Run Away Baby

“No, there’s no one here by that name. See? He’s so into you that he can’t even sort the mail right.”

“Oh stop.”

“Did he drink out of it already, or is it all fresh like he got it just for you?”

Abby looked at the paper cup and shrugged. “I think it’s fresh. Honestly, Sharlene. It means nothing. Right? He’s just a big flirt.”

“Well, you’ve got that part right. He and Danielle used to be fuckbuddies, back in the day.”

Everything inside Abby instantly turned to ice. She looked up quickly, trying to keep her composure. Was Sharlene messing with her? It certainly didn’t look like it.

“Danielle from here?” she asked. She tried to keep it as emotionless as she could, tried to turn her shock into something that could pass for mere surprise.

Sharlene’s eyes lit up when she saw she’d hit a nerve. She rarely shared this much with Abby, since she considered Abby to be connected to the top of the corporate ladder.

“Now, I don’t want to spread gossip…” Sharlene said.

“You can tell me, Sharlene. You can even have my latte,” Abby added, holding it out to her.

“You sure?”

“Sure I’m sure. In fact, I don’t want it. What if he poisoned it?”

Sharlene took a long, slow sip of the latte and then wrinkled her nose. “So this is a latte? Well la-tee-da. Tastes like dishwater to me. I thought it’d be sweet.”

“Enough about the latte. Tell me! Before Danielle gets back from lunch!”

“Well, if you’re sure you want to hear it.”

“Yes. I’m sure.”

“Okay. She and that mailman used to do the bangbang in the downstairs storage closet about four times a week.”

The bangbang. Abby cringed. “Does the bangbang mean sex?”

“Yeah.”

“Danielle and our mailman. Had sex. Are you kidding me?”

“I know, right? Danielle looks all proper and shit, but she’s a ho like all the rest of ‘em. This was a while before you were here. We used to lock up for lunch and be closed for an hour. One day Glenda who doesn’t work here anymore went down to get some paperclips right during the middle of the lunch hour. Danielle and the mailman were down there going at it.”

“The same mailman we have now?”

“Same guy.”

“For sure?”

“For sure! This was maybe two years ago. No, I take it back. It was more like a year and a half ago. Glenda backed right out of there like she wasn’t even there, and I don’t think they ever even knew she’d seen them. Well, the story got back to Niles Henry, he used to work in accounting with us, and he was a real perv. He started going down there and hiding behind the heating ducts to watch. There was some dark little corner where he could stuff his skinny self and beat his meat. Clark Lorbmeer found out about him watching, and Niles ended up quitting over it, it was that or get fired. Then Danielle started dating some college football player and she gave the mailman the ol’ heave ho.”

“So she broke it off? Not the other way around?”

“I think so.”

“Why didn’t one of the partners fire her?”

Sharlene took another sip of the latte. “I guess they’re happy with her. Aside from Clark Lorbmeer, maybe they never even knew it happened. He might have never said anything to the other two.”

“I doubt that,” said Abby.