All I'd done was casually mention at last night's dinner that I'd used my most recent paycheck to clear my mortgage, and today she had the nerve to climb right over me with it.
Even more ridiculous was the way she talked. An unpaid intern issuing orders like she owned the company.
I rolled my eyes and didn't bother sugarcoating it.
"Mercedes, you're an intern and you're worried about the department's coffee order? Sounds like you don't have enough actual work to do."
"Instead of scheming up ways to spend my money, maybe put that energy into your job. Otherwise you won't have to worry about coffee runs because you won't be here long enough to drink one."
I figured that would be enough to make her back off, at least a little.
Instead, her expression darkened and her voice shot up a full octave.
"Matilda, seriously? It's just a few afternoon drinks."
"You already paid off your mortgage. What are you hoarding all that money for? Treating your coworkers to a coffee now and then isn't going to kill you."
"Besides, I'm doing this for team morale. Everyone's working themselves to death around here. You pitch in a little so people can enjoy themselves, and that's a problem?"
By the end of her little speech she'd puckered her lips into a wounded pout, the picture of a selfless do-gooder crushed by my heartless penny-pinching.
A few colleagues who'd never liked me nodded along on cue.
Conrad Dickerson, the guy who never once paid for his own coffee but always had a cup in hand, let out a chuckle.
"Come on, Matilda, don't be so tight-fisted. We're all on the same team here."
A woman at the next desk chimed in right behind him.
"Mercedes is just trying to be nice. You make a little more than the rest of us. Would it really hurt to look out for everyone?"
I almost laughed.
Just like that, Mercedes had talked her way into rebranding my paycheck as the department's communal slush fund.
I'd be the one footing the bill and doing all the work, and somehow Mercedes would get all the credit for being thoughtful.
I was about to speak up when the department manager poked his head out of his office, wearing an expression of fatherly concern that made my skin crawl.
"We're all colleagues here, Matilda. Don't make this ugly."
"Besides, Mercedes was only thinking of you. You earn more than most of us. Treating everyone to a coffee run wouldn't even dent your paycheck."
My stomach turned.