We all groaned in collective relief as the alarms set to our phones on the ground started buzzing and ringing to alert us that it was time to get down and prepare to take lunch. Checking around that everyone had cut off their welding guns, I then pulled back my welding hood and took a gulp of fresher air. My face was sweaty and greasy, one of the downsides to welding as part of a team was there really wasn’t a safe time to take your eye protection off to wipe the sweat and dirt away, I chose never to take the risk and just suffer until it was time for a predetermined break. Some of the guys decided to wave that bit of safety in the name of comfort, but I was stubbornly attached to my ability to see clearly and unlike some of the people I had worked with over the years, I didn’t believe I was invincible.

“My arms are killing me,” Joey groaned. He set his welding gun down on the base of the platform he was on and shook his arms to get the blood flow back into them. “Can I switch someone else out for this part? Holding them above my head constantly is getting really hard.” He had been positioned up near the top, but the giant lift system we used to hoist us up to the top of ships was not designed to be quite tall enough for a ship of this size. It got us close, but whomever was working at the very top of the plate being affixed had to work above their head, making it the most difficult, time consuming, and uncomfortable job.

No one else was answering him and Joey tended to be a good guy, so I decided to take one for the team. “Sure, we’re about the same height so I should be able to reach,” I volunteered. I hated the idea, but I was a big believer making sure you always had a favor banked away for a rainy day.

“I owe you, Christa,” he said and flashed me a toothy smile. “Normally I would buy one of the other guys a beer after work on Friday, but I doubt you want to come out with us.”

I snorted through my nose and shook my head. “I’m only hanging out with you lot as long as I’m paid, I’d never do it for free.”

“Bet you don’t do much for free,” Howard said, lowering his platform back to the ground.

“You couldn’t pay me enough for that,” I shot back.

“Now come on, let’s just go have lunch, we’re all just hungry and grumpy,” Andy intervened. “Most work fights happen right before lunch, let’s just all keep our mouths shut until our stomachs are full.” Andy was the unofficial team leader, unofficial because he made the same as us, but someone had put extra duties on him including having to attend extra meetings we didn’t have to with the big bosses and called it a reward for being such a valued worker. I supposed that they thought the free lunches and donuts supplied at such meetings were ample compensation for the extra duties that were expected of him. I personally thought it made him a sucker for doing the extra work for free, but that’s exactly why they had approached him with the idea and not me.

“We’re not fighting,” I said as I lowered my own platform to the shop floor and started unbuckling myself from the safety harnesses. “I was merely turning down a business offer from a fellow employee. Honestly, I’ve always found balding men exotic, so I should be flattered.”

A strangled grumble of anger erupted out of Howard and he cast me a scathing glance, I would have died on the spot if looks could kill. I only smiled sweetly and gave him a coy wink.

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” Andy sighed, “let’s just drop it.”

“No, I’m not dropping it,” Howard said, voice full of venom. Every so often I managed to needle into a sore spot and really get him going. I never felt bad about it, he liked to do the same to others, but only thought it was going to far if he was the target. “She gets to strut around her with her foul mouth and bad attitude and no one calls her on it and I wonder why.”

“Why is that?” I asked, desperately trying to keep the laughter out of my voice. I knew exactly where this was going.

“You know what I’m talking about.” He unlatched the final buckled on his safety equipment and tossed it hard to the ground. “Everyone on this team knows what I’m talking about, I don’t need to spell it out for anyone.”

“I’m not sure I know actually,” Joey said. Howard looked at him miserably and started wringing his hands together, as he was inclined to do when he was put on the spot. “Christa just seems like one of the guys to me.”

“You know it’s not the same.” Howard stomped over to his lunch pail, snatching it off the ground and spinning back around to face me. “Any man spoke to me the way she does I’d have been fired long ago for punching them, all I’m saying is that she has privilege and she knows it. Not only knows it, abuses it, revels in it! She gets to harass me daily and all of you just stand around and laugh at it.” Spittle was starting to fly from his mouth as he spoke, like his rage was starting to make him salivate more like a rabid dog.

Joey glanced towards me and gave a wink, letting me know he would take over and could be counted as my pay back for taking over his section. “You seem to ‘harass’ her just as much.”

Andy let out a long, heavy groan and pulled out his phone to start filming the exchange in case it escalated all the way to HR. It was pointless to try to defuse anything now, it would come to a head one way or another.

“I don’t harass her!” Howard was screaming now, his face red and he took a step towards Joey. “She’s the one prancing around here like she owns the place!”

“You comment on her love life all the time and just now you insinuated that she’s a prostitute. She just called you bald, which you are. Most of the time she doesn’t even say anything to you or about you until after you’ve already taken a shot at her. Seems to me like you’re the one with the problem.”

“You’re sleeping with her aren’t you?”

I couldn’t help the guffaw that exited my mouth, he really was scraping the bottom of the bucket of tricks to turn this around to be all my problem. Since he had no defense on being called out on his history of finding ways to jab at me he went with a classic. Honestly I thought he was capable of being at least a little more clever.

“Really, Howard?” Joey said with a laugh of his own. “I knew you could be ridiculous but this is beneath you.”

“That’s not a no!”

“You know it’s not true, none of us are involved with Christa, it would be against company policy anyway.”

“Oh right, sure,” Howard scoffed, “you want me to believe she hasn’t slept around with most of you already?”

“Howard,” Andy said with a warning tone.

“No, I’m tired of dealing with this shit, I know she’s slept with all of you and that’s why you’re all so dismissive of the way she struts her sexuality around here.”

“My sexuality?” I couldn’t help but get involved again. “Dude, I’m wearing a jumpsuit that’s identical to what everyone else wears. You’re acting like I show up in a bikini and heels.”

“You might as well the way you carry yourself and speak, it’s like working in a brothel, you just flaunt around like a whore!”

There was an awkward silence as the rest of my team exchanged shocked looks with each other. A couple other of the guys pulled out their phones to record as well.

“Wait, how?” I was honestly confused. My every day work outfit was the similar variation of a blue jumpsuit that covered from my neck to my wrists and my ankles, it was pretty much as covering as you could be, it had to be to be protective from all the sparks and sharp things in the shop. To top it off, I couldn’t remember the last time I really washed any of them, so they were always stained somewhere, not exactly an outfit for a sexy night out.

“Really?” He laughed sharply. “You swing yours hips around and bend over all the time, you know what you’re doing. You flaunt yourself and try to entice every man you meet.”

“Are you always on my case because you think I’ve slept with everyone on the team but you?” It was all falling into place now, the crude remarks and venom before I even had a chance to say two words to him at the start of the day. He was always making comments based on who I was or wasn’t sleeping with, he was a bit too invested in my love life.

“What?!” he sputtered, looking around him in anger and alarm as if it just clicked that he was being filmed. “Do you see? Everyone heard and saw that, it’s on film, she’s the one bringing up sleeping with me!”

“You just accused me of sleeping with everyone in the team except you, which is laughably untrue, by the way. You all know I wouldn’t touch any of you romantically with a ten foot pole.”

“Sure, talk like that once the cameras are rolling, you are a good little actress. I bet that’s what your job would be if you didn’t find a way to weasel into keeping your job here all the time.” Suddenly aware that this probably wasn’t going to look good for him, he pushed past Joey, intentionally knocking into him as he stormed away towards the break room. You could hear snippets of his angry tirade fade away over the sounds of clanking metals and the grinding whir of tools.

“I’m sorry, Christa,” Andy said, hitting the button on his phone to stop recording, “I’m going to run this up to HR over lunch. I can’t believe he knew I was recording and said everything he did, HR is going to blow a gasket over this. This video alone would be great evidence for a law suit, not to mention all the eye witnesses that I’m sure we’d agree to be.

“Not worth it,” I replied with a shrug, “those kinds of things always have a way of being twisted to make the woman look like the one in the wrong. It’s always about how the woman lead someone on or acted too sexy or some other shit they make up to pass the blame. He’d be the first to tell every person he met how I tried to sleep with him at some point or something to discredit me. You all don’t have to do anything, it’ll blow over and he didn’t hurt my feelings.”

“Still, you’re like a sister to us. We like being able to joke and be sarcastic with you, but there’s a line and he crossed it, “Joey chimed in. “I’d ask to have us all buy you lunch to make up for it, but I’m sure you have plans with Joannie already.”

“Get me tomorrow, I think I need to go talk shit with another woman right now.”