The Orange Wall

The corporate office was painted in what the design firm called 'sunset gradient'—which really meant the entire east wall was a sickly shade of orange that made everyone look slightly jaundiced under fluorescent lights. Mara had stared at that wall for seven years, through three restructurings and two mergers, watching her colleagues' reflections warp and blur in the glass partition like ghosts haunting their own funeral.

Today was Thomas's last day. He stood by her desk wearing that ridiculous hat—a brown fedora he'd started wearing after his divorce, as if channeling some film noir detective could make redundancy feel romantic instead of just sad.

'You could come with me,' Thomas said, not looking at her. 'The startup needs someone with your experience.'

Mara touched the orange on her desk. She'd bought it yesterday, something bright and living in this sterile place. 'We're not friends anymore, Thomas. We haven't been since you took credit for the Morrison project.'

'That was three years ago.' He finally looked at her. His eyes were the same color as the wall behind him.

'Some things don't wash out.' She thought about her nephew's baseball tournament last weekend—how she'd watched from the bleachers as a pitch hit the batter, how the boy had kept going, how nobody had apologized. That's what work was. You took your hits and kept swinging.

Thomas adjusted his hat. 'I really did need you there. I still do.'

'The problem with needing people,' she said, placing the orange in her bag, 'is that eventually you have to admit what you'll do to keep them.'

The elevator dinged. He walked away without looking back, fedora tilting slightly, and Mara thought how strange it was that you could work beside someone for a decade and never really know them at all. The orange wall caught the afternoon sun, suddenly brilliant, suddenly beautiful, and for a moment she understood why they'd chosen it. Some things looked best just before they burned out.