Confessions of a Call Center Gal: a novel (18 page)

Truong pulls a tiny face. “If you ever change your mind...”

“Truong! Quit harassing Mika!” I admonish and crack open a can of Ensure. I take a swig.
Mmmmmm
, not bad at all. Tastes like watered down chocolate shake.

Right then, Bob Seely plods into the cafeteria, bursting out of his black cotton T, which looks it was purchased at Baby Gap.

Truong smirks, “Simon Cowell wants his shirt back.”
 

“
Tsk-tsk
,” I tsk. “He thinks he’s all that and a bag of chips.”

“Bag of chips?” Truong snorts. “More like a sack of potatoes.”

I take two successive chugs of my Ensure. Honestly, I have no idea what Kars sees in that Potato Head.

Mika smiles at me with frank amusement. “Is that all you are having today?”

“What?” I jerk my head.

“
That
,” he says, pointing to my can of Ensure.

“Oh, this?” I raise my can. “Kars is on an all-liquid diet so I’m on the diet too to support her.”

Truong rolls his eyes. “Girl, if Kars jumps off a bridge, will you jump off too?”

“No,” I say defiantly. “But I’d be waiting at the bottom of the bridge to catch her. I’m just being a supportive friend.” I take another swig to prove my point. “Plus, it’s a good way for me to keep fit, lose some weight, detoxify my liver—”

Oopsie! My stomach makes a gurgling noise. And each time I think it will stop, it chugs and churns like a locomotive train.

Zoinks. It even makes a high pitched whistling sound.

Mika’s mouth twitches and Truong erupts with laughter.

“Screw it,” I snap and reach for one of Truong’s french fries.

Something is missing though. I fish out my bottle of powdered cinnamon and dust it all over the plate of fries.

I am gaga over cinnamon, and I
love
cinnamon rolls and Cinnabons, much to the detriment of my burgeoning waistline. And I sprinkle cinnamon on everything. It is truly my wonder spice and I never leave home without my faithful bottle.

Truong and Mika stare at me as if I were whacko.

“What?” I cry defensively. “It tastes better. Try one,” I offer.

Mika politely declines.

Truong grabs a cinnamon fry and sticks it in his mouth.

That’s one thing I love about Truong—he’ll try anything and is game for everything.

“So?” I look at Truong expectantly.

He twists his lips. “Tastes like a soggy churro stick.”
 

“Cinnamon has a ton of health benefits. It helps reduce inflammation, it lowers your cholesterol, it—”

Truong interjects, “Says who?”

I tilt my chin. “Says Suzanne Somers.”

Truong wags a french fry at me. “Hey, do you own a Suzanne Somers Thigh Master?”

“Yes,” I say indignantly, “as a matter of fact I do.”

“You do?” His mouth slackens.

I nod fiercely. Like every woman in the world, I strive for smaller thighs. “The Thigh Master is
the
best way to shape and firm your inner thighs with just a few squeezes a day,” I intone in my best infomercial voice.

Truong makes a cuckoo sign at me.

Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of Bob taking a seat next to Nina, or is it Mena? Anyway, she is that annoying bragasaurus who used to sit by me.

“So, they didn’t fire that bitch,” I say to no one in particular.

Truong instantly knows who I am referring to. “Nina? Nope, she’s a KGB agent now! A spy amongst us.”

Mika shoots me a quizzical look.

“She works in Quality Assurance,” I explain.

Hmm. Perhaps that’s why my last few monitors have been less than stellar. That KGB spy is probably monitoring my calls. We have never jelled, and we harbor a mutual dislike for each other, so maybe now it’s payback time. At my expense.

All of a sudden, I hear a shrill peal of laughter from the Bob-Nina table. Whirling around, I eye the pair with revulsion. Bob reaches across the table and fondles Nina’s blowfish lips; she reciprocates by suckling his sausage fingers.

Ugh! What the hell was that? Bob is a total man-whore. And Nina is a total she-slut.

Consumed with repugnance, I feel a surge of outrage on Kars’ behalf
and
on Bob’s wife behalf. That
three
timing bastard! For all I know, Bob probably has a harem of women stashed somewhere.

Truong, just as sickened by the sight of Bob and Nina, raises an eyebrow at me. A perfect arch. I raise mine right back.

Meanwhile, Mika is whopping down his cheeseburger, totally oblivious to this whole exchange.

It’s been three weeks since Karsynn’s jaw surgery, and
I marvel at her tenacity. Eating is still painfully
uncomfortable, yet she manages without complaining.

For breakfast today, Kars is having basil scrambled eggs.

We ditched the Ensure diet two weeks post-surgery.

Well…I ditched the diet much sooner, but Kars doesn’t need to know that.

“So,” I say cheerfully. “You’ll be back to work next week?”

“Uh-huh,” Karsynn confirms. “I’m just dying to get out of the house; I never thought I’d be excited about going back to the call center
purgatory
.”

Janis reaches over my shoulder and pours me a fresh cup of coffee. “I think it’s too soon. Her wires are out, but it’s still a bit hard for her to talk, especially for eight hours straight.”

“Mom,
please
. I’ll be fine,” Kars whines and promptly changes the subject. “So what’s new at work, Maddy?”

I sip my coffee. “Nothing much really. Truong is still obsessed with Mika; he flirts with him shamelessly. Oh yeah, and he calls him Mikquisha.”

Kars chuckles and bits of basil scrambled egg spray out of her mouth. “And what about you, Maddy? You still in
lurrrve
with
Mikquisha
?”

I toy with my coffee mug. “Even if I like him, I don’t think he likes me in
that
sorta way.”

“How do you know if you don’t ask him?” she implores.

“Ask him? No, I could never. Plus if he likes me, surely he would’ve made a move by now. But no. Nothing so far...”

“Hullo? It’s transparently obvious he’s into you. I’ve seen the two of you together; you’re both so sickeningly cute it makes me want to gag.”

I shoot her a ‘yeah right’ look.

Kars forks a mouthful of eggs. “Are you still tutoring him?”

“Uh-huh. Once a week, without fail. You know, I really don’t do much except edit his papers and suggest books for him to read. And there’s hardly anything for me to edit. All I do is tweak his punctuations. A semi colon here, a comma there. Seriously, I’m just dotting his I’s and crossing his T’s.”

Kars eyes me suspiciously. “Hmm. Then why are you still meeting up for tutoring sessions?”

“I’ve mentioned it a couple times.” I shrug nonchalantly. “But he insists he still needs my help.”

Kars waves her fork in the air. “See! That’s a good sign.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” I breathe out a weary sigh. “I just feel like that geeky girl in high school who he only sees as a tutor, not the cute cheerleader he takes to the prom.”

Kars rolls her eyes. “Stop it! You’re starting to sound like a Taylor Swift song.”

We exchange silly grins across the table, t
hen we burst out singing
You Belong to Me
, crooning the best parts. S
ometimes I think Kars and I are distant descendants of the African Zulu tribe. We randomly burst into song, and for some inexplicable reason, we make strange noises with our tongues, like
Ali Li Li Ayi Ayi Ayeee Ayee
e.
Just like the Shaka Zulu tribal women.

When we’re done singing, clapping and making tribal sounds, the entire kitchen table is covered with a smattering of basil scrambled eggs.

Janis tuts and wipes the surface with a rag, shooting Kars a parental look. “Honey, you don’t need to be singing in your condition.”

Kars brushes off her concerns with a wave of her hand. “So, Maddy, how’s Ingeborg?”

Gingerly, I pluck a sliver of basil out of my hair. “She’s doing good; she’s dating this guy on Pablo Escobar’s
team. Archibald. I think he must be ten times her age!”

She smirks. “With a name like Archibald, I’m not surprised. Is he at least cute?”

“He looks like Sean Connery, minus the teeth.”

“What?” she guffaws.

“I know. It’s weird. One minute I looked over at his cubicle, he had teeth and the next minute, they were sitting in a glass of water.”

Kars slurps her juice through a straw. “Hey, I’d date a James Bond with dentures.”

“Well, they’re an oddball couple, but they make a good match. After all, Ingeborg could be mistaken for a Bond girl.”

Kars bobs her head. “That she could.” After a pregnant pause, she asks, “Who is your favorite double O seven?”

“Pierce Brosnan,” I say without hesitation, “although I think Clive Owen would make the ultimate Bond. Maybe even Zachary Levi. What about you?”

“
Psssh!
Connery any day. And I’m
so
glad that you didn’t say Daniel Craig
.”

“Daniel Craig?” I echo. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Sean Connery—chest hair. Roger Moore—chest hair. Even your dashing Pierce Brosnan had chest hair. And then WHAMO! Daniel Craig—hairless! Not anywhere! He’s plucked, preened and waxed up like a baby seal.”

“Baby seals are cute,” I insist. “Now, would you rather go to bed with a woolly mammoth or a baby seal?”

“Woolly mammoth!” she woofs. “He’ll keep me warm at night; the slippery baby seal will just slide right off the bed. Plus, I like real men, and real men have hair on their bodies.”

I roll my eyes. “I know. You’ve said it many times before. You don’t like your men to look prettier than you.”

“Um-hmmmm, I don’t have a penchant for pre-teen girls.” She pauses for effect. “Like
you
.”

Instinctively, I kick her under the table. “Mika is
all
man
.”

“Mika may be, but not Zac Efron,” she smirks.

“Hey! Don’t you be talking smack about my Zac,” I cry in an injured voice. “I’ll take Zac over Sean Connery any day.”

Kars fervently shakes her head. “Not me. I’ll have to side with Ingeborg on this one and pick Connery.”

Burying my nose in my coffee mug, I speculate, “You may be right about Ingeborg. Maybe she really
is
trying to find a replacement for her daddy to fill this fatherless vacuum in her life. Only in her case, it’s granddaddy.”

“Better an old man’s darling than a young man’s slave.” Kars laughs. “Is he nice? Grandpa Connery?”

“Yeah, he seems like a really sweet guy. He dotes on Ingeborg and she appears genuinely happy. And…he’s not
married
,” I say for good measure.

An awkward pause follows.

I tentatively broach the subject, “So, are you still seeing Bob?”

Another pause ensues. I wait for Kars to fill the silence.

Eventually, she says with a pained expression, “I haven’t seen him since my surgery. And he hasn’t returned any of my calls.”

Janis, who was washing dishes at the sink, strides over and squeezes Karsynn’s shoulders. “You deserve better sweetheart.”

I nod, agreeing with Janis. “You do.”

I am compelled to rehash the Bob and Nina incident that I witnessed in the cafeteria the other day, but somehow, I can’t bring myself to. And I don’t think I need to. Kars looks suitably chastised and I have a feeling she already
knows
it’s over.

Twelve

T
o
day is Karsynn’s first day back at work since her surgery and there is a noticeable buzz about the floor as we breeze into the office. I make a beeline for Truong’s cubicle and tap my AP wire on the shoulder.

“Truong! What’s going on?”

He swivels around. “I’ve got ball breaking news! The shit hit the fan,” he cries, bubbling with excitement. Then he sees Kars, and his bubbles fizzle somewhat. He darts her a nervous glance and tones it down a notch. “Bob got fired...Nina too. I just saw security escort them out.”

“What happened?” demands Kars.

Truong dithers. “Um, are you sure you want to know?”

“Tell me!” she shrieks and I can hear the hysteria in her voice.

“It’s not so pretty,” he warns. After a sharp intake of breath, he spills the beans, “Bob and Nina were caught boinking in the parking garage. And security caught it all on tape.”

All the color drains from Karsynn’s face, and her expressions vacillate between shock and sorrow.