Ancient Chinese Secret: Part 2

Note: Make sure you read part one (below) before reading this.

Wednesday

Karen took her eyes off the floor indicator above the elevator doors just long enough to look down at her watch. Crap– 9:18! Rosenberg is not going to be happy. When the doors finally opened on the fifth floor, her high heels clicked in quick succession against the tile floor as she rushed to her desk through the corridors created by the backs of cubicles. She rounded a corner and saw the dark bob of hair belonging to her best friend and cubicle mate, Judy, as she leaned her chair out into the aisle.

“You’re late,” she said as Karen set her purse on her desk and took off her jacket.

Karen shot a worried glance down the hallway, then sat at her desk. “I know. Has Rosenberg noticed?”

“Nope. He’s been in manager meetings since I got here. Get in a little late after your dinner with Peter last night?”

“Yeah. We had to wait forever to be seated at the restaurant. I kind of overslept.” She turned on her computer, hoping it would boot up before anyone could notice her lateness.

“Did you have Chinese?” Judy asked.

“Am I really that predictable?”

Judy giggled. “No. Well, yes, but actually I smelled it through your skin. Get a good fortune in your cookie?”

“It was okay, I guess.” Karen opened her purse and pulled out the little slip of paper. “It says, ‘Your nurturing instincts will soon benefit a younger crowd.’ Not very applicable, but okay.” She opened her desk drawer, grabbed a push pin, then stuck the fortune on her bulletin board amongst dozens of others.

“Nurturing instincts,” a deep voice behind her questioned. “I wasn’t aware that you had any of those.”

Both girls turned toward the voice, and watched as a tall man, his wavy blond hair shining in the fluorescent lighting, sat down on the edge of Judy’s desk.

“Eavesdropping again?” Karen asked.

“Oh, hi Dave,” Judy said with a shy smile as she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “And Karen does have nurturing instincts. They’re just um, buried a bit.”

“Hey,” Karen said defensively. “I’m sure when I get a kid of my own, my nurturing instincts will be fine. It’s just that other people’s kids... well, they kind of annoy me.”

“Rosenberg’s coming,” Dave warned, trying not to move his lips much. They all three sat up a bit straighter.

Rosenberg paused in the opening of their cubicles only long enough to deliver his message. “Team meeting in the conference room in ten minutes,” he said before moving on to the next set of desks. His tone of voice had a seriousness to it that was somehow stronger than the stern tone his voice normally carried.

Dave cleared his throat. “I guess that means I better get back to work.”

Karen took the opportunity to tell Judy about the great restaurant she and Peter went to the night before. “The food was so good, but Peter didn’t eat his food hardly at all. So, I started thinking back to other restaurants we’ve gone to, and I’m not sure he ever eats very much when we go out. Do you think that maybe he doesn’t like Chinese food?”

“Yep. I really think he doesn’t. At least that’s the impression I got when I’ve joined you two.”

“Then why would he want to go with me for Chinese so much?”

“Karen, I think Peter would do pretty much anything to go out with you. You’ve got to know that he has been vying for boyfriend status for quite some time.”

“I guess,” Karen said thoughtfully. ‘That’s pretty sweet of him, actually. If I could handle going more than a day or two without Chinese food, I might even be willing to go somewhere else with him.”

“Yeah, but we both know that’s never going to happen.”

“I’m hopeless, aren’t I? Sometimes I think that maybe I can do without Chinese food. Then I think about the smell of oil on a wok that fills the streets of Chinatown, or about the ornate buildings and the dragons statues everywhere, and about the Chinese people working at all the restaurants, and I suddenly think that I can’t even make it through the night without some kind of Chinese food. Oh! Speaking of Chinese people, I forgot to tell you about the cutest little old Chinaman we saw last night. He came right over to our table, and then said something about them all coming true.”

Judy gasped. “All what coming true?”

“I have no idea.”

“What did you do?”

“Well, we mostly just sat there in stunned silence while the little man shuffled back to the kitchens. It’s not like he explained himself.”

Judy lived for the excitement of an unsolved mystery. When people wondered who made the break room smell like fish and cooked cauliflower, they asked Judy. When someone found a crumpled page of scribbled notes in the conference room wastebasket after a manager meeting, they took it to Judy. She was tenacious, and usually sooner rather than later, they got their answer.

“What do you think he meant?” Judy’s voice was alive with excitement.

“Maybe it meant that he’s crazy.” She glanced down at her watch. “We better get to the meeting.”

**

They sat in the conference room, listening as their boss explained that they lost the Monarda contract– the marketing contract that more than half their team had been working on. The company had another large contract lined up, but it wouldn’t be starting for another four months. He had been in meetings with upper management and several other middle managers for the past few days, trying to find a way to keep from having to lay-off half of his team.

“You are all important to this company,” he said, trying to console his team, “but we can’t afford to have half of you sitting for four months. The managers from all departments have met, and we have come up with a solution. We are going to lend several of you to other departments that are currently in need of bodies on an interim basis.”

He looked down at the papers in front of him, then nodded at a man seated across the table. “Jones, you’ll be working in accounting for a bit. Richards, you will be spending some time down on the fourth floor in advertising. Wheeler, we are going to put you with the database guys, and Edwards,” he said, nodding toward Karen, “starting tomorrow, you will be reporting to the second floor, to work in the employee daycare.”

“What?” she exclaimed.

All eyes turned toward her.

“You are putting me in the daycare?” Karen’s voice was incredulous. She couldn’t think of a department in her company that she would be more uncomfortable in. A glance at the faces of her co-workers told her that they were just as unsure of her ability to take care of kids as she was herself. “Me?” The word came out as a defeated squeak.

**

Karen slumped into the chair at her desk, her mind completely immersed in the unfairness of the situation. She was glad Judy shared a cubicle with her; she needed someone to vent to. “I didn’t go to school for six years to work in the daycare.”

“I know. This is really unfortunate; I’m sorry,” Judy consoled. “But it will all be fine. You’ll do great! And the four months will be over before you know it.”

Karen knew that Judy’s words should be consoling, but she could hear the dubious undertone of Judy’s voice and guessed that it really wouldn’t be fine.

“What if my mom found out that I’m working in the daycare?” Karen’s voice was panicked. “If she found out, she’d probably say that I’m squandering the education she so graciously paid for. And she’d probably use words like disappointed and hopeless and maybe even disowned.”

“So, just think about your dad instead,” Judy suggested. “You know he’s got to be thinking that your brother is too high-strung to ever handle having kids. You’re his only real chance to get a grandchild. He’d probably be happy to know you were spending time with kids.”

“Maybe. But it’s not like I know what to do around kids! And I don’t even like kids. Why didn’t they send me to advertising? They could have sent Richards to the daycare– he has a kid.”

“Wow. It’s the curse.” Judy’s voice was a whisper.

“I never really considered being a woman a curse before they decided that it somehow qualifies me to work in the daycare!”

Judy pushed off her desk, rolling in her chair over to Karen’s desk. She pointed at the fortune from the previous night hanging on Karen’s bulletin board. “No. The curse of the Chinaman. He told you they’d all come true.”

Karen’s hand flew to her mouth as she gasped.

“No, no,” Judy mused, “not curse. I mean, how many times have you wished your fortune would come true? Maybe we should call it the Gift of the Chinaman.”

Karen looked to the fortunes and started breathing again. “Yeah, a gift. Like this one. A thrilling time is in your immediate future. Or Happy news is on its way to you. Oo! Oo! Fame, riches and romance are yours for the asking. I wouldn’t mind one of those coming true.”

“So, are you up for some Chinese tonight?”

A smile spread on Karen’s face. “After a day like today, I’m really going to be needing Chinese food.” She wasn't sure she believed that she had been given a gift– or a curse, really. But she had just been given the gift of someone willing to go out for Chinese with her.