how to make a mixtape :: mgc (fin.)

8. coffee girls and wine

Four hours I've been here. Four tedious hours surrounded by objectifying, sex-craved twenty-year-old men clad in slim-fit suits and short cut hair. Not to forget I am one of the scarce girls in the whole damn building -- even more so the only girl wearing a skirt, which, I can clarify, was a terrible decision to make this morning.

Yes, I got the job working at the main office of TLC, or The Local Competitions, as I first came across it, but having to sit around all day and stare out the windows was not apart of the job application. I thought I was made for the job -- the employee must be female, and the uniform consisted of a blouse, skirt or trousers. I didn't even have to do anything, apart from scurry down three flights of stairs every hour and bring up coffee for all the actual employees. I don't have a certain place to sit, unless you count being told to 'stay on my desk' sternly by a Scottish-accented worker a certain place to sit. His name's Mr. MacTavish, and he lets me sit on the lip of his office desk while he types up any paper work. He stares at my legs a lot, and pushes back his brown hair. Everyone keeps coming into his cubicle a lot and whistles at me, then proceeds to make a mumbled joke and start chortling. I feel like an animal kept up for exhibition -- people talking about me, taking sly photos of me, people trying to get as close as possible without me slapping them straight across the face. Jesus Christ, the amount of hands I've had brushed 'accidentally' against my thigh today...

Mr. MacTavish let me use one of the small laptops he kept tucked in the cabinet just underneath his desk. I have to switch sitting positions a lot or I begin to cramp up, but I don't want to lean against the wall of the cubicle in front of us. Whoever works there might put there hand in the gap between the two walls and try and touch my behind. I shudder at the thought and push in my USB cable into the port.

"So, Mary -- may I call you Mary?" Mr. MacTavish doesn't break away his gaze from his laptop monitor.

I look up with narrowed eyebrows and wrinkle my nose. Mary? Is he trying to whitewash my name?

"No."

"Mari?"

"No."

"What do I call you?"

"Ms. Colorado. We're on professional terms."

"But you're only a little girl." This time, he looks up, his sturdy blue eyes resting heavily on mine. I don't dare to swallow. "I wouldn't think you want to be called 'Ms. Colorado'."

"Sir, we're both in a office and you are my colleague. What I want doesn't matter, we have to be on professional terms." I try and sculpt the words into the best western accent I can muster.

"But your first name is so lovely," he says, drawing circles on the desk. "Maricruz."

I don't respond, but drag a few more tracks into my mixtape folder.

"Say, Maricruz, what kind of books do you read?" He's stopped typing, now, and is watching me apprehensively.

"I don't know," I say quietly. The two men from the cubicle across us begin to regard our exchange curiously.

"You must know what kind of books you like." He laughs. "Unless you don't like books. What do you like, Maricruz?"

His coaxing tone draws knots in my stomach. Not the kind Michael does every now and then, or Ashton used to. Bad knots. Sickening knots.

"I like music." I purse my lips. "Rock music. And old movies."

"Do you like Audrey Hepburn?"

"Yes."