Other than a few nods of acknowledgment that another body was a few feet away from them when I walked in the door, that was the extent of communication.
Hank picked me up every day and dropped me off at five. I hadn't seen Harold for days. He'd said I had to be here for an active month, but if this was what he considered active, I might as well be laid out in a coffin. There was nothing to do. People just strolled in to the office and strolled back out. I wasn't even sure what the purpose of this place was, exactly. No one seemed to do much of anything.
It wasn't even a good office. My newspaper was already second hand by time I got to it. I knew this for sure because Murphy's sweaty hands left smudges all over the words.
The catered lunch was stale and I caught Kitty, the cat lady, double dipping her celery in the ranch dressing. Not to mention when she brought her cats in they tried to use my leg as a scratching post.
I guess I couldn't blame them, I felt like a piece of furniture myself. I must have been putting out that vibe.
Luck was there the least, if you didn't count Fate. Most of the time, it looked like she'd been the one getting lucky, unless she meant for her hair to look like that and put on her shirts backwards as some sort of fashion statement.
As for me, it's amazing the damage boredom can do to a personality. There wasn't a person in the office I hadn't nit picked to death in my head. Even Bert, the leprechaun, who I'd never shared two words with; I'd daydream of calling in false four leaf clover reports just to see his green loving butt run out of the office in a tither.
No wonder this place was full of jerks. It should be a secret training ground for those inclined to go postal.
So, when I saw Harold step into the office that day, I was ready to tackle him to the ground harder than the biggest NFL linebacker just to get some answers. I chased him down as he walked into his office, giving him barely a foot of distance as we crossed the threshold. There was no way he was shutting his door and kicking me out.
“Harold, I'm cracking up over here. What exactly am I supposed to be doing? All this sitting around stuff better be counting towards the thirty days since I'm here every day, willing.”
“You're waiting.” He dropped his armful of papers onto his desk.
“For what?” I stood with my hands on my hips, blocking the door.
“You'll know when it's time.”
“What am I waiting for?”
“You'll see.”
“Can you tell me when this thing I'm waiting for might be coming?”
“I can't say. It's always different.”
No wonder the world was a mess. These people needed a course in being proactive.
Be nice, I kept telling myself. Catch more bees with honey, not vinegar. Honey, honey, honey. I just didn't know how much longer I could be full honey when I was choking on acid. I wasn't naturally a sugary sweet person to begin with.
“I've acquired an automobile for you and the necessary documents to drive it.” Harold reached into a drawer and handed me a Manila envelope. “The keys belong to the white Honda Civic sitting at the curb outside.”
I peaked out the long rectangular office window.
“That?” The thing had to have been fifteen years old. One of the doors was primer gray, in comparison to the scratched white exterior of the rest of it.
Someone had just handed me a car. I should've been happy. No one had ever given me a car, before. Even though I came from an upper middle class family, my parents always believed a car was something I should earn. I should be grateful. But gosh darn it, I did die to get this job. Wasn't that worth at least a used Cadillac, or at the very least something that looked like it was going to start on a regular basis?
I swallowed back the complaint and opened the envelope that contained the keys and documents. I had no idea where he'd gotten a photo of me for my fake license, but it didn't matter enough to bother asking.
The license read Carma Walters. It sounded like a fortuneteller at a carnival, but it was better than nothing. I took my envelope and headed out. At least I'd procured wheels. It meant another level of freedom as the next twenty days slugged by.
“Call me when it happens,” he said as I left.
“You got it. Whenever this mysterious thing that no one can explain to me happens, you'll be the first person I notify.”
The clock ticked five just as I made it back to my desk. I nodded politely at the people who didn't speak to me as I passed them on my way to the door.
***
I fell asleep around nine after a busy night of watching Battlestar Gallactica by myself and a pizza and cookie dough ice cream binge. I was already onto the third season. It's amazing how much TV you can watch when there is absolutely nothing else to do. I was tired of spending my nights alone waiting for something, that no one could explain, to come.
That something finally came at six in the morning. I woke up in a sweat, not knowing why, and then bam, a vision of a man making alterations to financial retirement accounts. Draining them completely. It didn't stop there, either. I saw him arguing with an older woman before killing her.
The same man entering a coffee bar. The clock struck twelve as he was ordering a drink. I knew that coffee bar.
And then it was gone. It had been like having a dream while I was wide awake. Was that what I'd been waiting for? A weird daydream certainly wasn't the earth-shattering event I'd expected it to be. And seriously, were the people in the office that communication impaired that they couldn’t say, hey, you're going to get a weird daydream?
I got up, made some coffee and called Harold, filling him on the latest development.
“Now you go there,” he said.
“And do what?”
“How should I know? You'll find out when it's time.”
Honey, honey, honey. I only had nineteen days left. Deep breaths and big beehives full of honey.
“Are you sure I'm going to find out?”
“I'll meet you at eleven. You did know the place, correct?”
“Yes.”
And then he hung up.
I drank another four cups of coffee while I waited to leave, just to make sure I didn't lack for energy.
I pulled up in front of the office at ten fifty-nine A.M., and Harold was already waiting, staring down at his watch.
“You're almost late.”
“Technically, Harold, I'm a minute early.”
“Which is almost late.”
The car door made a horrible sound as he got in. One might describe it as the automobile equivalent of a death rattle. I hoped the old Honda had a life expectancy of another eighteen days.
“What exactly was that I saw?” I asked as I pulled out of the lot with Harold in tow and horrible exploding sounds coming from the vicinity of the Honda's rear.
“We need to make a stop first and then you have to go the coffee bar you saw.”
I turned out onto the highway and just when I thought I'd have to pry the rest of the details from his bony pale hands, he started to talk.
“You are now essentially syncing into the universe. The person you saw is someone that has been escaping balance, probably for generations.”
“How can he have escaped for generations?”
“He was doing it in a past life.”
“These people get away with it for that long?”
“Yes. For whatever reasons, the universe hasn't settled his score and now you need to.”
“But how?”
He tapped the clock on the radio. “In about forty minutes and I don't know how. Only you and the universe know.”
“But that's a problem because I don't know. The universe hasn't bothered to tell me that.”
“You'll find out when you get there.”
After almost two weeks of no answers, watching TV in solitude while I knew my parents and Charlie mourned me, having to deal with bad attitudes, and that was only if I wasn't being completely ignored, my honey well had officially run dry. All I had to offer now was vinaigrette. Bon appetite.
“Harold, we're treading in dangerous waters. I've got no honey left.” I gripped the steering wheel, trying to hang on to the temper set off from too few explanations and far too many expectations.