The Cubicle Next Door (40 page)

She nodded.

“Well, thanks for nothing.” I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

“What did you think of those cookies?”

“They were good.”

“Can you guess the secret ingredient?”

Joe was pleasant the next week. Not distant. But very polite.

And I didn’t like it.

I wanted the irreverent, impolite Joe back. The one who didn’t give a rip what I thought about anything and always dragged me along on his misadventures.

And to lunch.

I was tired of eating dried up old chicken breasts. And carrots. And hummus. Hummus was for camels. That’s what I’d decided.

I wanted poker night back.

Let’s be honest. I wanted Joe.
Really
wanted him. Thankfully, my imagination could lead me no further down that merry lane.

But he was a perfect gentleman. As far as he knew, I’d blown him off. Twice.

I couldn’t really count on him coming around again. I wouldn’t if I were him.

What I needed was a way to commit myself to admitting my feelings without being able to back out. Because when it came right down to it, I was a big weenie.

I’d never asked God for anything before. Never figured I had the right to. There were so many people who had so much less than I did. But at that moment I couldn’t keep myself from thinking the words,
God help me. Please!

And he did.

I may have been a big weenie, but I was also a geek.

A geek who could do anything with computers.

And as I thought about it, I began to see a way.

THE CUBICLE NEXT DOOR BLOG

This gig is over

Okay, I can’t stand it anymore. Here’s the deal. John Smith reads this blog every single day. And he talks to me about it all the time. I’ve almost told him who I am twice.

I appreciate everyone’s comments. (Most everyone’s comments.) I appreciate the interest and the support. But I never did this for publicity. And I never wanted to be anyone’s cyber-sweetheart. So here’s what I’m going to do. On June 8 at noon, mountain time, I’m going to post my name in the comments section of this entry. If you want to guess who I am, be my guest. Just post it as a comment. If you’re right, you win…a kiss.

But I can pretty much guarantee I’m not who you think I am.

Posted on June 04 in
The Cubicle Next Door | Permalink

Comments

Please, please, please tell me you’re Amy Wilson.

Posted by:
wurkerB | June 04 at 09:50 PM

Don’t be Amy Wilson. Be Maria Lopez.

Posted by:
onlyagofer | June 04 at 09:51 PM

Be who you are.

Posted by:
philosophie | June 04 at 09:52 PM

I’m taking bets on what state she lives in.

Posted by:
thatsmrtoyou | June 04 at 09:53 PM

Hey—just heard this from someone who knows. “She” is actually a guy!

Posted by:
theshrink | June 04 at 09:54 PM

I AM NOT A GUY, YOU PSYCHO!

Posted by:
TCND | June 04 at 09:55 PM

Forty-Two

T
he frenzy of guessing began almost as soon as I posted the blog entry. The regulars, the ones whose comments I looked forward to reading, were pushed aside by the comments of hundreds of lurkers we’d never even heard from before.

The next day Joe practically tackled me as he came into work. “Hey! Did you see the blog?”

“No. Not lately.”

“She’s going to reveal her identity. Who do you think she is?”

“Who cares?”

“I bet she’s some supermodel.”

“On what basis?”

“I don’t know. Just a hunch. She’s smart, but she’s not intelligent. Know what I mean?”

“No, I don’t.” I followed him around to his side of the cubicle. “What
do
you mean?”

“How smart do you have to be when you earn a million bucks just by smiling? I bet she’s a babe. A blonde.”

I went back and plopped into my seat. A blonde!

That afternoon Joe interrupted his typing with an exclamation. “Hey!”

“What?”

“I was wrong. I think I’ve figured it out!”

“What?”

“The blog.”

“What about it?”

“I think it’s actually a group of women.”

“What?”

“Think about it. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Otherwise she’d be schizophrenic.”

“Schizophrenic?”

The next day he had a different theory. “You know, I was rereading all those blogs and I think I picked something up.”

“What?”

“I think she’s from Boston.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. There’s just an…accent…about the way she words things.”

“There is?”

“Boston. I’m betting on it.”

When he went off to teach, I looked through all my posts, wondering how I’d acquired a Boston accent from just four short years at MIT. And how it had exhibited itself in my writing.

But that afternoon when he came back, he leaned against the cubicle wall and made a pronouncement. “I was wrong about the Boston thing. I think the accent is actually Southern. I think she’s a gorgeous, statuesque, redheaded Southern belle.”

“Really.”

I read the comments on my blog that evening. I counted more than one hundred new guesses before I stopped counting.

The next morning, when I got to the cubicle, Joe was already hard at work. But he looked up from his computer when I walked in. “Hey.”

“Hi.”

“You look tired. Long night?”

“Interminable.”

“I stayed up too. Because I was thinking about the blog. And the thing is—”

“You know what? I don’t want to know. I have work to do. And I have other things to think about. And it’s a waste of time talking about a stupid, juvenile blog and some idiot woman who writes it.”

“I didn’t know you had such strong feelings about it. Sorry.”

Just call it self-loathing.

I only had one more day.

And then I could call it done.

When I got out of bed the next morning, doom descended upon my shoulders. I took a shower. Stood in front of my closet. It didn’t matter what I wore. The outcome would still be the same. Joe would still laugh. He’d probably flash me his dimples. And then he’d vanish into his cubicle and go back to work.

That’s why I chose my flame low-tops. The symbolism was just too good to pass up, even to a computer geek like me. Going down in flames.

There was another Internet party.

Even bigger than the one in February.

I logged into the program and checked my statistics. I’d had a record day for unique visitors to the blog. A record day for total number of visits and number of comments.

If I were going down, then it looked like I was going to do it in front of the whole world. As noon approached, I got ready.

I opened a new entry.

Typed my name.

“Hey. You there?”

“Just a minute.”

“You watching?”

“Yes.”

“What do you think she looks like? Think she’s a blonde?”

I made some sort of unintelligible noise.

“How do you spell pert?”

Pert? As in Kate? Blond, bouncy, cheerleader? Maybe I could beg the colonel to let me move my office to the supply room. If I threatened to crash his computer, I’m sure he’d do it. Nobody ever remembers the backup disks. “P-e-r-t.”

“Thanks.”

I did a last-minute scroll through the comments. One last effort to avoid baring my neck for the guillotine. As I scrolled toward the bottom, one last comment was registered. And it was addressed to me.

              Jackie Pert Harrison.

              
Posted by:
theshrink | June 08 at 11:59 AM

I went numb. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. My finger still hovered over the mouse which hovered over the send button on the computer monitor.

He knew.

He knew!

I pushed my chair back. Climbed on top of my desk.

He was waiting there for me.

“You knew.”

He was staring down at me. A stare that was mesmerizing in its intensity. “I knew.”

“For how long?”

“Since the first day I started reading it. If it hadn’t been for that blog, I would have given up on you.”

“But how did you know?”

“Read the post from 5 June.”

I climbed down. Heard him climb down on his side. With shaking hands, I bent over the keyboard. Retrieved 5 June from the archives. The answer had been staring at me the whole time. “Che Guevara.”

“Yep. I’d find him and kiss him if he were still alive!” Joe took my hands from the keyboard, pulled me out of my chair, and then drew my arms around his waist. Released my hands. His fingers pressed into the small of my back, pulling me closer, tight against that splendid chest.

“Maybe you could kiss me instead.”

He smiled that million-dollar smile just before he did.

THE CUBICLE NEXT DOOR BLOG

Who I am

John Smith guessed. He knew the whole time. I’m Jackie Pert Harrison. And I sit right beside him, all day, every day, in the cubicle next door.

Posted on June 08 in
The Cubicle Next Door | Permalink

Comments

Jackie Pert Harrison? But that’s what theshrink guessed. How did he know?

Posted by:
NozAll I June 08 at 12:16 PM

He knew because he
is
John Smith, you moron!

Posted by:
justluvmyjob | June 08 at 12:17 PM

And? What did he say? What did you say?

Posted by:
survivor | June 08 at 12:18 PM

Not very much. We were too busy kissing.

Posted by:
TCND | June 08 at 12:32 PM

The best dreams are always the ones that come true.

Posted by:
philosophie | June 08 at 12:33 PM

Epilogue

T
hey call our cubicle Courtship Corner. People throw quizzical glances at it as they walk by, as if they’re wondering just exactly what we did back there.

Nothing. And everything.

You know what they say about subdivisions. When your space gets divided, it’s best if you can just make peace with the neighbors.

Did we get married, Joe and I? Of course we did. We had a military wedding at the Academy Chapel. Joe’s father and mother, brother, sisters, nieces and nephews all showed up; they wasted no time in making me feel like part of the family. His mom had even made me a sweater.

Betty did my makeup. Adele did my hair. Grandmother was my maid of honor. Oliver was the best man. All our friends from church were there. Even the priest. People say we had the longest saber arch in Academy history. All the history majors wanted to be part of it because Joe is their favorite instructor.

And I’m growing on them.

Joe took me to the ocean for our honeymoon. To Goa and the magnificent Indian Ocean that changes from sapphire to azure and back again with every wave. And there, after I said goodbye to my mother, I was finally able to say hello to the rest of my life.

And, by the way, the “rest of my life” included skiing some of those black diamond runs the winter after we were married. I even “took the hill” and skied Pallavicini. But please don’t worry. I’m very much alive. And if you’re ever in Colorado Springs on a Thursday night, and happen to catch a movie at the Twin Peaks, don’t look too closely at the back row…or at least have the decency to wait until the lights come back on.

Other Books by Siri L. Mitchell

Kissing Adrien

“The French are always up for romance, so when the crowd saw Adrien striding through the Paris airport toward me, I’m sure they were hoping for a good kiss…I was too.”

Claire Le Noyer, 29, wants a do-over. She wants the life where she majors in history, not accounting. Where she takes two-hour lunches, not ten minutes in front of her computer. Where her pastor boyfriend treats her like an attractive woman he’s deeply in love with, not like a nice pet dog.

But for now she’s a Seattle numbers-cruncher with a wardrobe from REI sent to fashionable Paris to check out an apartment left to her parents by a mysterious cousin. When her childhood crush—handsome, pleasure-loving, and very French Adrien—introduces Claire to the City of Lights, béarnaise sauce, and kisses in very public places, Claire cautiously begins to embrace another way of living.

Who would have guessed Adrien would also introduce her to the bigger questions she must answer…Who is her one true love? And will she ever learn to enjoy the life God has placed right in front of her?

A fresh, funny novel of faith and joie de vivre—and what happens when they meet
.

“A sheer delight! Smart, funny, romantic, and intelligent. Loved it!
C’est magnifique!
”

—Laura Jensen Walker, author of
Dreaming in Black & White

“Enchanting! Siri Mitchell weaves an irresistible tale.
Merci beaucoup!
”

—Ginger Garrett, author of
Chosen: The Lost Diaries of Queen Esther

Something Beyond the Sky

Who knows when you’ll meet your new best friend? She might be just around the corner.

“We came from different states, different backgrounds, and different religions. But we soon learned that first impressions are often wrong, and that, when given a chance, the most unlikely people can become friends…”

Can one woman engage in life-changing friendship with someone she’s just met? Can four? That’s life on an Air Force base, where four very different women share only the common bond of being military wives: