Marie: The power of connections. And inertia. What about you?
Shmac: Work’s interesting.
Marie: Good interesting?
Shmac: Politicky interesting. So, no.
Marie: I’m afraid to ask. How’s the rest?
Shmac: Weird.
Marie: Did your cat poop in your shoe again?
Shmac: No, but I did find a tomato in my boot the other day.
Marie: Send pics next time! What’s going on?
Shmac: Nothing, really.
Marie: Oh, come on!
Shmac: How do you even know something’s going on?
Marie: Your lack of exclamation points!
Shmac: !!!!!!!11!!1!!!!!
Marie: Shmac.
Shmac: FYI, I’m sighing deeply.
Marie: I bet. Tell me!
Shmac: It’s a girl.
Marie: Ooooh! Tell me EVERYTHING!!!!!!!11!!1!!!!!
Shmac: There isn’t much to tell.
Marie: Did you just meet her?
Shmac: No. She’s someone I’ve known for a long time, and now she’s back.
Shmac: And she is married.
Marie: To you?
Shmac: Depressingly, no.
Shmac: Sorry—we’re restructuring the lab. Gotta go before someone destroys a 5 mil piece of equipment. Talk later.
Marie: Sure, but I’ll want to know everything about your affair with a married woman
Shmac: I wish.
It’s nice to know that Shmac is always a click away, especially now that I’m flying into the Wardass’s frosty, unwelcoming lap.
I switch to my email app to check if Levi has finally answered the email I sent three days ago. It was just a couple of lines—Hey, long time no see, I look forward to working together again, would you like to meet to discuss BLINK this weekend?—but he must have been too busy to reply. Or too full of contempt. Or both.