The Emerald Keychain

When Hannalina Grey entered the office, it was one minute past nine in the morning. She strutted across the white marble floor with a paper cup of coffee wrapped beneath her pointy red nails. Hannalina always rolled in a minute late with her chocolate hair snatched up in a ponytail. The sweet lady at the reception hollered good morning in her usual cheery mood and Hannalina displayed her signature smile—straight teeth and sparkly from all the whitening she endured. Although Hannalina entered the office late with a certain grandeur, there was rain on her parade as someone uncharacteristically rolled in tardy. While Eleanor Grossman was a punctual woman, she was also one whole minute late. Her neatly placed bun was slightly awry and Hannalina immediately frowned at her friend’s forlorn face.

“You okay?” Hannalina asked as everyone did every morning while entering the office after a long morning commute in London, but this time, Hannalina sincerely meant it. 

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Eleanor’s voice was raspy; when Hannalina leaned in, she saw strokes of red in her wet eyes. 

“You sure?” Hannalina asked as the two stepped into the lift with mirrors on each wall. Just as Hannalina opened her mouth, her words were stifled by Dan, from the IT department, frantically trying to catch the lift before it closed. With Dan huffing and panting in between, all Hannalina could do was sip her warm oat milk latte and raise her eyebrows at Eleanor who avoided her silent questioning eyes with great eloquence.  

The lift chimed as the doors slid open with a slight thud. Dan scurried over to his desk and the two friends walked side by side to their seats.

“Morning Han! Three minutes late,” Otto said with his eyes glued to the screen like a hawk. Unlike Hannalina, Otto Moore was always early and had far more fine lines etched across his forehead. He wasn’t even thirty-five like the others but looked far older by many years. His square spectacles and receding hairline might have been the reason for his aged appearance or it might have been the stress constantly weighing on his shoulders from one superfluous reason to the other. 

“Yes, but at least I light up the office when I enter, even if it’s a bit late.” Hannalina sat down on her chair with a thud right next to Otto. Her exasperated sigh prepped her body for a day of tapping on the keyboard and stringing words together in meetings that didn’t make much sense when she broke everything down to their bare bones. 

“Hey Jackie, you okay?” Hannalina finally looked to her right and Jackie Ray smiled in response. Her blonde curls radiated warmth—especially in the gloomy winters Londoners faced each year. 

While Hannalina stared at her screen, typing away mindlessly, she couldn’t help but peer over her computer to find Eleanor’s lips turned upside down. Her make-up was half done and she barely said hello to anyone.

“Erhem,” Hannalina cleared her throat, but no one’s eyes budged from their grand computer screens. “Erhem!” Hannalina made her sound effect louder as she noticed Eleanor’s ears were occupied with her signature black earphones. 

“Do you need water?” Otto said as his eyes broke contact with his screen. 

“No, no I don’t,” Hannalina said sharply and exaggeratedly nudged her head towards Eleanor. 

“Oh.” Otto raised his eyebrows quizzically. “What happened to her?” 

“What is it?” Jackie chimed in from Hannalina’s right. 

“Something is up with Eleanor.” Hannalina leaned in her chair, which moaned and groaned as usual. The office was almost as tired as everyone there. 

“Oh!” Jackie's mouth turned into a small circle. “What happened to her?” 

While no one else may have been looking at Eleanor Grossman, Hannalina, Otto, and Jackie were her closest colleagues in the office and so they began to guess what was wrong. 

***

Otto and Hannalina quickly paced to the kitchen for a cup of coffee and behind the almost soundproof glass doors, the two joined their head together. 

“Did someone die?” Hannalina asked abruptly and was met with a look of disdain. 

“No, no one in her family passed away. Lucy’s mother passed away last month. Oh, my prayers are with her family,” Otto said with a pinch of sorrow. 

“Who?” Hannalina asked. 

“Oh my, you barely know what’s happening in this office. How long have you been here?” Otto asked sarcastically.

“Shut up.” Hannalina was curt, but she always felt deeply conscious of her inability to understand or care about what was happening in the workplace—feigning interest was excruciatingly painful.

When it came to Eleanor, Hannalina, after a long time, found her curiosity piqued. “So no one passed away in her family, we know that. What about her dog? Scout, right?” Hannalina began to pour herself a cup of steaming hot coffee. The smell infiltrated her nostrils and permeated an energetic warmth through her body. She slowly stirred the dark liquid with her spoon to buy a little more time behind the glass doors. 

“Her dog is fine, she sent me a picture of him last night.” Otto brushed Hannalina off. 

“So then everyone in her life is fine. We are fine too.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t say we are a part of her life.”

“I would say so.” Hannalina’s voice reached a musical spot and the two of them walked back to their seats, zipping their mouths as Eleanor tugged her earphones out; she rolled them neatly around her fingers, lost in a trance. 

When Eleanor looked up, Hannalina met her eyes for just a moment and what Hannalina saw was a gaze so far gone, that the irises appeared empty for miles. For the next few hours, as was the monotony of a day's work, the four of them clicked away on their keyboards, exchanged pleasant conversions on the clock, and listened to music, drowning out the obscene boredom of work life. 

***

With a few more minutes until lunch, Hannalina couldn’t help but flip her phone incessantly. She cracked her knuckles twice and looked at Otto, engrossed in an Excel sheet laden with numbers and words Hannalina barely wanted to read.

Soon, Jackie bounded from the kitchen with a wobbling cup of tea and sat down on the edge of her seat. 

“I have some more information on Eleanor," Jackie said.

“What?” Hannalina perked up.

“When I was in the kitchen, I spoke to Eleanor. She said she couldn’t believe it was gone.”

“Oh my,” Hannalina said with her hand up to her mouth. 

“What do you think it is? That could leave her looking like…that.” Otto whispered as his eyes followed Eleanor’s gloomy frame walking by their desks towards the lift leading down and out into stormy London. 

“Maybe her bank account got hacked! She must have lost a lot of money.” Hannalina’s eyes widened.

“That sounds about right.” Otto placed a finger on his chin pensively. 

“No, no, no! She can’t possibly be this emotional from her bank account getting hacked.” Jackie waved her arms frantically. 

“First, calm down, Jackie.” Hannalina’s voice was flat. “Second, yes, that is the one thing everyone would get upset about.”

“No, I don’t think Eleanor is like that. She is level-headed. It must have been something very personal.” Jackie peered far into the vanishing point, her mind clenched as if the enigma code was in front of her, waiting to be cracked. 

“Maybe she lost her passport?” Hannalina blurted out loud.

“How exactly is that personal?” Otto took on an annoyed tone. 

“It’s her identification document?” Hannalina’s voice trailed off with her absurd answer. 

“Maybe she lost a family heirloom?” Jackie Ray wanted to be Sherlock Holmes and so did Hannalina and Otto. 

The three of them got up with grumbling stomachs and continued wondering what it could be that Eleanor lost. 

“Maybe she lost her mind?” Hannalina said. 

“Oh, come on, Hannalina.” Jackie gently slapped the side of her arm. 

***

Hannalina Grey, Otto Moore, and Jackie Ray munched on crunchy lettuce and carrots from their salad bowls while mulling over their last thought. Eleanor Grey must have lost a diamond passed down from her mother which was passed down from her grandmother. Something irreplaceable and worth so much when sold. The last part seemed to matter the most to Hannalina. Losing something worth thousands of pounds could stop a heartbeat and maybe even time for an infinitesimal moment.

Just as the crunchy salads with tangy dressings reached the end of the bowls, Eleanor entered through the glass doors of the kitchen carrying the same despondent face. 

“I’m just going to go ahead and ask.” Hannalina skidded her chair back and blundered over to Eleanor before anyone could stop her from being supposedly insensitive. “Eleanor,” Hannalina said. 

“Yes.” Eleanor’s voice trembled as she delicately dabbed a tissue around her puffy eyes. 

“What’s the matter with you?”

“I lost something.” Eleanor began to sob. 

“What did you lose?” Hannalina gently touched her curved shoulders. 

“My emerald keychain.” Eleanor’s voice was barely a whisper. 

“Did it cost much?” Her eyes filled with sympathy.

“It was ten pounds.”

“You’re crying over ten pounds?” Hannalina was amused.

“I’m upset about my emerald keychain. It has been hanging on my bag for years and now it's gone forever!” Eleanor stormed out of the kitchen, leaving her three colleagues puzzled. 

“She lost her emerald keychain,” Hannalina slowly settled back into her chair, pain gnawing at the back of her mind. 

“We heard,” Otto said.

The three of them sipped on their glasses of still water, wondering if they had seen that emerald key chain dangling on Eleanor’s bag.