Read The Cubicle Next Door for Free Online

bedding down for the evening, legs folded under them, humps in profile. Nuzzling each other before sleep.
    I signaled and turned into the park.
    Anyone who says rocks are inanimate has never visited Garden of the Gods. There, the rocks breathe life. They glow with energy. Flare with motion. Trees grow from them—roots exposed—using the formations as a dance floor. Birds build nests in them. Marmots and snakes scurry through their holes.
    If Colorado Springs is built on the pathway to the plains, Manitou Springs is built on the trail to the mountains. Manitou marked the entrance to the land of dreams: gold and silver mines, ore fields. It was a leafy oasis on the journey to thin air, harsh landscapes, and frozen winter. Above the town, Pikes Peak projects up from the landscape like a fabled lone breaker at the ocean. The seventh wave. The big one.
    I turned left off Manitou Avenue and climbed the hill toward home. Home is a turn-of-the-century two-story with an attic. Light blue with white trim. It has everything you’d imagine: a wide front porch overhung by a second-floor balcony and a cute dormer window in the attic. The house sits up from the street; the separated garage is on street level, burrowed into the hill. The front of the property is buttressed by a stone wall, with stone steps leading up into the front yard. And everything is surrounded by a white picket fence.
    I pulled the parking brake and got out to push the garage door up. Then I inched the car in, rolled the garage door down, and locked it.
    Grandmother was trolling the kitchen, looking for something to eat, when I came in through the back door.
    “I have pork chops marinating in the fridge.”
    She pulled the refrigerator door open and bent over to verify that I was telling the truth. “Oh. I hadn’t looked there yet. How was work today?”
    I didn’t say anything.
    “That good?”
    “I have a new cubicle mate.”
    “They come new every year, don’t they?”
    “In general. But this one’s specific. He’s sharing my space. How was your day?”
    She didn’t say anything.
    “That bad?”
    “No one wants the Rossis.”
    “Oh.” Well, in the larger picture of things, it wasn’t a big deal. No one had wanted the Rossis for the past ten years. Rossignol was her own personal favorite brand of skis. And since she didn’t ski anymore, not since she broke her hip ten years ago, she tried to pawn them off on everyone else. The problem was that this particular pair of Rossis was just as old-fashioned as she was. In the nicest sort of way, of course. They used to be top-of-the-line, but technology had passed them by and she refused to mark them down. Which reminded me. “You could always mark them down.”
    “A pair of skis like that? I’d sooner let my only child run away to India.” An inside joke.
    “If you price them low enough, someone will buy them.”
    “They’re not for just anyone. They have to be for someone who appreciates them.” She sniffed and crossed her arms, leaned against the counter, and watched me prepare to cook.
    I shrugged. And that was it. We’d had the same conversation every day for the past ten years. Except for Sundays. She never worked on Sundays. Not for any religious reason, but simply because most tourists were on their way out of town at the end of the weekend, making Sunday one of the slower days in the shop.
    “Is he nice?”
    “Who?”
    “Your new guy.”
    “He’s not my guy.”
    “Well, he is new, and until you tell me his name, I don’t have anything else to call him.”
    Cranky, cranky. The weather must be starting to change. Her hip always ached when pressure systems shifted.
    “Is he mean?”
    “No.”
    “Well?”
    “Joe. His name is Joe.”
    “Italian?”
    “Irish.”
    “Humph.”
    My father had been of Irish ancestry. An O’Flaherty. Grandmother had nothing against my father, but everything against his family.
    “He seems nice.” It wasn’t that I was defending Joe; it was only