Emmy sat at her desk looking at the clock tick the hours away. She found herself wondering where the time had gone. Not just for the day, but the last few years of her life. A decade almost. She reminisced about the dreams she had had when she was younger. Life had seemed so full of possibilities then. As she sat there, lost in her revelry, more time past. When she refocused on her desk she noticed a small box that she was sure had not been there five minutes ago. Though she had been adrift in her thoughts, she was pretty sure that no one had passed by her desk since lunch time, which was three hours ago. She picked up the box. It was light. She turned it over in her hand. It was the size of a box that may hold earrings and it was wrapped with the most beautiful wrapping paper she had ever seen, complete with an elegantly tied emerald green bow. No card.
Now, if Emmy had a boyfriend she would expect the box to be sent by him. Emmy did not have a boyfriend. If she had an office romance, she might expect it to be from her coworker. Emmy did not work with any men on this floor. As far as Emmy knew, there was no one there who even had their eye on her, though she wished that the green eyed, dark haired man on the fifth floor, who she stood next to everyday in the elevator would look her way. From what she could tell though, he never even glanced in her direction during the thirty second ride up in the elevator, at the end of which the doors would open and she would mentally curse the fact that she had to continue up to the eighteenth floor while he walked out through the doors and onto the fifth floor. One day she was walking up to wait next to him at the elevator, when she tripped and accidentally spilled coffee across the floor. He barely turned his head in her direction. That was how not-noticeable she was. Not that she wanted to be known for being a klutz, but sometimes she thought any notice at all, might be a good thing.
Well the box was definitely not from him. It wasn't her birthday, or any special day that she was aware of so she couldn't figure out why one of the girls would have given her a gift. She set the box back where she'd found it, and looked away. When she looked back, it was still there. She didn't know what she had been expecting. For it to sprout legs and walk away, perhaps? She grabbed the box back up, and tugged at the emerald ribbon. It fell open easily, and the wrapping gave way as she carefully picked the tape holding it at one end. She hated to waste such beautiful paper. Maybe that was all the box was. A lovely wrapped box with nothing in it. It was awfully light after all. Someone's idea of a joke. She slowly lifted the lid and thought she heard faint music. She closed the lid and looked around for the source of the sound. The music stopped.
Just then Lisa walked up to her desk. "Oooh. Someone got some jewelry! Who's it from?"
"I don't know", Emmy said. "There's no card. And I haven't opened it yet. I don't think it's jewelry though. Who would randomly give me jewelry. Today's no special occasion"
Lisa contemplated this for a moment. "Maybe you have a secret admirer? Go on, open it. I want to see what it is."
Emmy couldn't explain it, but she didn't feel like opening her gift with an audience. This moment seemed like it should be private....
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