Morningstar Manor

"...you want nacho chips with cheese or salsa?" Brian called from the kitchen. It was snack and TV time, just hanging with his girl. Best time of the week, so far as he was concerned.

"Ahhh, well,fuck." Dermot said this morosely, watching Molly wiggle her way across the room without even a glance in his direction. "Seems as though she doesn't care for knock knock jokes, brudder."

They'd cut out of work early to take advantage of the gorgeous weather, and now walked along the River. He was thinking of buying an ice cream cone before he had to head back to take Gram to her pilates class.

Kate walked into the lab with a new guy flanking her. He stuck close which annoyed her, but seemed eager to do the job.
She was glad she'd be handing him off to Dr. Banks when he got back from vacation. But for now, he needed to be trained.

"Mr. Johnson," she called, even as she warmed at the sight of Brian. "This is Mr. Lance. You'll be training him. He's going to be Dr. Banks' assistant."

Allan had been working like fuck today, and hadn't had much time to eat so dropped by one of his favourite bars on his way home.

A couple of pints and a plate of stew and colcannon later and he was feeling better and looking round for something to do.

She'd barely seen him all day, she'd been in meetings, and now it was almost nine o'clock and he still wasn't there.

Not that she could blame him. Who wanted to  sign up for something like this every day? For someone like her everyday?

Still feeling just a little disappointed, she went to start dinner.

"Yeah, so anyway, I was like, totally wasted." This came from Lisa, the tiny blonde intern from the bio department. She was wearing impossibly high heels and still only came up to Brian's chest. "It was awesome!"

"Sounds like it," Brian said non-committally, pouring coffee for himself and for Kate.

"Your boss has you fetching coffee?" Lisa asked. "Wow, that's harsh."

He laughed. "Nah."

Lisa chattered on and on. And on. And on. It took Brian a few minutes to realize it, but she was like, totally hitting on him.

Huh.

Brian's stomach was rumbling, starving, and everything on the menu looked good. Not as good as Kate, seated across from him, did. "What do you want to order?"

It was a Monday in the truest sense of the word, Kate decided as she watched her boss prowl around her lab. She didn't know why Ed felt like he had to periodically stop in and just... Touch everything.

He ran his fingers over the vials, leaving orange smudges from the cheese curls he'd apparently eaten earlier. He went through her files that were so neatly organized and then replaced them wherever he felt like, paying no attention to her system and leaving those nice and smudged too.  He paced, scratching at the psoriasis on his elbows and Kate tried not to look at what fell off. It was utterly disgusting.She itched to take them from his hands and just push him out the door, then bring a full hazmat team in and start all over.

By the time he left, her head ached, there were grooves in her palms from where her nails had dug in, and she was in a considerably bad mood. Mouth thin, she went immediately for the Lysol and got to work.

He'd come in early to be sure he got there before she did.

Coffee on her desk.
Afternoon snacks in the drawer.
Lunch preordered, delivered, in the fridge.
And every single vial and file alphabetized, color coded and sorted precisely the way she wanted.

She'd managed to avoid him since the - incident - last week, but she knew she'd see him today.
She wasn't prepared and she had no idea what any of it meant.

Kate could understand the appeal of pot, even though this was her first time dabbling in it.

The joint Brian had brought for them was a little wrinkled, like he'd been holding on to it for a while and he'd acted like she was about to scold him at the dinner table when he'd presented it to her, but still - it was good.

Now laying on her back on the floor in the star-gazer lab with the exhaust fan on and the stars projected on the ceiling, she couldn't stop laughing.

"What do you see?" she said, laughing harder. "What shape do you see right there?"

Dated January 22, 2010

Mr. Johnson,

This is a list of tasks that are to be completed by Tuesday at the latest.  I will check on your progress on Monday night.

- K.R.

1. All file cabinets in my office are to be dusted with lemon-scented Pledge and the handles wiped down with sanitizer. Use the Lysol foaming spray and allow it to sit on the handles for at least three minutes before wiping away. Pay attention to any stray globs of sanitizer on the surface of the cabinets. If there are any, see that they are cleaned in the correct fashion.

2. All folders in the cabinets are to be changed from plain manila to a color-coded system. Red folders for projects that are in progress and due within the month, yellow folders for projects that are in progress but have up to three months, green for in progress but up to six months, and blue for completed projects.

3. File the folders with a color to each drawer, then by date and finally alphabetically.

4. Label each folder on the tab clearly and in black ink with the project name and number. 

5. Look at the papers on the inside. There are to be no paper clips, bent edges, or unreadable notes. If there are paper clips on a set of notes that is no more than three pages - staple the pages. If  it is more than three pages, use a three-hole punch and fasten the notes neatly in a separate report cover. If a report cover must be used, type up a cover sheet using Times New Roman 14 point font briefly detailing what the notes pertain to. If there are bent edges, copy the notes neatly onto another sheet of paper that is not creased in any way. Repeat the last step if the notes are in any way unreadable. White-out is not acceptable.

Things would be much easier if she could remember which direction home was. And if these damn shoes weren't substituting for stilts.

Kate stopped to glare down at her cherry red heels in the middle of crossing the street from the Lamb, the noise of the party continuing on behind her, and jumped back when a black Buick appeared out of nowhere and almost hit her.

"Assface," she murmured as she stumbled a bit, mostly from the shoes instead of the abundance of alcohol she'd consumed, or at least that's what she told herself.

They'd worked all morning in silence, Kate (he should stop thinking of her as Kate, it was really better to call her Ms. Robinson) studiously ignoring him. That could be okay, actually, so long as he got the list.

The list.

Heat flushed through him for a moment before he pushed it aside.

She'd been working far too long. In fact, she hadn't even went home last night. She'd just slept a few hours where she could squeeze it in and gotten straight back to work. She didn't have to work like this, she was choosing to. Something about the episode with Brian yesterday had left her - unsettled - and she had no idea why. Working kept her mind off of it. Mostly.

Rubbing at one bleary eye, she rested her forehead against her palm and contemplated catching another hour. She contemplated so hard that her eyes closed invouluntarily and she was sleeping...

 

 

Mr. Johnson,

This is a list of tasks you must complete to the letter by this evening. When I am done with my meetings I will check on your progress.

- K. R.

1. All vials in the West laboratory are to be organized alphabetically, then numerically and by specimen color.

2. All vials are to be relabeled. Red labels for time sensitive, yellow labels for in progress, and green labels for completed. All labels should be marked in black ink with comprehensive handwriting.

3. Once the vials are organized and put away, all counter tops and tables are to be washed with bleach, rinsed, then cleaned with disinfectant and wiped down with a sterilized towel. You can find them in the third cupboard to the right under the sink.

4. All eye pieces for the microscopes are to be cleaned then sterilized. Check the lenses for any sort of smudges or milky residue left by the disinfectant. If there are any, see that they are handled.

5. All unused petrie dishes and those whose specimens are no longer needed are to be cleaned, sanitized, then dried upside down on a sterile towel.

6. Finally, all reports for this week are to be formatted with 1 inch tabs, 10 point spacing after and line spacing at exactly 25 points. Also, please use 14 point Times New Roman font. Bullets should be used where they can and be mindful of spelling and grammatical errors.

Kate sat in a part of the lab that she technically shouldn't be in, but it wasn't like there was anyone here to really enforce that rule anyway. Instead of her research labs, she was sitting in the heart of the astronomy lab, marking down coordinates as she picked them up from the large telescope. She'd went home and changed after work and was now sitting there in a long sleeved dark blue v-neck t-shirt and a pair of jeans with her hair up in a messy bun and no lab coat. No one to look professional for at this hour.

There was a checklist of questions for Kate to answer about her assistant, and not one of which she had the answer to. She'd always found Brian to be competent and he showed up on time, but other than that she had no real opinion.
There were questions here about his team work, cleanliness, ability to follow orders. How the fuck should she know?
The review had to be completed before the first of the year in order for Brian to get his raise on time and she supposed she should get to work.
With a wary sigh, she headed out of her lab and into the offices.

Connor, in the Lamb, had taken over the bar to give Molly the day off so she could...well, do whatever it was that needed doing this close to Christmas. He was alternately serving drinks and food and working on some lists of things he intended to order for the Lamb, bills to be paid, general stuff like that -- but ahhh, it felt good to be doing it in person instead of over the phone or online.

Sarah had ducked down to the Mocha for something sweet, her notebook in hand. She'd actually managed a few chapters on her book-that-wasn't-a-memoir-after-all, and it felt good to take a break from writing to face the world, even if it was still only inside the Manor.

Brian and his Grams were also in the Mocha, Grams looking pink-cheeked in her favorite dress and hat, ready to be taken out for a full day of Christmas shopping. Brian looked tired, probably because...he was. Late nights and early mornings at the lab were taking a toll.

Trevor in the gym, working out hard, working up a sweat. He was feeling strange, had to get out of the apartment that was too empty without his wife.

Gavin, on the other hand, was really out and about, sitting in the corner at the Lamb, nursing a Guiness and basket of fries. It was time, he'd decided, to get the hell out of that apartment, meet some people, get a life that didn't revolve around his brother...or anything else.

Annnnnd, finally, Elspeth was in the lobby overseeing some last-minute changes in the holiday decorations. It turns out some of the glass balls dangling from the Manor's oversized tree were too breakable, so she was supervising their replacement and the re-hanging of nearly identical ones in child-proof plastic.