Office Christmas Party - Ch. 2 (Dec. 2024)

With three days to go until the party, Zach made sure he looked and felt good about himself. He upped his time at the gym and cut back on sugars (they tended to swell up his face). He was on the lookout during lunchtime for Jeanine again. He typically read during eating, whether it be manga or sci-fi/fantasy.

            His heart pounded when Jeanine walked by to get something from the vending machine. She was surprised to see him there and stopped to say, “Oh. Hello.”

            He looked up from reading The Heads of Cerberus. He said, “Hey.”

            “I never see anyone eat here.”

            “Yeah, dunno why. It’s a nice spot.”

            Jeanine went to the vending machine for a soda. Zach’s heart pounded even more. She wondered what her burps were like. She had her back to him so he took a good ten seconds to eat her up with his eyes – she wore an all-black pantsuit this time. Her fabulous ass cheeks were directly in his line of sight. But then – he realized that she could see him through the reflection of the vending machine! He turned away, unsure if she had realized he had been staring. Her eyes had been staring down at the machine getting her Coke, but he hoped she didn’t see him staring.

            He went rigid and went back to his book but couldn’t focus, already wondering if she would call HR on him for staring lewdly.

            After Jeanine grabbed her Coke, she walked past him but bent her head low to try to read the title of the book.

            “The Heads of Cerberus? Never heard of that one.”

            Zach laughed nervously. “It’s an obscure one. Not to sound pretentious or anything but…it’s like one of the first parallel world novels and it was written by this woman. So like. A woman technically started that trope. I just thought that was interesting and wanted to check it out.”

            She nodded approvingly. “Cool, cool.”

            God, I hope I didn’t sound like a total fucking dweeb.

            “Nobody really reads anymore,” she said, sipping her Coke, “so I’m glad someone does.”

            “What do you like to read?”

            “Romance,” Jeanine smiled. “Girl stuff, you know.”

            Zach’s heart pounded even faster. Shit. I should read some romance. Say something to impress her!

            But before he could think of something to say, her phone buzzed and interrupted her. She answered a phone call and hurried back to her office without saying anything further to him.

            He had a couple Jane Austen books in his library which he admittedly never touched. Bringing a romance book the next day would seem suspicious if she ran into him again during lunch. That would be extremely obvious that he was trying to impress her. So he decided to stick to the book he was reading the next day. But on the next day, he entered that atrium and was shaken by what he saw.

            Jeanine was sitting there eating her lunch. She scrolled through her phone aimlessly, then looked up and said nonchalantly, “Oh. Hello.”

            Zach gulped hard and went to the microwave to heat up his food, trying hard to act natural and not lose his cool. As he waited, Jeanine looked up at him and said, “I decided to take your advice and start eating here. It IS important to just take a break from work. Lunch used to be separate from work, you know? Back in the day, we used to have a cafeteria downstairs that served hot food. It was the only time people from different departments could mingle and talk. Now…everything’s a bit fractured.”

            “Why did they stop serving food downstairs?”

            Jeanine shrugged. “Too much money and effort. When PharmaCon bought us, we thought maybe they’d bring it back but nope.”

            Zach eyed her eating habits. For someone who was dressed so professional in tight pantsuits, she ate rather messily. She had gotten a burger from the local Mooyah with fries. She had talked with food in her mouth too, which threw him off. When some ketchup dribbled from her mouth, she immediately wiped it with a napkin and mumbled, “Sorry.”

            Zoning out to her as she returned to scrolling on her phone, he jumped when the microwave beeped. Jeanine snickered at him, but didn’t say anything.

            Zach typically subsisted on Lean Cuisine meals. This time he had heated up some frozen pad thai when he shopped at Whole Foods. That place was always mad expensive but from time to time he went there to get something different. She looked at his meal when he sat down and said, “Ooo. I didn’t know they made microwaveable pad thai.”

            “Yeah. Saw it and got excited.”

            He returned to reading his book. He had gotten a little used to Jeanine’s presence now. His nerves were becoming tamer but not quite 100% relaxed. He couldn’t exactly focus on the plot and kept having to reread the same sentence.

            Jeanine looked up from her phone. “I wish I had more time to read these days. Once you become a lead scientist and then a director – no time for any of that.”

            “Maybe you can read during these lunch breaks.”

            “It would take a long time to get through one book.”

            Zach shrugged. “Better than nothing.”

            Jeanine seemed to be open to the idea. Once again, her phone interrupted her. She muttered a curse and grabbed the rest of her food, sweeping it up in her arms, and hurried back to her office. Zach grimaced. He started to feel bummed out not just because they seldom had time together but because work truly did get in the way of her leisure time.

            On the day before the party, Jeanine wasn’t there. But she did stop by to get another Coke. Zach wondered if she exercised, because she clearly ate and drank a lot of junk. To his surprise, she sat down at the other end of the table just to drink the Coke. She looked and sounded exhausted, drinking the Coke as if she were taking a swig of beer.

            “God…clients sometimes, I swear.”

            Jeanine looked around as if to check if anyone was hearing them. She then leaned forward and whispered, “You won’t believe the meeting I had today. This report has been sitting on the backburner on their end for literal months. Now that it’s almost Christmas they suddenly woke up and are nagging us for it. My boss is hounding me but he doesn’t get that THEY were the ones who delayed everything. They never responded to our emails for two months. TWO months.”

            “Wow.”

            “Yeah.”

            “I know how that feels too.”

            Zach once and a while had to talk to the client via email, asking them for their thoughts on the reports before finalizing. He had been in situations too where the clients stopped responding for months at a time. Upper management kept pressuring his supervisors for answers. Upper management never fully understood anything going on in the lab or with clients. All they saw were numbers and how to bring them up. Zach never directly communicated with anyone in upper management, only his middle management bosses, but his bosses were frequently under the heel of upper management.

            Jeanine appeared more at ease now that she was able to bitch about work to another co-worker. Zach’s heart fluttered. Then it pounded when she held in a closed-mouth burp. It was a low rumble akin to a frog. She had put her hand to her lips and muttered a brief, “’Scuse me.”

            Zach’s body warmed up. He couldn’t wait for tomorrow.