Page 5 of Mailroom Delight
Chapter 2
Paige
* * *
It was like being in a time slip.
Or being drugged and waking up to find you’d been kidnapped and taken to some faraway country where they were going to harvest your organs.
I’d watched too many films but that was how I felt. When I lifted my head, I knew it was the next day, and I was still in the mailroom, but as to what time of day it was I had no idea.
I slept here. How embarrassing. I can’t believe I fell asleep at work.What the hell was wrong with me?
Depending on when it was the mail room staff would have come in and seen me. Maybe it was still quite early, because it was quiet.
Where was Bernice?
Couldn’t she have called me a taxi? Or, at least seen to it I got home.
It was bright outside. So bright in fact, it hurt my eyes to look at the radiant sunlight spilling through the window. It felt like torture to even try to force myself to look.
I made a move to stand but then I scanned over the desk before me and realized something.
It’d been cleaned.
The glasses that were there last night were gone and…
No wait.
The emails I printed off were on the desk last night…
Oh wait.. and the note. I bit down hard on my lips as I remembered the note.
Where was everything?
I grabbed my bag and started looking through it. The papers weren’t there.
I found my phone and saw that it was nearly nine, which was bad, but a small relief. Most people started turning up from around nine-thirty onwards.
I found Bernice’s number and called her, but the phone went straight to her voicemail.
I hated feeling so disorientated. What I needed was a shower, or a bath. This craziness required a bath. A long, hot bath where I could soak for hours.
Not exactly what I should be doing now since I was here, in the same clothes as yesterday, and I knew my hair looked a mess. But, I knew a bath would do the trick.
I could go home quickly, sort myself out, and then get back here before lunch. I didn’t live far from San Francisco Bay, but the traffic could be a nightmare during the pre-lunch hours. There was an ease just after lunch when it wasn’t as busy, but I didn’t think it would go down very well being away all day. The new guy was already on my ass about my work, I didn’t need him breathing down my neck about my time keeping too.
Elizabeth wouldn’t have minded. She would have told me to take the day off. I didn’t even want to meet this new guy anyway, let alone ask for any favors.
I was just about to search the desk drawers for the emails when Frank walked in.
He smiled when he saw me, then started laughing, which suggested he was probably the first one in this morning and saw me in my disheveled mess.
“Frank. Hey.” I tried to smile against the headache I now felt brewing.
My hangovers came in the form of delayed headaches which grew progressively worse the more awake I became.
“Paige.” He said tilting his head to the side, so his skater boy locks drifted over his shoulders. His brown eyes sparkled as he looked at me. “You were totally fast asleep in here when I came in this morning.”
