It was Tuesday, and first thing in the morning, I was already listening to Mom nag me. Apparently, I was old enough by now and needed to get married soon.
Ugh, how incredibly boring.
I made my way to my desk with a face as crumpled as the two-thousand-rupiah bill in my wallet.
“Hey, what’s wrong with you?” Friska asked as she arrived.
This was her routine every morning before work. Her job was to check on me. She really was my bestie forever, through life and work.
I looked up at Friska in horror. “Same old, Fris. Her Majesty Mom is telling me to hurry up and get married. Isn’t that so annoying?”
I pouted, completely and utterly annoyed. Seriously.
“Hahaha, that’s what you get for not having a boyfriend. Look at Adrian… I heard he’s been single for three years, almost as long as you have.” Friska folded her arms in front of me and raised one eyebrow. “What do you think? He’d be perfect for you, right?”
I slammed my hand on the desk in annoyance. Friska sure had it easy, casually trying to set me up with a stranger. “Hey! I’m honorably single, you know! Keep this up and I’ll report you to Mr. Bayu for talking about things unrelated to work!” I protested indignantly.
Riko, who had just arrived, chimed in carelessly. “Oh, please, as if you’re not a gossip too! I saw you yesterday gossiping with the design team about the cafeteria lady who raised the price of her rice by a thousand rupiah!”
This guy Riko really had no filter. How dare he expose my shame?
I cleared my throat softly, pretending to cough. “Ahem, enough, Rik. People are trying to save money, and then the prices go up anyway. We’re all just suffering citizens of Indonesia. Just not at Jaya Perkasa.”
I immediately focused on my laptop and checked today’s data.
I thought Riko would stop teasing me, but instead, he only got worse.
“But your single status is suffering even more, Sal.”
Riko then walked over to Friska, and they shook hands because they’d successfully teased me. Good grief, why was this princess’s life like this?
“Ms. Salma?”
Oh no, someone was calling me. As usual, whenever someone called my name, I immediately pretended to be busy in front of my laptop.
“Is that Adrian? What’s up?” Friska answered this time.
“I’m looking for Ms. Salma. I wanted to ask her to come to the warehouse. There’s an error in the return data.”
There was an error? Oh, I was so dead.
“Wasn’t yesterday’s data correct?” I looked up at Adrian and put on a serious expression to make myself look intimidating.
Adrian walked toward me. “It was, Ms. Salma. Yesterday’s data was correct, but last week’s was wrong.”
I tried to remember. I hadn’t been the one who handled that data last week. Ah, this was all that little punk Riko’s fault.
“But Riko was the one who submitted last week’s data, not me. So what am I supposed to do?” I defended myself. I wasn’t the type to take the blame for something I hadn’t started.
“But they’re looking for SALMA, not RIKO!” Riko shouted, immediately throwing my name under the bus.
I glared at him, but he just laughed from behind his laptop. I huffed in annoyance. What a pathetic fate, being a last-minute hero like this.
Adrian looked around our room in confusion. Inside, I wanted to laugh in triumph. I’d already said the marketing staff were all anomalies. He was definitely going to regret this after today.
“All right, to save time, it’d be better if you came with me to the warehouse now, Ms. Salma.”
I nodded. Better than letting my pile of work get even bigger. Giving in once in a while wouldn’t hurt.
“I thought you just called me Salma yesterday,” I said while checking the data Adrian was referring to.
Adrian was standing in front of me, checking the spare parts that were going to be shipped.
“I’m just trying to be more polite, Ms. Why? We’re going to be spending a lot of time together, so I’ll call you Ms. Yesterday, we didn’t know each other yet.”
Ugh, being called “Ms.” made me feel so old.
I shook my head. “We’re the same age. Just talk normally.”
Instead, Adrian laughed. He didn’t care about what I’d said. I wanted to kick him now. This stone-faced man was seriously annoying.
“Hey, are you even listening to me?”
I got really annoyed when people ignored me. I wanted to crumple up a piece of paper and throw it at Adrian’s face.
“I was taught manners from a young age, Ms. Weren’t you?”
Damn, this stone-faced man was taking a direct jab at me. I immediately pretended to be serious about the paperwork and crossed out everything that was wrong.
“Yeah, I was. We’re at work, so why are you taking this all over the place? Time, hey… time.”
Adrian had gone back to focusing on the spare parts, inspecting them very carefully. He didn’t say much. What kind of salesperson was he, anyway? He was always so quiet that I couldn’t help wondering.
I tried to start a conversation. If things stayed like this, I’d be the awkward one. Something felt wrong whenever my mouth stayed quiet for a whole minute.
“So, where did you work before this?” I asked casually.
Adrian looked at me, then answered calmly. “At a food company, Ms. I worked in sales too.”
I just nodded. It was weird to see a salesperson as cold as him. He was nothing like me, since I was incredibly talkative.
Wait, what was I thinking? Why was I suddenly thinking about Adrian? This was bad… really bad… I had to talk to Friska as soon as we got back. I was worried something was wrong with me.