The Ordinary Haunting II

18. New and the Uncertain Pace - Part 1

Tay was scowling at me like I'd purposefully foiled his plans for a cute lunch date at work.

To be fair, apparently I had foiled his plans for a lunch date at work – but not on purpose.

I leant over my cafeteria udon and flexed my thigh, trying to push off the knee digging in. Tay increased his stirring of the ice in my glass. Unfortunately for everyone at the table attempting to have a conversation, he was wielding a metal straw. I casually reached for the glass but he dragged it away from my searching hand without stopping the stirring. I returned to my noodles, itching to pull out my phone and at least continue the action-murder-mystery game I'd recently started, if I had to sit through this tantrum. Whilst playing games against Tay amounted to about the equivalent difficulty of playing against my niece Doh – they had similar levels of dexterity and patience – he'd demonstrated some creative lateral thinking around the less mathematical challenges, and I was keen to try them out in my individual game. I imagined some alternative scenarios to the level I was currently stuck on, wondering if I'd missed a clue somewhere. It was as I was thinking I might have seen an orange balloon in a tree – and in a murder-mystery game, a balloon in a tree is never just a balloon in a tree – that a flash of orange caught my eye and I realised the space between our table and the next was suddenly crowded with people.

"My uncle had this encounter once," the owner of the orange shirt was saying, a new intern whose name I didn't know but did recognise for his small face and what I considered 'anime bangs'. He was kneeling on the empty chair next to Tay, speaking brightly into his face whilst gesturing in a manner that seemed precisely choreographed to make the eight or so people listening behind him feel included–

I took the chance to seize back my glass of ice while Tay was distracted and placed a few cubes in the corners of my mouth. It was a habit I'd picked up during bad heat waves during the summer in the orchard as a child, when my brain would start to feel melted and I couldn't think straight for being so hot.

I crunched on the stinging cold blocks and my clearing mind latched back onto orange shirt's conversation with Tay.

"–interview him? He works at GM Motors, so it would be a great business opportunity too."

"Hmm, I can't say a publishing house will have much to offer an automotive dealer," Tay replied, his previous scowl replaced by a glowing frown. Glowing frowns were Tay's best expression, in my opinion. "But if he really was contacted by a ghost who used to be an author, then I'd love to get in touch with him regardless. Do you have his details on you?"

The youngster wasn't too cool to blush. I knew exactly what was coming. "Not on me, but I have his card somewhere at home. I can text them to you."

"Awesome, thanks!" Tay said, flashing every single one of his teeth and handing over his phone. The group hanging around the table all gave a weird, collective titter of excitement as orange guy typed his number in Tay's phone. I scanned their faces and realised they were all young and mostly unfamiliar, meaning the lot of them were probably interns from different departments. I'd heard Godji had run one joint orientation this season, and it looked like it had succeeded in bonding the newbies into their own little subculture within the company. With an elected leader, of course. Watching them elbow each other, pinkies twirled together, hair long and sleek, round glasses moulded to their noses, easy intelligence and confidence keeping their eyes sharp, I realised 28 was a lot older than it used to be and decided I'd better publish something interesting fucking ASAP.

Scratch that – I had to publish something popular. Forget my dad. My new goal had to be to publish something he'd never read in a thousand years, something he'd maybe use for fire starter, even.