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It had taken everyone at the office weeks of convincing for Lena to cave and provide some pizza for the breakroom.
“We only get coffee and stale mini donuts, you can’t expect us to live off only caffeine and pastries! We should get some pizza.”
Of course Alice had been the one to come up with it, but the others had been onboard almost immediately. Even Gwen, who would have the best chances at convincing Lena – after blackmailing her into giving her a promotion, this was child’s play for her – had only rolled her eyes a few times before giving in.
But who seemed most excited about the prospect of break room pizza was Sam.
“At my old office, we used to throw pizza parties every other week! It was great for team-building, we would bond over our favourite toppings – and those we thought were horrible. Like pineapple, ew.”
“I actually quite enjoy pineapple on pizza,” Lena responded, “if we were to host these, huh, pizza parties, as you call them, Sam, I would make sure to have at least one pizza with pineapple on it. Which, however, is very unlikely, as I do not believe using our government funds for pizza is quite the right investment.”
Everyone had gathered in Lena’s office for the pizza talk, but at this, nobody quite knew what to say. Not even Alice – for the first time, she realised shutting up instead of telling her boss her opinion about her preferences in pizza toppings wouldn’t really help their situation.
“So, if that was all, I would ask everyone to please return to their workstations. You have got a long night ahead of you, and I have been made aware a severe backlog has built up again for most of you. Perhaps clearing it would be more important than trying to talk me into paying for Italian food.”
As everyone followed Lena’s order – none of them seemed very happy, nobody even tried to hide their grumpy, disappointed face – Gwen decided to stay behind to have a private chat with Lena. It had worked before, perhaps it would work again. Although the material she had this time was a little less compromising than an assassination attempt gone wrong.
“Perhaps this might convince you to buy pizza for the office?” she asked as she pulled out her phone to search her camera roll for the footage she found in her emails the night before. An email address, seemingly made up of only gibberish, had sent them to her.
Lena, visibly confused at Gwen’s presence, looked up from the stack of files she had been sorting.
“Oh, Gwen. My instruction did include you as well. It is time to go back to filing cases, you are severely behind, and- oh my God, where did you find those?” she gasped as she finally got to take a look at the pictures Gwen was showing her on her phone.
They showed Lena, but instead of her usual blazer and dress pants, she was wearing a low-cut burgundy top and a black mini skirt.
The lights were dimmed, and there were a few other people around her, slouched over the chairs at the bar counter, while others appeared to be dancing – at least judging by their blurry shapes on the photo.
Lena wasn’t wearing the strict bun Gwen had never seen her without before, and her long, dark hair was falling into her face, covering the smeared makeup on her eyes.
In one hand, she was holding a drink. In the other, a microphone.
Gwen swiped, and a video appeared. Lena’s face fell as she played it.
“Party rockers in the hoouuuseeee toniiiight …”
It was undeniably Lena’s voice. Screeching and out of key, but there was no mistaking it. She wasn’t even looking at the big screen supplying the singer with the lyrics in front of her, she seemed to know the words by heart. The video went on for a full four minutes, but Lena stopped it after just about three seconds.
“Where did you find this?” she asked, her voice dangerously low. But Gwen could hear how shaky it was nevertheless.
“Doesn’t matter. But if you don’t get us pizza by tomorrow, the entire office will see it. And I doubt anyone will take you seriously after watching you sing Party Rock Anthem. Besides, it’s party rock IS in the house tonight – perhaps you should actually read the lyrics next time you sing karaoke.”
Lena just gritted her teeth in response. “Sure. Now get back to your workstation, Gwen.”
~
When everyone clocked in for work the next evening, Lena wasn’t there yet. They usually didn’t see much of her anyway, but tonight her car wasn’t parked in the car park, and her office door was locked from the outside.
Gwen hadn’t told anyone about her success, if you could call it that, last night. One, because she wasn’t too sure if it had actually worked and Lena would bring in pizza tonight, and two, because explaining she had blackmailed her boss – again – didn’t sound like a very good idea; especially because it would mean having to show the video, and Gwen was sure that would make Lena reconsider bringing pizza for sure.
Fifteen minutes after Alice finally arrived, which meant half an hour after everyone’s shift had started, Lena finally came in through the door, carrying a rather small pizza carton given the amount of people it was supposed to feed.
“Good evening, everyone. I have considered the request you have brought forth last night, and I have come to the decision that perhaps you were right, and we all should have some pizza. I have gone out of my way this morning to buy one. I’m afraid you will have to share it, our funds were quite exhausted, as it is the end of the month.”
When Lena walked into the breakroom to leave the pizza there, Alice turned to Gwen.
“Oh my god, did you stay back to give her head or what? I can’t believe she actually bought pizza for the breakroom!”
Gwen’s face turned red and she shook her head.
“You’re so filthy, Alice. No! Of course I didn’t. But I- did end up being the one to convince her, you are right about that part.”
“Well, no matter how you did it, thank you, Gwen,” Celia smiled. “Should we all go and grab a slice to eat while we’re filing cases?”
Sam jumped up so fast he almost knocked over his office chair. “Um, sure! Sounds good,” he said with a nervous smile; visibly trying to play it cool in front of Celia. But she didn’t seem to mind his clumsiness. She just chuckled and walked into the breakroom while the others followed her.
Alice was the one to open the pizza carton. And her eyes widened when she saw the contents.
“Oh there’s no bloody way-“
The pizza was covered in pineapple.
“We told her we didn’t like pineapple on pizza!” Sam exclaimed while a little pout started forming on his face. Gwen figured this was probably not the right time to reveal she actually didn’t mind it. It wasn’t her favourite topping, sure, but she didn’t hate it as much as the others seemed to.
“And it’s cold!” Celia gasped as she grabbed a slice. “What did Lena say again? She picked it up this morning?”
“Of course it’s going to be nasty. She probably left it in her car all day, too. Maybe if we put it into the microwave-“ Alice opened the door of the very old, very rickety microwave she had convinced Lena to get for the breakroom last year and threw her slice inside.
But when she took it back out after a few seconds, nothing much had changed taste-wise; now the slice was just soggy and steaming hot. “Oh come on-“
Alice took a bite and immediately spat it back out. “I don’t think I can eat this.”
Sam, who was still leaning over the carton, looked like he was about to cry.
“Why would she get nasty pizza for us on purpose? Gwen, what did you tell her last night? Did you make her angry, maybe?”
“Oh, so now it’s my fault we have disgusting pizza? Wasn’t this your idea in the first place, Sam? Christ, I can’t believe-”
“Shh,” Celia sighed and rested a hand on Sam’s and Gwen’s shoulders. “It’s nobody’s fault, alright? You know Lena. Of course she wouldn’t do anything nice for us out of good intent, or whatever. Alice, is the pizza really that bad? Even after microwaving it?”
Alice gagged in approval. “It tastes like it’s from that pizza place right around the corner. Sam, do you remember? The one I warned you about on your very first day. Pizza sounds very appealing at six in the morning after a long night of work, but just because they’re open 24 hours, doesn’t mean you should try it. I made that mistake during my very first week of working here, and-“
“I will go talk to Colin. See if he would like to at least try it,” Gwen interrupted her.
And without another word, she left the breakroom to storm over to Colin’s office. She wasn’t going to ask him about trying the pizza, though. She had a much better plan.
Ten minutes later, after Gwen had returned to her workstation again, all screens in the OIAR showed the same video. And from every loudspeaker, the same few words could be heard …
“Party rockers in the hoouuuseeee toniiiight …”