Chapter 5 | Office Scenes

The problem with Excel is that it never panics.

I do.

The sheet in front of me was full of perfectly aligned numbers, like a miniature army ready to march on my brain.

Columns, rows, totals, mysterious formulas.

I felt like I was facing a puzzle designed by someone who deeply hated human beings.

I reread the same line for the fifth time.

Still incomprehensible.

I knew the logic existed. The people around me seemed to understand it perfectly well. But in my head, the numbers made a strange noise, like marbles being shaken in a jar.

I tried a formula.

Excel answered me with #VALUE!

I stared at it for a few seconds.

“Okay.”

I don’t know why I spoke to the screen. Maybe because it was the only thing in the room that didn’t risk judging me.

In the open space, keyboards clicked with an almost musical regularity, murmurs passed between desks, and a coffee machine hissed in the distance. Everyone seemed to know what they were doing.

I was stuck between two columns that refused to add up.

I glanced discreetly around me.

Clara was talking to someone near the photocopier. Or maybe to the photocopier itself, I couldn’t really tell.

Mister Delmas was shut inside his office.

The other accountants were working with that calm concentration of people who have already survived several year-end closings.

No one was paying attention to me.

And yet, I felt like an impostor sitting in an ergonomic chair far too comfortable for him.

I dove back into the file.

Maybe if I stared at the numbers long enough, they would eventually turn into words.

Ten minutes later, I still hadn’t understood why one cell stubbornly refused to behave correctly.

I rubbed my eyes before sighing.

Then I tried another formula.

Excel replied with #REF!

“Great.”

I put my hands on the keyboard.

There was probably a video somewhere on the internet. Someone had surely already lived through this exact moment: a work-study student lost in an accounting file far too big for him.

I was starting to type “Excel bank reconciliation error” into the search bar when a voice spoke behind me:

“Are you sure typing random things is going to help?”

I jumped.

Really.

The kind of ridiculous little jump you immediately try to turn into a natural movement.

I turned around.

Lyralda was standing behind my desk.

I hadn’t heard her arrive.

Her arms were crossed, and there was a discreet smile, almost mocking, at the corner of her lips. The kind of smile that doesn’t really say you’re doing nonsense, but thinks it with a certain elegance.

“Uh…”

I looked at my screen.

“I considered it.”

She leaned slightly toward the screen. Her hair almost brushed my shoulder, and I immediately became far too aware of the exact distance between us for someone who was supposed to simply be failing an Excel formula.

“What exactly are you doing?”

“I’m… reconciling the entries.”

I think it sounded a little like a confession.

She looked at the Excel sheet. Her eyes moved over the columns with unsettling speed.

Then she pointed to a cell.

“There.”

I blinked.

“Sorry?”

“Your formula.”

She tapped the screen with her finger.

“It’s taking the wrong column.”

I leaned in too.

Indeed.

Column F.

Not G.

“Ah.”

“It’s a classic trap.”

She straightened up.

“Excel loves that.”

I think I smiled despite myself.

“Thank you.”

She lifted one shoulder.

“You’re welcome, Eliott.”

Then she added, with that same half-smile:

“But randomly typing things remains a solid option.”

I opened my mouth.

I didn’t know what to answer.

She leaned lightly against the edge of the desk, as if she had decided that my morning face still deserved two more minutes of her time.

“Is this your first reconciliation?”

“Yes.”

“Normal, then.”

She was still looking at the screen.

“Accounting is mostly a lot of small things that seem logical when someone explains them to you.”

Pause.

“And completely absurd when you’re alone in front of the file.”

“That explains a lot of things. You seem to know your way around accounting.”

She let out a small breath that almost sounded like a laugh.

“Let’s say yes. You know what?”

She leaned in again and changed the formula in two quick clicks.

The cell filled in.

The numbers aligned.

Magic.

“There.”

I looked at her.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Eliott.”

She observed me for one second.

Not like Jade. Not like someone testing an object.

More like someone trying to understand how a strange mechanism works.

“You panic quickly, don’t you?”

I straightened up.

“No.”

Pause.

“Well… a little.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“It showed in the meeting.”

The heat immediately rose again in my neck.

“Sorry.”

“Why?”

I looked at her.

“I don’t know.”

She thought for a second.

“Bad habit.”

“Probably.”

She nodded.

Then she looked back at my screen.

“Keep going like that.”

Pause.

“And avoid believing that everyone understands numbers immediately.”

“You do.”

She gave me an amused look.

“No.”

Silence.

“I just learned to pretend faster.”

I think it was the first time I had seen her smile openly.

Not enough to change the order of the world, but enough to soften something in her face.

I dove back into the file.

The numbers suddenly seemed a little less hostile.

Maybe because someone had just confirmed that it wasn’t only me.

Lyralda was still behind me.

I could feel her presence, calm, attentive.

Not invasive. Just… there.

And it was strange how simply knowing she was still there made everything a little less difficult.

She watched my screen for a few more seconds.

Then she said:

“Right.”

I turned toward her.

“I’ll leave you to it.”

She straightened up.

“Otherwise you’ll never learn.”

“Okay.”

She took a few steps.

Then she stopped.

“Eliott.”

“Yes?”

“If you’re really stuck…”

She pointed to the corridor behind her.

“My office is over there.”

Pause.

“But avoid arriving with a completely broken file.”

I think I laughed.

“I’ll do my best.”

“Perfect.”

She went back to her office.

I watched her walk away, with that stride still so sure of itself.

In the window in front of me, my reflection was still looking at me.

Same shirt. Same posture.

But something had changed.

I looked… a little less lost. And rather pleased.

I dove back into Excel.

For a few minutes, the numbers started making a bit more sense, until my computer made a small ding.

“Subject: RE: reconciliations”

My stomach tightened slightly.

I opened the message.

“Don’t waste my time with this, it’s your job.”

I stayed still.

The cursor blinked in the middle of the screen.

One second.

Two seconds.

I reread it.

Then a second time.

As if, in the meantime, the words would rearrange themselves on their own and become kind.

They did not make that effort.

Don’t waste my time…

The most impressive thing about that kind of sentence is its ability to make noise without producing a sound.

The whole office kept turning normally around me. Keyboards clicked, a chair rolled somewhere, Clara laughed in the distance with someone, a light laugh, without drama, without Excel. Even the water dispenser gurgled as if nothing had happened.

And me, in the middle of all that, I felt like someone had just poured a glass of cold water over my stomach.

I looked at the sender, just in case.

“Jade Delphine”

Right.

The mystery wasn’t going to last very long.

My first reflex was to check the file.

Maybe she was right.

Maybe I really had missed something.

Maybe I had sent an absurd document, with formulas pointing toward another dimension.

I reopened the attachments.

Line by line. Column by column.

My eyes slid over the numbers without really reading them. I could already feel the panic coming back, that fast, stupid rise that makes you believe everything you touch is burning when really there’s only one bad email.

But my brain has never been very good at dosing things.

I clicked on the previous message in the thread.

A simple technical exchange, a question about a difference between two amounts, nothing apocalyptic.

I had asked for clarification. Politely.

With a “hello” and a “thanks in advance,” like someone trying to deserve the oxygen he consumes.

Her reply, clearly, didn’t need politeness to breathe.

I passed a hand over my face.

I lowered my eyes.

Not now. Not for an email.

I tried to type a reply.

“Hello Jade, I simply wanted…”

I deleted it.

Too soft.

I started again.

“Hello, I don’t think I…”

I deleted it again.

Too defensive.

In the end, I let the cursor blink into the void before standing up to get a glass of water.

Sometimes moving gives the impression that you’re acting on the problem. Even when you’re only moving your panicked body toward a water dispenser.

The open space was calm, in that kind of late-morning torpor where people talk less and sigh more. Clara wasn’t there anymore. The corridor toward the legal department was almost empty.

Passing in front of the bay window, I caught sight of my reflection superimposed over the office behind me.

For one second, I looked like I was already in my place. Shirt, badge, glass in hand, silhouette inside a clean setting.

If you looked quickly.

Very quickly.

With a little kindness in your eyes.

Then Jade’s email came back to me, and the illusion came apart like badly assembled furniture.

Maybe I should just go ask her, or send her a message.

Well, I don’t know.

I went to pour myself some water.

Cold.

Perfect.

It didn’t solve much, but at least I avoided answering her message under pressure, which was already a good thing.

When I turned around, Lyralda was there.

Not right behind me, thankfully. I probably would have spilled the glass onto the carpet.

She was coming out of her office with a file in her hand.

She looked at me for one second. Then her eyes slid toward my screen, still lit on my desk, visible from here at an angle, before coming back to me.

“You look like a guy who’s just been told his goldfish is asking for a divorce.”

I laughed a little despite myself.

“That’s precise.”

“I observe a lot.”

She took a few steps toward the dispenser, her file still against her, before leaning slightly to be at my height.

“What is it, Eliott?”

I hadn’t planned to answer honestly. My natural reflex is more: “nothing, everything’s fine, I love suffering in silence.” But her tone didn’t really invite lying. Or rather, it made lying useless.

I hesitated.

“Jade replied to me.”

“Ah.”

Her ah already contained far too much understanding for such a small sound.

“And?”

I lifted one shoulder.

“Let’s say she didn’t find my question very enriching on a human level.”

Lyralda waited.

I think she knew I was going to talk.

Because people like me, once we start, we often end up saying everything in one block, just so we don’t have to start again.

“I asked her for clarification about a discrepancy. I must have phrased it badly. Well, I don’t know. Maybe it was obvious. In any case, her reply was a bit…”

I stopped.

“A bit what?”

I looked at her.

“Mean…?”

She almost smiled.

“Mean? That’s cute.”

I lowered my eyes to my glass.

The worst part is that said like that, in her mouth, I almost sounded like a child complaining that someone had spoken badly to him in the schoolyard.

“I don’t want to make a drama out of it.”

“Then don’t make a drama out of it.”

I looked at her again.

It was said simply. Not to minimize it. Just like a fact.

“Is she like that with everyone?” I asked.

Lyralda tilted her head slightly.

“No.”

Small silence.

“With some people, she makes an effort.”

“Ah.”

I don’t know why her answer stung. Probably because it meant: so not with me. Which wasn’t exactly a surprise, but surprises hurt even when you expect them.

Lyralda saw something pass over my face, I think. She continued, more calmly:

“That doesn’t mean the problem comes from you.”

I said nothing.

Because when someone says that, part of my brain always answers: that’s kind, but statistically, there’s still a strong chance.

She adjusted the file against herself.

“What did you send her?”

“A question about a calculation line.”

“And she answered as if you had insulted her bloodline?”

I almost smiled.

“No, not quite.”

Lyralda sighed. Not loudly. It wasn’t a sigh of annoyance at me, more the sigh of a woman watching a show she has already seen.

“Show me.”

We went back to my desk.

I sat down a little too fast. She stayed standing behind me, like earlier, except this time it wasn’t Excel humiliating me, it was my own inability to handle an email without dissolving internally.

I opened the conversation.

She read.

Her face barely changed. Maybe that’s her strength: she doesn’t overplay anything.

“Classy,” she said.

“Is that ironic?”

“What do you think?”

I looked at my hands.

“What do I reply?”

“First, you’re going to stop trembling like that.”

I froze.

“I’m not trembling.”

“Yes.”

Pause.

“A little.”

I hated myself for about a second and a half.

Then she leaned in and placed one finger on the screen, just under Jade’s email.

The tip of her finger was so close to my hand that it took me an absurd amount of energy to keep breathing normally.

“Simple answer. Professional. No useless apologies, no inner novel.”

“I don’t do inner novels.”

She gave me a sideways look.

“Of course you do.”

I closed my mouth. She was right, which was irritating but not surprising.

“Write.”

I put my hands on the keyboard.

“What?”

She dictated, in a neutral tone:

“Hello Jade,”

I typed.

“I was simply asking you to confirm the source of the discrepancy so I can correct the file properly.”

I typed.

“Thank you for your reply. I’ll take care of it.”

I reread it.

It was… dry, but not aggressive, solid. The kind of message that stands upright without emotional crutches.

“That’s all?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Isn’t it a bit cold?”

She lifted one shoulder.

“Why? She didn’t send you a poem either.”

I gave a brief laugh.

Brief, but real.

“Send it.”

“Now?”

“No, in six months, framed in your living room.”

I clicked send.

The email left.

I stared at the screen as if an explosion would follow.

Nothing.

The world didn’t move. Excel didn’t catch fire. Mister Delmas didn’t come out of his office screaming. Clara didn’t burst out of a cupboard to tell me I had just ruined the fragile balance of the company.

Just… nothing.

It was almost vexing, all that inner cinema for so few special effects.

Lyralda straightened up.

“There.”

“There,” I repeated.

“You’ll survive.”

I turned my head slightly toward her.

“You say that as if you’re sure.”

She crossed her arms.

“I’m a lawyer. I’m paid to imagine the worst.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“And despite that, I’m telling you that you’ll survive.”

Small silence.

Then she added:

“Besides, Jade barks more than she bites.”

I thought of her email.

“I hope she doesn’t have access to dogs.”

Lyralda really smiled this time. Very slightly, but enough to change her whole face. It was strange, with her, a smile.

Not because it was rare in the dramatic sense of the term.

More because it always seemed to come from somewhere she didn’t easily let people see.

And when it appeared, I had the strange impression that I had done something right.

“Go back to your calculation nonsense, Eliott.”

I lowered my eyes to the screen.

“Yes, ma’am.”

She started to leave, then stopped for one second.

“And by the way.”

I looked at her.

“You were right to ask the question.”

I felt something move in my chest. Not huge. Just a small displacement. A screw being tightened somewhere in a machine too fragile.

“Thank you.”

She nodded and went back to her office.

I reopened the file.

The numbers were still there, of course. True to themselves. A little dry, a little cold, a little convinced they were right.

But I had changed by one millimeter.

Which, on my scale, already represents an administrative revolution.

I got back to work.

Cell G was responding better. The calculation line had found its logic again. The email sent to Jade was floating somewhere in the company network, cold and clean like a hospital corridor, and it made me feel strangely good.

No victory.

Just the absence of collapse.

I’ll take it.

After a few minutes, I allowed myself to lift my head.

Lyralda’s office was visible from mine, at an angle. Not completely. Just enough to make out part of her silhouette behind the screen, her high ponytail, the sharp movement of her hand when she turned a page.

I went back to work.

Then I looked up a second time.

This time, she was looking at me.

Not insistently. Not as if she had caught me doing something compromising. Just that direct, slightly mocking look she had already had earlier.

When she saw that I had seen her, the corner of her mouth moved slightly.

A half-smile.

Very brief.

The kind of smile that maybe says: yes, I saw you panic.

Or: yes, you are a bit catastrophic.

Or maybe even: keep going, it’s almost funny.

I didn’t know exactly.

But I knew one thing: she hadn’t mocked me to put me down.

That was worse, or better.

I think she was genuinely amused by me.

And the problem is that part of me was starting to find that… bearable.

Maybe even pleasant.

Which wasn’t very healthy.

Or maybe it was.

Honestly, at this stage, I didn’t have the tools to say.

I lowered my eyes to my screen before my brain started producing embarrassing ideas.