Free Sweet by Alysia Constantine Page A

the husky roughness in a playful duet, something sweet and light and floral and beautiful.
    ***
    Employees should refrain from displaying photographs, memorabilia, artwork or anything else that might be understood as “personal display” on their desks or in their cubicles.
    This was the latest in a long list of emails which, lately, came almost daily from the Office of Company Standards, a new entity which had sprung up in recent months, poking itself into the cracks between cubicles and under the bathroom and breakroom doors like a sidewalk weed. It was, Teddy assumed, the latest result of the frequent decrees issued by what he thought must be the very bored, thumb-twiddling band of company heads whom, Teddy remembered, he’d neither met nor seen in person. Their pictures hung in the entryway, a short line of identical-looking tight smiles plastered to the fronts of identical-looking bald heads, all of which poked out of the necks of identical-looking navy blue suit jackets and stiff white collars. The picture frames, identical mahogany wood frames, looked as if they’d been hung with the help of a ruler and a level. On his way down the hallway to the bathroom that afternoon, Teddy had tapped them all slightly sideways with a fingertip. He’d glanced up and down the hallway first to ensure that no one was looking, of course, but he’d still felt a little thrill at the tipping.
    For maximum work efficiency, employees should refrain from spending more than forty-five minutes outside the building for lunch. The last fifteen minutes of one’s break should be used for resituating oneself at one’s desk, so that one can begin working immediately upon the end of one’s lunch break.
    Gentlemen Employees, please refrain from wearing ties or pocket squares of a color or pattern that might be understood as “distracting” to clients or other employees. Primary colors and pastels are acceptable choices. Shirts and suits, of course, should be of muted and un-patterned fabrics.
    Female Employees, please refrain from wearing patterned or colored stockings, as these have proven to be distracting to both clients and employees. Nude, white or black stockings are acceptable if they have no obvious pattern.
    Teddy had, on several occasions since the receipt of that email, daydreamed about showing up to work in a skirt and broad-patterned lace stockings, perhaps with a pair of kitten heels to boot, since no prohibition had been made against such stockings for Gentlemen Employees. Of course, he did not do so.
    What he did do that afternoon, still a bit rattled by the shot of espresso, ‘Trice’s rapier stare and his volley at the hallway picture frames, was draw a tiny cupcake on a yellow sticky note and pin it to the wall of his cubicle. It certainly wasn’t a photograph, and one would be hard-pressed, he thought, to call it “artwork.”
    He glanced at it, that tasty little secret, pinned and re-pinned it to the wall, tapped it with his fingers in thought and focused on it like a mandala all afternoon, until he’d memorized the swipes of pen, until, when he closed his eyes, the cupcake danced a jaunty, defiant little dance to the maudlin hum of his computer and the copy machine and the fluorescents overhead.
    He drew another cupcake on a sticky note and pressed it to his lapel. Another, he stuck to the left knee of his pants. He stuck two on the computer screen, one on his cheek, one on the pencil cup, one on the stapler (all still carefully placed at right angles), one to the back of his hand. He stuck and stuck, until the whole cubicle fluttered yellow. He was probably on camera, he thought, and removed three from his face, out of dignity.
    I quit, he wrote on another sticky note, then scribbled over the words until nothing was left but a ballpoint-blue smudge. He took another note and wrote it again: I quit. This one he pinned next to the cupcake. What do I quit? he asked himself silently, tapping the cupcake with the tip of