Nicole Babb
Useless
Excuse me, I want to call after you as you turn off the lights to the now-empty office. You’ve left me behind. But I don’t say anything, and you don’t look back.
~
We met the day you graduated from college. Your grandfather gave me to you as a gift. Precision, he said. It’s everything in this business. He would know. We took our first picture together that day – the one you kept in a brass frame on the top shelf of your bookcase; the one you placed into a box just this morning. You held me aloft like a queen with a scepter, the world at your feet.
You got your first job and brought me along. You spent hours bent over the drafting table in your office, me under your hand, making sharp, straight lines together. You were a natural. Everyone said so.
One night, late, a senior architect with frat boy hair and a single front tooth inexplicably more yellow than the rest, passed by on his way out. We were still working. He stopped in your doorway and stared. A t-square, he sneered. Useless. Computers are the future, baby. You better keep up or you’ll get left behind. Your face remained scarlet long after he left, your warm tears pattered onto my unvarnished oak body, leaving behind faint spots. Scars I bear to this day. You put me away that night, into a dusty corner where I could humiliate you no more.
The following summer, the facilities manager seemed determined to single-handedly end the record-breaking heat wave plaguing the city. The A/C was set to Arctic. Your arms were covered with goosebumps. You looked desperately at the vent, wide open, and searched around for a means of closing it. Your eyes landed on me. Hello, friend. In your outstretched hand, I was just long enough to slide the tab that would block the icy blast. Instead of returning me to the corner, you propped me against your desk. It felt good to be of use again.
You got a promotion – with a raise – and bought your first piece of real art. A landscape painting, Impressionist style. No buildings. An unusual choice for an architect. You laid me flat against the wall, making tiny pencil marks and moving me back and forth until you arrived at a midpoint. Precision, just like your grandfather instructed you all those years before. When you had the spot just right, you turned me on my side and used my thin edge to hammer the nail into place.
That senior architect was also promoted, to partner. He stopped by your office again. That night he came in, his one discolored tooth portending malice. He touched your hair, then your neck. He called you baby, but instead of condescending, it sounded sinister. You wielded me like a sword to keep him at bay as you fled. If I could have, I would have tripled in size to shield you from him. I would have used my giant, permanently outstretched arms to fling him to the ends of the earth.
You got your second job. The one that would be home for the next twelve years. The one that made you, nurtured you, almost broke you. You burned bright in those years. Clients sought you out. You were staffed on the most prestigious projects, pushed to your limits.
On your hard days, or when you just needed to think, you held me over your shoulder in a batter’s pose, tossing crumpled drafts into the air, swinging me with more heft than necessary to make the connection. Over and over, the wads of paper would bounce off the wall into a pile. T-ball, you called it, in my honor. Other times, I hung upside down in your hands to become a putter as you took aim at makeshift golf balls, rocketing them into an upended cup. Carolyn would come in most afternoons. She acted as pitcher, or caddy. But mostly, she was your confidant, and you hers. You were inseparable then. Best friends.
You started using me for work again. Your wealthy clients enjoyed the theater of it. Of feeling like something special was being created just for them. During meetings, you brought me into the conference room along with an oversized drafting pad. The clients looked hungrily across the marred table, mesmerized watching you work. Yes. Yes, that’s exactly what I had in mind, they whispered. Without fail, they left the office contract-bound, several thousand dollars lighter, and clutching your sketches as though they might take flight like some rare and mythical bird. Those were some of my favorite days.
You started getting the recognition you deserved. Your projects were featured in Architectural Digest. A luxury beach cottage in the Hamptons, a sprawling ranch in Wyoming, an eco-friendly winery in the Willamette Valley. You were chosen for the Design Network’s 40 Under 40. Each accolade was cause for celebration. Champagne in the conference room, Bruce yelled from the hallway. For our star. He was thrilled to have you as his protégé, to claim he had some hand in your skill.
Those celebrations lasted well into the night. One bottle of champagne turned into two, turned into half a dozen assorted bottles, always left scattered about the conference room in the mornings. Eric would bring a bottle of bourbon out from his office. Jackie would put on music. Once, I was still in the conference room, left behind after a meeting, when the party started. Bon Jovi came on. You grabbed me with both hands and belted Livin’ on a Prayer. I was passed around. Carolyn took her turn with Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. I was the star of Conference Room Karaoke. Jackson even had a habit of flipping me over mid-song, turning me from mic into electric guitar. He ran his fingers back and forth, strumming the imaginary strings along my spine. There was a period when those parties happened more nights than not. From our perch on the 47th floor, the city sparkled below and it those moments it felt like the sparkle was just for us. You were still the queen, the world still at your feet. It was exhilarating while it lasted.
You were unstoppable then. Before the accident.
The firm was hired to design a 200-unit luxury condo building in a historic district. Your name on the project was part of the deal. You didn’t want to do it. It was out of your depth, you said. Your other projects had been smaller. You could prioritize form. Aesthetics. This was all function, hidden behind only the thinnest veneer of creativity. Your involvement was non-negotiable. It was the only time you and Bruce argued. The only time he pulled the boss card. I may as well be designing a Wal-Mart, you whined. Bruce was pissed. You think you’re too good for our clients? You’ll do this, and you’ll do it well, or you won’t even be able to get a job as a greeter at Wal-Mart by the time I’m through with you. You may have had more raw talent, but Bruce had connections. You knew when you had lost. You did the job, adding your signature touches where you could. And when you attended the ribbon cutting, even you had to admit, it was magnificent.
Six weeks later, a two-year-old boy, left alone on a balcony for just a minute, slipped under the beautiful wrought iron handrail you had so painstakingly selected. A lawsuit was filed. The gap between the floor and the bottom of the railing was one inch wider than it should have been. One inch, and someone’s child was gone.
The suit dragged on for nearly two years. I didn’t think you would survive it. There were no more parties. You started keeping your door closed. You blamed Bruce, and yourself. Some people said the inch wouldn’t have made a difference. Two year olds are small. It was really the mom’s fault. But it mattered to the building department. It mattered to you. Then, as abruptly as it started, it ended. Carolyn testified in a deposition that you partied a lot. That you often came to work hungover. Finally, someone said it. Someone who was supposed to be on your side blamed you. The next day, the case settled, and that night, you bludgeoned your office to bits. Swinging me like a mace, you brought awards, sheetrock, knick-knacks to ruin. Even that beautiful, blurry landscape was unrecognizable when we were done. We too, were changed. One of my arms snapped off in the fray. For the second time since we met, I thought, That’s the end for me. Useless now. I think you felt the same.
But when you went out on your own a few months later, you brought me with you to the two-room office at the corner of a strip mall. The carpets were a dirty beige, as were the walls. You patched me up with a thin line of wood glue bolstered by a strip of duct tape. You arranged your few surviving items – the picture of us – on the bookshelf left behind by a former tenant. It was bulky, old-fashioned, nothing you would have picked out.
You worked alone. It was somber. And sober. No champagne, no karaoke, no glittering lights. You took small projects. Houses. Office remodels. A Target – which I had to admit was a lot like a Wal-Mart. You erred on the side of caution, so much so that your work became bland. You sighed a lot.
After we had been alone for a couple of years, one Wednesday, at five o’clock sharp, a man met you at the office. Tall, with black hair, wearing the khakiest pants I’ve ever seen. It was the first time since the move that another person had been in the space. Less than a year later, you added a second picture to the top shelf. This one in a crystal frame. You in a white dress next to the man.
I was the first to know when you got pregnant. You were in the middle of sketching a conceptual design for a beachfront hotel – your first big bid since going out on your own – when you doubled over, hands pressed to your mouth. You crawled to the trashcan and vomited. Then you addressed your stomach, Keep it together, Pipsqueak. We need this job if you want to live in a good school district.
You got the job. There was still no champagne, but the tall man – Scott, I learned – came and painted the walls a mossy green. You replaced the carpet. Bought a new landscape. Scott hung it with a real hammer, which was probably for the best, given my arm.
As your belly grew, you found new uses for me. A shoe horn to slide your swollen feet from your shoes so you could prop them on your desk, and to squeeze them back in. A back scratcher for that fleshy part just beneath your right shoulder blade that always seemed to itch.
The hotel took years to finish, but it breathed new life into. Or maybe it was Scott and Pipsqueak. I was never really sure. You brought on two associates. Young, eager, like you were once. They hung on your every word.
When Pipsqueak decided to be an architect for career day, like her mom, her outfit included me. I was going to school for the first time. Then, the morning of, she decided she wanted to be a judge. I could tell you were sad, when you asked, Are you sure, but then you said, You can be anything you want to be. You pulled me out of her backpack and turned me into scales of justice with string and paper plates. I still got to go to school. It was more fun than being an air guitar. Some years later, you added another photo. Pipsqueak in a cap and gown. She looked just like you did the day we met.
You started having hot flashes and we came full circle. I was back on vent duty, full time. Open the vent, close it. Open, close.
The years passed in a comfortable rhythm. Another photo appeared, Pipsqueak in her own white gown, you and Scott beside her. One day you brought in a boy who called you Mimi and climbed on everything. You pulled him from the bookcase, and as you set him down, I thought I saw your eyes glisten. I wondered if you were thinking of another little boy.
Work slowed. Your associates had become partners and they got other offers. You were happy for them, even as you knew it was the beginning of your end. You packed up the office and turned off the lights and locked the door and left me here. If there’s no use for you, there’s none for me.
~
The lights flicker on. You’re back. You pick me up, gently now. I’m as frail as you are. Come on, you say. We have shit to do.
Nicole M. Babb is a recovering litigator who is using her exit from the world of facts to write stories that exist somewhere between the real and not-real. Her favorite stories include larger-than-life characters and an extra helping of snark. She’s a lifelong New Orleanian, and when she’s not writing enjoys good wine, the occasional bad wine, yoga, and board games. She has a piece forthcoming in Foofaraw (November 2025) and in 2024, she was awarded the Scribes Prize for Microfiction. Find her at nicolebabb.com.
