An Ode To Brenda

Brenda from accounts was a class- A bitch. She stalked around the office, poking her over-sized, perfectly contoured nose into everybody's business, while claiming that she, and only she, was allowed to use the decaf setting on the Nespresso coffee machine.

She took great pleasure in pointing out ones flawed features, paying particular attention to our new sixteen-year-old intern Grace who had naively assumed that accounting was her dream job. Grace was slugging her way through puberty and had yet to learn the greatest mistake of all: picking a pimple only leads to scarring. And Brenda just loved to tell Grace how scarred her face was.

I worked on reception, and luckily had very little to do with Brenda unless she needed photocopying or an envelope. Occasionally she would come out the front and look out the window and provide her opinion on the people below. I can't say for sure who was listening, but I know it wasn't me.

One time Brenda was in the staff room with me. I had a cup of soup for lunch. It was a thick and creamy tomato, and I also brought a fresh ciabatta bread roll to go with it. Brenda told me she would rather die than be seen having soup for lunch because soup was for "poor people who didn't understand the health benefits of a salad and protein."

I am telling you this because Brenda ruined my life.

As the self-proclaimed goddess of the office, she floated around, gloating loudly about how the boss decided there was no one better than her to organise the end of the year staff Christmas function because of all her experience hosting glamorous parties for the elite of Rotorua. She thought she was so special because she had flown in a helicopter to Waiheke Island and had taken a winery tour for her fortieth birthday.

She hand-delivered everyone an invitation that had been designed by her new toy-boy. No one had met him, and we were all skeptical he existed. When she handed me mine, she forced her face into a smile and said "remember it's a plus one! We can't wait to see who you will bring!" She knew I'd just broken it off with my boyfriend because I had discovered he was having an affair with his Uber driver. I didn't respond to her.

On the night of the Christmas function, Brenda was at the door in a dress that showed way too much cleavage. It sparkled and it was red. She looked like she had rolled in a pile of glitter. I had chosen something far more modest and comfortable, and my mother assured me it hid all my problem areas. I approached Brenda and handed her my invitation. She looked at me, at least I think she did, she had so much black shadow around her eyes it was hard to tell. She said "Janelle, darrrrrrling. Where is your plus one?"

To which I replied, "I don't have one."

She shot me a look only the devil incarnate could muster and said, "You should have said. We could have saved money on the hors d'oeuvres."

To Brenda's credit, she did put on a free bar. I thought the hors d'oeuvres were a waste of money because there was no way a mini quiche was going to be enough to stop me, and everyone else, from getting drunk off the free wines.

I sat in the corner for a while and watched Brenda mingle with the staff. She laughed and threw her head back as though she was being possessed. Her fingers crept onto shoulders and walked their way around lower backs. It made me shudder.

Darryn, also from accounts, came over and offered me a glass of red. His wife had just left him. He said he didn't know why but we all knew she had a thing for the kid's soccer coach. We talked as best we could over the loud music. He confessed that he had let the sex go out of his marriage because all he really wanted to do was play golf and watch fishing shows. She'd been distant for a while, but he put it down to looking after the kids. They were showing a lot of potential in soccer.