Nothing Funnier, Part 1

“Stop it.” Jill laughed and threw her arms up, swatting at Merritt in the same manner one shoos away mosquitoes. 

Merritt shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a horrible person and destined to be alone.”

Jill’s round face turned an unpleasant hue of nightshade. “Omg, you’re hilarious.”

“Well, everyone knows there’s nothing funnier than not loving yourself.”

The skin around Jill’s eyes crinkled and her laughter stopped, but as soon as Merritt’s eyebrows raised, Jill started laughing again, this time quieter and less purple. 

Dammit. Merritt thought. Too much. 

Jill excused herself now and popped back below the cubicle divider that kept them separated. Little hamsters in their own proverbial wheels, running and working and getting nowhere. 

Merritt had worked at L. Lester Heating and Air for six months. Shocking as it may be, heating and air was not her life’s passion. She found it difficult to believe that heating and air might be anyone’s passion, except for maybe Donald from sales—Donald was also a prat who liked to harass waiters. 

Merritt firmly believed that she was not a prat, and while she performed her job admirably, she knew that heating and air conditioning had not been the reason she had been placed at L. Lester.

The real reason had loomed over her for half a year. To put it bluntly, she had been hired to spy. That’s right, real life espionage. Her first job for the mysterious “Organization” that had hired her via a series of video interviews. The exact kind of thing Merritt’s mother would tell her was going to land her on an episode of Dateline. 

Spying, as it turned out, was so far less glamorous than movies make it appear. Spies who stood out were typically pretty bad at their jobs. On the other hand, spies who flew under the radar, who no one seemed to take notice of—those were the ones who made it in and out of locked rooms undetected. The ones that people deemed too boring to be up to something. Or at least that’s what Merritt hoped as she lingered near the door of one L. Lester.

For the first time in 182.5 days, her assignment had been updated. Merritt had been alerted via an instant message as electrifying as her middle school days on AIM.

L. Lester. Top right drawer. Take images. Upload to the usual place. 

The usual place? She’d laughed. She’d never uploaded anything to any place, but the casual tone of the message made her feel like she had been uploading secret images for years. Like a regular in the ol’ spy business. And for some reason, that calmed the fluttering in her gut.

L. Lester of L. Lester Heating and Air looked nothing like you would expect a man named L. Lester to look. Merritt had expected a dodgy older gentleman with a comb over, but in reality, L. Lester wore three thousand dollar tailored suits, gave off old Hollywood film star vibes, and didn’t seem at all like the type of man that cared about heating and air. All the women, and some of the men, eagerly awaited his morning jaunt through the office. Denise, his administrative assistant, fanned herself with the outgoing mail every time he took off his cashmere overcoat. 

In fact, despite being her supposed mark, Merritt had been known to briefly fantasize about having a lurid affair with L. Lester in the copy room; she'd wondered if his impressive muscles felt as solid as they looked. She would not be adding that information to her report for the Organization.

Merritt had confirmed with Denise that L. Lester would be out to lunch between the hours of eleven and noon, so Merritt hovered at the door, pretending to read over an expense report.

Merritt had actually never seen an expense report before working at L. Lester Heating and Air, but she managed to figure them out very easily, proving to herself that most people were idiots.

The office felt unusually quiet with most of her  colleagues out to lunch. This was it, this her moment had arrived. Merritt tossed the report into a nearby trash can and pressed on the door handle. To her shock, it opened immediately with a disappointing click.

How much less exciting could this get? Was everything she knew about spying a lie?

She slipped inside and gently closed the door behind her. L. Lester’s office was so clean it practically sparkled with imaginary glitter. Spotless, and arranged in a way that didn’t suggest OCD, but serial killer. Merritt couldn’t explain the nuance, but it made sense to her.

Stepping behind the six thousand dollar Cayden Campaign desk she recognized from her Restoration Hardware catalog, she stared at the top right drawer. 

No lock. 

Merritt pursed her lips and let her shoulders slump. 

Spying was boring.

Pulling back the heavy drawer, she perked up when she saw inside. Here we go. A single manila folder. Merritt’s eyes darted toward the door and she counted. 1.2.3.4.7.

She placed the folder on the desk and grabbed her phone from her pocket as two voices sounded outside the door. They got louder. Her pulse pounded in her ears and Merritt debated jumping underneath the desk. But to her relief, as quickly as they’d grown louder, the voices had already started to fade. With a heavy breath, she opened the folder flat.

Merritt brought a hand to her mouth, her eyes going wide. She shoved a scream back into the pit of anguish curdling inside her.

Now, it’s important to note that what happened next is very out of character for Merritt, as she did not like to use foul language. Her mother often told her that curse words were a sign of lower intelligence.

Hands shaking, Merritt flipped through the pages before speaking three quiet words into the empty office. “What. The. Fuck?”