Lost and Found (Growing Pains #1)(65)

Krista froze, like a rabbit in the middle of a wolf pack. “Phyllis?” she asked hesitantly.

“Yeah doll?”

Even though the two women had never met, they had seen each other around plenty. Phyllis was a regular at the watering hole.

“Uh, hi. Um, Marcus said to talk to you?” She held out the note, seeing the others in the quad craning their necks to try and see what it said.

“Oh right. ‘Course, yeah. What can I help you with?”

Before Krista could answer, Phyllis turned to her chums and said, “It’s not often we get a Research person this far into the art department, you know? They’re usually all freaked out that we’ll kidnap’em or somethin’!”

They all laughed uproariously. Krista chuckled to be part of the group, but was secretly wondering if she would make it out alive. Odds weren’t looking good.

When the laughter died down, Krista said, “Well, Sean is calling a meeting and I need to get my material looking good. I was thinking--”

“Oh-oo Sean!” one of the quad interrupted. She was a portly girl with a high pony tail and a hooked beak for a nose.

“I know!” Phyllis said with an exaggerated hand movement half circling around her head. “I begged Marcus to get me on that team! Begged him. I’m serious! Bu-egged.”

“I hear Sean picked his own crew.” It was a twenty-something alternative-looking girl with dreads and a sleeve of tattoos. She was loudly chewing and popping her gum. She couldn’t be more irritating if she tried. And if Krista told her that, she would’ve tried.

“Well, I heard Sean beat out that guy Ray for a promotion at an old company.” This from a young girl with large glasses, limp, greasy hair and a splatter of freckles. “He’s doing the guy a favor by getting him hired here. Kinda nice of Sean.”

Phyllis and tattoo girl started laughing at her.

“Are you still hung up on him?” Phyllis asked.

“Sean talked to her at the Christmas party last year,” Tattoo girl yelled across the tables, “and she’s been into him ever since!”

“Shut up!” Glasses said. “I just think he gets a bad rap is all. He was a gentleman to me!”

“He was just trying to get in your pants. He ain’t no gentleman,” tattoo girl spat vehemently.

Phyllis got up and waved them away. “C’mon doll. Let’s see what you need.”

As they left the group arguing amongst themselves, Phyllis said, “Jodi went home with him after one of the events. Or wait...” Phyllis stopped walking and tilted her head. “No, I have that wrong.” She started walking again. She put a hand on Krista’s arm to steer her around some crazy-looking machine with a bunch of arms. It looked like something out of a Tim Burton movie.

“He went home to her house. He was half tossed. She won’t admit it, but she was sober as a judge. I have a feeling she lured him, but that’s neither here nor there. The next morning he apparently got up at the crack of dawn and left. No goodbye or nothing! Not that I completely believe that. I’m sure he said something. He probably had to saw his arm off to leave.” Phyllis laughed, steering Krista around a corner.

“Anyway, she’s hated him ever since. I mean, really, that man could get any girl. Why would he waste his time with her, right?” They turned another corner, getting closer to the mouth of the art department the whole time.

Just as Krista was about to nod, to go with the flow, she realized that question was a trap. Phyllis was stating the obvious, yes, but if Krista agreed she would all but sprint back to tattoo girl—Jodi—and say Krista called her ugly. Also that Sean was too good for her.

Krista almost inadvertently made her first enemy. No good! Phyllis was a dirty snake.

Instead of taking the bait, Krista said, “Well, it’s never a good thing when a guy leaves really early, that’s for sure. But I haven’t heard anything about it.”

“Well, it was big drama down here! People down here either love him or hate him. Half the floor are trying to bed him, half want nothing to do with him. Guys included, and Sean ain’t g*y. Far as I know...”

“No idea. I’ve really only talked to him about this team thing that Marcus is on.”

Phyllis deflated. Krista wasn’t winning any points with her, for which she was thankful.

“Okay, doll, what did you have in mind?”

They stopped in front of some art station. It had different types of paper strewn across all available surface, and teemed with supplies, small machines, and a bunch of crap Krista couldn’t even identify.

She had a wild impulse to start cleaning. How anyone could work in this mayhem was disturbing.

“Um. Well, I have all this information in stacks of paper and I was wondering if I can put it in a book? Or something.”

“Hmmm. That’s possible, um hum. Why don’t you run and get your stuff and I’ll set the machine up.”

Krista nodded and tore outta there. Her brain was a whirl of how she wanted everything to look. She was at her desk and back in record time, gingerly holding all her stacks to keep them in order. They were in binders, but if she dropped one, or God forbid the whole lot, they burst open… Krista did not need her stuff looking like the desks in the art department.

As she appeared behind the station, Phyllis gave a small jump. “Didn’t see you comin’!” She twittered as she finished moving things around and flipping switches.