Familiar - Part III

Short story fiction

This is part three. If you have not yet read parts one and two, please start here: Familiar - Part I

Part III

Dani looked down at her left hand as soon as her eyes opened. Her fist was trying to clench with sleepy muscles, but there was nothing in her palm. The card Wolf had slipped into it had vanished along with the house and her dream. Dani chuckled at herself, “Dumb,” and rolled onto her side.

She could still feel the old house and the joy of being there with Wolf. She stared at the familiar wall of her apartment bedroom and longed for the sunroom and the wooden, vaulted ceilings. She closed her eyes and tried to sink back into the dream, then pushed it away and threw off the covers, forcing herself into the dark morning. She picked up her phone, turned off the alarm that would sound in six minutes, and saw a text.

What are you doing?

It was from Jason, at 11:15 PM the night before. What she had been doing was sleeping because it was a Monday and they had work the next day. Dani wondered what he had been doing to text her so late. Had he been drinking? Should she respond? She stared at the message for a long time before setting the phone face down on her nightstand. I should ignore this, she thought. She picked the phone back up and started to text, What were you doing at 11, but deleted it and set the phone back down, resolutely, then walked to the bathroom to take a shower.

She considered the text as she stood beneath the warm spray of water, wondering where he had been and why he had texted. Was he just checking to see if she was awake so he could ask her something work-related? Unlikely. They didn’t text much outside of work, and never late at night. Dani knew he had been thinking of her, and that knowledge triggered a dopamine drip in her brain that spread through her body.

Of course, there was no reason to care. Nothing could come of it. But Dani figured it was OK if it made her feel good. She turned on her Bluetooth speaker on her dresser, queued up “Fire Woman” by The Cult, and waited for the iconic intro before strutting into her closet, wrapped in a towel. When the guitar riff kicked in, she moved to the left rack and began dragging hangers to the right in quick succession, the metal clacking in rhythm. She turned, caught her reflection in the floor-length mirror to her right, grinned, and lip-synced into her fist, hips rolling, shoulders loose, playing it up for herself. She pulled her best rock face and raised her left hand in the air as she mouthed, “Smoke she is a-risin’!” By the end of the first verse, she was half laughing, still moving with the song as she scanned for something to wear. She pulled out a pair of navy slacks that hugged in the right places, a ruched, pink tank that showed just the faintest hint of cleavage, and a cropped plaid blazer.

“This will do,” she told her reflection, approvingly, turning to check all angles.

Most days, Dani didn’t bother with makeup, but that morning she applied a little blush and mascara. She left her hair down instead of twisting it into her usual bun. Someone she had dated the previous year told her she looked sexier with her hair down. Dani wasn’t sure it was true, but given that it was the only male opinion she had on the matter, she decided to lean into it for one day, or for as long as she could stand it.

The first person to notice Dani’s extra effort upon arriving at the office was Ross.

“You look nice,” he said, grinning as his eyes ogled her. Ross was in his sixties, slight for a man, arrogant, and tended to stand too close and touch Dani. Usually just her arm, but once he had placed his hand on the small of her back while asking her to help him with the plans plotter. She had arched like a toddler trying to escape its mother’s arms and almost ran out of the room.

“Thanks,” Dani replied flatly.

“That color is so… inviting.” His eyes stared shamelessly at her tits.

“It is definitely not an invitation.” Dani sidestepped Ross and walked toward her office at the end of the hallway, muttering, “Ew.”

Each office space had three walls, with the open sides facing the center of the larger room they inhabited. She had been in this area since joining Hydra Mechanical three years earlier, with her desk and office directly opposite Jason’s. It was convenient for sharing eye rolls and other reactions to the conversations that popped up around them. She felt a pang of impending loss as she thought about her upcoming move to another department. It was only across the hall, but you couldn’t make eye contact with someone from a different room. They had a thing, and relocating her desk was going to take away from it.

Jason was always at work early to beat the traffic. Dani set her bag on her desk and looked at him. He was staring at his monitors, scrolling with his mouse. She knew he was reading sports news, as he did every morning while he drank his coffee.

“So,” she began, teasing, as she walked over to his desk and leaned against the partition, “What were you doing last night?”

Jason looked up from his screens, leaned back in his chair, breathing in deep with a grin and sighing, “I took a customer out for beers.”

“You texted me after eleven.”

“I was feeling friendly.” Jason laughed, goofily. Dani laughed too.

“Well, you should be careful with that.”

“With what?” Jason seemed to dare her with his eyes, which she caught taking in her form in tiny increments as he tried to hold her gaze. This was what she had wanted when she dressed this morning, but now she felt exposed. She reasoned that he could not possibly know she had dressed to feel sexy, with her hair down and mascara on her lashes. That she had hoped he would think she looked sexy, too, while she did that stupid dance in her closet. Seeing Jason’s desire for her in real time was more than she had been prepared for. The fact that Ross had reacted, too, made her feel ashamed, even though she was dressed quite conservatively. She tried to quiet the alarm going off inside her body.

“Being too friendly.” She answered as lightheartedly as she could, “It can get you into trouble.” Dani walked back to her own desk and sat down behind her screens. She tried to start a to-do list for the day, but her head couldn’t manage it. She had just the slightest tremor in her hands, her chest rising and falling just a little too quickly as she scrolled through nothing on her screen.

“It’s probably a good thing you didn’t respond,” Jason said from behind his monitors. Dani’s heart pumped faster.

“Well, I was in a dead sleep, so…”

“We were in your part of town.” Jason had walked over to her desk.

“Where did you go?” She looked up at him.

“Molly’s.” The bar was .08 miles from Dani’s apartment gate. Jason knew generally where Dani lived but not precisely.

“That’s close,” Dani agreed.

“The guys from Parker took off, and I thought you might still be up.” Jason let the statement hang in the air, and Dani wondered if he would have invited her to join him or asked how to get to her apartment had she responded to his text.

“I didn’t realize how late it was,” Jason added, “Sorry if I woke you.”

“You didn’t.”

“Good,” Jason sipped his coffee, “When are you moving to special projects?”

“Not for about a month,” Dani was grateful for the diversion. “Todd is going to be tied up with strategic planning for the next few weeks, and asked if we could wait until that is behind them. I need to get the projects I have here ready to hand off, anyway.”

“Good,” Jason said again, “We’ll have to plan a send-off for you.”

“I’m moving literally fifty feet away from here.”

“Yeah, but you won’t be part of the team anymore, which sucks, by the way.”

Dani’s heart warmed at this.

“I’ll miss you, too,” Dani said, pretending to be exasperated, and Jason’s phone started to ring.

“Your hair looks nice like that.” He said as he walked back to his office.

***

At eleven o’clock, Jason stood up and said, “Jalisco’s?” to Dani.

“Perfect.” Dani stood up and grabbed her bag. “I’ll drive.”

After ordering, they sat across from each other, and Dani told Jason about her encounter with Ross that morning. Jason laughed.

“It’s not funny.” Dani widened her eyes and leaned forward for emphasis, “He is such a creep!”

“That’s why it’s funny,” Jason retorted, then added, “And, because you could kick his ass if you needed to.”

Dani chuckled at the thought of this and agreed.

“But, you shouldn’t have to put up with it.” Jason continued, “Have you thought about going to Susan?” Susan was their HR manager.

Dani cocked her head at him, “Really?” Dani knew full well that going to HR with her complaints about Ross’s behavior would go nowhere and would leave her labeled as a bitch and a narc. She knew this because a woman who had worked at Hydra before went to HR with a similar complaint about another male employee. The woman stopped being invited to events, and Dani heard the way the men spoke about her. She wasn’t “hot enough to be sexually harassed” or “she wished someone would.” They quieted when Dani was around, but they still said it. The man faced no disciplinary action that Dani knew of, and the woman was never promoted.

“I know,” Jason grimaced, “I’m sorry. It’s good that you push back and call him out on it, though.”

“I learned my lesson,” Dani responded, reaching for her water glass. Two years after she started working there, yet another male employee began making comments about her body. If he said she looked “fine” or “hot,” she would say thanks. When he told her her ass looked good, she would just laugh it off, even though it was clearly over the line. It became a regular thing, and it made her uncomfortable, but she kept the peace. A year later, he came up behind her in the warehouse while she was alone, looking for a delivery. He wrapped his arms around her waist and put his tongue in her ear. She spun out of his embrace and slapped him. Hard. “Don’t you ever fucking touch me again!” she shouted, spit flying from her lips.

She had spent that night fretting about going to HR and had decided she would, but he quit the next day. She was relieved but still fuming, bothered that he might do the same to someone else. She made a conscious effort to stop letting men get away with speaking to her inappropriately. She would call it out and let them know she did not appreciate it. Of course, it had not really stopped Ross. Dani considered this as her plate was set in front of her, feeling the discomfort of it. The frustration of powerlessness.

“Anyway, you’re right.” She continued, “I could kick his ass.”

“That’s my girl.” Jason smiled, and Dani flushed with pleasure, despite herself.

After lunch, Dani stole a few extra minutes to catch up on photos from NASA’s Space Image of the Day, one of her favorite things online. She marveled at the image of the Messier 95 galaxy captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. Messier than what? Photos of the SpaceX rocket landing back on Earth and the return of a Russian craft after spending 197 days in space. Dani wondered at the bravery of the people who volunteered to be propelled out of the atmosphere by tremendous explosions. She thought of her job compared to those who made the calculations for these launches, carrying the burden of life within them. As difficult as her job could be, there was no comparison. I deal in grilles, toilets, and sexual harassment, she mused to herself, then clicked the window closed and drafted a text.

Molly’s after work?