The Spectator

Chapter 23: Cheese Metaphors Signal Trouble

     She held a funeral for her enthusiasm when she went to work the next day. She felt drained. What had been supposed to be her vacation had ended being a non-stop fucking adventure. She only spared Eddy and Adam a brief hello before sitting at her desk. She wasn't in the mood for banter. She wasn't in the mood to work either, but there wasn't really any choice in that.

     She started writing. She had a bunch of little blurbs for the app to churn out. Usually, this was stupidly easy for her. Not so today. She stared at the pile of shit she'd just typed and felt the urge to erase all of it. She decided against it. She could edit this until it was funny later. For now, she kept pushing forward. Dan was not going to be pleased with the quality of it, but at least she wouldn't be going to him empty handed.

     A few hours later, she sighed internally as the frown on Dan's face deepened with every new sentence he read.

     "El... what the fuck did you just hand me?" He looked at her incredulously. She'd never turned in anything this awful.

     "My best attempt. Do you have any suggestions?"

     Dan squinted at her. It looked like Ella-- or at least, a tired version of Ella-- but where was the sarcasm? Where was the wit? He might accept work like this from his entry level writers, but not from her.

     "This is your best attempt?" He scoffed. "We both know that's not true."

     He held the samples out to her.

     "...You don't have any edits?" She asked, eyes round with shock.

     "This is garbage. Do all of them over again," He turned to his computer, dismissing her.

     "Dan... please, at least give me some feedback," Ella's voice broke. Dan's eyes flew to her. Her eyes looked wet. The puffiness under her eyes was getting worse by the second.

     "Hey, what's going on?" He asked softly.

     "I-- I just couldn't do better today. I swear I tried, Dan, you know I don't make excuses but..." She trailed off, feeling so ashamed of herself. She tried to stop herself from crying, but, as usual, that only made it worse.

     "Okay... Is something going on outside of work?" He asked slowly. What could she tell him? Not about how she was having an anxiety attack every time she saw Nate out of the corner of her eye. Besides, distracting as he always was, he wasn't the one causing her writer's block.

     "My mom told me before I left yesterday..." She swallowed hard. "She thinks my dad has cancer."

     "What? El, I'm so sorry," Dan's eyes softened with sympathy. He felt like an absolute prick.

     "There's nothing to be sorry about... I just feel out of sorts. They have a doctor's appointment this week and then they can confirm what's going on with him but... Please. Just point me in the right direction with this shit," She gestured at the samples. "I'm begging you."

     Dan inhaled and took the papers up again. "Are you sure you don't want to go home or something?"

     "I can't just miss work-- I need to save vacation days in case... they need me at some point," She sniffed back more tears. Talking about this wasn't helping her keep her composure.

     "Okay, okay... Uh, let's start at the top of this pile of garbage, shall we?" Dan gave her a gentle smile. She managed to smile back and wiped at her eyes.

     "Yes, please."

     "Okay-- Well, get rid of this cheese metaphor for the love of god."