[Twenty-Somewhere] Episode 3: Love thy neighbor

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Sleek metal and glass mate to make the infamous Arden Advertising offices. Sophie works on the second floor and sits in the middle of a row of fancy designer cubicles. On her left is Reggie. On the right, an annoying prick who requested a personal space heater because he is always too cold. For some unfathomable reason the request was approved, and yet he still complains about the temperature.

“Considering how much money I make for this place, you’d think they could afford to turn up the heat,” he says loudly.

Sophie doesn’t even pretend to listen. In Texas, there are people who would kill for Arden’s cool climate. Plus, he doesn’t really make them that much money. He just sits in team meetings and tries to stay awake, usually without success. But because his voice is the most frequently heard at every presentation — he parrots whatever the team leader says — he sounds like a big contributor, and is credited accordingly.

Everyone calls him the Megaphone.

# # #

MJ wouldn’t mind a megaphone herself. Or at least some ear plugs. The girl in the next room over is spending some quality time with her boyfriend — some very high (pitched) quality time — and MJ can’t decide whether to explode at them or to shove her fingers in her ears and chant “la la la la la” until they’re done. She opts for a compromise.

After composing a reasonable but icy note, MJ slips the paper under her neighbor’s door and then retreats to the lounge on the first floor. She smiles when she sees Ben, the Finnish archer, channel surfing on the sofa.

“Hey,” she says, walking over to join him.

“Hi,” he says, scooting over to make room. “What brings you down and out of your shell?”

“What am I, a turtle?”

He laughs at her joke. MJ sighs as she launches into the explanation, and Ben grimaces in sympathy. “If you ever need a quiet place to study, my door is always open. Well, not literally, but you can knock.”

She laughs at his joke. “Thanks.” He’s looking at her quite intently, with soft, sea-colored eyes. As the heat rises in her chest, she already knows she can’t take him up on his offer. She would never get any work done.

She clears her throat and turns to the TV. “What are you watching?”

“You.” Neither of them laugh, because it isn’t a joke. Sensing her discomfort, he too shifts to face the television. “I usually watch animals mating on the Discovery Channel, but I’m guessing you’ve had enough of that tonight. How about some BBC news instead?”

“Perfect,” MJ says, forcing herself to relax her grip on her textbook.

# # #

A sleek greyhound and crazy collie mated to make Max, and Claudia has to walk the little guy three or four times a day to keep him sane. They’ve met a fair number of neighbors thanks to all these outings. Some are sweet and harmless, like the elderly twin sisters next door. Some are strange and mildly alarming, like the man who called them up to his front porch while he smoked something that was not a cigarette. He also had a long snake of snot dropping from his nose. With everyone, Claudia smiles and nods and makes polite chit-chat. Then she and Max continue on their way.

One day Claudia feels too groggy to take Max on his morning walk. “Go potty and come back,” she orders, letting him out the back door. He obeys the first half.

Something out of sight attracts his attention. He looks at Claudia, then scampers away in the direction of the unknown. “Max! Come! Heel! Max! Come! Now!” Claudia feels like an idiot standing in the doorway bellowing to a clearly uninterested pup.

Furious and yet worried, she runs after him. Her eyes go wide when she sees him jumping all over a woman on the ground. Did he bite her? Is she dead? Will they take Max away and put him to sleep?

Then she hears the woman laughing.

“I am SO sorry,” Claudia says, grabbing Max by the collar and pulling him into the Sit position. He is all smiles, his tongue lolling out out of his mouth. She wants to kiss and kill him at the same time.

“Oh, don’t worry about it.” The woman stands and brushes off her khakis. “I was just gardening and he came to say hello.”

“That’s a polite way of putting it.” The woman is tall and thin and quite beautiful, and not just for her age of fifty or so. She has on the kind of “yard work” outfit you see in department store catalogs: perfectly pleated and color coordinated. Claudia suddenly feels embarrassed in her galoshes, pajama shorts, and Hello Kitty shirt from fifth grade.

“I’m Lynne,” the woman says, holding out her hand.

“Claudia,” she says, accepting. “And this is Max.”

“Lovely to meet you both. Would you like to come in for some tea or lemonade?” Lynne asks.

“Uh…” Claudia can’t believe this woman wants to be friendly after being attacked by her dog and affronted by her atrocious fashion. “That’s very kind of you, but I–”

Lynne holds up her hand. “I understand. You want nothing more than to retreat to your home and hide under the covers. After scolding the pup, of course.” Her smile is kind, warm, sympathetic. “My son peed on a stranger’s foot at church once. He was three, but I still wanted to die. Believe me, this is no big deal.”

Claudia laughs in spite of herself.

“Why don’t you go home and start the morning over, and we’ll pretend this never happened. Then next time we meet, I’ll invite you in again, and you’ll have no reason to say no. Sound good?”

“Sounds great.”

Though Claudia was dragging him by the collar, Max’s tail wagged happily all the way home.

# # #

“Goddangit, woman! Can’t you even get coffee right?” The Megaphone’s voice came blaring out of the second floor break room. Not ten seconds later, a petite blonde woman fled the room, tears streaming down her face.

“That’s the third time this month he’s made that poor girl cry,” Reggie says, peeking his head around the wall of Sophie’s cube. “Apparently the double-tall frappacrappa no-foam whatever he orders from Starbucks isn’t precisely to his liking.”

Sophie shakes her head. “I am so sick of this. He’s a monster. Someone really needs to set him straight.” Her tone, and the way she rises from her seat, implies that she is about to be that someone.

Reggie grabs her arm and pulls her back into the chair. “You can’t.”

“Watch me.”

“No, really, Soph, you can’t. The Megaphone is Arden’s son.”

And suddenly it all becomes clear. The Megaphone acts like a spoiled prince because, in the Kingdom of Arden, he is. Space heaters, no-foam frappacrappas, a special beanie that massages his scalp. Whatever he wants, he can get. Sophie sighs and wonders if some Google-loving geek has created an algorithm that calculates the value of a career versus the value of a soul yet.

“Why did we want to work here again?” she asks Reggie.

“Because it’s the happiest place on Earth?”

“I think that’s Disney World.”

“Oh, right. Then I don’t know.”

“Me either,” she says. “Me either.”