The shower and the soap wake her up a bit, enough for her to consider Starbucks instead of homebrew. But Starbucks means she’d have to get out of the apartment ten minutes earlier and it’s not something she’s relishing. Besides, she’s in no mood for the spunky happy baristas who chirp positive energy over the drive-thru intercom. She wraps a towel around her hair but doesn’t bother with the rest of her because in the July heat she’ll be dry before the coffee maker’s done.

Into the kitchen, two scoops, filtered water, then back to her bedroom for bra undies slacks blouse. She looks at the bed, lying there in the gloom of a Saturday morning. She needs her weekends to catch up on sleep. Lucky mattress, you get to sleep all day.

Kitchen coffee cup pour the coffee inhale the steam. No milk. One sugar. Tiny sip. Blow on it. Bigger sip. She imagines the coffee courses through her veins. It’s not working. Bigger sip, a swallow, a gulp. She can be late on a Saturday, right? This is technically unpaid overtime. Quaff the rest. There’s a quarter sitting in the bottom of her cup. Now she’s fully awake. What the hell?

Cell phone beeps. Message from Marlo, co worker. This. Sucks. So. Much. She smiles. Marlo sends texts like this all the time. Never news. Never information. Never anything upbeat or positive. AT&T is making millions off of people who just want an outlet for complaining. She texts back: Work, or traffic?

Towel off of head, hair is not dry but not dripping, if she drives with the window down it’ll be dry by the time she gets to work. Messy but dry. Who’s she trying to impress today. No one. Gary is her boss. Frank is an asshole. Keith is married. And an asshole. Marlo might say something, but she won’t even be listening to herself when she says it. Marlo’s cynicism is on autopilot, most days.

Door keys lock hallway elevator and a note taped inside on the wall: somebody’s moving soon and wants to sell their futon. Who in the history of the world has ever purchased a used futon. He’ll be lucky to give it away. On the floor of the elevator there’s a quarter. She bends to pick it up. The elevator doors open and a toy pug on a leash nearly head butts her. She stands up too quickly, head rush, fails to acknowledge the “sorry” from the pug’s owner, zombies her way through the lobby.

Realizes, by the time she gets to the front door, she meant to take the elevator to the garage. Damn it.

Takes the stairs instead. Finds her car. Finds her keys. Finds her garage door opener. Finds she’s halfway to work and doesn’t remember driving it. Thanks, medulla oblongata, you scary bitch.

Text message from Marlo. Both. Please kill me.

Parking garage. Something she was supposed to remember about the parking garage. It’s a lot more open than usual, because it’s Saturday, and the downtown shoppers haven’t arrived yet, and everyone else is home, sleeping, where God intended them to be. She doesn’t hate her job, she just hates this time of year. It’s not fair—she didn’t even drink last night, stay out that late, in anticipation. But she’s still tired. Grabs the ticket, finds a cozy spot next to the elevator, leaves her window down, and no valuables, no personal info. Her car has never been broken into, but she has come back to it twice now with the door open. No one is going to steal a Ford Fiesta. They just want your GPS. Spots a quarter on the seat when she gets out, must have been sitting on it. Leaves it. They can have that one.

Elevator smells like piss, wishes she was used to it, is glad maybe she isn’t, thinks, if she gets used to it, is that a sign she’s given up? But she’s never actually seen pools of actual pee. Maybe it’s something in the cleaning solutions they used. Maybe this is the cleanest elevator in the whole damn city.

Ground floor, out the door, downtown has a different vibe on a Saturday morning. She notices the sunshine. Hears individual cars, not packs of them. Fewer horns. Fewer cabs. Same homeless guy though. Damn it. He’d been around, lately, and she’d expertly avoided him by using other people as a shield, or talking animatedly on her cell phone, or concentrating with obvious vigor on sending a text message. Sent Marlo a text message once: typing this right now to avoid making eye-contact with a homeless guy.

But yesterday he’d finally gotten to her. Spare me a quarter, he’d said. Sorry, I don’t have any spare change, she’d said. No spare change at all? he’d said. Then he smiled as she passed. Sucks to be you! he’d said after her. Gave her the creeps. Then, Good luck with that! he’d shouted before she’d gone into the parking garage.

And here he is again today. She’s chagrinned. Apparently, the homeless have to work on Saturdays too. Hopefully, he sees so many people in a day, he won’t remember her. But he makes eye contact, and it’s obvious he does remember her. But he doesn’t say anything. He’s just standing there, big smile on his face, flipping a coin into the air. Catching it without looking at it, flipping it again. She hurries past. Her building is less than a block away.

Inside, the lobby is enormous. Ceilings go up at least a dozen floors. Gary calls it an atrium, as in, I saw you standing in the atrium, who were you waiting for? She hadn’t been waiting, she’d been texting. But she hadn’t told him that. My ride, she’d said. Now she’s waiting for another elevator. Her entire life is being lived in elevators.

Marlo arrives. Nice hair. She puts her hand up, runs her fingers through it in response. Something’s in there. Hard. Cold. She pulls it out tentatively. Actually thinks the letters WTF and not what they stand for. Too much time texting. It’s a quarter. There had been a quarter in her hair. What. The. Fuck. Marlo doesn’t seem to notice, says, where did you park? Shit. That was it, what she was supposed to remember about the parking garage. She can’t get validation for parking from the receptionist on a Saturday because the bitch doesn’t work on Saturdays.

They get into the elevator and ride it up, Marlo talking about what she had done on Friday night. Yeah, I knew we had to work, and I was like, seriously, I’m going to limit myself to just one drink because I have to work on Saturday? And you know, two’s my limit, unless the bartender’s cute. But last night, I got so mad thinking about it, I had four. Four. If Frank says anything about the bags under my eyes I’m going to punch him in the face. Gary can fire me, at least I won’t have to work on a Saturday.

Ding, 25th floor, plush carpet, tasteful art, reproductions but still real paint in actual wooden frames. This is reception. They push through the plate-glass doors, turn the corner. No complimentary coffee today. A heavy wooden door. Marlo has her ID badge with the RF tag already out. Beep. Inside the mausoleum. Tight corridors of cubes, white-board festooned walls and the occasional conference room.

Near an open space, a pseudo-lounge with reception-discarded couches close to the break room, Keith, holding one of those gigantic 7-11 coffee thermos mugs, 64 ounces at least. Claims he used to be a trucker. Glasses so thick his eyes look enormous, alien. Talking to Gary, interrupts him in mid sentence to say to her and Marlo Chipotle or Lady General?

What? She knows what he means, knows Gary’s buying lunch, and Keith’s getting votes for one of two choices. And she doesn’t hate Keith, or dislike him, or have much of a problem with him. But he’s very abrupt, just says things like that. Maybe he’s a bit autistic.

Neither. Chutney’s, Marlo says, without bothering to stop on her way to her cube. That’s not one of the choices, Keith shouts after her. It is now, Marlo shouts back.

She goes to her cube, sits down, starts her computer and stares at the blank monitor. Glances down at the keyboard. There’s no quarter sitting on the wrist rest. She can feel her heart starting to beat faster. Feels like her chest is getting tight. She wants to lift up the keyboard, see if there’s a quarter underneath. But she doesn’t want to. Because what if there is. The bathroom and the coffeecup, her car seat, her hair. It was that greasy homeless guy. He’d put a curse on her. Why her. She just lived her life, she never bothered anyone. Curse Frank, he’s the asshole.

She puts her hands on either side of the keyboard, grips it. Pressure on her fingertips. Tendons in her forearms tensing. This is ridiculous. A weird coincidence. She’d gone to sleep with change in her pockets before, rolled around, woke up with a nickel or a dime stuck to her thigh. In college, she’d had a big coffee mug to dump loose change in, old habits die hard, right? Lift up the keyboard. She had a curly perm, all kinds of stuff got stuck in there, a quarter was probably the least weird thing that had gotten into her hair. Lift up the keyboard. Just look. Do it.

She closes her eyes, lifts the keyboard, starts to open her eyes, Marlo behind her says what the hell are you doing. Opens her eyes, no quarter, not even any dust. Yoga, she says. Conference room GW, Marlo says, walking away.

Her computer is on, so she reaches for her mouse, which doesn’t seem to work. She’s wiggling it on the mat, but the pointer moves erratically. She lifts the mouse to look at the laser, sees the quarter on the mouse pad. Stifles a scream. She picks the mousepad up with her fingertips, carefully turns, and dumps the quarter into the trashcan. She’s shuddering. Logs into her computer, then puts it to sleep and gets up to go to conference room GW.

Everyone’s there except Frank. There’s a fly buzzing around. How does a fly get up to the 25th floor. Gary opens his laptop, starts pecking at it. Keith, you first, he says.

Keith references a notepad. The fly is buzzing around her head, distracting her. Um, let’s see. McGilicutty will close in a week, that’s 40k. Then there’s Michaelson Bros, in ten days, 35k. He actually pronounces it Bros, rendering the abbreviation phonetic. The fly lands in front of her. Walking on the table, front legs whirring together like it’s washing it’s hands. She’s rapt. This is panic, she decides. Noticing tiny things.

Fine, Gary says. Finish those two and we can do Children’s and Stamford’s. Marlo.

Where’s Frank, Marlo says. The fly takes off again.

Called in sick. You’ve got J and G, right? How do those look?

I want Heller Associates.

That’s Frank’s, Keith says.

Frank’s sick. If I can close J and G today, can I have Heller? The fly lands on Marlo’s shoulder.

Gary shrugs. I don’t care.

Good. J & G will be 85 by the end of the day.

Keith whistles. The fly takes off, spiraling up to the fluorescents and down again.

Gary looks at her. The fly starts buzzing her head. She brushes at her eyebrows Okay, Gary says. That just leaves Nichol Timothy. 75 by next week, right?

The fly buzzes her face again, making her wince. Yes, she says. I could have done this on Monday, she doesn’t say out loud, but thinks. The fly brushes her nose. This is really starting to piss her off. Her hand snaps out, catching the fly in mid flight. Everyone stares at her.

She rests her fist on the table. Her knuckles are turning white from gripping so tightly. She can feel something in her hand, something hard, and thin, and round. Something metallic. Everyone is watching her, waiting for her to open her hand. There’s no fucking way she’s going to open her hand.