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“Behold. Our salvation.”
“That is chocolate.”
“No, no, Dr. DuBois. Not just any chocolate. Stratt’s favorite chocolate.” Grace holds the chocolate bar up to the light to examine it in all its grandeur. He likes to think the light gives it a soft and angelic halo. The group remains unimpressed.
“I do not think that little piece of chocolate is going to stop her from murdering us,” Dimitri shakes his head solemnly. He’s seen things today that he’s never seen before.
“Guys, you don’t know—” But Grace is cut off by another brave soul who has an even more haunted look in her eye than Dimitri.
“She has a really good throwing arm. Really, really good. Do you know how many times she missed when she threw her phone, her tablet and both of her coffees in that last meeting?” Annie leans in from the couch, and the circle of people that's formed around her follow her example.
“Good God, she threw her coffee? Both cups?”
“She didn’t miss.” Annie whispers dramatically. “A. Single. Person.”
The group gulps in response.
Grace wiggles his body, as if to throw a spider off his shoulder. A pissed-off Stratt elicits the same reaction. “Well, she shouldn’t have been asked that question.”
“Yeah, especially when it’s true.” Redell shakes his head sadly.
That makes the group go still. Grace swallows with difficulty. He has to tread lightly here if he doesn’t want an actual murder on his hands. He’d help Stratt hide the body this time; he really would.
“What do you mean it’s true?” Yao asks with a frown.
“Well, it is shark week, isn’t it?” Redell asks with a shrug. Grace groans and falls to the floor dejectedly, deciding to become invisible and not participate in the conversation. They’ve all regrouped to the tiny lounge where their favorite, sad-looking couch sits but it's an activity that they do all too often for the conversation to remain private.
God help them all if Stratt walks into the room, Grace thinks. Still, he’s too loyal to his friends to leave them unprotected.
“Please don’t call it that,” Annie wrinkles her nose and crosses her arms.
“What should I call it then?”
“Perhaps by its scientific name?”
“Or maybe we don’t speak about it in public at all?” Dimitri shifts uncomfortably where he’s sitting on the armrest of the couch. Annie sits on the cushion below and next to him. They’re sharing a bag of Lays.
Yao rolls his eyes, catching on. “It is important to talk about such things in public so that the subject does not become even more taboo than it already is.”
Olesya stares at Yao with a look of wonder on her face. It’s like she’s truly seeing him for the first time in her life.
“What would you call it, then?” Redell asks again. His face is turning red but Grace can’t tell if it’s from anger or embarrassment. Or both.
“Menstruation,” pipes up Olesya, never taking her eyes off Yao. Dimitri groans audibly and the group turns to him as one.
“What!” He puts his hands up defensively. “I was told it was bad luck to say out loud!”
“Bad luck?” Grace asks, immediately intrigued.
“Russian thing,” Dimitri tries to dismiss.
“Nooo, definitely not Russian thing!” Olesya says incredulously. Then she lets out a high pitched squeal of delight. “Wait, did your mother say this?”
“Well, of course! I learned about your…problem from her and only her. If I spoke about it out loud, you could add 5 years of bad luck to your mother’s life.” Dimitri looks very defensive over his mother’s wisdom.
Grace hopes she’s still alive so he can send her socks or something as a thank-you. He’s heard all kinds of things that parents have invented to get their children to stop asking about something, but this one is new.
“Oh, Dimitri, you were an annoying child, weren’t you?” Yao says placatingly, patting his shoulder twice.
Dimitri looks very confused but answers the question as if Yao was expecting an answer. “Yes. I had too much energy for my poor mother. She would make me get out of the car and run home if I talked too much. It was a race between her and me.”
This is obviously a tender memory for Dimitri, but the rest of the group is both horrified and incredibly intrigued about Dimitri’s mother now. Grace sees Dr. DuBois hiding a chuckle behind his hand. Annie is hiding her own smile behind her bag of chips, but Olesya is grinning unabashedly at Dimitri.
“Alright, but if you had to call it something, what would you call it?” Redell insists. Grace is starting to think he’s too interested in the topic.
“You could call it ‘her cycle.’” Annie says after she’s schooled her features. Dr. DuBois nods from where he’s standing across from her. Olesya jumps impatiently in her seat next to Annie.
“But why do you need to know, Redell?! You offend someone?”
“No!” He rounds in on her. Grace, who is still sitting on the floor with his head between his knees, looks up and sees Redell glaring at Olesya. They’re on either side of him so he prepares himself to catch Olesya if she lunges herself at Redell him again.
“My daughters,” he sniffs, perturbed by the attention he’s now receiving. “Would not allow me to call it their ‘period’ or their ‘menstruation cycle.’ It was not taboo, but we had to call it ‘shark week.’”
“Ooooh,” the group nods as an entity. Teenage girls, Grace thinks. They will find any opportunity to embarrass their fathers, or to find their fathers embarrassing. He wants to clap Redell on the back but decides he’s too comfortable where he’s sitting.
“But…” Dimitri looks uncomfortable but then shakes his head after several seconds of not talking. “Never mind.”
The group falls silent for about ten seconds until everybody except Grace is talking at the same time. He doesn’t bother distinguishing who is saying what, he has a pretty good idea of what they all want to know.
“Okay, okay!” Redell placates them all. “I saw Grace take a…thing for her… thing out of his backpack.”
“You carry tampons for Stratt?!” Olesya looks like Christmas morning came early.
“I carry tampons in my backpack for anybody that needs one.” Grace says in his best teacher voice. He doesn’t say that he’s been approached by Annie at least three times before Dr. DuBois got the hint and started carrying them himself. Good man, Dr. DuBois.
“You are so sweet,” Olesya says and leans over to pinch Grace’s cheek. “Just like little puppy!”
“Alright, okay,” he swats her hand away and rubs at where she pinched him, hard.
“Isn’t it a stereotype that women need chocolate when they are on their menstrual cycle?” Yao shakes his head disappointingly at Grace, whose jaw drops in astonishment. “I thought you knew better than to offer Director Stratt such a misogynistic solution when she is already struggling.”
“She’s not struggling!” Annie yells out. “We can do anything we want while we’re bleeding!”
“Yeah!” Olesya exclaims, looking affronted. The she calms down and looks a little curious. “Although, we shouldn’t have to…”
“The pain is pretty debilitating sometimes…” Annie agrees, looking thoughtful. The men in the room nod immediately.
“And chocolate does help, actually,” ponders Olesya.
“Well, what are you doing here, Dr. Grace! Don’t you care that she’s in pain?!” Dimitri stands up and walks through their little circle to ‘help’ Grace stand up.
“Come on, man, I thought you cared about her,” says Redell, assisting Dimitri by grabbing Grace under the armpit and hauling him up.
“What else does she need?” Dr. DuBois asks Annie very seriously.
“I don’t know,” she shrugs. “Everybody is different.”
The group turns to look at Grace who is straightening out his clothes from where he was being manhandled. He sighs.
“I-I got it, okay? I just need to find a hot bottle.”
“Oh, I have one for my back,” Redell says excitedly and walks out the door.
“We should get her some medicine, no?” Dr. DuBois asks Annie, who shrugs and gets up to follow him. They're not going to get meds, Grace thinks as he scoffs.
“Some vodka couldn’t hurt, yes?” Dimitri asks Olesya, who grins widely and jumps off the couch. They start debating whether Stratt likes vodka as they exit the room.
Yao, the only other occupant in the room, raises his eyebrows threateningly at Grace. “Well? Why are you keeping her waiting?”
Grace throws his hands up and walks out, huffing and puffing about co-workers with no boundaries who are a little too co-dependent on each other. He looks at the chocolate in his hand. He didn’t even get to explain that Stratt is missing her mother’s birthday today and that he had the chocolate imported from the Netherlands to make her feel better. She says they used to eat it together every birthday.
Although, he thinks as he walks to her office, it is true that Stratt goes through a ridiculous amount of chocolate when she’s…on her days. He should know, he’s the one that fetches it for her.