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The Temp

Monique Holton

Monday

    Her smile is wide and excitable, her velvet lips like theatre curtains, pulled apart dramatically revealing a stage of dishevelled teeth. They are smeared with lipstick, the nasty shade of red making them yellowed, like custard Tic-Tacs dripping in chunky Revlon blood. It was a lot to take in on a Monday.
    “This is the temp; she will be with us for the week.”
    I nod in acknowledgement of my manager’s lacklustre introduction, the necessity of a pay cheque requiring such obedience, and then secretly give the temp the stink eye. It is important she is not under any false pretence that I would be her babysitter for the next five days as my presence here is simple; I clock on, I work, I eat; then I’d go home to my vanilla life of no money, no pets, no hobbies, and no friends. The latter including the temp. She disregards my glare and offers another cheesy grin in exchange, seemingly ignoring my silent laying down of the rules.
    “Let’s do lunch,” she says to me when HR is busy organising her log-in. “You can be my partner in crime,” she whispers and winks.
    I open my mouth to reply, needing this spirited fool to understand my place, but I remain silent, figuring it wouldn’t take long until she discovered I was on the bottom rung of the social ladder, an office nothing, a life invisible, and someone not worth the investment. Yes, I think to myself, it should only take her until lunch time to realise that whilst we might now be temporary office inmates, prisoners to these four walls, there would be no water cooler banter, footy tipping, Friday drinking, lunch time power walking, sneaker-over-stocking wearing camaraderie for me.
    Interrupted by HR, I shoot her my best stay the hell away from me look and retreat to the cubicle as bland as my existence.

Tuesday

    “I’ve stolen your bosses credit card and I’m going shopping, you comin’?” she asks, leaning in too close omitting a suffocating odour of cheap musk perfume and menthol cigarettes. The temp’s red lipstick had been replaced today with a shade so pink I imagined Revlon could call it Flamingo’s Ass.
    “What the hell” I say, “No, and why are you asking me?”
    She’s cornered me in the women’s bathroom where I was quietly participating in my obsessive hand washing ritual, of which I contributed to a minimum of fourteen times a day. I had managed to avoid her yesterday by eating my lunch in the safety of my car, alone, the way I liked it.
    She stares hard at my vigorous hand rubbing, the white soap frothing like rabies saliva and replies; “Honestly,” with one eyebrow cocked, “Because, you look like you need a release.”
    She applies another coat of unneeded lipstick, winks at me and walks out.

Wednesday

    By hump day the temp’s attracted a small band of followers. A handful of subservient office minions gather at her desk; she’s telling them all she slept with Derek in accounts. Derek is a happily married man in his 40’s whose wife had just given birth to twins, there was no doubt this was a lie. The temp is a loose cannon.
    “He told me I was the best he’d ever had.” She points at the reception waiting area, a collection of replica furniture and frayed magazines. “We did it over there.”
    The admirers nod hungrily in approval, eating up her lies, appreciative of any crumb of detail to satisfy their gossipy appetite. She notices me walking past, my head cast down, beige clothes at one with the carpet, cheap discount store shoes treading ever quietly like my footsteps didn’t exist.
    “She was there too,” she remarks loudly. “Yep, asked to join in and I figured what’s one more.”
    A dozen eyes widen, looking in my direction, set in faces displaying a mix of shock and disgust with a hint of admiration. The temp’s coral lips part in a devious smile, of which only I seem to notice.

Thursday

    The temp grabs me firmly by the arm as I zombie stomp across the parking lot.
    “You’re not going to work today,” she says.
    I don’t know what was more offensive, her boldness or the disgraceful magenta tone she has chosen to destroy her lips with today.
    “Excuse me?!” I say, in a meek attempt at assertiveness. “Why can’t you just leave me be?”
    “Because deep down, you really don’t want me to,” she states. “And now you have no choice.”
    She grabs a large rock from the poorly landscaped garden framing the employee carpark and hurls it at our office entry double doors.
    The glass shatters from the centre outwards. A spiderweb of cracks branch out and then break, the glass descending in fierce daggers like icy tendrils, bursting into smaller droplets against the bitumen walkway. The temp had officially lost it.
    She holds my hand and pulls me down low, out of sight, behind a white Suzuki Grand Vitara. In fear I follow her, crouching, bent over, skulking around the side of the building and then out into the street.
    She stands looking at me unfazed, wiping her hands on her pants, ridding them of the rocks dust and says, “we’re getting drunk. I called in sick for us last night, told boss we had bad sushi after work. Funny, he didn’t seem to know who you were?”
    My stomach was churning from a mix of adrenaline and anger and self-loathing. It was not hurting from bad sushi.

Friday

    The day moves slowly, each tick of the clock a hammer to my brain. The temp had forced drink after drink into my hands which obediently poured them down my throat. She had talked endlessly and animatedly about who knows what and I had sat compliantly on the bar stool, hypnotised by my own pathetic insignificant life, with its lack of stories, and quite honestly frozen in fear of what she would do if I tried to make a run for it.
    Fortunately, I had not seen the temp today. I had come in early, sneaking through the temporarily boarded up double entry doors which were still awaiting repair, the make safe timber hiding yesterday’s sin, and hid in the safe cocoon of my partitioned cubicle. The desire to wash my hands had grown increasingly aggressive throughout the day, so much so the compulsion to clean was now manifesting in lumpy hives running along the side of my neck and up into my cheek.
    I had never taken a sick day before. Ever. Not one person had asked how I was feeling today, or where I had been. In fact, the only acknowledgement of my lack of absence the day before was a messy pile of files that had appeared on my desk and an inbox flooded with emails titled “urgent” and “do this when you are in tomorrow.” Red flags, capital letters and exclamation marks each trying to win the battle in level of importance and priority.
    The hives were beginning to itch, the need to partake in my obsessive ritual and the inescapable self-loathing was burning a hole in my skin. I succumbed and retreated to the toilet where the soap foaming in its familiar thick white coating and vigorous hand rubbing did not soothe my anxiety.
    A loud exhale over the sound of the running water; a breath of pure desperate exhaustion escapes me. I look hard in the mirror, staring at myself, witnessing the deep extent of my insecurity, festering in the lines of my face, telling the sad story of my life. And then, with no option left, I smile at myself; broad, strong, and unfamiliar. I smile hard and long. I smile until in the reflection of the mirror, I see the toilet cubicle door inviting me, its navy-blue chipped paint asking for my rebellion. Retrieving nail scissors from my handbag I carve evenly, calmly, and purposefully into the door the words:
    I AM HERE.
    Satisfied, the smile still present and making itself at home on my face, I turn to discover the temp is there, watching me.
    She hands me a tube of lipstick; the colour crimson dark, gothic black, shaded deep with vengeance, the hue unapologetic in its presence, and says “Yes you are. YES, YOU ARE.”

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