The Pizza Talk

“Hey, Mavis! Hold up a minute there… I ordered us lunch so you don’t need to buy a meal at the cafeteria. It will arrive any minute now.” 

“Oh, then that must be the delivery Security asked me to pick up. It’s billed to you and they already paid for it. They’ll just reimburse it with Accounting on Monday, Freda.”

“Whoa, that’s very nice of Security, paying for my orders even if they haven’t met me yet,” the Beta testing Division head said in an impressed tone.

“Well, we’re all like that here at Greek, miss. Even Boss Damien was like family to us before…” stated the Olympic swimmer-bodied and thoughtful housecleaning staff male member before fading at the end of his sentence.

“Before what, Mavis ?”

“Uhhh… You know what, let me get your orders downstairs first then we can talk about that thing with Sir Damien over lunch, OK?” Replied Mavis as he swiftly stepped into the open elevator in front of him, as if he was trying to escape replying to the brown-eyed former university scholar.

As Freda was left alone on the Beta-testing floor, she decided to fix up the small dinette corner of the department lounge area. It had the typical fridge, toaster oven, coffee maker, water dispenser and full-sized fridge which was in every division of the company, along with two circular tables with four plastic stackable chairs each. It was after she had already wiped a table with some sheets of two-ply tissues which she got from a wall dispenser outside one of the floor’s employee johns, that Mavis returned with several mini-boxes inside a large white plastic bag in one hand and a massive pizza box in the other.

The amber-eyed broad-grinning male walked up to her and placed the box and plastic bag on the table in front of Freda and whistled before speaking, “Damn, this is a lot of food for only two people, Miss.”

“Well, I’ll be eating the rest of the cake later while I finish my special project. You can take whatever leftover pizza we can’t finish to the security staff below. And don’t worry, they can still refund the whole amount and I’ll deal with Accounting about it, no worries. Consider this my treat to them!”

“Sweet! I swear, Jackus, Clyde and Nick are going to love you!” Mavis declared as he opened the pizza box and brought out their drinks from the plastic bag.

“There’s also two servings In there somewhere. I ordered one each for both of us,” Freda said as she started to munch a slice of the pizza.

Mavis sat down and began to drink from the large plastic glass of cola before picking up a still-warm gooey slice, “Thanks for this, Freda. I needed to save up to buy my girlfriend an anniversary gift. We’re already on our fifth year as a pair next month.”

“Wow, congratulations. Now, about Damien…”

Mavis who was taking a long gulp from his cola almost choked on and spat out what he was drinking. It was obvious that the poor guy never expected Freda to suddenly open the awkward topic again without any warning.

But the girl genius was tenacious that way and he was only realizing it now. And no one can blame since she’s just been hired last year and was not that social with anyone in janitorial/housekeeping services. 

“Well, when Boss Damien started this idea of selling his digital creations such as his first business management computer program and those amazing game apps, we already knew each other. His father was already kinda like our community leader and he wasn’t too keen on Sir Damien’s interest in computer programs and mobile games. He wanted his son to be more focused on leading our pa… I mean, community. But he was intent on putting up his own business. Which was great for us since we at our pa… I mean community would be able to work again,” Mavis explained as he pressed a fork into his middle-sized aluminum tin of lasagna.

“Why, what happened to your former workplace, Mavis ?” asked the blond-haired brainy beauty as she sipped some cola.

“Sir Damian’s dad got cheated in his real estate and construction business and he had to file for bankruptcy. The thief was jailed for embezzlement but was never able to return the money he stole from his business partners. Which made it worse for the two Al… I mean the father and son since Signor Darius, Damien’s dad, felt that he was a failure while his only child was financially flourishing. He hasn’t been talking to his boy ever since he passed his Al… I mean leadership responsibilities and title to Boss Damien.”

“That sounds so sad… So that’s why he’s like that,” Freda sighed, not noticing the numerous ‘slips’ Mavis made in his story. “Isn’t there anything that could be done to fix this?”

“To be honest, it was quite a surprise for us that they would have this several-year-long gap since they were so close before. You’d even think they were brothers; the way they're talking. You see, when Damien’s mom died giving birth to a still-born daughter, that was when he and Signor Damien became inseparable, and Sir Darius was just a toddler then!” The janitorial staff member said as he finished his piece of cream cheesecake. “That’s a great cake there…”

“I’ll give you the shop’s number later, Mav. You might want to buy one for your upcoming anniversary.”

“Don’t worry Freda. I already got it from the pizza box while we were eating. Everything you got was just grade A excellent, so I’m getting this whole package for my girl on that special day,” Mavis proudly said as he drank the last of his cola. “My girlfriend’s name is Antonella, by the way. Nell or Nella for short. I’m sure you’ll be great friends once you get to know each other.

“Alright, I’ll keep that in mind when we have our next annual company family day event. Now don’t change the subject, Mavis Isn’t there something that Sir Darius would want that doesn’t entail shutting down Damien’s business?” insisted the lady programmer/inventor as she finished the last of her pasta.

“Well, there is the thing about his mate…”

“Why, what does his best friend have to do about this?”

“What? No, I mean his mate… Oh, I get it. Yeah, his best friend… Well, his mate or best friend already found the girl that he wants to settle down with but Sir Darius wants the same thing for his son. Unfortunately, Sir Damien still hasn’t found her yet.”

“But he’s just in his early 20’s, right? There’s still a lot of time to find the one. No need to rush it. Besides, he’s already banging Elena.”

“Excuse me for saying so, but that girl sleeps around…”

“How sure are you about that, Mavis?” the curious female asked as she took a bite of her dessert. Thank God I got more of that cheesecake. Mavis’s right, It’s really yummy!

“Well, I can smell… I mean, I hear things about her. Besides, Sir Darius only met her because he attended an engagement party of a good friend and client last year and that’s where he met Elena, who was his client’s fiancé.”

“OMG! So he’s shagging someone else’s lady?”

“Excuse me again for being frank, but that female ain’t no lady miss. You, I can call that but not her,” was Mavis’s reply, but this time no tinge of the usual friendly tone in his voice and his voice went about a couple of decibels lower…

He almost sounds like he’s … growling…

Freda thought to herself. 

“Well, thank you for that wonderful meal, Miss,” cheerily quipped Mavis as if the change of his voice never happened. “I owe you for that.”

“No. I owe YOU, Mav. I’m considering you my friend now. Is that ok?”

“That would be amazing, Freda. Now, if you’re done eating as well, I’ll be bringing the remainder of our pizza meal to the Security’s shift downstairs then go back to cleaning your place. Oh, and here’s your card key. It’s ok, I left the door open when I went to get your orders.”

“Thank you,” the female engineer said with a smile as she took the card key from her new friend. “Tell the guys downstairs to enjoy. I’ll be going back to my office now with my cake boxes to fix my project.”

“I will, no worries. Good luck with your project, whatever it is,” the pizza-carrying male said with a jovial wave.

As Freda closed her office door, she immediately fixed up the phone stand beside her massive flat-screen monitor. She then took out her mobile from her shoulder bag and attached it to the stand to watch the latest action romance movie that she heard about from her division’s beta-testers.

This was another unique skill of hers that has always amazed her mom: the capability to do two complex things at the same time while not losing track of either. It was great that her free office Wi-Fi is ultra-fast and super powerful so her movies ran smoothly and with no hint of hiccups so she didn’t even need to d******d the movies, which added to her phone speed and less data clutter, too, which she absolutely hates.

Maybe I should add a defragmenting and partitioning feature to my baby for OC people like me who want their data to be always neat and organized. That may slow my program but it will be worth it. Besides, I will find a way to counter that!