The First Poison

"I'm quite sure I've seen you at the pool party," Jake insists.

For a moment, Claire's heart stops—is it over? Right on her first day?

"You were with that group—that group of hotties from City West Bank!" Jake's face lights up. "It was you, wasn't it? Right before Gabriel's ex-girlfriend showed up?"

Claire sighs in relief. Close call. "I told you I wasn't near any of Mr. Tan's parties, much less any pool party. I just came in today."

Jake stares at her, still not convinced. "But I was sure I've seen that face somewhere."

She shrugs. "If I earn one buck each time I hear that line from people, I would be a gazillionaire by now." She smiles.

"Well," Jake mutters, "okay."

After Jake has walked away, Claire examines her desk for anything she can do. Anything that can allow her to do a semblance of actual work. But there's not much she can accomplish if she stays sitting at her desk, so she takes a stack of paper, stands up, and surveys the office. Everyone seems busy. It's late morning, and people seem to be trying to finish whatever they can before lunch.

Claire walks around. Maybe she can go either to where the copy machine is, or the water cooler. She can eavesdrop on some office gossip, get to understand what may be happening whenever Gabriel isn't around. She can't help but grumble whenever she remembers she's some blonde bimbo here, and therefore, center of attention. That makes spying on her own workmates several magnitudes harder—how can you blend in if you're this stunning specimen of the female of the human species, right? But there's nothing she can do but try, so try it is.

"Excuse me," she asks the first girl she meets on the corridor, "where do I find the copier?"

The girl's face lights up, as if grateful for the question. She smiles, her dental braces laced with pink. "It's just over there after you take a left at the end of the hallway. There's a small room. Actually there are three small rooms, the other two are for the mail and… I'm sorry, I tend to talk a lot whenever I'm nervous."

Claire laughs. "Oh, don't be nervous. Are you also new here?"

"Oh, no," Braces says. "Been here three years."

"Oh." Claire realizes the girl must be older than what she initially thought she'd be. Maybe late twenties, early thirties, but the way the girl dresses up makes her look old. Or old-fashioned. She extends a hand. "I'm Bella, by the way."

The girl gives a sweaty, weak handshake. "Oh, I know you. You're Mr. Tan's latest secretary!"

Latest. Claire takes note of the word. Not "new," but "latest," like "flavor of the month." "How did you know?" Claire feigns surprise. "Because I just came in today."

Braces giggles. "Sorry, but everyone was kinda waiting for you. Everyone was looking at you when you came in." Then she adds sheepishly, "You're very pretty."

Claire's heart jumps a little at the compliment—sure, she's beautiful, as her mom often says. But not at the level of holding an entire office hostage just to stare at her. She doesn't know whether to thank or curse Miss Cassandra—it's her fault why she looks this way.

"And it's Mary, by the way," the woman says.

"Nice meeting you, Mary."

Mary hesitates for a moment. She's also holding a pile of documents in her arms, but it's obvious she wants the interaction to last a moment longer. "Actually, Bella, I can bring you to the copy room, if you want."

"Oh, no, I don't want to impose. I'm sure I can—"

"Really, Bella, let me take you. You might enter the wrong room."

I'm sure entering the wrong room won't be the end of the world, Claire thinks. But there's something about Mary's eagerness that makes her say, "Okay."

Mary seems so happy to speak with her. "Look, they're looking at us," she whispers conspiratorially as they walk along the glass-walled corridor. Indeed, people are stopping whatever they're doing to stare at them. "They're jealous." Mary giggles.

"How could that be?"

"Well, I'm with you. Maybe they think they should be the one with you, not me. You're Miss Popular at the moment, Bella. And I'm proud that you consider me your friend."

Wait, that's quite fast, Claire thinks. She only agreed to letting Mary tag along to the copy room—that hardly qualifies as actual friendship, doesn't it? But Claire says nothing. There's something about Mary she couldn't quite put a finger on—nothing sinister or bad, just odd. Just sad. Mary seems like a very needy girl. Like she has been so lonely for very long that human companionship feels like the rarest of blessings. And it's strange to think that one could be or feel lonely in an office that's filled with people.

"There," Mary chirps as they arrive at the copy room. "This machine is quite advanced. It can scan, email, copy, print anything including your naked butt. Not that I tried copying my butt." Mary laughs nervously. "Sorry, I talk silly nonsense."

Claire laughs, too. "Thanks, Mary. I guess I can handle this now."

"Oh, no, let me help you!" Mary is instantly tapping on buttons, as if she's afraid Claire would run out of use for her. "What are you copying? Let me take those."

Claire looks at the stack of documents she's holding and realizes they're garbage print-outs of whoever was previously using her desk, maybe the last secretary. She hesitates for a bit, trying to come up with a believable excuse why she wants these photocopied.

"'How to poison someone without being detected'," Mary reads the headline of one of Claire's documents. She laughs and looks weirdly at Claire. "Are you planning to poison somebody?"

"I, uhh, no, this is just some pet project of mine," Claire stammers.

"Well, maybe I should also read that. There are people here you'd love to poison." A beat. Then Mary bursts into a big smile. "Kidding!"

Mary feeds the document into the machine. "How many copies?"

"Just, uhh, just one. I just need something to bring home."

Mary wonders about the needlessness of this—the document is obviously downloaded off the internet, and Bella could easily check it out online. But she keeps it shut; she doesn't want her new-found friend to feel she's being questioned.

Claire, on the other hand, is full of questions. "Do you know Jake Magno?"

Mary's eyes widen. "Oh! What happened?"

"He asked me out for dinner, imagine that," Claire says. "On my first day of work."

"Jake's the top sales manager," Mary whispers, "and he's also quite fast with women. Good thing you said no. I'd stay away from him if I were you."

"He seems fine, though."

Mary rolls his eyes. "Jake is just like that, always asking everybody out. He once asked me out, can you believe that? I would have lost my virginity had I said yes!"

Claire almost laughs, but stifles it. "Are you saying you're still a virgin?"

"Proudly," Mary says.

"Me, too!" Claire says, and instantly regrets it, because Mary's eyes go wide.

"Are you shitting me?" Mary almost squeezes her arms. "A woman as hot as you, a virgin?"

"I, uhhh, well…"

"You don't have to say that just to make me feel less sorry for myself," Mary says. "There's nothing wrong about being a virgin, or losing one's virginity. It's just that, for a woman like me, and in a society like this, virginity is perhaps the only thing I can offer the right man."

"No, I'm sorry," Claire says, and changes the subject. "What can you say about Gabriel Tan?"

"The boss? Oh my God, he's a hottie! But everyone here knows about what his ex-girlfriend did to him. The cheating, lying bitch! How can any woman do that to a man like the boss?"

"Yeah, it was too bad."

"Anyone can fall in love with him," Mary says. "So you better be really careful not to develop any feelings for him."

"Don't worry. It's never a possibility with me."

"Well, it's just that you're working as his executive assistant. You'd have a lot of intimate times together working on projects and what-not. The physical closeness could lead to…you know what."

Claire fake-laughs. "Oh, no, that's impossible." And maybe because she's trying to overcompensate and really, really deny the smallest possibility of her ever falling in love with her boss, she even adds, "Because I'm a lesbian!"

Now, Mary's face is indescribable; her eyes look like they're about to pop out of their sockets. "Oh, my God! Are you serious?"

Claire freezes in panic; she wishes she could take it back and tell Mary she's just full of shit. But seconds pass by, and soon it's already awkward to take back whatever she has said. "Uhh, but a special kind of lesbian. A semi-lesbian."

"Ohhhh, something like a bi-sexual, you mean? Which means you can still like men? Which means there's still a possibility you might like Gabriel Tan? Have you met him?"

Claire realizes she's digging her hole deeper each time she attempts to say a lie. She stares at Mary, who hangs on her every word. Maybe she should just say fuck it and tell the truth. "I've met him, yes. Charming, beautiful man. Every bit a keeper. But I always keep my professional relationships strictly professional, Mary. I don't think I'd let my relationship with our boss go beyond what's required of my job." Claire smiles.

Mary says nothing; she just looks at her, reading her face, trying to weigh Claire's words against what she knows about the reality in this office. "Well," she says, shrugging. "At the very least, I hope you last more than a few days with him."

"At the very least, you should have done your job and returned to me," a voice booms behind them.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Claudia," Mary says to the woman who has materialized by the door. "I was just helping Mr. Tan's new secretary with the copy machine."

The one called Claudia says nothing; she looks Claire up and down, sizing her up. "So you're the new girl?"

Claire smiles and attempts to speak, but Claudia cuts her with, "Copy machines work the same way everywhere. You don't need any help working this one. If you can't even make a proper copy without wasting the time of my assistant, then I doubt you'd last even a day here."

Claudia leaves as quickly as she arrived, the sound of her heels click-clacking on the marble floor.

"I'm sorry," Mary mutters, hurrying after her boss.

Claire is left standing there, holding her freshly photocopied "How to poison someone without being detected." Somehow, she feels she might really be tempted to read it—there are indeed people here you'd want to poison.