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Career Killer

Dodi

I glance at the clock and wonder with a knot in my stomach how pickup went. I have five missed calls from the school.

“I’m trying to understand. What projects has Dolores been assigned to these past two years?” Cynthia asks Doug.

There’s another person present in addition to Cynthia, Marie, and Doug—a higher-up I’ve seen in the elevator. He watches me thoughtfully while Doug sweats and flails.

“Let’s ask Dolores,” the man suggests, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. I have no idea how to describe the “project” Jake showed Cynthia.

“No,” Cynthia says quickly and decisively. “This is a management issue. We have a team leader who doesn’t know what his star data analyst is doing.”

Star data analyst. She means me.

“Cynthia—” the higher-up starts to say.

She rounds on the man and presses her finger into her desktop. “ You hired me as a consultant. I suss out these toxic little workplace dynamics, straighten them out, and hand back a functioning workplace.”

The man raises his hands in a conciliatory gesture. Above his head, the minute hand on the clock crawls past the hour. I have to get home.

“We have an underutilized employee whose opportunities for advancement have been thwarted by a dysfunctional management dynamic,” Cynthia continues. Doug’s eyes bug as he stares at his shoes. “And furthermore—”

The second hand completes one more loop. I can’t take it. “It’s after five,” I say. “I have to go.”

“You need to get home to your daughter,” Cynthia guesses.

I freeze for a moment. I have no idea how Cynthia knows about Cat. “Yes.”

The man raises his eyebrows at me. “We’re almost done—”

“Go,” Cynthia says to me. “That’s another thing,” she says, rounding on him again. “The work culture for parents at this organization—”

I bolt from the room, feeling shaky and ill. In my office I pack my things into my bag. Laptop, keys, wallet…but no phone. I left it in Cynthia’s office.

I disabled the lock last night to let Cat watch cartoons. With a sinking heart, I picture Cynthia snooping through my emails, figuring out what I’ve been doing this whole time when Doug wasn’t keeping his “star data analyst” busy with actual work.

I bolt back to Cynthia’s office, but it’s empty now, and locked. I peer through the vertical window by the door and spot my phone on the chair. It’s a quarter past five already.

Back in the annex I fish two paper clips out of Jake’s desk. They’ve been partially unfolded and bandaged in tape to make them easier to grip. I’m sweaty when I get back to Cynthia’s office. I crunch the paper clips into the keyhole and—nothing happens.

I have no idea what I’m doing.

A janitor rounds the corner with a mop, and I stuff the paper clips into the waistband of my skirt. I busy myself plucking a tube of lipstick from my purse. He nears me, passes me—

“Um, excuse me,” I blurt out. He turns, and I smile. I scrunch my nose. It feels disgusting and strange, like wearing someone else’s underwear.

I tap the door and smile like I’m utterly charmed by my own idiocy. “I’m such an airhead. Locked out.” I scrunch my nose again. Too many scrunches?

He puffs up with gallantry, pulls a key ring from his pocket, and lets me in. By the time he’s turned the corner, he’s already forgotten our interaction, and I realize I’ve learned another trick from Jake.

The door swings open smoothly, silently, and I shut it behind me without turning the light on. It’s dim, but I can see enough to collect my phone.

I don’t leave right away, though. I examine her office. There’s the row of origami animals along the edge of her desk made from Post-it notes. Even in her spare time she’s a paper jockey. A tedious, box-checking administrator. She’s such a creep. This morning when I arrived she’d been waiting for me, sitting in my office, in my chair, casually folding one of my yellow Post-its into a crane. She’d already logged into my computer and looked through my drawers. She’s determined to get me fired.

I’ve taken a special interest in you, Dolores.

I debate going through her drawers, but this isn’t a reconnaissance mission. It’s a social visit. I can be a creep, too. I can sneak into her office, sit in her chair, and leave unsettling, indecipherable messages for her to find.

I’ve taken a special interest in you, Cynthia Cutts.

Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle.

She likes origami. I pluck a piece of scribbled-on paper from her desk and lay it out in front of me.

There’s only one pattern I know.

One fold, lengthwise, just to mark the midline for the corners that need to be folded in—twice, I remember. Fold along the midline again, and then fold, flip, and fold. I use the edge of my fingernail to make the creases sharp.

There was a trick to get thrust: I scrabble in her drawers until I find a paper clip. I slide it onto the nose, and it’s finished. Sharp, angular, glinting like a knife in the dim room.

I tuck the body of the paper airplane into a crevice of her keyboard and push the roll-away tray back under her desk. She’ll find it tomorrow morning: a humble offering to an esteemed colleague, and an invitation to play.