The Big Dream (12 page)

They saw the coffee room, the ladies room, the copier and the fax machine. (“No one will fax you. It's two thousand and
eleven.
”) The big boardroom, the little boardroom, the dieffenbachia that hadn't died. Then the design room – four bus-shelter-sized file cabinets, twenty desks, a hibiscus with huge powdery red stamens.

“And this is my desk.” Rae looked at her cosmos screensaver, her browning apple. Her pictures of her kids were in her purse; anyone could have sat at this desk. This desk was all she wanted.

“Where do
I
sit?”

Rae only knew all cubes on the window row were occupied: hers, Hamid's, Amelia who had bone cancer, weird silent Mallick, Andrew who sometimes whistled. There were empty cubes in the dark inner rows.

Rae fidgeted. Her phone rang, but she couldn't think how to answer politely. Someone was walking past, and she turned, hopeful. He was tall, from Tech – she couldn't remember his first name. “Luddock!”

“What can I do for you, Raeanne?” The Tech guys always knew your name, and probably everything about you, too.

“Have you set up a Mac for a new designer named Andrea . . . um . . .”

“Goss!”

“Of course.” Luddock straightened, an insulted bird. “Something not working?”

“No, no, just . . . where is it?”

Luddock led them to an empty cube in the midst of empty cubes. “Here ya go!”

Rae had remembered that his first name was Arthur, but it seemed awkward to call him that now. “Thanks, Luddock.”

Andy was looking at the fire regulations pinned to her baffle. “It's awfully far from yours. For, like, asking questions.”

Rae was about to say Ursula would come back and answer questions, that Rae herself was not responsible for questions. Then Luddock pointed at the inner wall.

“Not far at all. Right next door. Just sit still and ask. She'll hear you.” Luddock winked, and disappeared down the aisle.

Andy dropped all her things and opened the cupboard. “Lots of Quark manuals.”

“Don't worry, we don't really use a lot of the weird features here.”

“Weird features? I've not worked with it at all really.”

“Oh.”

Rae left her reading the first page of the manufacturer's guide. Without Quark, the job pretty much didn't exist.

When she got to her desk, Rae had 19 emails. She didn't touch her voicemail.

12:55. Rae was re-ordering Mallick's list of corrupted files, missing her good mouse. A rustle, then: “Rae? Um, for lunch? Is there a caf?”

“A lunchroom.”

She could
see
the mouse, wedged between wall and desk. She just couldn't reach it. “Down in the basement.”

“Oh, good.”

“Not really.” Rae kicked off her left shoe, stretched her foot up under the desk.

“I don't mind. I brought a sandwich.”

“It's the . . . atmosphere.”

“I have a spot.” Hamid's voice over the wall. “And I can spare fifteen. Then I gotta razor this frickin' sailing spread.”

Rae felt her nylon snag under the desk. “Andy, this is Hamid. He does our more complex Photoshop stuff.”

“That's cool. I used Photoshop once, to make a collage of wedding cakes.”

Rae stuffed her foot into her shoe. “Have a good lunch, guys.” She touched her spacebar and the cosmos dispersed.

Andy's voice: “Couldn't we just . . . all go together?”

Rae thought about the blaze-red voicemail light, Amelia's unsorted files. She also thought about the meals she ate alone – most of them now. Every weeknight she put everything from the pot or pan or takeout tub onto her own plate. Every weekday she ate all the toast that popped out of the toaster. When the children came on Saturday, she was weakened to the point of pizza out of the box, red Gatorade, ice cream, all in front of the TV. “Give me a few minutes. I'll come.”

It was more than an hour before Rae could log out. She took a fork from her
F
folder, went to Hamid's cube, and muttered, “Lunch!”

“She used Photoshop
once
? You better show her some tutorials,” he whispered.

“I am
not
training her. That's not my job.”

“Just today.”

“No. They imprint, like baby geese. Scared new juniors, you show them how to do one thing, they think you're their mother, follow you around. I don't have time.”

“That's a fascinating theory, Rae.”

That's how it was with you
was another thing she thought to say but didn't.

In Andy's cube, all the Quark manuals were open, bathed in the glow of a fishbowl screensaver. Andy knelt on the desk tacking up photos of a blond boy on skis.

“How's it going?”

Andy twisted. Her hair was down now. “This is my boyfriend? Topher?”

“Tomorrow Ursula will be here. She'll give you . . . something to do.”

“I'm looking forward to it. Topher skis competitively? And he works in a bank?”

“Right. You want to go for lunch now?”

“Sure.” Andy slid off the desk.

Rae turned towards the kitchen. She didn't check to see if Andy followed. She heard what was probably her own phone ringing. Her ring on its chain bounced hard off her sternum, catching the inside of her buttons.

Hamid came and led them to the fridge, then the stairs, the fire door. It was hot outside. They started across the parking lot.

“So, wedding cakes,” Hamid said.

“I like wedding cakes.”

“Difficult to light molded sugar. Very matte, and then glitter, like stones. Weird.”

Rae's left heel skidded on the gritty asphalt.

Andy said, “I can hear . . . construction?”

“Demolition. They're knocking down a parking garage. You get used to it. We did. And Mallick never heard anything to start with.”

“How long will it last? Who's Mallick?”

“October, supposedly. We'll see. Mallick sits behind me, mainly does text.” Rae and Hamid had been answering the questions in alternation, walking single file across the wide silent asphalt. It didn't matter who answered; anyone who had been there more than a year shared the same body of knowledge and complaint.

They reached a thin strip of concrete edging a thin strip of grass edging a thin veil of trees edging the highway. Hamid sat down on the concrete lip. Rae sighed. She'd suspected something like this. She put her salad on the ground and began tucking her skirt in between her thighs. Clenching violently, she sat, knees at nipple level.

Andy's skirt was long and floaty, so she sat more easily, spread her knees to make a hammock for her sandwich. Hamid sprawled half on concrete, half on grass and tried to bite through a pizza pop wrapper.

“Are there any
so
cial things here?”

Rae picked up her Tupperware of spinach and diced ham. “What do you mean?”

“Like, my sister's on the social committee at her hospital? They went golfing?”

“I don't think . . . We're not the best people to ask.”

Hamid was tossing the pop in the air between bites. “I'm pretty sure there's charity stuff. There's pictures of a dirty little orphan up in the lunchroom, with a mayonnaise jar full of loonies under it. Are you married? Engaged?”

“What? Me?” Andy's sandwich was pink ham and yellow mustard, white bread. Rae could see a Dad's Oatmeal Cookie packet in her bag. “No, I have a boyfriend, Topher. He works in a bank, and skis – ”

Hamid waved his juice box. “Wedding cakes, I mean. Are you getting one?”

“Not yet.” Andy shrugged a demure, inward shrug. “Maybe someday. You?”

“I might not be the marrying kind, I dunno. But maybe someday.”

Rae had known Hamid for three years, and only ever seen him with colleagues. She had no idea if there was anyone specific he wasn't marrying. Which was a relief, since it meant he probably hadn't noticed that she wore a wedding band, then didn't.

“Oh, damn.” She pointed at the run in her nylons she'd already known was there.

It had the desired effect, a switch in conversation. Andy didn't like nylons. Neither did Hamid. They both said why, in detail. Rae nodded thoughtfully.

Rae and Theo's wedding cake had been very plain, except for a dozen lavender sugar flowers with foil stamens that you couldn't eat. On their first anniversary, the thawed top layer had been surprising tasty, but ugly, the flowers all melted and deformed.

Andy's sandwich was just a crescent of crust. Soon they could go back in. Rae tried to judge the weight of Hamid's drinking box by the way he held it.

A Hummer blew by, enveloping them in grit and the thump of speakers. Probably a finance intern. Rae put the lid on her sandy half-eaten salad and stood, ready for the conversation, lunch, day to be over.

Andy scrambled up. “I had to park outside today. Do you think I can get an indoor pass?”

“I don't know.” Rae started walking towards the building, and the others fell in step beside her. She hadn't had this much eye-contact with Hamid all year.

Andy was scanning the lot. “Where do you park?”

“I don't have a car right now.”

Andy's lower lip dropped. “Really? Where do you
live
?”

“Finch and – actually, Bloor West Village now.” Rae shrugged. “I just moved, I keep forgetting.” They were almost at the door.

“It must be a long bus ride!”

“I don't mind.” The sun felt like an object weighing on Rae's neck above her collar. She tasted grit in her mouth. Her skirt was too tight and she was going to have so many new messages when she got back to her desk. “I get time to think.”

She flattened her hair behind her ears, watched Andy mirror the gesture. Hamid was whistling, so off-key it took Rae several bars to recognize
Dora Dora Dora the Explorer
. She had learnt it sitting on the floor with Jake glazed over in her arms. She wondered where Hamid had heard it.

Another car grated past, then stopped in front of them. The passenger door opened slightly. Hamid muttered, “Fire lane, people.”

It was Rae's car, or at least, her name was on the papers. She raised her index finger and didn't look at Hamid, then walked over, a little fast. She pulled the door wider and braced a hand on the roof. “What's wrong?”

She heard Andy whisper loudly, “Who's that?”

Theo squinted at Rae, or at the sun behind her. “Jake got strung by a bee.”

“A bee? But . . . the principal's got the kit, those Benadryl tabs? Isn't he at school? It's Tuesday.” She looked at her watch, which did not feature the date. “It's Tuesday.”

“I
know
it's Tuesday. Can you come?”

She turned. Andy was staring at her own pretty shoes, Hamid at a license plate that read COOLIO. Despite her high collar, the tight waist of her skirt, Rae felt naked.

“Hamid.”

He jolted like she'd woken him. “Uh. Huh?”

“I have to go. Can you – ”

“Go? Go where?”

Andy: “Is something wrong?”

Rae straightened away from the car. Theo was probably rolling his eyes at the sunvisor. She said, “Hamid, take Andy to the supply closet and get her some hanging folders, and then she can sort all Amelia's old image files. They're on my desk.”

“Amelia? She's on disability until October – ”

“She's not coming back, Hamid, face it. She is dying and Andy will have to finish her projects. You guys have a nice day. I'll see you tomorrow.”

She swung into the car and yanked the door shut.