Light and Dark

TW: assault

Lenora walked up the stairs toward her office. Just another day, another dollar she told herself as she opened the fire exit door and walked out into the busy grey cubicle-filled office. The halogen lights were blazing full tilt and the bank of windows along one wall throwing a dim grey light over everything. It was obscenely bright. She tossed her brown hair over her shoulder as she placed her oversized purse onto the end of her desk and prepared to sit and log in.

“Awful weather out isn’t it!” She could see Pamela’s big owl sized blue eyes staring at her over the partition wall. Her desk buddy was endlessly irritating. Cheerful in that glass-always-half-full kind of way. Lenora forced a smile at the chirpy woman.

“Rain I suspect.” she tossed back. Her voice sounded honey coated but cold, yet it never seemed to daunt that stupid mass of humanity that sat across from her.

“I think they said it would be thunder and lighting.” Pam threw a disconcerted gaze out the window at the low hanging black clouds that had been rolling in all morning. “I’d hate to be here by this big window if it did.” she shuddered dramatically and rolled herself back into her desk, signalling that she was going to return to work.

Lenora held back the groan; both for Pam and the weather. She hated thunder and Pam. Really she hated everything. She hated this job with her boss who looked over their shoulder at every turn. She hated that she sat near the seemingly happiest people on the planet. She hated that the sky outside was a perfect representation of the inner self that she constantly had to tamp down so as not to create a scene; or worse get fired.

Her computer sounded to indicate that it was ready for use and she got to work tap tap tapping out the myriad keystrokes that comprised her job.

*****

Pam cast her eyes out the window and then back to her desk. A photo of her two kids sat there reassuringly. She tightened her ponytail, feeling a surge of confidence as she looked at their cherub faces grinning up at her. She just had to get through two more days here. That was it. She’d given Paul her notice two weeks ago. Her husband had gotten a significant promotion and she couldn’t wait to spend all her waking moments with her two babies, instead of the au pair they had hired while Pam was at work.

She cracked her hands and typed furiously as if that would get the day to go by quicker. She glanced up over her monitor once or twice at her desk mate Lenora. Pam worried about her. It was so obvious that Lenora was depressed or at the very least unhappy. She tried her best to give off satisfied vibes but the massive sighs that resounded from Lenora's workspace all day gave her away as clear as the clouds outside. What could she be so secretly unhappy with? Pam did her best to stay very happy for Lenora’s sake; to inject a bit of sunshine where she could. Sometimes it even seemed to work but not today.

What was such a young pretty girl doing acting all depressed anyway? She sighed inaudibly herself. Lenora wasn’t her problem. She looked back at her babies and sat a little straighter.

*****

Paul sat in his office and looked out through the window over the multitude of people at their cubicles. As the manager it was his job to work them and to get the best out of them but it seemed like satisfaction was at an all time low this month. He stared at a stack of papers on his desk and then back out. Pam was quitting, Lenora had two complaints about her attitude, Marcus was a raging alcoholic at work, and at least two others had tendered their desires to move on.

Was it his fault? Had he been too hard on them? The objectives for production hadn’t been his idea. They’d come from corporate and while everyone had increasing workloads, he’d been taking the lions share. He was routinely not out of the office until well after ten pm. Five hours or more after everyone else had gone. He forced them all out at 5:30 or 6, whenever their shifts were supposed to end.

He remembered with a quick ironic grin how angry Lenora had been with him when he had to stand over her desk and force her to shut down. She would have sat there all night no doubt but he refused to let his staff work overtime or to notice that he wasn’t leaving himself.

He rubbed a large hand over his face and shuffled the stack on his to-do pile. Surely his staff just thought he was cheap. He’d heard them whispering their complaints. Maybe he was too heavy handed about making them leave. He just didn’t want them to have the insanely out-of-balance life that he had.

He was a young man. He should have been out dancing with girls like Lenora, not barking orders at them and making various staff members cry. Whimsically, he pushed the complaints about Lenora’s attitude to the bottom of the pile. Not today. Not while the sky reflected so well all of their bottled up rage.

*****

The rain came. Hard, heavy and unrelenting. One hour turned into two hours turned into three hours. The sky turned so black that the halogen lights seemed to be working overtime to compensate for the darkness that was infiltrating. Lenora looked outside with increasing anxiety. She really really hated thunder. She caught Pam glancing at her and hardened herself to go back to work. Those deadlines weren’t going to meet themselves after all.

Suddenly and with a collective gasp the power flickered, tried to hold on and then died. Lighting cracked through the sky and an earth shaking boom accompanied it. The usual halfhearted moans went up around the dark room about losing their work or how this would put them behind.

Lenora tried desperately not to jump each time the booming cracks of thunder rang out. She had a bit of a reputation to protect. She wasn’t scared of anything and she wouldn’t be coddled.

“Are you okay?”

She nearly leapt out of her chair as the soft maternal hand of Pam came down on her clammy shoulder. “Don’t do that!” she fairly shook.

Pam smiled consolingly. “My youngest is afraid of lighting.”

Lenora ground her teeth. Great she was being compared to a three year old. That’s all she needed. She stood to her feet, her cream colored pumps wavered beneath her weight. “I think I’ll go home.” She began to move as steadily as she could around her cubicle while that dumpling of a woman just watched her.

“We haven’t been dismissed yet.” Pam’s voice was uncharacteristically small.

Lenora wheeled on her. “Can you please leave me alone. My god all you do all day every day is look at me with your big doe eyes and say useless drivel.” She turned back to her purse as another sky rending crack sounded.

“I’ll be gone in two days so you needn’t worry about me anymore.” Pam’s voice shook slightly.

Lenora’s head snapped up. “Gone? What do you mean?” she felt an unusual tightening in her gut. What would life be like without Pam there every day to greet her? Suddenly she regretted her outburst very much. “Pam, I...”

Pam shook her blonde curls to curb the apology. “My girl I don’t know what’s eating you but don’t worry about it. I quit so I can be home with my kids.” A smile lit up her face falsely as lighting lit up the room.

Lenora sagged into her chair. She suddenly felt a valve loosen inside her chest that she hadn’t known was tight. “Why am I so mean to you? And now you’ll be gone and I’ll never see your face again.” she felt a sob coming and even as she hated herself she caved toward it.

*****

Pam smiled and moved to put an arm around the younger woman’s goose bumped shoulders. She felt herself get angry. No need to dredge up feelings, shed be gone soon, though she felt the power outage and the storm was trying to pry it out of her.

Paul emerged from his office and announced that they were shut down. Pam waited. The mass exodus could occur without her in its ranks. This fragile angry desperate girl needed her. Always need. Pam hated that she was always needed suddenly.

Lenora needed her, her kids needed her, her husband needed her. Couldn’t anyone do anything without her? Was she really leaving because she wanted to? Her career would be on hold or perhaps indefinitely suspended. Was that what she really wanted? Her husband hadn’t even had the promotion for all of two minutes when he was suggesting she quit and take care of the kids. She gripped Lenora’s shoulders as she felt like screaming.

“I was assaulted last month at an office party and I think I’m pregnant.” Lenora covered her face in her hands and sobbed harder. The rain seemed to drum on the windows in time.

Pam’s mind raced. What was she supposed to do with that? She glanced up to see Paul advancing toward them. The office had already almost entirely emptied. “Are you sure?” was all she could manage.

Lenora’s brown hair fell in front of her face as she nodded.

“Have you told Paul?” Pam’s breath drew in sharply and she leaned in toward Lenora. “Was it Paul?” he was coming closer all the time. Hurry up girl and tell me! She thought frantically.

“No it wasn’t him. It was a man from corporate.”

Suddenly Paul was there.

“Ladies?” he inquired. His voice was deep. Suddenly Pam could see the dark circles under his eyes as if the dark around them had heightened them ten-fold. Why was he looking like he was bone tired? Pam groaned inwardly. More need. Always more.

“We are going. She just had a little moment here. Doesn’t quite like thunder and lighting you know.” Pam tapped Lenora’s shoulder lightly, dismissively.

She noticed Paul seemed to sag slightly. He put his fingers to his eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose. “You go on Pam. I have something to discuss with Lenora anyway so it’s just as well.”

Pam backed up slowly. “I don’t think...”

“Pam.” his voice broached no argument. She grabbed her purse and trotted out to the stairs. Should she stay, should she go? She decided to stay in the lobby until she saw one or both of them emerge and if neither did in an hour she’d go back up.

*****

Paul sighed. It would be a good time to discuss Lenora’s behavior over the last month. Thunder boomed and he felt increasingly annoyed. Lenora sat before him, sniffing slightly but seemingly otherwise to be totally unaffected from the small crying bout he’d walked in on. Could people really be so afraid of something that they’d cry? Lenora always seemed to be so tough.

“You’ve had some complaints lately about your attitude.” He knew he was sounding harsher then intended.

He watched her long thin fingers tighten into a ball on her lap. Her black pencil skirt was riding above her knee to reveal beautifully sculpted legs. “From who?” she murmured. It was so low as to be almost inaudible over the sounds of the storm.

“John upstairs. He says twice this month he has asked you for some figures and twice you’ve blown him off with poorly chosen phrases.” Inwardly he hated that the complaint was from John. He didn’t like John. John was a grease ball. He noticed Lenora seemed to curl into herself.

“Is that right?” she said in a statement-like cold tone. A massive thunderclap rang through the sky. She was back to herself. That cold tone was what he was used to. No nonsense Lenora. Scared and soft Lenora had been interesting but he had work to do and the no-nonsense version of her would do far better.

“It goes without saying that they are our bosses so if they ask for something we must comply.” he noticed her knuckles go white at this and her eyes flashed like she was going to punch him. He shifted and ran a hand through his hair. “It means I have to put a reprimand on your file and caution you.” He felt strangely uneasy. He’d reprimanded people before but having to say it during a thunderstorm in the dark made it feel all the more wrong somehow.

*****

Lenora was screaming inside her head. The thunder was no longer scaring her. It was the perfect sound for her mood. The perfect power for her growing courage and anger. So John thought he could just get away with it all did he? Paul had said when they ask for something we must comply but little did he know just how much John had ‘asked’ for. Should she tell him? She regarded the young man in front of her.

His black hair was cut short and fell to one side where he was constantly brushing it with his large hands. He had a well cut figure and his suit was pressed though now Lenora noticed how tired he seemed. How worn out. Was Paul always so small and shelled out like this? In her mind he was a hard liner, a no nonsense loud firm boss. Who was this shrinking violet? And yet next to her rage he probably should seem small.

She squared her shoulders as the lighting screamed through the sky. She took a breath. She told him. Not just a little either, as she’d originally intended. No she told him the whole dirty sordid business. She watched his face go from grey to white to nearly black with rage. She finished with a very curt acknowledgement that she’d be needing time off work to deal with her personal issue.

Paul very nearly spluttered in the dark. “Isn’t this just all there is.” He stood and turned circles in the aisle outside her cubicle. “I want to punch him. I want to knock his teeth right out of his head! You know he’s the reason we are all being worked to death right now!” Paul looked at her with feeling and she nearly laughed with sarcasm.

“You must mean us. Not you.” her voice dripped.

Paul stopped dead and stared at her. “You don’t know the half of it. I literally only pass one tenth of what they are shooting at us to you guys. I don’t leave this office until after 10 each night. Damn it, last week the janitor found me sleeping on my keyboard at 5am. He thought I’d died like in an episode of a crime drama. And now I know why. Now I know what is happening. Well. No more!” Thunder blazed as Paul stomped his way through his confession.

Lenora felt afraid again, and surprised. She had no idea that Paul had carried so much and yet her own workload was so massive. She felt overwhelmed every day that she looked at it and he was taking care of even more? She felt she needed to calm her own boss down suddenly. He was acting more like an angry boyfriend or friend then a boss. Where was his usual unflappable impartiality?

She stood and walked toward him. “We should both calm down. There is a process for this isn’t there?” She couldn’t bring herself to touch his arm. Too familiar.

Paul turned to her and passed a hand through his hair. The gesture seemed to calm him immediately. “You’re right. We report it. We will get this sorted. Lets do it now!” he began to storm toward his office.

“Paul!” Lenora called, her voice unsteady at using his name. Had she ever said his name?

He turned to look at her, his profile lit by lighting. She was struck then by his beauty. Had Paul always been so handsome? He was just the angry loud boss but now she saw the young virile man. She shook her head. He was angry for her and displaying emotions that was getting her wrapped up. Tomorrow in the clean light of day it would all be scrubbed away. Normalcy returned. This was the emotions and turbulence of an empty office and a violent storm. Nothing more.

“Power.” she reminded pointing up toward the cold dark light-bulbs overhead.

“Right. Tomorrow then. Let me grab my coat and I’ll walk you out.” Paul disappeared inside his office.

Lenora grabbed her bag and wiped her face. The makeup was long gone. She’d look patchy in the light. Thank god there was no light.

*****

As they walked into the lobby they saw Pam leaning against the wall twirling her hair. She looked up at them and visible relief came over her face.

“I told him Pam.”

Pam trotted over to them. “Good. I was going to tell you to.” She shot a glance as the towering boss beside them both.

“It will be taken care of.” Paul’s voice was deep and threatening but not to the pair of women before him.

Pam smiled and wrapped an arm around Lenora’s shoulders. “Right. I’ll need you to toss my notice while you’re about it tomorrow.”

Paul rose an eyebrow.

Pam smiled. “Storms are so interesting don’t you think?"

Wind blew into the lobby as the door gave way beneath her hand. The three braced themselves and separated, each heading their own way but feeling happier then they had all month.