Page 1 of Stuck on the Slopes

Chapter 1

Rachel

Theconstantringingofphones felt like the office was laughing at me, much in the same way a mockingbird would. As I moved past the row of cubicles, the sound amplified and the sun beat through the windows, warming my face already flushed with embarrassment. The floor-to-ceiling windows on the other side of the hallway brought in an excessive amount of natural light, revealing the other corporate office buildings wedged between the palm trees around us. I focused my gaze on them, unable to look any of my coworkers in the eye.

When I reached my cubicle, I realized the loudest phone of the bunch was my own, contributing to the chorus. I smacked the button to ignore the call, not in the mood to talk to anyone.

My forehead met my desk. I brought my arms up to cover my head, giving me a moment of silence to collect my thoughts as my knee bounced at the speed of light. The sound of elbows propping up on my cubicle wall a few minutes later eventually forced me to look up and push my bangs out of my face.

I expected whoever approached me to be upset and seeking answers in person, but it was just Jack. His tousled black locks were messy, as usual, with some blue beneath that his layered hair hid mostly well; it was only a matter of time before HR flagged him for that. His paper coffee cup rested on the top of the cubicle wall. From here, I could see some of the steam rising through the small hole in the lid’s cover.

“Uh-oh. Did I catch you at a bad time?”

I nodded and ran my hands over my face. “Performance review.” My palms muffled my voice, so I pushed my reddish-brown curls back and tied them into a messy bun, no longer caring how they looked.

“Oh! Oh no, did it not go well?”

“I guess making record-breaking profits for the company with my latest marketing campaign is only worthy of a Meets Expectations score.” I choked back my pride, the threat of tears and the primal urge to scream. “Three out of five.”

“Wait, for real?” Jack pinched the frame of his oversized glasses as he adjusted them on his nose. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Are you fucking joking right now?”

“I wish, dude. And as much as I’d love to not let it bother me that much, this means the bare minimum raise for me, and with how much my rent is going up…” I couldn’t bring myself to say anymore, so I let my voice trail off, leaving the sentence unfinished.

“I’m sorry, Rachel. That’s rough, to say the least.”

“How the hell am I supposed to sit here for the next three hours? How am I supposed to manage the other marketing specialists when I feel like shit?”

Still speaking in a whisper, Jack said, “Just doom scroll on social. If anyone asks, tell them you’re doing market research or something. You’ve got access to the company’s Instagram, right? No one will know!”

Even though his suggestion was tempting, it felt against my very nature. “You sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. I do it all the time. People see me on a computer and they assume I’m working. If they see you on a phone? They’ll assume the same. Fuck ‘em. Give yourself the rest of the day off.”

Time theft had never really been my thing. As much as it seemed like teaching an old dog a new trick, I knew he was right. “Thanks, Jack. I needed that.”

He slapped the top of my cubicle wall before walking away, throwing up a peace sign as he did. “You know I got you.”

My mindless scrolling started off as exactly that: mindless. It was hard for me to actually focus on anything on the screen since I was certain every single person who walked past my cubicle was peering over, checking in to see what I was doing. For good measure, I’d make a point of refreshing my email every few minutes, both to keep my active green bubble on Slack and also to look less suspicious. My eyes darted to the top of the cubicle wall every time I heard so much as a shuffle. If whoever was at the desk across from me suddenly stopped typing, it caught my attention, too. But every time, it was just them going to the bathroom.

For the next two hours, my heart both raced and burned, so when it didn’t pass, I finally emerged from my desk. I took slow steps to the break room, which was thankfully empty. After walking around the long, white table where everyone usually ate their lunch. I opened the medicine cabinet as quietly as I could, but the latch snapped with a grating pop and the hinges on the door creaked. I rummaged through, feeling like a thief in the night despite having every right to grab something for my heartburn. I landed on an individually packaged, single serving dose of generic antacids and popped them in my mouth on the way to the bathroom.

It took everything in me to not start crying as I closed the stall door. The entire office was white, sterile, and lifeless, and the bathroom was no exception. The overhead lights gave me an instant headache, which didn’t help my predicament.

I wasn’t sure if being this close to a mental breakdown over the evaluation meant the doom scrolling was making matters better or worse.

By some miracle of God, I didn’t cry in the bathroom, nor did I break down for the rest of the workday. I got away with continuing to doom scroll, which eventually became mindless once more. None of my emails were urgent, as if everyone knew that today was not the day to ask me for any requests or reports.

Walking to my car felt more mortifying than any walk of shame in college ever had. With the late summer heat, sweat stuck to my skin the second I’d left the air-conditioned office—I’d call it a haven from the humidity, but it would seem Hell was, in fact, real, and it had central air. Once I was in my car, I rested my tote bag on the passenger seat, locked the doors, then opened a music app and selected a playlist that was a bit different from my usual.

Early 2000s emo hits ought to do the trick.

As I scream-sung along to lyrics that expressed I was very much not okay, I let my tears freely flow. The palm trees passed by me in a blur, standing tall and gently swaying in the breeze, unbothered by the world around them. As the traffic on the busy, west Orlando roads made my commute thirty minutes longer than it should have been, I envied them for it.

Most of the license plates around me read New York or New Jersey, a sign the snowbirds were back. While this had always been a problem that made me detest the Northerners fleeing the cold, now that we were back in the office post-COVID procedures, it was worse. All of the tourists didn’t help traffic, either. The office wasn’t far from most of the theme parks, meaning folks in Mickey ears driving rental cars were always passing by. The pandemic only slowed them down for a few short months. In the years since lockdown procedures lifted, it’d only gotten busier. It didn’t feel like there was an off season anymore.

By the time I pulled into my apartment complex’s parking lot, my eyes were bloodshot and swollen. I didn’t even bother to wipe the black tear stains that ran down my cheeks, unsure if it was from my mascara, eyeliner, or both until I got to my apartment and headed straight for my bathroom. After washing my face, I grabbed my Gua Sha kit, hoping the ritual would help reduce some of the puffiness before it could get any worse.

Into some leggings and an oversized T-shirt, I planned to do nothing other than binge crappy reality television shows on Netflix for the rest of the day. I ran through my options. The first was I could call my dad. Ever the Rabbi, he was full of sound advice and kind words of wisdom that would more than likely uplift me. He blended wise words from the Torah with his own life experiences, both talking me off the ledge and helping me come to my own conclusions.

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