The Lie

Niani Peebles

Intermediate Creative Writing

Short Story – The Lie

“My aunt passed away”, I said innocently to my boss that I absolutely hated.
“I have to go to the funeral.” I figured this lie was excusable giving the fact that I didn’t have a relationship with any of my aunts. I had been so exhausted from traveling to New Jersey from Brooklyn and going to school. I had absolutely no days off and I was taking a difficult Statistics class. I really did enjoy the position, which was volunteer at first. I also admired the owner of the company, a beautiful wholistic healthcare practitioner who looked way younger than she really was. The guy I lied to was obnoxious. He had a thing for talking down to females, but I wasn’t going for it. He was hardly ever at the work place, so he had no idea how much I contributed. With this lie I was able to have a couple of days off. Not feeling like I had enough rest and study time I called in again to have another day off. By the time I came back, people acted as if they were shocked to see me there. The boss told me that the owner thought I wasn’t going to come back at all. I wondered why she thought that since I told her myself what the situation was.

I get a feeling that something isn’t right, so the boss tells me that he needs to have a talk with me. He tells me that everyone is talking about me in a negative way. He told me that they were saying, “What does Niani do?” I thought really, all of this just for 3 days? I had lost weight running up and down the stairs making deliveries. I hurt my fingers on the computer typing up handwriting that I could not make out. I was constantly answering the phone to take orders, then pack the boxes for UPS, then take the boxes down the stairs all by myself when there was always someone there to help me. In the end he told me my problem was assertion. In the past I had shown assertiveness but was called “ghetto” and accused of bringing drama to the work place. All in all I quit but was shockingly surprised a few months later when I was called to rejoin the company, but I declined.