Pearl: Is there something I shouldn’t see at work?

Pearl: I’M FREAKING OUT! WHAT IS GOING ON AT WORK?!

Marley: Just skip today, Pearl. Please. Trust me.

And that was where the conversation ended. I was no detective, but all of my investigative senses were tingling. Hard. The ESPN was blaring at full volume, and something was absolutely amiss.

Pollard Marketing composed the 8th floor through the 12th floor of the Metford building in the Upper East End. Everybody on my floor worked in design.

Every single person on the floor was gathered around the cork board right outside the elevator. I had to nudge and push my way through the crowd. First thing in the morning, I was five foot six in the morning–you lose a little height throughout the day as you squish down and compress, and you can trust me on that because I’ve measured it. I could barely see anything except the suit-clad backs of my co-workers from my low vantage point.

“Excuse me,” I said, heart still banging away like it was auditioning for The Blue Man Group.

Everybody was murmuring and whispering. There was excited chatter like they were gathered around a dead body. Was somebody dead?

Was I dead? Was this how it happened when you died? You go back in time and show up to work to watch everybody gossiping over your corpse? No, Pearl. That was the anxiety talking, and my anxiety had no business talking. My anxiety was like the constantly high friend whose paranoia made them wonder if the house plants were bugged with listening devices and thought the mailman was their stalker because he drove by the house every day, rain, snow, or shine. It was a nearly constant voice of irrational fears I had to work to keep at bay. If that didn’t work. I needed to simply ignore it.

The last two men finally parted enough for me to see what the fuss was about. The entire corkboard was plastered with the same black and white image. Little cheerily colored thumb tacks were stuck at the top of each page. Only one paper was different–slathered with thick red text almost like it was written in lipstick.

I squinted, moving even closer until I was in front of the crowd. It took my brain a second to piece together what I was seeing. It looked like a woman was sitting on the copy machine bare ass naked. But that wasn’t the worst of it. There were two large, masculine hands planted on either side of her ass and… Yes. That was a pair of balls between her legs. It wasn’t completely clear from the image, but I would’ve bet my grandma’s knitting collection I knew what I was looking at.

That was P in the V right there. Sure as day. I could see the squished, sad little sack. There was a hint of shaft. There was some more smooshed up stuff right there in the valley. Yep. I didn’t even need ESPN for this one.