Calla’s Farewell and a Rejected Lunch (Part 2)

Najla Forgets Her Card

Jumping way back now to the irks of the morning, it aggravates me when I always see Najla coming to work a couple of minutes later than she’s supposed to arrive. Fair enough, I have those days myself but the majority of the time, even when I’m late, I’m always earlier to work than Najla. In addition, I seem to be the one who’s always grabbing the mail from downstairs and although I don’t mind, I’d like for Najla at least once in her life to come to work early enough to grab it.

Sure enough, the tension was growing as I was wondering if Najla would make it to work and when the phone rang, I just knew that it would be her. “Tony” she blurted out in a touch of laughter sounding obnoxious to my ear, “Can you open the door”. Standing outside in the corridor, I gathered that Najla had forgotten her access card and instead of knocking on one of the doors as everyone else does, she decided to ring me from the phone in the hallway.

What flared my stressed temper was the whining sound of Najla’s voice over the telephone and her incompetence in even remembering her access card. What’s more, this wasn’t the last time this week that Najla forgot her access card which with these little problems begs me to say that Najla isn’t ready for the big time. Laden with obligation and priority, I feel that Najla is treating herself excessively in these, her first days of work. Najla can’t juggle work let alone having to head out three nights a week after work to College.

In addition, Najla has her boyfriend at home whom I think makes her late to work every morning and her bitchy little attitude at work where she always has to whinge about some portion of her activities. In all, I just don’t think Najla can handle all of these and I feel that it will either be one or the other in a couple of weeks. Let’s give Najla two months to either shape up or as prediction, ship out…

Linh Puts His Feet Up

With the day in mid morning, I waved to Rhett as I saw him passing the office and soon enough, he headed over to have a chat with me. This surprised me as he took the liberty of coming over and saying hello and as we kept chatting, Linh made his way over. Lounging himself down in a seat as I was doing some filing, he put his feet up, his arms behind his head and let out a smile.

Sure enough, conversation started to flow, being well aware of Najla probably sitting in Esme’s desk either intrigued in our conversation or pestered to my being overrun with laziness. Nevertheless, as I feel that Najla has an interest for Linh and him a small one for her, I figure she was sitting there, eagerly listening to his words, hoping she would get admitted into conversation. If you don’t know this already, Najla asks a lot of questions about Linh whenever I brush slightly upon that topic.

Upon his name being mentioned, she always scraped out a question or two and never about anyone else begging me to note the obvious truth, she’s interested in him. Ah me, even women who have been three years clogged in a relationship raise their eyebrows to intrigue. Najla wouldn’t be the cheating type but you can be sure that if Linh traveled the smooth path, she would be smoothed over. Our chat lasted for a couple of minutes to which they both left to get back to work.

Later in the day I noticed Linh again when I was speaking with Jana at her section. Feeling someone step on the back of my heel, I turned around to apologize as I stepped back a touch but seeing it was Linh, exclaimed sarcastically “Why am I saying sorry to you”. Jana looked surprise to my bringing out the real me instead of the introverted character that portrays himself in the living realms of the legal department.

A Chat With Calla

Later in the day when we were in the photocopier room I also had a chat with Linh again which made it a very lively Monday for conversation. However, I was more taken by the conversation that I had with Calla when at the photocopiers in the kitchen. Having some pages to get photocopied, I finally decided to just talk with Calla by uttering “So I heard you’re going back home soon to England”.

Sure enough, Calla started chatting back to me as I didn’t feel intimidated upon other people walking into the kitchen while we held conversation. Pausing herself for a second thinking “Would this be too bold a question and would he see right through it”, she asked me “Are you coming to my farewell on the 20th of this month”. Content upon her asking I replied “For sure, I’m already there”, noting the riddling smile encompassing her cheeks.

There we sat, shedding stories and speaking of her trip back to England for the next couple of minutes. Finding Calla pleasant, I seem her to be very kind at heart upon hearing Thao’s story at lunch this Friday. He advised me upon bringing up the subject that he could stay at her house if he ever headed to England and although this was only a gesture that had no base, he was very elated with her suggestion.

Ever since our conversation, I’ve been saying hello to Calla upon passing. Unlike Zenia who snobs me off and tries to avert any situation where we would be caught together, Calla is just as pleasantly greeted as I when we do meet upon the corridors. Leaving on Lyssa’s birthday this coming Friday, if she invites me and if Linh is also heading out, then I will most definitely farewell her. If my fantasy-orientated hopes are met, then I will most probably get her number and a week of solvency before she leaves, wouldn’t that be an experience…

Lunch Plans Fall Through

Apart from all the mishaps at work and my completing two briefs throughout the day, I had lunch at 1:00 p.m. Being the only day during the whole week that I had lunch alone, I sometimes yearn for those moments. There are times when you want to be around friends and then there are the times when like on Monday, you just want to grab some Teriyaki from the sushi shop and head alone to Circular Quay to sit in the park.

Nevertheless, fifteen minutes before my heading out for lunch and with Najla already out for lunch, there was no contention as to who would deliver a file for Livia. Making her way over to my section she handed me a package and as it was in the same building as where Lyssa worked, I felt this a stroke of luck towards my planning. Hurrying myself in those few minutes, I headed out the front of the building to where I used the public phone regardless of the employees standing around and having a smoke.

Optimism wasn’t a bearing upon this resilient ear of mine and it wasn’t a surprise to me that in the end of our conversation, Lyssa again foiled my plans of lunch and in truth, capped another rejection to her tally. Taking her a minute or two to finally get onto the telephone, I explained the coincidence of my heading to Lyssa’s work and offered to have lunch with her. “Oh, I don’t know” she stammered, “You see, I might be having lunch with Shayma today”.

Fair enough she had already made plans but Lyssa was cautiously uncertain. “Well, are you or aren’t you having lunch with Shayma” I asked to which she still wasn’t certain. “How about this, I’ll head to your work and if you don’t have lunch with Shayma, wait for me out the front”. That sounded fine to Lyssa who was still somewhat anxious so I exclaimed “Look, how about we just don’t worry about lunch” and pleasingly Lyssa agreed.

Sushi in Hyde Park

With ten minutes to arrive at her building before I officially started lunch, I delivered the document to the top floor and on the way down, glanced at the beautiful view they had. Adoring their balcony, I took one last whiff of flamboyance as I headed back down the lift and looked around for Lyssa at the front before heading out the back door. Grabbing myself three sushi rolls and a drink from the sushi shop at the back of Lyssa’s work, I made my once familiar trek to Hyde Park.

Not having seen this place for quite a while due to my finding Circular Quay closer and with less walking distance I embraced it for its former glory, sitting down at the fig tree, enjoying my lunch. Sure enough, after a couple of minutes nibbling into my sushi rolls and glancing around, I noticed two girls sit at the tree right across from me. At first glance these two girls looked innocent enough but their laying down a blanket to have something to eat looked a touch odd.

Who goes to all the trouble of bringing a little picnic blanket to have lunch, I knew something was up. Sure enough, my hunch that they were lovers turned out to be true as on occasion I would look over to their acting as two normal women would. However, once they had finished eating the soft subtle hints started to arise and sure enough, the manlier one (Who was rather feminine) took the decent looking girl in her hands while they both sat and quite forcefully started laying it hard on her.

Sitting there kissing passionately I wasn’t in shock or disgust but rather, I felt this as a sideshow that I didn’t have to pay for. Anyway, when my meal was finished, I left the two lesbians to their deeds and then headed back to work on a long walking trek.