Domestic Violets Read Online Free PDF

them then, right?” she says. “The National Book Award. The PEN/Faulkner. The National Book Critics. And now the Pulitzer.”
    “I see you’ve been hitting Wikipedia again.”
    “I was an English major, too, jerk. I know what’s up.” She’s standing now, leaning across my desk to look at the screen. Her dark brown hair, still a little damp from the shower, clings to her cheek for an instant and then falls across her collarbone. She smells like rain and cinnamon and Diet Dr Pepper and whatever that glossy stuff is on her lips. The crush I have on this girl compares only to the one I had on Leslie Davidson in fifth grade. That particular affair ended with me throwing up one day at recess after she dared me to eat a worm.
    “Wasn’t he one of People ’s Fifty Most Beautiful People? Like back in the nineties or something?”
    “ ’Ninety-seven, I believe. His picture was between Julia Roberts and Gloria Steinem. It was his proudest moment.”
    “It’s scary how much you look like him,” she says. “You’re better though. You’ve got the cool-nerd thing going on. Girls like that. Your dad knows he’s hot, which negates the hotness a little. It’s a very complex formula.”
    Katie’s breasts exist now at my eye level, but I don’t stare at them like all the other dipshits in our office. Instead, I accept their presence as a given, allowing only the slightest glance at her ever-present corduroy blazer. She wears it almost every day, even in the summer. It is, somehow, the exact brown of her eyes and has been a character in the sexual fantasies of, I can only assume, every straight male in this building. A few months ago I saw one kind of like it at Nordstrom, and I picked it up for Anna, who accepted the random gift with wifely suspicion.
    “Shouldn’t you be working?” I say. “I’ve found that during economic meltdowns it’s good to at least appear busy.”
    “Speaking of . . . have you heard anything? Are they gonna do another round?”
    The word “layoffs” is avoided here. People talk around it, like one of those complex French words that’s difficult to pronounce. I used to manage two people, Katie and a nice kid from Baltimore named Stevie Tanner. But now it’s just us. Poor Stevie got laid off two months ago.
    “I know nothing,” I say, cheerfully.
    “You never seem to. Have you ever wondered why that is?”
    “It’s very deliberate. I’ve found that knowledge is usually a burden. I prefer to be surprised and then eventually horrified.”
    “You’re a born leader, Tom Violet,” she says. “I would follow you into hell.”
    I’ve been a longtime appreciator of a good exit line, and this one—solid—lingers for a few minutes after she’s gone, making me forget that I’m at work, and that I have carpal tunnel syndrome, and, according to a recent online survey from seven minutes ago, “mild” erectile dysfunction. In fact, she’s left me so giddy that it takes me a moment to realize that she’s stolen my heart-shaped squeeze ball.
    I swoon for a moment. I’m like some dumb kid with unfortunate skin at his locker. But then I see my dad on my computer screen, smiling at me below the headline V IOLET W INS P ULITZER FOR F ICTION . He’s looking at me all smug and accomplished like he’s so smart, and I think of that stupid T-shirt. It’s a good question. What Would Curtis Violet Do?

Chapter 5
    I n most companies , no one really notices you until they need you. And even then, when someone wanders into your office or IMs you and finds that you’re gone, they just assume you’re doing something constructive. Sitting in some horrible, pointless meeting. Stealing office supplies. Weeping gently in a bathroom stall on the fourth floor. Once you’ve established yourself as reasonably competent, you can pretty much come and go as you please.
    And so, as the day wears on and on, I’ve decided to go.
    There are few things as exciting as going over the wall in the middle of the