[NOTE: This is part 1 of my top ten submission to the CBC Gem contest for their streaming platform. Hope you enjoy it!
DISCLAIMER: this story includes coarse language]
***
A clear blue sky and Lake Ontario views pour into the seventieth floor boardroom of this downtown Toronto skyscraper.
The building gently sways from the strength of the high elevation winds, a disturbing feature they didn't disclose in the interview process.
Nisha's black hair cascades down her back, it too gently swaying to the sickly beat of the structure, while her brown eyes fully zone out. She's fresh out of school and fully suited up like her fellow wrinkle-free colleagues (both in youthful skin and crisp clothing). The others listen intently as a high-powered woman executive drones on.
The executive pauses and claps once, snapping Nisha out of her trance. "And the rest is up to you!" she declares, her pearly white smile catching the afternoon light. The executive then glances at her watch and nods. "And I suppose that means you're dismissed."
Nisha follows the other lemmings out of the boardroom, turning the corner into a row of glass-walled cubicles devoid of personal effects. She settles at a desk across from Amy who's also just returned from the meeting. "It's weird that they treat us like we're students," Nisha says.
"I mean I don't know..." Amy muses, "it's kinda nice how they're so hands on with our development." Amy possesses a resting-joy-face that is frequently annoying to anyone with a pulse.
Janet rushes by and takes her spot behind Nisha. With Janet's Asian heritage and Nisha's Indian background, they combine to form the poster children of corporate diversity.
"It's still weird," Nisha says. "Like we're full on graduates and fully formed adults, but they treat us like these weird hybrid grown-up babies. It's like when toddlers are potty-trained but still end up wearing those Pull-Ups diaper thingys just in case."
"What? Diaper? Who?" The words fly out of Janet's mouth without any actual feeling; her body's at her desk, but her spirit is somewhere stuck inside the orifice of her cellphone.
"And that meeting about the sales system was bullshit," Nisha adds, establishing herself as the premature cynic.
Amy leans over, resting-joy-face in full—and suffocating—effect. "But if they track all our sales meetings, they'll be able to reward us when we hit our goals!"
Nisha rubs her temples to stop herself from throwing a heavy object at Amy's head. "But...in the time it takes to manually input those meetings...with multiple qualitative fields per meeting...YOU COULD BE OUT ON AN ACTUAL MEETING!"
A pair of heads from the next row look over in concern. Nisha waves them off with the fail-safe grin/shrug combo.
"Alright let's go change," Amy says, shifting gears as she pulls out a duffle bag from underneath her desk.
"Change?" Nisha says. She glances behind her and notices Janet holding a large tote.
"That's right," Amy confirms. "We can't go to the Thompson Rooftop dressed like this."
Janet nods in agreement and follows Amy down the aisle.
"Wait!" Nisha calls out after them. "Why didn't you guys tell me?"
But they're already out of sight.
***
In the cramped women's bathroom, Janet and Amy apply summertime makeup to complement their halter tops and skirts. Nisha stands between them in her full corporate suit, livid.
"Why the fuck would you not tell me?"
"Well we said Thompson Rooftop," Amy shittily explains.
"Where you need a connection to even get in," Janet adds.
"And where 'hot and exclusive' is the standard," Amy says.
"So obviously we have to fit the part," concludes Janet.
"Well I wouldn't say you gals look exclusive," muttered Nisha. "More like open for business across the board..."
Janet smiles but there's nothing friendly about it. "Nice suit; so when are you appearing in court to defend that dude who got a DUI?"
Nisha gives Janet a solid shove, nearly messing up her eyeliner in the process. "As a fellow Asian, you should've had my back with the fashion heads up."
Janet smirks at Nisha through the mirror. "Your family's from South Asia. That's a whole different Asia than China."
Nisha smirks back. "It's literally the same Asia."
"We should get going," Amy says, packing up her makeup bag in a hurry.
Nisha shakes her head. "Nah fuck that; I'm going home to change."
Amy shakes her head. "We have to get there before six, and if you don't arrive with us I can't get you in."
Nisha sighs and pulls off her blazer, hoping for a miracle. She attempts to smooth out her white blouse and frowns. "Too crisp." She unbuttons the bottom section of the shirt, and then ties together the flaps to turn it into a belly top. "Eh?" She turns to Janet. "Whatdaya think?"
Janet gives her a split second once over. "You look like you've been barfed up by an Ariana Grande video, if one of her songs was about a lawyer who specializes in DUIs."
Nisha hangs her head and unties the shirt flaps. "This better be fuckin' worth it."
***
It's swanky, it's sunny, it's packed.
The low thumping music and clinking glasses set the stage for an evening where eye-fucking will be the most ordered item on the menu.
Basic bitches hold court over the cozy couches, as the majority of others sip drinks and flirt shamelessly in clusters not too far from the view.
One of these clusters is formed by Janet, Amy, and a bundle of smarmy stockbroker dude bro types, shirt sleeves rolled up to reveal shiny watches from those brands that are hard to pronounce.
Janet grabs one of the dude bro's wrists. "Is that an Audemars Piguet?"
He grins broadly, showing off his Bugs Bunny veneers to the world. "I'm impressed that you spotted that." He jacks up the smarmy quotient with a simple raise of an eyebrow. "You must have excellent taste..."
Nisha watches from the outer edges of the circle, her face scrunched up in a way that would normally identify the presence of a fart. She gulps the rest of her cocktail and leaves the glass on the nearest table, oblivious to the basic bitches who sit around it.
She then takes the nearest cocktail napkin and reaches under her blazer to dab away her armpit sweat. In a few quick pats she is renewed. She tosses the napkin onto the very same table, and as she begins to shamelessly saunter away, Janet grabs her by the arm.
"Sooo?" She stares at Nisha expectantly, with Amy hovering behind her and looking equally enthused.
Nisha shrugs. "What?"
Janet points towards the bar. "Those guys! They went to get us more drinks and there's a third one you know; you should talk to him!"
"The third one of those dudes?" Nisha shakes around her suit jacket for some manual ventilation. "Yeah definitely no."
Amy steps forward. "Why not?"
Nisha gathers them by the shoulders like a wise old man who's about to drop some knowledge. "Those guys? They're the human iteration of the poop emoji."
Amy's resting-joy-face dissolves into the ether. "The what?"
"They're poop emojis!" She gestures to the bar. "All three of them! I mean yeah, can you slap a dazzling smile onto shit? Thus making it your neighbourhood friendly poop emoji? Sure. Is it still just actual shit? You bet your ass it is. And believe me, your ass would know."
Janet and Amy pull away from Nisha, both visibly disturbed and questioning this co-worker friendship.
"They're just not dateable material," Nisha adds. "You're both so much better."
Janet pushes her boobs together as the dude bros navigate through the crowd. "Who said anything about dating? Sometimes it's nice to just be on the receiving end of a 'pump 'n dump' sitch. A.k.a. feminism."
"Dude," Nisha clutches her throat like she's about to die from disgust. "'Pump 'n dump' is a breastfeeding term."
"How do you know so much about breastfeeding terms?" Amy asks in the loudest voice possible.
"Did someone say breastfeeding?" says one of the smarmy dude bros, as he saunters into the circle with a pair of fresh mojitos.
"Nicceee," the second dude bro says, passing out drinks as he nods in approval.
"What's nicceee about it?" Nisha says, happily accepting the drink despite her obvious disgust for the bro. "Is breast milk sexy?"
"I-I-I mean..." he stutters.
"Or are you into it from a purely nutritional standpoint?" she goes on. "Follow up question: are you potty trained?"
Janet not-so-subtly shoves Nisha aside, leaving the two girls enveloped in the dude-bro douchery. They don't seem to mind.
"Pfft, whatever." Nisha sips her fresh mojito and strolls away, staking out a corner spot to truly take in the view. The early evening sun makes Lake Ontario sparkle like a million billion diamonds. Before she can count them all, she inadvertently overhears a nearby conversation.
First guy: "That's not a real thing."
Second guy in an English accent: "It most certainly is; I saw it on Twitter and all the comments confirmed it was real!"
Nisha doesn't turn around but her interest is officially piqued.
First guy: "How could that even have happened? No; there's no way."
Second guy: "I wish I could find it but I don't even know what to Google to pull it up. Err...'video of guy who does back flip on moving car and then—'"
Nisha spins around. "Slips off the car but lands on one foot like a ballerina, and then one second later his knee pops out of the joint in a really gross way, and then he crumples to the ground but still asks his friend to post the video while the ambulance is en route." She takes a long breath. "Yep, It definitely happened."
Once her marathon description is over, she realizes she's staring at a dumbstruck guy who is anything but a dude bro. His dark curly hair flops to one side, framing blue eyes and the kind of deep dimples you can actually see without the presence of a smile. He and his friends are lounging on the couches but they definitely aren't dressed for the scene; ripped jeans, faded band T-shirts and a side of flannel.
"Thank you," the dumbstruck guy finally says. "That's precisely the clip I was referring to."
"Okay but that's a paragraph-long Google search," his skeptical friend points out.
Nisha sighs at their basic ways. "The name of the video is 'Car Flip Fail Broken Knee.'"
The Englishman's face lights up and his dimples deepen. "That's the one!" He tosses his phone to his friend and seems extremely smug, until he notices Nisha appearing even smugger. "Truly thank you for that; you saved me."
She nods. "It's my life's mission to bring exposure to onscreen knee injuries."
He laughs and extends his hand. "I'm Charlie by the way."
She shakes his hand. "Nisha."
His friends are deeply enthralled with the video, giving Charlie an opening to extend the conversation. "Are you here with some friends?"
She gestures ahead. "Work friends."
He looks over at them, and then looks back, studying her full suited attire. "Are you...their boss? Human Resources?"
She glares and then remembers she's glaring at a stranger. "After-work clothing miscommunication."
He smiles. "I see; so you're not as stuffy as you look then."
Nisha is mildly annoyed, but it's a different sort of annoyance than the dude bro breast milk situation. "Would a stuffy person have seen that video seventy-eight times?"
He grins. "You nearly eclipsed my eighty-seven viewings."
"Eighty seven?" She scrunches her nose. "That's excessive; you have issues."
"Must be why they're kicking me out of the country tomorrow!"
Confusing as it is, she's weirdly alarmed by the news. Will dimple boy be gone as quickly as he appeared?