Chapter 5

Chapter 5

“ D on’t you ever again wake me up via text that early in the morning, asking me about no damn coffee? If the coffee shop wasn’t open yet, you know good and well I wasn’t either.” Shontae softly aggressively puts my coffee on my desk.

“Thank you, love.”

“My love, ya ass, what’s wrong with you? How long have you been here?”

“Since five a.m.” I say, speaking into the goodness in my cup.

“Five,” she nods. I nod back at her. “So you must have been up in the three o’clock hour, because it takes you forty-five minutes to get here.”

“Your point, Ms. Woods?”

“You and your formalities, McCabe, they’re annoying.”

I frown at Shontae, and she laughs.

“It’s not funny. My replacement insinuated the same thing.”

“How? What was that conversation like? Are you going to stop referring to him as “your replacement” at any point?

“He was here as early as I was, and a normal one. I called him sir, and he kind of took offense to it.”

“Again, how, and why are you calling that man, sir?”

“That’s what he said, and I thought I was being sarastic, and asked if he’d prefer I call him ma’am. Uhm, he asked if I would have a problem with that if he did prefer it.”

“What!”

“Yeah friend, it shook me a little. I didn’t know how to respond after.”

“Okay,” she pauses. “Maybe he’s just PC with the pronouns regarding gender identity.”

“But.”

“Uh-uhn, no Enya

“What?”

“Don’t try to figure it out. I’m not going there with you.”

“No. All I wanted to say is that if it looks, acts, and quacks like a duck.”

“Quack. Quack.” Shontae and I are both mortified by the sound that comes from my door. We don’t even turn around to acknowledge the sound. We both know it’s Julian. He’s accompanied by two of our techs that were on my team.

“I’ll be going now,” Shontae says as she stands from the chair in front of my desk.

“Oh, you don’t have to leave Shontae. Mr. Holt informed me that you usually work on Enya’s team for installs.”

“True,” Shontae says, facing Julian.

“Okay, so stay around for a brief meeting. I didn’t want to waste time with a formal email invite. Since Enya was here early prepping for the repair case, I thought we could go a few things so we are all are on the same page.”

“Yes, that’s fine,” I say, agreeing with Julian. He smiles, and its core invoking.

“You want to stay in your office or take this to the conference room?” Julian says, still smiling. It’s alarming, but I feel it’s his nature.

“We can take it to the conference room. Let me grab my laptop and notes.” Shontae and the rest of the team leave the office, but Julian stays behind. “I’ll be right there. I just need to save what I was working on.”

“It’s all good Enya, I can wait.” I’m not sure why, but this gesture catches me off guard.

“Oh, you don’t have to. I’ll be a few minutes.” Julian tucks his hands in his pockets and walks over to my desk.

“You don’t have to rush. I can wait.”

“Julian, I’m saying you don’t have to wait. I got this, go.” He nods and heads for my door.

“Quack. Quack,” is what I hear before looking up from my computer. Julian looks over his shoulder as he bends at his knees, as if he is squatting. I can’t do anything but burst into laughter. “Quack-Quack,” he makes the sound again as he walks out of my office, hands at his side flapping his arms. It is more of the chicken dance than a duck, but I get his point.

I say nothing as I enter the conference room. Julian has a non-readable expression on his face, as if he just wasn’t in my office quacking like a duck. Everyone has an expression like there’s an issue. “What did I miss?” I say, looking around the room of concerned faces. Julian turns his laptop around and there’s an email from the corporate board members. Dang, how long did it take me to walk from my office? I didn’t have an email before I walked to the conference room.

Looking over Julian’s shoulder, I read the email from corporate. Mr. Holt has taken an emergency leave of absence, and any plans to restore the migrated systems must be sent to corporate for approvals.

“What the heck?” I ask looking around the room at the team.

“What the fuck, Enya? What the fuck? Is what you're supposed to say. What the fuck.”

“Alright professional curser. We get it.”

“Cussa, I’m a cussa. Let’s start there.”

“Okay. Geez, Shontae, let’s see what’s going on.” Shontae throw her hands up at my lack of profanity.