Heaven Is Small by Emily Schultz Read Free Book Online Page A

switched on, set his voice mail for the day, and head for the kitchenette with its coffee urn and chance of exchange with Georgianne Bitz. Once the computer’s dumb skull was illuminated, he considered himself officially at work.
    Above the propped-up house of invoice cards, Bentley returned his gaze with distrust. “Morning . . .”
    Bentley’s was the first desk one came to before reaching the Proofreading Department. In Gordon’s opinion Bentley smelled of Elmer’s glue. So far as Gordon could discern, he was Reception. Though whom he received Gordon was unsure. As a rule they didn’t speak. Or at least they hadn’t thus far. Normally Gordon nodded or shuffled past shyly. They had been introduced once, on Gordon’s first day, amid Gordon’s initiation into telephone extensions and reading codes. Bentley had had incredibly cold hands when they shook. Just as Manos had done, he had assessed Gordon quickly, thin face splitting with a smile that was more a baring of teeth. He was as tall as the Thin Man, and about as welcoming too. It was as though it was a requirement in this environment that the men regard one another with bristling ferocity, territorial callousness.
    Titus Bentley held a weird grimace in place following his “Morning . . .” At six feet four he would have towered over Gordon even more if he hadn’t had a self-conscious stoop to accompany his livery lips and penetrating black-hole eyes. Bentley’s hair swooped over his forehead like a dead crow, a tuft sticking up in the back just before the halo of baldness. His eyes narrowed as he watched Gordon, as though he hated him intensely for no reason but Gordon’s existence. At that very moment — and every moment Gordon could recall being in his presence — Bentley seemed as though he were thinking of twisting Gordon’s neck like an old grease rag.
    In spite of himself, Gordon hurried past Titus Bentley, muscles in his throat constricting. At his cubicle Gordon tossed his jacket over his hook, snapped on his computer, and headed for the kitchen. Partway there he turned and headed back to his workstation. He had forgotten his coffee mug. He ground his front teeth together. He hated himself for his fear. Bentley was just a scrawny, vertically surplused freak. He thought he owned the department only because he owned Reception. Gordon could say “Good morning” every day if he wanted. In fact he would, he promised himself, if only to irritate Bentley. Gordon grabbed his Georgianne-graced cup so quickly that it rolled off the desk. He caught it before it could hit the carpet.
    Gordon pushed the door to the kitchen hard, practically hitting Georgianne Bitz, who was carrying her own mug — I Heart Mom — full to the brim. “Oooh!” She jumped back, a small burp of black coffee escaping the rim and falling between them. “Fu-dge,” she blurted, a mom-style obscenity. “Did I get you?”
    Gordon shook his head. “Sorry.”
    They cantered around, he trying to politely extricate himself from her path and she turning and heading back to the counter, where she freed a square of paper towel. She wiped around her cup with no-nonsense efficiency. “What’s up, Gord?”
    He shrugged, moved toward the coffee urn reluctantly. He pressed the lever and filled, Colombian Supremo, while she leaned back against the counter staring at him. There was one other guy in the kitchen — Design — and one of the token Design women, small and dark-eyed. She and Gordon exchanged glances, like strangers sharing some brief moment of affinity. But ultimately all Designs were alien to Gordon, and Proofreadings to them. Even now the two moved around each other, plucking cream from the same fridge, sugar from the same cupboard, without speaking, another language separating them. The Designs’ was one of pixillation, rgb/cmyk, jpeg/tiff; Gordon’s and Georgianne’s was comprised of single quotes, double quotes, solidi, commas, colons, question marks, exclamation points.