Clean Hands

M has come into my office. She is curiously young for her age, rabidly cocksure and fond of sweeping black and white declarations. “Nobody does that,” she says of the way I search using the Google dialogue box.  “You are artsy,” She says and then explains that nobody who works here is like me. She  can’t imagine anybody like me working here. I find this unsettling, because a particularly dull, non artful version of  me works here.   “Everybody agrees,” she adds with a sincere flattening of her lips.

These are not comforting conversations, so I am relieved when she makes clear that I will not be the topic of our chat today. There is another aberration worthy of her contempt, and there’s news.  SHE. Has. Been. Caught!

“ Oh, so, Yeah, you did miss some big news on Friday -  I don’t know if you knew about this - the hand washing thing? The offender?”

I don’t know. This is disappointing to M. I’d missed the whole big thing -the whole story. Everyone - everyone has been talking about it.  It’s been going on for about 8 months  - at least 8 months - even Gav, out on maternity leave -knows about it - M had a to call her to tell her the news.  M had been watching the door.

It started like this - there was someone not washing her hands in the bathroom, and nobody could figure out who it was. She was quick - she’d come in after M was already in there and then leave and before she had the chance to figure out who it was, she’d be gone… it was so disgusting. M reported it to facilities - she said there was somebody not washing their hands and  G - who runs facilities  - she was like OMG what are we going to do, you have to let me know who this is.  So M stood out by the printer and listened for the hand dryer - because there isn’t even a paper towel  thing in there so you know she isn’t washing her hands if she doesn’t use the dryer… ew. it’s too much even to think about it. “I mean, she pulls open the door to leave - and then the other door...”

I am watching M.  She is more alive than I’ve ever seen her. Her eyes are dancing and she’s shifting in her chair  the way you shift when you think you are about to pounce on something - an Hors  d’oeuvre tray, for example, or a puppy.  “And the signs that went up before flu season, that was all ME !” M says . “They put them in every bathroom, but I don’t think it helped. I mean, maybe a little. I don’t know.” She is radiant now, cherishing the thrill of the bait - she hasn’t made the reveal yet - hasn’t let on who will walk out of that bathroom and get caught toxic-handed - giving her the chance to tell everyone -everyone!  who it is.

I feel sick and complicated.  I think it may be me. Was there ever a time  I walked out of a bathroom without washing my hands? I wasn’t here Friday, but still…

There was the time she chirped from the stall next to mine, “Did you not flush!?” and I OMG’d and said I was so used to the automatic flushers…

I want to raise the judgment  issue.  In my defence. In defence of all my disgustingly like-minded friends who gaff and fart in their offices surely I am not alone?

I say maybe this person- whoever she is - is a hand-sanitizer user. Maybe she is washing her hands before she leaves the stall. “No!” M says, “There was no rustling around - no pause.  No purse! No!”

We had recently talked about M’s ankles, about how they swell like baking bread throughout the day, and the skin doesn’t contract -how it’s a bit like a Tempurpedic mattress the way the skin sponges down and retains the depression.  There is no resilience in the skin, no return. We get bored watching before it resumes leg shape. M feels no revulsion at this frailty of hers - nor concern.  She is going to leave work a month before she has her baby - just to be out, because she doesn’t feel like working and I am confused and out of sorts and  feeling oddly out of step when she pitches in, “You’re artsy - not arty.”

And I say I don’t need to be either. “You are neurotic…” she continues.
“Really? I say? Do you know what neurotic means?”
 “Artsy,” she says, “creative, out there…” 
I look up neurotic using my Google bar. (Somebody does that). It’s no longer used as a diagnosis, but in casual use it means anxious and ill at ease. I cock an eyebrow, all  chill and at ease.
“Okay, well crazy then," she says.   "Whatever. I can’t think under pressure.”
I want to but will not launch into how these conversations kill me because I don’t write like I want and I’m not  nearly as artsy or fartsy or that its  artie in a wheelchair from Glee …

We are back on the hand-washer now. M is frustrated that we’ve digressed from this thrilling story- the absolute killer nature of it. Here it is - it’s so unbelievable - she’s - she’s X!, The highest billing person in the whole place.  M barely pulled up her pants and peaked through the crack in the door and saw the blur of her going by and it was X!  Which is just crazy so weird.

There isn’t time. The day is ending. I have a lecture about how rich people get sick too and how X is so sad and anti-social and skittish and lonely that it’s not really surprising, but it’s not worth it, and I don’t particularly like X much anyway.

“That doesn’t surprise me that much,” I say.    M finds this infuriating.  Wouldn’t I expect someone so smart and so rich to be … “What?” I say - “Clean? Kind? Thoughtful?”

“I’m telling everyone,” M says. “Everyone.”   And suddenly, I liked X a little bit - fastidious bossy anti-social X, I am here for you. But let’s not shake on it, okay?