Lymber craft's Arc

Chapter 66 of 70

Tuesday morning Lymber walked into the glass tower and rode the elevator to four. She had not answered the manager's email. She wanted one more day at her desk before she decided. She set her bag down and opened her laptop. A woman two rows over looked up, then looked again. Lymber felt the look land on her hair. The woman walked to the printer, then walked back past Lymber's desk on the long way. She stopped. She said, I'm sorry, this is going to sound strange. Were you the girl with the crown. Lymber's hand stayed on the mouse. She said, that was a long time ago. The woman said, my sister showed me the video in tenth grade. She smiled like she had found a coin on the sidewalk and went back to her seat. By ten the whispers had a shape. Two men by the coffee machine went quiet when Lymber walked in. A woman from three rushed over with a bagel and said, you have kids now, right, four of them, that's amazing. Someone had pulled the old clip up on a phone. Lymber heard her own seventeen-year-old voice through a tinny speaker two desks down. She heard the word pregnant and the crowd sound. She went to the bathroom and put both hands on the counter. She thought about Polly. Polly would have told her to top it, not deny it. Lymber washed her hands, dried them, and walked back to her desk. She did not sit. She walked to the manager's office and knocked on the open door. She said, I want to say this before anyone else does. I got pregnant in high school. There is a video. It is real. I have four kids now. I am here to do the job. The manager set his pen down. He said, okay. He said, thank you for telling me. He said, are you confirming five days. Lymber said, yes. Starting in two weeks. He nodded and wrote it down. She walked back to the floor. She stopped at the coffee machine where the two men had gone quiet. She poured a cup and said, if anyone has questions about the video, ask me. Don't ask each other. One of the men laughed once, surprised, and said, fair. The woman with the bagel came over later and asked what the twins' names were. Lymber said, Max and Missy. She said, and the older two are Violetta and Jett. The woman wrote it on a sticky note like she was afraid to forget. At three Lymber drove home. Violetta was at the table. Jett was on the couch. Missy and Max were building something on the rug. Lymber set her bag down and said, I told them. Paul looked up from the sink. She said, and I said yes to five days. Violetta said, was it hard. Lymber said, it was fine.