Rod smirked, flattered but also deeply suspicious that the woman on the other end of the line was simply toying with him. He felt pulled in opposite directions. “Why do you think you’ve built such a good rapport with me compared to the rest of your department?”
Bailey was taken aback at the randomness of the question, “Well, Rod, you’re easy to talk to.”
“No, the real reason,” he sighed.
Bailey simply shook her head, several different thoughts entering and exiting her mind all at once. “I don’t know,” she finally said.
“You’re a sweet girl,” he said after a moment’s silence, “and if I was much younger, let’s say me in my highschool years (but we don’t even have to go that far too be honest) I would place you on such a high pedestal that not even God would be able to touch you.”
“But now?”
Rod suddenly felt weak at the knees, and said, sadly, casting his eyes down to the faux-marble tile beneath his bare feet, “Now I know the truth.”
“What truth?” asked Bailey, her expression serious, her eyes dull and grey.
Rod grunted as he forced his cracked lips apart and into a weak smile. He lifted his chin up to the ceiling and closed his eyes. The bathroom light flickered and buzzed like a swarm of wasps. “I got to get that fixed,” he said to himself quietly, elongating each word.
“Got to get what fixed? Rod? Rod?” Bailey pushed herself from her slouched position and shot forward, sitting straight as an arrow in her chair. She turned to Julia, her heart throbbing in her throat, and screamed internally. “Is this a code red?” she thought suddenly, “What would everyone say if they found out that I unintentionally caused one of the callers to -” she gulped. Her own knees buckled even though she was sitting stationary, and droplets of sweat emerged down her forehead. “Not this too,” she ruminated.
“Is everything alright?” said Julia, her eyes narrowly focused on the beads of sweat slowly dragging themselves down the young woman’s face, “You need a break?” The middle-aged brunette sipped from a brown paper cup, her white spidery fingers twitching ominously as she continued to stare at her young colleague.
“A break?” squealed Bailey with a forced smile. “I’ve just got in, haven’t I?”
“Suppose so, but you look like a sack of potatoes hit you right in the cheek tis so red.”
“What’s her deal?” thought Bailey with a grimace. She continued to flatten her skirt compulsively, before flicking her hair behind her shoulders and returning to her monitor. She pressed the earpiece against her ear, as though that would somehow cause Rod to speak, and waited for a moment, her heart pounding mercilessly. “I don’t know what to say. Why is he upset?”
“Hello, Rod, are you there?” she said.
“I’m here,” said Rod faintly. “I don’t know how long for.”
“What do you mean,” snapped Bailey, her chest rising and falling quickly now. “Come on, talk to me.”
“About what? Why don’t you just talk to your other friends. I bet you’ve got tons of guys wanting to speak to you.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” she said.
“What the hell are you wearing, anyway?” the young man inquired in a sudden delirious stupor as he licked his salty, bleeding lips. His breath was heavy.
“This isn’t -”
“Appropriate? No, what isn’t appropriate is you lying to me, Bailey,” he snapped.
The young woman’s hands instantly made a sign to the computer to activate its three-dimensional space, and the screen erupted horizontally towards the back wall. She methodically flicked through thousands of icons despite the barrage of abuse inflicted upon her by the deranged client, each rotating anticlockwise on an invisible dial.
“What have I lied about,” she stalled, scanning the rows of information on the system. Bailey knew by hand all the signs to watch out for in a caller who expressed suicidal inclination, but of course she wanted to make sure. The doubt was too overwhelming on this particular day. She performed a quick hand gesture, which immediately transferred herself to an unoccupied operator, and began to speak, her voice trembling with anxiety, “sorry about this, but I’ve got a guy on here experiencing a sudden personality shift; he’s never acted like this before...I don’t...I don’t know what to do.”
The woman on the other end laughed crookedly, “Ah, the golden girl’s cloak finally comes off.”
“Shut up Julia! This is serious,” snapped Bailey.
Julia cooed, and said, coyly, “And what do you expect me to do about?”
Bailey gritted her teeth. “I want you to help me,” she replied.
“The operator of the year asks me for help? Why, this is an honour!” she laughed spitefully, “oh, my day was going so poorly before you called. Now I am glad I handed that dude off to you.” She inspected her bright pink fingernails, peeling the crust from her cuticles, and continued with a laissez-fair air in the tone of her voice, “Imagine who’s next in line for a promotion once you get sacked for killing a caller.”
The young woman gasped, “I don’t want him to die! Please, I don’t know why you’ve had it out for me all these months but let’s put our differences aside for the sake of the caller.”
“Yes,” said Julia, throwing Bailey an icy glare, the deep indented lines underneath which sprawled like tiny snakes down half her face giving her a hideous look, “Yes, you were always the goody two shoes of the office with your ‘caller-centered’ approach to things,” as she said those words, ‘caller-centered’, she slowly made the quotes sign with both her hands. “The caller was disgustingly rude to you, and yet you still made every effort to be his friend.”
“We aren’t supposed to be friends with the callers; you know that, Julia,” hissed Bailey, clearly growing impatient with the older woman’s words. “Or are you trying to trap me?”
Julia smirked as she crossed her right leg over her left, once again feeling the cold clump of sweat trapped between her knee joints. She regretted choosing to wear her black cashmere pants to the office, especially considering she opted to wear a black blazer as well. What had compelled her to wear such things? Perhaps it was because she was in such a rush that morning, distracted by an argument that she had with her ex-husband about her son’s behaviour the evening before that she did not consider the fact that the temperature would be even higher in the company tower. “That brat,” she thought. “He may be twelve, but he needs to realise that a private school education, worth ten-thousand pounds a year, is more important than his childhood ‘friends’. He can get more, but a qualification from Baymorth? That’s worth way more than any friendship.”
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“To answer your question,” replied Bailey, “the caller’s a young man who’s just going through a lot; I’ve seen similar behaviour to this in my previous job as a social worker assistant...”
“And?” Julia said, the tone of her voice flat and disinterested.
Bailey hesitated, “But that was with young children; he’s an adult! It’s...he...he shouldn’t.”
“I don’t understand,” said Julia, who then scooted back in her chair and swung her legs up onto her desk with a loud sigh. “Let one of the others deal with it.”
“But they’re all busy! And besides, I don’t work like that.”
Julia rolled her eyes, and said, patronisingly, “Our job (if you can even call it a ‘job’) is to deescalate potential life-ending situations, easing the burden on the NHS. There’s already talks of siphoning off more services to the private sector. Once the immediate threat is extinguished, we show them the door.”
“You know that’s not what we really do,” Bailey said, crossing her arms. She looked off out the tiny window in the centre of the back wall, which was as black and as opaque as the wall.
The older woman cackled, “Oh, Bailey, you’re really making my day better with your words. When did you get so funny?”
The young woman sighed, and then a cloud passed over her brow, “Don’t you think what the company is doing is immoral?”
“Immoral? You have a lot of growing up to do, sweetie. The world runs on immorality disguised as morality.”
“That data we’re collecting...What is it being used for? Do you ever wonder that?”
“What I wonder,” Julia grew more impatient with each word, “is why you are insistent on actually developing relationships with these weirdos when you know you’re the reason our office hasn’t been rewarded in months! Before you came here, I was actually getting monetory bonuses. You know, I was going through hundreds of calls a day; the whole department was in fact. I could buy cashmere sweaters for my children.”
“Because all that data you stole was worth its weight in gold.”
“Stole? They volunteered it!” cursed Julia, throwing her hands in the air in frustration. “These damn weirdos keep calling every day bemoaning their problems like we’re the arbiters of salvation; like we’re in control and they’re not. They practically hand it to use on a silver platter, and as long as we follow the script they don’t call us back.” She chewed her lip in grief and swallowed mouthfuls of the hot and humid air of the fan-less office, her heart bellowing in her chest like a wounded tiger. “Is she guilt tripping me?” she thought, “What is she seeking by dragging all this up information? I am not a bad person, I’m just out to get a payday like anyone else would in my position. Oh...” A thought suddenly struck her mind like a lightning bolt, followed by a sinister smile curling on her lips. “Perhaps she could be the one...”
“There has to be a way to actually help people,” said Bailey, her eyes lowering to the floor.
“I’ve always wondered,” began Julia in an inquisitive tone, “why you’re the boss’ favourite and yet by all metrics the lowest performer.”
“Maybe, Julia, because I put people above statistics,” replied Bailey rebelliously.
“Everyone’s a number,” said Julia dispassionately, her face as still and hard as stone, “I see the good girl schtick has worn off.”
“There never was a schtick.”
“Whatever. Is the weirdo still on the line? Or have you killed him because you were too busy insulting your mentor?”
“You aren’t my mentor,” said Bailey, crossing her eyebrows, “just a bitter old woman.”
“You!” gasped Julia, swallowing her lips in anger. She clenched her fists and went to rise from her chair, and was halfway up, but that thought from earlier stopped her in her tracks. She grimaced and sat back down with a huff. “What’s wrong with you, Julia? Letting a stupid, little girl get the better of you? Especially letting the new girl (for she will always be the ‘new girl’ in my eyes) get you fired? No, despite the financial hit she’s caused us all in the office, everyone loves the brat. Anyone else who had a caller harassing the rest of the office for them would have easily gotten a disciplinary twice over, but she somehow gets away with it without anyone asking questions.” Julia glanced quickly at the door, the singular entrance and exit to the office, which was also matte black like the walls housing it, and grimaced. “Reporting her wouldn’t do much good; she’d just get a slap on the wrist – and that’s if they believe me!” Julia crossed her arms, her head tilted back, and her eyes closed in thought. “No, what I need is-”
“What if we used the data ourselves?” interrupted Bailey, her chair fully facing Julia’s direction.
Julia shot a glance at her and cringed at the young woman’s sudden and abrupt cheshire cat grin. What had happened to the sad girl from earlier who had skulked in with her head low, obviously trying to hide her shameful tears? Why was no one else noticing this? Instead, their own heads were stuffed between the hard plastic divider slabs of their cubicles like the drones that they were. “So, she did have the same idea as me, but what’s confusing is that it could not be for the same motivating drive as me,” she continued to wonder, “how could she use the callers’ data for her ‘noble’ purpose?”
Bailey let out a short burst of laughter, and said, her glossy eyes hanging on Julia’s with triumph, “You’re probably thinking about what purpose I would have with caller data.”
“Unless both your parents went bankrupt, I don’t see why you would bother. Its worthless to us people.”
Bailey frowned, and said, “Just because both my parents own their own businesses does not mean I can just sit back and do nothing. I’m no sponge.”
“Of course not. At your age though I was out working a real job that actually paid money.”
“And in your old age?” said Bailey, smirking.
“Hey! Watch your mouth little girl,” snapped Julia, pointing a finger at the young woman in warning. Her cheeks ballooned red as she wavered between wanting to storm out of the office and handing in her notice (over the telephone, of course) and waiting for her to explain why she is interested in the data in the first place. The latter won out of course, especially because she could not afford to lose her ‘job’: the government would immediately terminate her benefits, which meant Thomas would not be going to the boarding school that following September. And she needed that little brat out of the house. No, it was not because she did not love her son (because of course she did), it was because she knew how lonely Tommy was getting (she blamed herself for that) and how much he needed to get some friends who were from proper families.
“You asked Rod for some information earlier; what for?”
“I didn’t,” Julia lied, suddenly worried, and then added, hesitatingly, “how would you know anyway? The calls are supposed to be encrypted.”
“Who says I tapped into your line?”
“You...eavesdropped?” remarked Julia, clearly flabbergasted at the girl’s surprising slyness.
“I knew something was up when you were taking so long to transfer him to my line.”
“Yeah, but...How did you know I was talking to him? I didn’t mention his name until just right up before I transferred him.”
“Come on,” said Bailey, raising her eyebrow, “who’s naive now? I knew the moment I woke up this morning that I’ll be talking to this guy.”
“’This guy’,” commented Julia, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms, “the way your inflection just dropped right now gives me the impression that he’s not your favourite caller. This is a stark contrast from earlier when I heard you flirting with him.” She studied the young blonde, and wondered where all this frankness was coming from all of a sudden.
Bailey blushed and crossed her eyebrows, smiling widely, and said, her voice higher than before and her finger hanging in the air, “You can’t talk! I’ve heard you flirt before with callers!”
“You call that flirting?” suggested Julia with a smirk, raising her eyebrows in the process. She leant back in her chair and folded her arms behind her head, clasping her hands together. “It’s called making money, darling.”
“Still!”
Julia frowned, and added, in a monotone voice, “Oh, that’s right, relationships are more important than money. What I would give to be your age again, to do it all over again, I would make so much money it would be ridiculous. Oh, if one could go back in time and repeat life again...”
Bailey groaned, “It’s just all money with you, isn’t it. What about people? Do you not have any friendships that are worth more to you than money?” As soon as these words escaped her lips, she cringed internally at the events of the previous week. Had she really called in sick because of a break-up?
Julia looked at the young woman and said nothing, lost in a cloud of thoughts. She then, after a few moments, shook her head and turned away with red in her cheeks.
“Oh, damn, the system’s buzzing,” said Bailey, her eyes darting to the red flashing phone-shaped icon in the centre of her screen. “He doesn’t realise that he’s on mute. Got to go,” she sighed.
“Wait,” Julia said with an air of desperation, “why did you ask about the data?”
Bailey’s hand froze in mid-air, “You wouldn’t be interested anyway,” she replied, her attention now divided.
“Try me,” the older woman said.
“Have you ever heard of Macbeth?” Bailey said.