SWEET LIKE HONEY

I first saw Jamie at her Cubical while trying to figure out what to get her for secret Santa. Her laugh was sweet and bright like the honey colored dress she was wearing. We both fresh out of college and working for PressStar, an upcoming magazine that covered pretty much everything from politics to celebrity drama. I was a reporter for the world views section and she was part of the social media team. 
Our different departments were paired up to purchase Secret Santa gifts for each other’s. The name Jamie Wolffe was a mystery to me that only the office directory could solve. I traced her name back to cubicle 4P. Her cubicle was on the path from my desk to the break room. I was slowly prowling past her trying to take in every inch of her desk. I looked passed the thick blonde hair that was in front of me and the only think I could spot was a calendar with Garfield comics pinned to her wall. Then I heard her laughter. It resonated through my ears like my favorite song. She was looking at a funny picture sent to her by a coworker. She began turning around and I barely got a peak at her face till my neck was turned too far around and I had to look forward, so it wasn’t awkward.
Everyday leading up to the office Christmas party I would sit at my desk and peak over the cubicles hoping to catch a glimpse of her face or hear her laugh. I so desperately wanted to buy her a gift that would make her laugh. Every time I tried to think of a good gift the only thing that could come to mind a fat orange cat telling her what day it was. 
When I arrived at the Christmas party, I placed the flat box underneath the small tree. I peered around the office until my gaze fell on Jamie standing by the mock fire place chatting with another coworker. I grabbed a cup of eggnog and made conversation with a few of the men who work around me. As conversation went on I would keep turning me eyes to see the woman with golden hair. 
Office Christmas parties can only be sort of fun. They’re full of the same dull conversation we have every other day at the office and games like pin the carrot on the snowman. At least time went by during these faster than it does during the normal work day. Finally, it came time to open secret Santa gifts. All the employees found their gift under the tree fully expecting to receive either some sort of desk knick-knack or gag gift. Most unwrapped some sort of snow globe or mug. I got a framed picture of our boss making a ridiculous face. 
Then it came around to Jamie to open her present. “I wonder what it is,” She said. She flopped the thin wrapped package back and forth. She tore the paper off and snickered with her friends. Eventually, all the wrapping paper fell to her feet.
“Aw! It’s a Garfield calendar for next year,” she said. “Well secret Santa, I love it!” 
She began to laugh, and my entire body became warm like I had been drinking the hot chocolate all night. I basked in it all night. We finished secret Santa and continued back to the normal office conversation. Soon, everyone started clearing out and going home. I went to my cubicle to grab my coat when I saw Jamie standing at her cubicle, smiling as she slid the calendar into her desk drawer, so she could hang it up at the new year. I thought that this was my chance to strike up conversation. 
“Did you enjoy the party?” I asked.
“I did. It feels nice to spend time with the people we are around all day without it being work related,” she said.
“Yeah, I understand that. You seemed to really like your gift.”
She giggled.
“I really did,” she said. “It’s silly but those comics just make me laugh.”
“Well around here that’s always a good thing,” I said.
We were both heading out the same door in complete silence. I didn’t know what to say or how to start conversation with her. The last thing I wanted to do was bring up conversation about our jobs. 
“Wait a minute. You were my secret Santa, weren’t you?” She asked.
“You’ve caught me red handed,” I said.
 “Is that why I would see you looking at my desk? You were trying to figure out what to get me,” she said.
We were both laughing. That was the warmest I had ever felt on a December night.
After that night even though I hated office small talk, I kept finding myself trying to find ways to strike her up with it. Any chance I got I would crack a joke to her or say something to make her laugh. I didn’t necessarily want to hear her laugh. I just wanted her to notice me and have her attention. I felt juvenile, like a child on the playground throwing rocks at his crush to signify he liked her.
One day I was sitting in the break room for my lunch break when she walked in to use the vending machine, wearing that yellow dress from the first day I saw her. Staring obviously wasn’t an option so I started conversation, so it didn’t seem like I was gawking.
“Is this week treating you well?” I asked.
“Not really,” Jamie said. “I have about thirty-thousand things to work on and more keep getting piled on.” She began banging on the buttons of the vending machine. “Also, this stupid thing just ate my dollar,” she said.
“You really are having a rough week,” I said. “Here you can have these if you want them.” I pulled a small bag of chips out of my lunch bag.
She sat down at the table and thanked me.
“When I was in college I thought this job would be so much better,” she said. “I thought it was going to be fun, exciting, and full of adventure. But instead I just sit at a desk all day and draft tweets and Facebook posts.”
I had no idea where this sudden out pore came from, but it felt nice to talk about something other than the weather or how close to the weekend it was.
“When I took this job, I thought I would be interviewing Nelson Mandela, instead last week I interviewed an elderly lady on how people should respect flowers more,” I said. 
“Exactly. When I started college, I told myself I was never going to have a boring 9-5 job where I sit in an office all day,” she said. 
I just sat there smiling. I tried formulating a couple sentences, but I didn’t know how to comfort her. She broke the couple seconds of silence by laughing.
“Oh my God. I am so sorry,” Jamie said. “This week is so rough I’m having a mental break down to a practical stranger.”
If felt as if that work was being carved into my chest. Stranger. I couldn’t help but think that we didn’t have to be strangers. I began laughing a long with her. 
“You are completely fine,” I said. “I have those at least twice a week. I may as well be paying the secretary to be my therapist.”
“A good therapist actually talks back to you though and knows how to answer a phone,” she said. 
We both broke out in laughter. If there was an ear equivalent to a sweet tooth, this is what would fill the craving. We sat there for a few minutes, just the two of us, complaining about our coworkers, talking about our over heard gossip, how the table during staff meetings becomes completely soaked from the boss spitting everywhere he when talks. I noticed things about her. Not only did she have an amazing laugh but when she did her nose did this thing where it folded into itself. 
“Well, I better get back to work,” Jamie said.
“Yeah, I hope your week gets better,” I said.
“This has made it better.”
We both went back to our desks. I spent the rest of my day transcribing an interview, but unlike most days, it felt short. I rode that wave of excitement all the way to 5 o’clock when I left work for the day. It was a Friday and I had no plans for the weekend except get the work done that I didn’t get done that week. I was driving home and thought I might as well stop somewhere and buy dinner.  I pulled into a small hole-in-the-wall that was on route to my apartment. As I walked in I heard a familiar voice.
“Hey, stranger, come often?” Jamie asked.
“Hey! What’re you doing here?” I asked.
“Well when you live alone and are very bad at cooking you eat out a lot.”
“That’s exactly what I’m doing here too.”
“Would you like to join me?”
“I would love to,” I said.
We sat there for a couple of hours. We talked about everything from favorite movies to where we wanted to be in five years. She learned my dreams of being promoted to an editor and she told me hers of how she wants to work for a large fashion magazine on the west coast.  All the conversation just flowed with ease. Eventually the waiter came and put our bills on the table. 
“Can I get that for you?” I asked.
“No, you don’t have to do that. You already gave me lunch,” she said. 
“Okay. But they do serve really great pie and the coffee is only slightly burnt. Mind if I buy you a slice?”
“Are you trying to make this a date?”
“Only if it’s working.”
“Well, we should probably check the company policies for relationships among employees.”
“I forgot my copy back at the office, though,” I said. “I guess for now it will have to just be called pie and coffee.”
“Sounds like a good idea to me. We can check the rules on Monday,” she said. 
We spent the next few hours together. She had a very unique sense of humor. It took more than a knock-knock joke to make her laugh, but she would laugh at comments about how some door knobs looked like sad faces. But every time she laughed I felt as if we were becoming closer and closer. By about midnight the dinner staff was ready to kick us out. 
“This was fun,” I said.
“It was. I guess not everybody I work with is completely boring,” she said.
“Would you be interested in doing it again sometime?” I asked.
“Most definitely,” she said. Then she began laughing. “but only after we check it with the company.”
From that night on we started seeing each other quite regularly. We started having lunch together and meeting on weekends to have dinner. Then she was coming over to my house and watching movies. We started doing projects for the company together. I would pick her up for work most mornings until she started staying at my apartment and we would just go to work together. Eventually, word got around the office, it wasn’t against company policy, but we just had to sign a document saying that our relationship at work would be strictly professional. Going to work became a hundred times more bearable knowing she was there.
One night we went back to the dinner where we had our first unofficial date. We tried to reminisce on all the things we talked about that night and how it led up to me asking her out. I confessed to her how I wasn’t just spying on her to buy her a good secret Santa gift but because I actually had a childlike crush on her. 
“That’s so silly,” she said.
“Hey, what can I say? Garfield did me good,” I said. We laughed for a moment then it died down. “You know these last eight months have been great.”
“They have been. Garfield really did you good.”
“Everything just seems right,” I said. “Work doesn’t suck as much anymore, going home to my run-down apartment isn’t as bad anymore.”
“Are you about to propose?” she joked.
“No!” I said. “I’m just saying I’ve really enjoyed being with you.”
“I’ve really enjoyed being with you,” she said.
That next Friday everything was going as normal. We had just finished another week in at PressStar and we were ready to go out to dinner. Then our boss stepped out of his office.
“Jamie, can I see you in here for a second?” he asked.
They were in his office for quite a while. Eventually, she came out it seemed as if her entire self was smiling, she was beaming with joy. She through her arms around.
“Whoa whoa, strictly professional,” I said. “What did you guys talk about in there?”
“Well, they’ve been so impressed by my articles recently and they want to give me a promotion!” she said. 
“No way! That’s amazing!” 
I threw my arms around her and picked her up. Excitement buzzed through me like a billion watts. 
“There’s just one things,” she said. “They want to transfer me to the L.A. firm.”
All the excitement fell out of me.
“Oh. That’s great! You’ve always wanted to go there,” I said.
“You don’t have to act excited,” she said.
“I am. I really am. It’s just what does that mean for us?”
“We could see each other every few weekends,” she said. “I have until next month to accept it.”
“You have to go, it’s your dream,” I said. 
“I know, but you mean a lot to me too,” she said.
“We can figure it out before you leave.”
She accepted the job and was due to leave the next month. I helped her pack her things. I couldn’t wait to see her succeed, even if that meant I spent my time unhappy here. Before she left I told her I didn’t think I could do the distance. It broke us both. For weeks my heart felt like it was missing something. I kept expecting to hear that laugh that reminded me of honey to come from the other side of the office. 
Two months later I was promoted. I stayed in the same office but now I was an editor and things seemed to be picking up. I was asked to go to a branch in Seattle where some other big named people from the company would be holding a meeting on the future of the company. I was sitting in the lobby of a meeting room when my ears began to be satisfied by that candy like sound. Just like I had done before, I pursued it.