Chapter 4 The New Guys

A mess.

Everything was a mess. She glanced across the bed at her nephew, sleeping like an Angel now. He was the devil, Siri thought.

He'd kept her up all night and he was not even teething! He was just being miserable. And now she had a mess to clean and an office to report to work to and she had two hours to get it right.

'What could go wrong again?''

Apparently, plenty more. She had to reach the office, with ten coffees and each of different flavors with bagels. In thirty minutes. She didn't have time to prep her clothes now!

"Mom," she ran out of her room to her parents' bedroom waking her sleeping father, with the sound of the door slamming again the wall. His eyes opened wide as he pointed to the bathroom.

"Mom!"

"Gosh, Siri! You're not a child anymore."

How she wished she was though. And she burst into tears.

Her mother slowed down the strokes of the toothbrush in her mouth and eyed her. She spits and rinsed.

"Let me guess. Up all night?"

"Ma, I have to go to work now and I hardly got any sleep."

Her mother proceeded to wash her face.

"Ma."

"Siri. I told you, you're spoiling him. He needs to develop a sense of himself. You can't keep picking him up."

"Ma. He cries and cries."

"Siri. Go get dressed."

"But he'll be alone. Come for him," she wailed.

"He's alone now isn't he?"

"Yea but-"

"But what? Go get dressed. I'll look after him from now."

She looked down at the tiled floor, rubbing her toes on it.

"I didn't organize my clothes."

"Of course, you didn't. Shoo away and I'll get it for you."

___

With thirty seconds to spare, she made it to the office in time.

"Hey, newbie. Conference room," the office clown called out to her.

"Me?"

"See anyone else?"

Clown my ass, he's irritating to me, she thought as she half ran in the direction of the room on the other side of the floor that was mainly used for meetings.

"Aye," he called out to her, "Elevator chic. This is a blue meeting? Didn't you get the memo?"

Her eyes bulged. Oh, it was a big meeting then. She was told that the office staff used the term 'code blue' to signify the importance of the meeting. A term she had found very useful in the last month. All you had to say was, 'code blue', and everyone moved with pace.

She raced back to the elevator thanking George first. So maybe, he wasn't that bad.

This was almost at the end of her first month and she felt like she was never going to get things right. Nate had her so stressed out, that she couldn't remember things clearly. She was just so worried about him. All the time!

She worried that he would miss his mother. She worried that he was missing his father when he cried. When he was watching around with a confused look on his sweet face, she worried that he was missing his parents' love. Of his parents singing lullabies to him. Of showering him with love and affection. Of all the kisses he probably missed. Their warmth. Their touch.

"Miss?"

Siri spun to her side and saw a familiar-looking, woman staring at her, oddly. Her hand was on her shoulder.

"Yes?"

"Are you okay?" her voice was full of concern.

"Me, yes. Why?"

She probably had spaced out, she figured as she saw she had placed each coffee on the table at the proper name tags, already.

The woman pointed to her face. Siri pulled her face back at the audacity of the woman. She pulled her hand back at Siri's reaction and dropped it by her side.

"Your face," she simply stated.

Siri raised an eyebrow.

"Uh. Tears?"

Her eyes widened and in embarrassment, she apologized as she wiped at her face with the back of her hand. Indeed, there were tears on her face. Siri wasn't even aware of them. How long was she even standing there? How long was the woman?

"Tears aren't something to be ashamed of or to apologize over," the soft words were almost a whisper. A paper towel was handed to her. Matting up her face she smiled at the woman and left quietly.

___

"Did you see the new guys?"

"Did you?"

"Gorg and gorg-ah?"

That was the conversation that seemed to be the hot topic of her lunch team.

The six of them seated by the large table, in the kitchen.

"I think one is Asian. Chinese. His eyes were slanted. So cute," one of the females said.

"This bitch, " George muttered, staring at his phone.

"Everyone is cute to you, what's new, Pen."

Siri's eyes widened at his comment. She thought he was on his phone reading a message.

"True. You, sleep with everyone," another female, Sandy piped in.

"I can't help it if they want me."

"Pen, no man will say no to an easy woman. Get over yourself."

Siri's eyes open wider.

"Let her try. He was watching me."

"You can have him. Did you see Jaws? Ugh. To die for. And those blue eyes?"

'Wow, so it's just like college here. Nothing has changed much since,' Siri thought.

"You women make it so easy for men sometimes," Michael, another, office hunk muttered.

"So do guys. You're easy," the red-haired woman, whose name she couldn't remember said.

"Me?" Michael covered his bowl with the cover, taking a sip of his soft drink.

"Do you know how many proposals I've had? Six. And that's not counting the guy I'm dating, and he is going to ask me soon."

She flipped her hair. "Now I gotta dump him. Kinda sad too. I really liked him."

"You're gorgeous. That's why," George stated, wiping his mouth.

To Siri, everyone sitting here was young and attractive looking.

"Everyone has their own taste. Look at Newbie here. Not much to look at today. But if she gets this sad look off her face, she's gorgeous. Her bone structure is perfect. And she doesn't need much make-up."

Siri stared at the redhead. Sure, she knew she was beautiful but hearing someone else describe her was startling. Another thing she noted was that she needed to check her hair and make-up.

"He told me he liked my perfume," Pen blurted out.

"Who did?" George asked.

"The Chinese-looking guy."

"Who cares? As long as you leave the blue-eyed one alone, Scissors," Sandy muttered.

"He's not Chinese," Jessica spoke for the first time. She was like Siri. She hardly part took in the office gossips.

"Then what?"

"I don't know. But I heard him tell the delivery guy that he doesn't speak Mandarin."

"Was the delivery guy Chinese?"

"No."

"So how-"

Siri let the conversation fade into the back of her mind as she got up and together with George and cleaned up their area and went back to work.

"So say Asian then." she heard Michael say.

She was looking forward to the weekend. Much rest and more time with Nathan. She even missed the little bugger while she worked.