going on?’ A handful of heads briefly turned my way. Aunty Mhee rushed at me, and grabbed both my shoulders.
‘Mon - you’re late!’
‘I know, I’m sorry - why is everyone stressed?’
‘Company meeting with Lady Boss in two minutes - she looked angry!’ Aunty Mhee let me go and continued to run around. I sighed, and placed my computer and stationary on my desk. It was not turning out to be an easy morning.
‘Since the launch of Diversity Pop, the company has been doing better than ever.’ Lady Sam paced the floor of the meeting room, looking up at all of our tense faces with a stern expression that didn’t put any of our minds at ease.
‘However,’ she continued, ‘other aspects of our business have plateaued. And I believe this is purely due to worker incompetence. You,’ Lady Sam’s eyes landed on a young, frazzled looking man in the corner of the room, ‘haven’t come up with an original idea in months. You,’ she shifted her attention to an older woman who often offered to get me coffee, ‘cannot maintain a phone call with a client long enough to make any profit whatsoever.’
Lady Sam’s eyes and harsh words slowly landed on every person sitting on the steps. Yha, who sat next to me, squeezed my hand. As person by person was called on, the suspense in my chest grew. Lady Sam finally focused on Yha and I.
‘You,’ She said to Yha, ‘are so inefficient in your organization that it baffles me how you get any work done at all!’ I held my breath. I was the final one - what would she say? Whatever it was, I could take it. Or could I? To hear my shortcomings laid out by her, of all people, in front of everyone, after everything -
‘I hope all of you understand what to do, and what to fix now. Meeting dismissed.’ Lady Sam avoided my eye, spun on her heels and picked up her laptop. I looked around. Everyone in the room was staring at me, curiosity, jealousy, and a tinge of awe in their eyes.
‘Go on - you have jobs to be doing.’ Our boss’ voice echoed around the room, and within a second my coworkers and I were scrambling out of the door, lest we anger her further.
‘Well, it makes sense.’ Noi said, perching on the edge of my desk.
‘How?’ I asked, leaning back in my chair and chewing on the end of my pen. ‘She said something to every other person.’
‘But you’re not like every other person to her. You’re different.’ I narrowed my eyes.
‘What do you mean?’
‘She’s got a soft spot for you, Mon. You two obviously have a special relationship.’ I froze. She couldn’t possibly know… could she? I mean, ‘know what?’, I asked myself. Lady Sam and I were just friends. Maybe even just colleagues who needed to work closely for the benefit of the company. But still…
‘No we don’t!’ I blurted loudly. A few heads turned to me, and I shrunk slightly in my seat.
‘Oh, come on Mon! Yha, Chin, come over here - isn’t it true that Lady Boss has a soft spot for Mon?’ The two walked over to us, nodding vigorously. I internally groaned.
‘Oh yeah, she loves you!’ Yha said emphatically, ‘Aside from the meeting, she didn’t even say anything about you being late today.’
‘Maybe she didn’t notice? Besides, I was only late because of traffic.’
‘Well, she always manages to notice when I’m late. And she never cares about the reason for breaking a rule. Actually, she probably does with you - Lady Boss is really fond of you.’ I scoffed to cover up the pride I felt at hearing that.
‘That can’t be true, I’ve hardly worked here any time.’
‘Exactly! We’ve all worked here for years, and she likes you more than all of us - even me!’ Chin laughed.
‘That’s not too hard.’ Yha quipped, and Chin glared at her. ‘He’s right though - just accept it. I mean, I would.’ Noi and Chin nodded in agreement, before the three of them ran back to their desks when they heard Lady Sam descending the stairs. I opened my laptop, and took a deep breath. They would all forget about it by tomorrow, and there was no way they would find out about Lady Sam and I. Not that there was anything to find out about.
The next day went by without incident, until the final twenty minutes of work. I hadn’t heard anything about Lady Sam’s so-called ‘soft spot’ for me, and I was relieved that I had been right. Everyone had forgotten. Until… Aunty Mhee.
‘Mon! Oh, Miss Mon!’ I glanced up from my desk.
‘What’s wrong, Aunty?’ The woman was obviously distressed, so I stood up and put an arm around her.
‘I haven’t finished my cataloging for today! I’ve barely started. I was just so distracted - with my house bills piling up, I’ve hardly been able to focus on anything!’ Aunty Mhee threw her arms around me.
‘Hey, Aunty! It’s okay! I’ll help you catalog, don’t worry! I’ve practically finished my work today, anyway. I’ll just do the last bits at home.’ Aunty Mhee stepped away from me, and suddenly appeared very shy.
‘Thank you Miss Mon, but I was wondering whether you could maybe… ask Lady Boss for an extension for me?’ She blinked up at me, and tilted her head. I smiled apologetically.
‘Aunty, I really would, but I highly doubt she would listen to me. I’m basically still on beginner’s probation.’ Aunty Mhee dropped her puppy dog eyes and furrowed her brow.
‘But she likes you?’ I sighed, frustrated.
‘Lady Sam does not like me!’ I shook my head, ‘Let me prove it. I get in trouble like anyone else here.’
‘Ooooh, do you need ways to get in trouble with Lady Boss?’ Noi appeared out of nowhere beside me. Aunty Mhee and I jumped.
‘Sorry! But if you want a way to get in trouble - I recommend you go to the bathroom.’ I raised an eyebrow, but Aunty Mhee smiled conspiratorially at Noi and gestured for me to sit down. I complied.
‘Listen Mon, you may not know this, but Lady Boss goes ballistic if people go to the bathroom when there’s forty-five minutes or less until the end of the day. She says it cuts productivity. A boy who used to work here was apparently made to stay an hour after the end of the day for going to the toilet half an hour before clocking out. And she didn’t let him go the whole time.’ Noi shivered.
‘It’s a dangerous move, Mon. Do you dare?’ I checked the clock on the wall - fifteen minutes until the end of the day. If I got this out of the way and received a short chiding from Lady Sam, then whatever remaining idea my coworkers had about her and I would surely dissipate. I nodded to the two women, and all our heads turned to the corridor where we heard Lady Sam’s footsteps coming from. Aunty Mhee and Noi rushed off to their stations, but I could feel their eyes still on me as I stood up and strode past my desk.
Lady Sam appeared from around the corner, and immediately addressed my presence with her eyes. They lingered on and acknowledged me in the way that only hers did, a special signal I felt deep in my bones. My heart was pounding against my chest - had she always looked like that? Had her hair always fallen that perfectly into place? Were her eyes always so -
‘I’m going to the bathroom.’ I said loudly. Lady Sam blinked.
‘Uh huh.’ She absently responded, dragging her eyes up from where they had just been. My lips. She cleared her throat, looked to the ground and continued into her office. I heard a gasp from behind me - no doubt Aunty Mhee - and sighed. That had not gone to plan.
I was greeted the following day by a cup of coffee thrust into my hands - which wouldn’t have necessarily been a bad thing, if it wasn’t for the lively hands attached to it.
‘Good morning, Miss Mon!’ The older woman Lady Sam had talked to yesterday smiled slightly too widely, as I took a sip from the cup. What did she want?
‘Umm, good morning! Thank you for this.’ I gestured to the coffee and she laughed.
‘Not an issue! That’s what friends are for, right?’ I fought the urge to raise an eyebrow, and instead nodded and gave her a warm smile. I moved to walk past her to my desk, but she stepped in front of me.
‘But if I could perhaps ask something, now that we’re friends?’ There it was.
‘Sure - what is it?’ The woman took a deep breath.
‘How do you do it, Mon? How do you make her like you? What can I do? What do you do?’ Flashes of a black coach, a cold pool, smudged lipstick - I rolled my eyes dismissively at the question.
‘I don’t do anything! Lady Boss has no preference towards me whatsoever!’ The woman shook her head.
‘Now, Mon, we all know that’s not true.’
‘Well, it is. I’ll prove it!’ She furrowed her brow.
‘How?’ I surveyed my surroundings, until my eyes landed on Chin. I expected him to be piling pens on top of each other to make a tower, but instead he seemed to be deep in work. ‘Chin!’ He turned toward me, and smiled tiredly.
‘Morning, Mon.’ I approached him, concerned
‘Whoa, are you alright? Why do you look so worn out?’ He sighed, and rubbed his head.
‘Lady Boss had me come in early this morning to work - I’ve been doing reports for hours now, and all the numbers are fading into each other! How am I supposed to get all this done, when we can’t have even a small break? A lot of us were asked to come in early for reporting today, actually - you weren’t?’ I shook my head. ‘I guess that checks out, with her and you having that thing between you.’
‘Lady Sam and I have nothing between us! That’s what I was going to ask you about, actually. I want to prove it.’ Chin narrowed his eyes, half skeptical and half amused.
‘Like yesterday?’
‘Yesterday was a fluke.’ He sighed, as if relenting, and crossed his arms.
‘Well, if you really want to prove that you get in trouble just like the rest of us - an easy way to do it is to borrow some stationery from the company.’ The older woman, who was still next to me, nodded excitedly.
‘Oh yes, Mon. Lady Boss is very strict about everyone having their own equipment. I had a friend who worked here who didn’t have a calculator and tried to borrow one from Lady Boss’ office. Fired. On the spot.’ I took in that information, and balanced the risks in my head. I didn’t want to get fired, but I had to stop this narrative that there was something special between Lady Sam and I. Because there wasn’t. And even if there was, absolutely nobody could know about it.
‘Alright. Give me an hour.’ I said, and made my way to my desk.
An hour later, I had just about plucked up the courage to do what I felt needed to be done. I slowly stood up, locking eyes with Chin across the room. He gave me a double thumbs up, but seemed to unconsciously lean back in his chair as I walked toward Lady Sam’s office, as if I was walking toward gasoline with a lighter.
I raised my hand, but before I could knock, the door swung open. Lady Sam stood in the doorway, a clipboard and pen in her hands. When she saw me, her face shifted from stern and forbidding to… something else. It was probably just confusion. Or anger. Obviously not concern.
‘Do you need something?’ She asked. I glanced back at Chin.
‘I, uh, don’t have a pen. I mean, I forgot one. Completely my fault. So I was going to borrow one, or, you know, take one. I was going to take one from the company.’ Sam raised an eyebrow.
‘Just use mine. Here.’ She extended the smooth, black pen in her hand. I gaped despite myself, and looked back at Chin, whose face was a mirror of my own.
‘Are you sure?’ I asked, hesitant. Sam nodded, seemingly bewildered at my reaction.
‘Of course.’ She replied. I slowly, carefully, took the pen from her. Our eyes met, and if we were alone, I just knew she would have smiled. Instead, she stepped around me and marched over to Chin. I returned to my desk to watch the confrontation, along with everyone else in the office.
‘Mr Chin - where are those reports?’ Lady Sam’s stern expression had returned.
‘I’m sorry, Lady Boss - there’s just so many of them!’
‘There wouldn’t be if you had done them. There are deadlines for this work, Mr Chin!’ Lady Sam turned her clipboard to him and pointed at the papers in it.
‘I know, I know - but maybe I would get more reports done, and everyone would get more work done,’ Chin gestured to the rest of the room, ‘if we could have… a break?’ He grimaced at his own words. Lady Sam pinched the bridge of her nose and exhaled, and when she spoke, her tone was even shorter than usual.
‘Do I pay you, Mr Chin, to have a break? Do I pay any of you to have breaks?’ Chin shook his head.
‘It may help, Lady Boss?’ Yha piped up, meekly.
‘Please?’ Aunty Mhee added.
‘These reports need to get done.’ Lady Sam’s words were final.
‘But they’ll get done sooner, and better, with a break!’ Noi protested loudly. Our boss turned to her with a deadly look in her eye. Noi shrunk back as Lady Sam approached her, ready to obliterate the poor girl. Before she could open her mouth, though, I spoke.
‘Come on, Lady Boss. Just a short one?’ Lady Sam’s attention shifted to me.
I raised an eyebrow, as if to say ‘Go on - yell at me. Get mad at me, be the big, bad ‘Lady Boss’ they know you as. I dare you.’ We stared each other down for a moment more, before Lady Sam looked away and took a deep breath.
‘Ten minutes. That’s all.’ Without another word, she walked back into her office. The second her door closed, I knew I’d made a mistake.
‘Mon! I can’t believe that just happened!’
‘I guess our Lady of Ice had thawed.’
‘Lady Boss must genuinely like you so much!’
‘What is it about you, Mon? About the two of you?’
‘Before today, I think we all only said it as a joke to tease you - but now I mean it. You two appear closer than Lady Boss and Mr Kirk!’ I didn’t even pay attention to who was talking. All I knew was that I had messed up majorly, and I had no response for what they were saying.
The subsequent morning was exhausting. As soon as I had sat down, my coworkers had bombarded me with requests for favors and allegations of bribery.
‘Could you just ask Lady Boss to give me a few more holiday weeks?’
‘No, Aunty - I’m telling you, she doesn’t have any preference for me.’
‘Be honest Mon - did you fund Diversity Pop? I know you said you don’t have a lot of money, but why else would she be like this with you?’
‘Noi, seriously, you need to drop this.’
‘Noi may have a point, Mon - you could have secret riches from England! Maybe you own a mansion like Lady Boss!’
‘Yha, you’ve seen where I live!’ I dragged a hand over my face in desperation.
Sure, they were talking nonsense for now. But how long would it really be before someone caught on? Obviously, there was nothing to catch onto, but the idea that they would all find out about this delicate, baffling, and exhilarating ‘nothing’ between Lady Sam and I was seriously stressing me out.
As I was thinking that, Lady Sam emerged from her office.
‘I’m going out to lunch. I want all of those reports finished by the end of the day, okay?’ It wasn’t a question that required an answer. Lady Sam adjusted her handbag on her shoulder and began to walk towards the exit.
‘She’s probably going to meet Mr Kirk. Do you think he’s jealous of you, Mon?’ Chin joked. Something in me snapped, and I stood up. This had to end now.
‘Lady Sam?’ I said loudly, instantly quieting the office. The woman turned around, and I casually strolled towards her until we were facing each other, inches apart.
‘Do you think you could pick me up something too, while you’re out?’ My tone was friendly and relaxed. Lady Sam looked too surprised to speak, so I continued before I lost my nerve.
‘I know you mentioned you don’t usually go to lunch down there, but I was thinking maybe some Pad Thai from that place a few blocks away? Extra shrimp and extra sauce would be absolutely amazing.’ When I had finished speaking, I held my breath, and felt everyone else in the room hold theirs with me. Lady Sam dumbly opened and closed her mouth. She slowly looked from me, to the dozens of pairs of eyes on us, before bringing her gaze back to mine. She had an odd look on her face, one I genuinely couldn’t read. Finally, after what felt like decades, Lady Sam spoke.
‘No. Obviously not.’ She snapped harshly, and strode to the exit, her shoulder colliding with mine as she passed me. The room was still. As soon as everyone heard Lady Sam clocking herself out of the building downstairs, I was surrounded.
‘Aaaaw, Miss Mon! Poor you.’
‘I’m sorry, we pushed you.’
‘We were wrong, Mon - you were right.’
‘I guess she really doesn’t like you extra. We’re so sorry, Mon!’
‘You’ll probably get a bunch more work now.’ Yha hit Chin’s arm and scolded him, as I gave a small smile and insisted it was okay. Eventually, after a few waves of apologies, comforts, and acknowledging their errors, my coworkers returned to their desks, and I did the same.
I took out my laptop, and sighed. I had gotten what I wanted. No one in that office suspected there was anything between Lady Sam and I. But maybe now… there wasn’t. She obviously didn’t appreciate me saying that in front of everyone - I may have pushed her to her limit. It was probably for the best, though. I mean, how long could it have really lasted? She was the Honorable Samanan Anantrakul, and I was… well, I was me. She would’ve tired of me eventually.
I had done what I had set out to do - I had gotten to know, and grown closer to Lady Sam, my idol. Everything that I wanted to achieve as a fan, I had. But, if I was honest with myself, there were things I wanted to do as more than a fan. There were things I still wanted to say, and to hear. Just because I didn’t know what the relationship between Lady Sam and I was, didn't mean that I never wanted to know. And it didn’t mean that I wanted it to end. But I’d gone and ruined it, and now I’d never know what could have been.
I heard the door to the office open, but didn’t turn around. I couldn’t bear to make the situation any worse. Lady Sam’s rhythmic steps became louder as she approached me from behind. I still kept my eyes locked on my laptop screen, typing as if there was nothing wrong, as if I didn’t feel like curling up into a ball and crying.
I felt Lady Sam grow nearer behind me, saw her pass by me in my periphery, and as she did… a brown, takeaway bag dropped into my lap. Confused, I looked up at her, but Lady Sam didn’t slow down, instead entering her office and closing the door without looking back.
I returned my gaze to my lap, and peeked in the bag to see a plastic container. Opening it, my eyes widened. Pad Thai, with extra shrimp. And, I observed, as I appreciated the incredible smell wafting from the food, extra sauce. I quickly glanced around. No one appeared to have noticed. I smiled to myself.
Maybe this thing between Lady Sam and I wasn’t quite over yet.
Not that there was anything between us.
Not at all.