The dim day light light, filtering through the grey Irish sky, was stopped, in front of the ceiling high glass windows surrounding the canteen, by powerful LEDs. Despite the massive windows, the lights seemed to always be on in the large space filled with round, big tables that sat at least six people each.
Everything was oversized in the Great Corporation building. Sometimes, depending on her mood, Amanda thought it resembled an old-time factory with big industrial looking open spaces, or at other times, that it looked like a new age cathedral with echoes reverberating on the glass walls.
Today though, although the setting was the same as always, ripples were coming and going through the sea of people scattered all over the place.
Something was going on. Amanda could feel it in her core. The furtive looks, the whispered words, her colleagues’ cloudy faces.
It was in moments like these that she wished she was better connected socially. She sat in the queue for lunch, and, when she saw two girls from a different team talking, she pulled in as close as socially acceptable to eavesdrop on the conversation.
She could only hear fragments.
‘… to be arrested … yes …’
‘ … no! Who would believe it!? … ‘
‘… Sylvia from Compositions?…’
This is where Amanda’s brain froze.
Sylvia was one of the few people she got along with. They even went out a few times for coffee.
It could not be. A mistake for sure. Sylvia would have told her. Or would her?
Carrying a sparsely filled tray Amanda went to sit at an empty table. Soon other people sat down and she felt nice not eating all by herself at the huge table.
There was very little conversation, most people preferred their phones or even a laptop placed in front of their plate. That might be why the tables are so big, Amanda was thinking while chewing meticulously on her rice, as instructed by the dietitian.
It seems eating too fast was one of the reasons why she was overweight. She had watched videos of people taking tiny amounts of food in their forks and then chewing for what seemed an eternity. Sure, I can do that, she had told the nutritionist over Zoom.
Only, now, not even a week later, all she wanted to do was to shove all the rice in her mouth as quickly as possible, so she can have a doughnut afterwards.
Doughnuts were off limits!
So she stuck at chewing the rice and working hard to prolong the feeding window.
Amanda almost chocked when she was ambushed by Jilly, one of hers and Sylvia’s friends. Happily she had such a small amount of food in her mouth that she just spit it out.
‘What …?’
‘Come with me! I need to talk to you! I got fired!’
Jilly’s eyes were watery and Amanda could see she could barely contain herself.
She got up, took her tray to the tray rack, emptied her remaining rice and then followed Jilly. Seeing the urgency of the situation one would think that Amanda would have just abandoned her tray and left, but no, that was not a possibility.
If anyone at the table would have seen that, they would have taken it upon themselves to take the tray in a very demonstrative manner and then to make sure that as many people as possible know that ‘that girl with the purple sweater, yeah the … well defined one … did not take the tray to the rack and in her egotistical manner did not think at the poor cleaning people having to clean after her.
’
Amanda knew all too well the power of being made an example of, so avoiding it was a big part of her life.
They, Jilly and Amanda, found a quiet spot in the huge open space, hidden away from view.
‘Tell me what happened! What do you mean fired?!’, Amanda was shocked as only the people living in blissful ignorance can be.
Before Jilly opened her mouth to speak, Jeff popped his head around the corner.
‘May I?’
Jilly reached out her hand searching for his and started sobbing even more.
Seeing their hands clutched together Amanda understood that they were an item. Another thing she did not know! And she liked Jeff so! She thought he was so handsome and smart, she had allowed herself even to fantasize that he would invite her out for coffee sometime.
But no, they were together, her heart sunk. This shows how much she knew! Nothing! This day was quickly becoming a very difficult day.
Jilly recovered her voice.
‘They fired me because I had known Sylvia’s plan. But I thought it was a joke, something she said because she was upset! I never really imagined that she would do it. Like, this is such a nightmare! They say that because I knew and I did not tell anyone I put the company in danger and so I am fired. I need to find a lawyer, a solicitor or someone to help…’
Jilly dropped her head in her hands and started crying again.
Amanda felt bad for her. Imagine getting fired! The end of the world! But she did not know what happened and that gap in her mind made it difficult to focus on anything else.
‘Yes, but what happened? What did Sylvia do?’
Jilly looked up shocked her tears abruptly stopped.
‘You don’t know? Everybody knows!’
‘I don’t … I am sorry …’, Amanda’s ignorance felt painful.
‘It is the craziest thing you can ever imagine. From one year ago, maybe even more. So, Sylvia had an affair with Mr. Greystones, the director from audit. You remember him, the guy with curly hair and the yellow vintage car.’
‘Oh … yes … that guy? But he was so old!’
‘Yeah, I don’t know, so him and Sylvia snuck together a few times and then he dumped her. Like in the most callous way, and she was devastated. He had no care in the world, that is what she told me, and she hated him for that.’
Jilly took a pause to blow her nose.
‘Anyway, one night when Sylvia got really drunk she came up with this crazy plan to make him pay and suffer. It was just so ridiculous that I did not even for a second think she meant it.’
‘This was more than a year ago and now I find out that she did actually go through with it and she told them all about it now when they arrested her …’
‘Arrested her?!’, Amanda felt like an asthma attack was coming although she was not an asthmatic.
‘Yeah, and when she was telling the story she said what she was doing when she got the idea and whom she was with … me …’, here a sudden wave of tears prevented Jilly from going forward.
‘But what did she do?’, Amanda was starting to feel like this was a dream and all these were just figments of her imagination, soon she will wake up and go to work and everything will be as always, barely moving in the gelatinous daily routine.
‘The stupidest thing! She went to his son’s school, pretended to be his PA and took the boy out. She took him to an amusement park, all the while calling his parents and telling them that she kidnapped their son and to give ransom money. Of course, she disguised her voice so they had no idea who she was. She did not hurt the boy, they had a wonderful time in the park. The child being sure the woman he was with was sent by his father. The parents though, were out of their minds. Sylvia called them a few more times to make sure they are in as much pain as possible. She dropped a few hints about the parents not being worthy of having a child and so on. Late in the evening she dropped the boy close to the house and left. And that was that. More than a year ago.’
Amanda’s eyes were wide open making her look like a crazy person.
‘It seems the boy was fine, he told the parents what happened, and they were relieved but during the madness of those hours some heated exchanges had taken place between them and it seems the guy admitted to being unfaithful, more than once with more than one person. The child did not know to say anything about the woman that took him to the park no matter how many gentle probing questions the parents asked. They got a divorce, he started failing at work and was asked to leave, so yeah, total mess.’
‘You know what Sylvia never told me she did go through with it. She almost got away with it and was gloating in the satisfaction of Mr. Greystones suffering, when Karma hit, the b***ch! The little boy recognized her in town and pointed her to his father. As he had nothing more to lose he went to the police and told them the entire story. So now they arrested her … cause even if the child was okay she still had abducted him …’
Amanda was flabbergasted. Sometimes the world is indeed just too much!
A powerful ring tone was heard and all the employees were called into the great town hall space.
In under five minutes the space was filled with employees spilling like rivers from all corners of the canteen. Although they were all chatting feverishly a sense of general order imbued the atmosphere.
Soon a small group of people came and climbed the low height podium. A camera from somewhere up high was projecting their enlarged image on a screen behind them.
An ageless woman in high heels stepped forward and the room went dead silent.
She had a paper in her hand but she looked straight at the crowd when she started talking.
‘Thank you all for joining us on such short notice! I wanted to provide clarity on the situation I am sure you are aware of!’
Her voice was crisp and the words perfectly rounded.
‘One of our employees has engaged in delinquent activities and has been placed under arrest by the Gardai earlier today. You will see more for sure in the news. Please make sure to follow our internal guidelines when commenting the incident and please direct all press queries to our press office. If anyone is affected by the situation please make sure to reach out to the in house counseling team. Thank you all so much for your support!’
And that was it, with a click-clack of heels she was off and disappeared behind a fake wall.
Jilly and Jeff melted in the great big sea of people and Amanda was left wondering of what was the lesson in all that.
Then her eyes slid past the canteen display window and her mind went blank.
‘Jelly doughnut!’
This is the story I was talking about in my 'Dreaming up Stories' post.