Louise and The Men of Transit

New Mandate

Jim wasn't here. Unusual. Louise sat motionless in her dusky corner, her eyes fixed on the grey door of the Customer Convenience Team Vision office. Her feet in their black walking shoes were tucked up onto the struts of her chair as the floor began to rumble, louder and louder, like invisible background noise. Louise had become inured to it. She almost didn't notice it. Her only thought: Marvyn had said to ask, and ask she would, she told herself. She'd hoped Andy would come into the office today. And he had. Her heart had skipped a beat when she'd opened the team door and seen him studiously bent over his desk to her left. She'd been opening her mouth when he'd abruptly stood up, his eyes frowning at the sheet of paper he'd lifted off the desk with his right hand. He'd walked around his desk, around her as she followed his egress with her eyes and open mouth, gripped the door's edge with his left hand, pulled the door wider, plucking the knob she was still holding on to out of her grasp. He'd strode out. She'd blinked after him, snapped her mouth shut, and slouched bewildered to her desk, dropping her purse unheedingly to the floor. Now what? Andy had left without a word to her, and Jim wasn't here yet. She'd looked at Harold, wondering if she should ask him, but his left cheek bulged with serious chewing of the sausage sandwich in his right hand, right elbow on his desk, eyes down on another magazine. He seemed to have a train-track supply of magazines, she thought.

Belatedly, she realized her purse was on the iffy carpet. She picked it up and plunked it in its drawer that still stood open from when she left Friday night. She angled herself sideways to see better into the trash can. Empty. Louise stared at it, trying to compute empty trash can with open drawer. She nodded to herself as the thought came: everyone at the TTC had their job to do. They didn't want to interfere with hers. There could be a reason she had left her drawer open; they couldn't know. Make a mental note, Louise. No, no. She'd better write that down. She dug into her left-hand pants pocket for her smartphone and quickly typed into it a reminder to herself to close all her drawers at end-of-office day. Louise contemplated her trash can again. Did she need to do anything with it or leave it? It had been emptied, she reminded herself. She glanced over at Harold's; it was in its usual overflow state. She felt blessed.

Louise resumed watching the door. Her laptop screen and standalone display blanked out together, their blackness revealing the dust bespeckling their surfaces.

The door flew open and banged on the wall as Jim marched in, his face a frowning cloud. In mere steps, he was at his desk. He grabbed his chair and yanked it away from his desk. He sat heavily in it, his rigid back to Louise. His elbow appeared out from his right side and jerked up and down. He twisted his neck. Louise knew that gesture. He was loosening his tie.

Louise squeezed between her chair and her desk, not daring to try and push her chair back over the duct tape on the carpet. He didn't like its noisy protest. Jim's computer whirred to life at its usual sloth pace. He began banging on his keyboard, trying to speed it up.

She heard her Father's voice in her head: you're capable.

She heard Marvyn's voice in her head: Ask!

Straightening her back, Louise loosened her shoulders, drew air deep into her lungs as she placed her right hand over her abdomen, feeling her diaphragm push it out. She exhaled soundlessly until her lungs were empty. She breathed in normally, dropped her hand, and moved her feet forward. She went up to Jim's side. He continued to hit the spacebar repeatedly in a futile effort to get the login screen to show the field where he could enter his password. Windows didn't care. It liked to do things at its own pace, as Louise knew.

Louise hesitated. She edged toward Andy's desk so that she was in Jim's right front peripheral vision. He continued to ignore her as he glowered at his computer's flat screen. The computer screeched.