By a Thread: A Grumpy Boss Romantic Comedy

“You need an emergency contact.” The same woman who had glared her way through an introduction with my bus stop buddy was tapping an impatient fingernail on my screen as I scrolled through onboarding paperwork.

Label’s HR department was made up of five very stylish women sitting behind neatly decorated desks arranged in what I assumed was an approved feng shui flow. None of the other reps looked nearly as pissed off as the short straw I’d drawn.

“Uh,” I hesitated.

“No family in the city?” She sounded like it might actually kill her to care.

“None, that I can count on in an emergency,” I said flatly.

“Then pick a friend,” she said in exasperation. “You do have one of those, don’t you?”

I guessed she was projecting.

I entered my best friend Faith’s contact information and hoped to the gods of workplace emergencies that if HR ever needed to call her at work, this lovely flower would have the honor of hearing “Club Ladies and Gentlemen, we’ve got tits and dicks.” Faith was part-owner of one of the most over-the-top strip clubs on the island.

I completed the paperwork to the background music of Lady HR’s annoyed sighs and fingernail tapping on her watch. The salary listed with the job description had me doing a little shimmy in my chair. It wasn’t “I can afford a one-bedroom in Manhattan money,” but it was “I only need three part-time gigs on the side to almost make ends meet.”

“Almost make ends meet” was way better than where I’d been when I woke up this morning.

I’d keep the dance class, the highest paying bar shifts, and take one or two catering jobs a week, I decided, running through the calculations in my head. I still wouldn’t have much time for doing the actual renovations, but this was a medium-sized step in the right direction.

If I could just hang in there until the renovations were done and the house was on the market…

“Look here.”

I looked up in time to wince at the flash of a camera.

The picture loaded onto the computer screen next to her. It looked like I was mid-sneeze. I suddenly had a good idea of who had shot Gola’s company ID.

“You’re seriously going to put that on my ID?” I asked, actually impressed with the woman’s “I don’t give a fuck” attitude.

“I don’t have all day to orchestrate a photo shoot to please new admins,” she snapped.

“Well, all right then. Let’s go with the mid-sneeze. It’ll be a nice ice breaker.” It was rather freeing to know that this was all temporary and I didn’t have to worry about fitting in or making a good impression or staying on track for a promotion.

Finish the renovations. Sell the house. Mango margarita.

The printer spat out my badge which doubled as a key card. HR lady smugly handed it over. It was even worse offscreen.

“Admin pool is on the forty-second floor. Ask for the supervisor.”

And with that, I was unceremoniously dismissed.

I found my way to the stairs and went down a flight, using my spiffy new key card to enter the suite of offices. The mood here was similar to the forty-third floor. A lot frantic, a little distrustful.

On the blindingly bright side, I didn’t have to deal with Grumpy HR Lady or Charming on this floor.

I asked the first beautiful, six-foot-tall woman I saw where to find the admin pool. It turned out that I was standing in the middle of it. Label’s second floor of offices opened into a sea of low-walled cubicles taking up some serious acreage surrounded on two sides by glassed-in offices.

Everyone was, if not breathtakingly beautiful, perfectly coiffed and tastefully accessorized.

I asked a stunning brunette who was frantically trying to fold some kind of silky chartreuse fabric into a white gift box to point me in the direction of the supervisor and caught the woman at her desk between rapid-fire phone calls.

The nameplate said Zara. Her long, black hair was tamed in a sleek braid. There were sticky notes of every color organized in neat little rows on her desk.

She eyed my outfit. “New hire? Grab an empty desk, dial the IT extension, and have them set you up with a login and an email.”

“Thanks,” I said, wondering what I’d do then.

But her phone was ringing, and her computer dinged six times in rapid succession with chat and email notifications. “For shit’s sake,” she muttered, grabbing one of two iPhones on her desk as they both started vibrating.

I ducked out of the office, leaving her to the beeping and vibrating, and did a quick lap searching for a clear flat surface. I found one in the back on the outer ring of cubicles and about as far away from the windows as you could get. But beggars couldn’t be choosers. I wove my way through the desks and busy people and claimed my new territory with my purse, coat, and container of the last helping of Mrs. Grosu’s Korean barbecue chicken.

“Okay,” I whispered to myself.

I tried out the chair and found it reasonably comfortable. To be fair, every other job I’d had in the past six months didn’t involve chairs or me sitting in them. So having any chair was a big step up.

The computer monitor was a sexy, state-of-the-art flatscreen, and the only other items on the desk were a thin, white keyboard and a phone.

I picked up the receiver and skimmed the buttons looking for IT.

“You new?”

I peered around the Jumbotron flashing the Label logo and found a woman looking back at me.

She had glossy hair the color of a wheat field with subtle silver-toned highlights. It was pulled back in a low ponytail that no strand dared escape. Her face was generic perfection with high cheekbones, expertly applied contouring, and a petite nose that other women probably took pictures of and presented to their plastic surgeons. She would have been downright beautiful if not for the pinched line of her overfilled lips and the mean girl vibe.

“Hi,” I said. “Yes. I’m Ally. Just started today.”

She gave a derisive snort that still somehow managed to sound ladylike. “Don’t get in my way.”

“You must be the welcoming committee,” I said, cocking my head. I couldn’t tell if she was twenty-eight or thirty-eight.

“Any assignments that come in for Dominic Russo are mine. Got it?”

I laughed. It was a perfect match as far as I was concerned. “You can keep him. I prefer my men with hearts.”

Her lips got impossibly flatter, and I worried they might pop.

“Are you making new friends, Malina?” Gola strolled up and perched on the edge of my desk.

The woman in danger of a lip filler explosion turned her icy glare to my newest friend. “I’m filling her in on the ground rules.”

“Her name is Ally, and no one is getting in the way of your delusions,” Gola said.

Heads snapped up over cubicle walls around us like prairie dogs scenting danger.

Gola turned back to me. “Malina here has career aspirations of forcing at least one Russo into a prenup. It didn’t quite work out the first time around. Did it?” she said, wrinkling her nose in fake sympathy.

Interesting.

“You’d be smart to watch your step, Gola,” Malina hissed. “And your fat ass.”

“Don’t make me twerk up on you again, Mal.” Gola’s grin was wicked.

Without another word, Malina threw her ponytail over her shoulder and stormed off.

“So, you already met the mean girl,” Gola teased.

“She seems lovely.”

“A total charmer. People are always saying, ‘that Malina is the nicest human being in the entire department.’”

“I’m so happy I picked the desk behind hers,” I sighed.

“Lunch in thirty?” Gola moved to tap the folder she was holding on my desk and ended up dumping its contents on the floor.

“Sounds good,” I said, helping her pick up papers and fabric swatches.

It was the fanciest cafeteria I’d ever stepped foot in. Unlike my high school cafeteria with its vinyl stools and burnt, canned marinara smell, here the floors were some kind of white marble and huge urns filled with real greenery created a Zen, urban jungle feel.

There was definitely no canned marinara smell.

It was more of an atrium or a conservatory than a cafeteria. Even the food was fancy. I couldn’t afford it, but that didn’t stop me from glancing at the sushi chef’s display and the Keto Korner.

Gola and I grabbed an empty table between a potted palm and another table full of tall, thin women picking at lettuce and animatedly discussing a fight between a photographer and a make-up artist.

Gola placed a glass of green juice and a bowl of clear broth on the table in front of her. “I’m doing a cleanse,” she said, catching me eyeing her questionable “lunch.” “You’ve got to try it. It makes your skin radiant.”

“I’m more of an accidental fasting person,” I joked.

“Intermittent fasting is so the rage,” she nodded sagely.

“My situation is kind of ‘ran out of food’ and have to wait for my next paycheck fasting.”

“You’re broke?” Gola said with more interest than pity.

“More like newly and temporarily poor.”

Gola spotted Ruth in the crowd and waved her over. The redhead plopped her kale salad down and planted herself in the chair across from me. “Did I miss the beginning of the inquisition?” she asked breathlessly.

“Nope. Inquisition starts now,” Gola said.

“Tell us everything about you, including how you met Dalessandra, how you got this job, and if you really called Dominic Russo a megalomaniacal monster to his face,” Ruth said. She took a bite of her salad and crunched with enthusiasm.

“Uhhhh.”

“Okay. Start with meeting Dalessandra,” Gola said.

“Hey, bus stop buddy!” My orange-sweatered pal popped up next to the table, clutching his wrinkled paper bag. He beamed hopefully. “Mind if I join you?”

“Have a seat,” I said, gesturing at the open chairs. Turning back to Gola and Ruth, I explained, “We met at a bus stop when Dalessandra gave us both jobs on the spot.”

“You absolutely need to join us,” Ruth insisted, patting the chair next to her.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Thanks,” he said. “I’m Buddy, by the way.” He held out a beefy hand that Ruth and Gola took turns shaking.

“I’m Ally,” I told him.

Gola wiggled in her chair. “Okay, spill it, kids. What was Dalessandra Russo doing at a bus stop?”

Buddy unrolled his paper bag and pulled out a cute little sub, a bag of chips, and a Fresca. “Well, I don’t know what Ms. Russo was doing there. But I’d just finished one of those under-the-table painting jobs in the Village. And I’m sitting there at the bus stop, and I see Ally here talking to Ms. Russo. Ms. Russo is apologizing about something and then hands her a business card and is all ‘come see me Monday for a job,’” he said, theatrically producing an invisible card.

Ruth and Gola were enthralled, so I dug into my chicken.

“I’m thinking, this is my chance. One of those once-in-a-lifetime jobbies. I gotta say something. If I don’t, I’m gonna regret it forever. So I pipe up, and I say, ‘You got any more of those jobs?’ And when she looks at me, she’s isn’t all hoity-toity. She says to me, ‘What can you do?’ I say, ‘Whatever you need me to do.’ So here I am. The newest clerk in the mailroom. I have a desk. I don’t gotta paint anything. And once the health insurance kicks in, I’m taking my wife straight to physical therapy.”

“Why does your wife need PT?” Gola asked. Another point in my book. They were now more invested in Buddy’s story than juicy office gossip.

“Got hurt on the job a year ago. She was one of those linemen—line lady, she liked to say. Anyway, she fell on the job. Seventeen feet and landed on her back on concrete.”

I winced.

“Bad spinal injury. She’s in a wheelchair. She couldn’t work anymore. Company fought the workers’ comp claim. I lost my job for missing so many days after the accident. Without good health insurance, we couldn’t swing PT appointments anymore. And that was the only thing that made her feel like she had hope, you know.”

“Buddy, that’s awful,” I said.

“It’s been a tough time,” he agreed. “But I always knew there was light at the end of the tunnel, and now look at me. Sitting here with three beautiful ladies with a job in a big-time office and brand-new health insurance.”

I wanted to hug the guy and was deeply moved when Ruth actually did it.

“You’re a great guy, Buddy,” Gola said, reaching across the table to squeeze his hand.

He hooted with laughter. “Wait’ll I tell my wife!”