Today, it was Barbara Clench, our dogmatically frugal office manager, questioning the necessity of releasing funds for the purposes of, y’know, operating our fundraiser. Which meant I was tied up with email for most the day, since our ability to successfully cowork was built upon a mutual understanding that we would never, ever speak to each other in person.

Dear Luc,

I’ve been looking at the costings for the hotel and am wondering if we really need it.

Kind regards,

Barbara

* * *

Dear Barbara,

Yes. It’s where we’re having the event.

Kind regards,

Luc

* * *

Dear Luc,

I’ve been thinking about that, and was wondering if it wouldn’t be more practical for donors to remain at home and contribute by telephone during a preapproved window.

Kind regards,

Barbara

* * *

Dear Barbara,

I appreciate your commitment to helping the Beetle Drive run smoothly. Unfortunately, the invitations have already been printed, and the event has been advertised as a “dinner and dance” and not as a “stay at home and phone us maybe.” The cost of the hotel should be more than covered by the ticket price.

Kind regards,

Luc

* * *

Dear Luc,

Could we at least choose a cheaper hotel?

Kind regards,

Barbara

* * *

Dear Barbara,

No.

Kind regards,

Luc

* * *

Dear Luc,

I consider your last email inappropriately curt. I would take this matter up with our Human Resources Department, but we do not have one.

Kind regards,

Barbara

PS—Thank you for raising a requisition request for a new stapler. This requisition request has been denied.

* * *

Dear Barbara,

Perhaps you could ask the Office Manager if we could release sufficient resources to hire a Human Resources Department. Maybe I could also borrow a stapler from them.

Kind regards,

Luc

* * *

Dear Luc,

There is no room in the workplace for facetiousness.

I refer you to last month’s memo on the new paper-fastening policy. For financial and environmental reasons, we are requiring all documents to be bound with recyclable treasury tags. We expect these to be reused wherever possible.

Kind regards,

Barbara

* * *

Dear Barbara,

Please pay the hotel. The manager just called me, and we are at risk of losing the room.

Kind regards,

Luc

PS—We have run out of treasury tags.

* * *

Dear Luc,

If you have run out of treasury tags, please submit a requisition form.

Kind regards,

Barbara

* * *

I was just composing a devastating reply, because I absolutely had one and it was absolutely a good use of office time, when my phone buzzed. It was a text from Oliver which, the preview helpfully informed me, began with the words Bad news.

Oh fuck. Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck.

Without my telling it to, my brain started filling in a hundred different ways that sentence could end. And it probably said something about what a messed-up place I was in Oliver-wise that it went straight to “We’re breaking up” rather than “My grandma’s died” or “I have syphilis.”

He was though, wasn’t he? I’d been a total maniac last night. He’d had to rescue me from reporters and then cuddle me until I went to sleep like I was a highly strung puppy. And in the morning, I’d woken up sprawled all over him, and made a huge fuss about him leaving, which had obviously been because I was still half-asleep and not thinking straight, but given how sleep-halved and not-straight-thinking I’d been, I remembered making some pretty forceful arguments. After all that, I wanted to break up with me, and I was me.

In the end I did the mature thing: put my phone in my drawer without reading the message and went for coffee. Under normal circumstances, I would never have been relieved to see Rhys Jones Bowen doing anything, but the fact he was already installed at the coffee machine meant that this whole operation was going to take about three times longer than it would have otherwise, and that was exactly what I needed.

“Thank goodness you’re here, Luc,” he exclaimed. “I can never remember. Is it water in the front and coffee in the back, or the other way round?”

“Coffee goes in the little basket that’s got leftover coffee in it. And the water goes in the bit at the back that’s already half-full of water.”

“Ah, you see, that’s what I was thinking. But you know when you get one of those things and you always get it the wrong way round, and then even when you get it right, you trip yourself and do it the other way anyway.”

I was about to say “no” in my most withering tone but actually, that was kind of a thing. I got it myself with the number of m’s in accommodation. And the number of c’s for that matter. Besides, Oliver would have disapproved. Oliver who’d just sent me a text saying he had bad news, which I was going to have to look at some point, and deal with, and probably be hurt by and—shit, what was the point of a displacement activity if it didn’t displace anything.

“I know what you mean,” I said. And slid into a useful waiting position, while Rhys Jones Bowen navigated the intricacies of the, to be fair, somewhat complicated coffee machine.

“Oh bother.” He knocked the back of his hand against the steamer nozzle. “I always forget that’s there. It’s going to blister now, and that’s my typing hand as well.”

I stifled a sigh. “Why don’t you go and see Alex for some aloe vera. I’ll finish up here and leave your coffee on the desk.”

There was a bewildered pause.

“That’s very decent of you, Luc.” For someone paying me a mild compliment, he sounded worryingly surprised. “Is everything all right? Have you been visited by the ghost of office workers past?”

“What? No. I’m…I’m a helpful person.”

“No, you aren’t. You’re a total pillock. But I’ll take the coffee anyway, thank you very much.”