Chapter Text
Galinda Upland excelled at managing crises. Client emergencies, last-minute presentation changes, even that horrendible time the office coffee machine exploded - she handled them all with perfect poise and a winning smile. But Momsie's voice through the phone was making her grip her desk with white knuckles, a familiar tension headache building behind her temples.
"Darling, Fiyero will be at the gala, of course. He's been asking about you."
Galinda stared at her perfectly organised row of colour-coded files, focusing on keeping her voice light. "Has he? How thrillifying." She could practically hear Momsie's frown through the phone.
"Really, dearest, I don't understand why you ended things. He's from an excellent family, he's doing wonderfully at his father's company-"
It wasn't that there had been anything wrong with Fiyero. He was exactly what she was supposed to want - handsome, wealthy, well-connected. She'd even tried making lists of all his perfect qualities, the way she did when organising events or choosing accessories. But something had always felt... off. Like wearing a shoe that looked perfect but pinched in ways she couldn't quite identify.
"Momsie, we've discussed this." Galinda's eyes drifted to the conference room across the hall, where Elphaba Thropp was demolishing someone's quarterly projections. Even from here, Galinda could see the presenter wilting under that hideodeous glare. Honestly, would it kill Elphaba to at least pretend to smile while destroying someone's work? And that black blazer again - she probably had seven identical ones, like some sort of corporate grim reaper.
"The gala is in six weeks, darling. The seating arrangements-"
"I'm seeing someone!" The words burst out before Galinda could stop them. The silence on the other end of the line was deafening.
"You're what?"
"Dating. Someone. From work." Galinda watched as Elphaba stood up in the conference room, gesturing at the presentation screen with that impossibly irritating disdain. Just that morning, she'd torn apart Galinda's proposal for the new client outreach initiative - which Galinda had spent hours making look pretty with exactly the right shade of pink highlighting, thank you very much - calling it "superficial at best, actively harmful at worst."
"Who?" Momsie's voice had taken on that dangerous sweetness that always preceded a lengthy guilt trip.
"Elphaba Thropp." The name fell from Galinda's lips like a stone into still water. In the conference room, Elphaba's head snapped up, as if she'd somehow heard. Their eyes met through the glass, and Galinda quickly looked away, her heart doing an odd little flip. "Oh! Would you look at the time - I have to go, Momsie. Client meeting!"
She hung up before her mother could respond, letting her head fall into her hands. This was beyond tragified. Of all the names in this entire office building, why did her brain have to say Elphaba's? She could have said any of the men Momsie kept trying to set her up with. Or that handsome new client from the Vinkus. Or even sweet Boq from Accounting, though he was tragically short. But no - in her moment of panic, when she needed the name of someone who would horrify Momsie enough to make her stop pushing about Fiyero, her brain had supplied Elphaba Thropp.
It made a certain kind of sense, she supposed. After all, who could be further from her usual type? She liked charming men with good breeding and excellent fashion sense. Men who knew which fork to use at dinner and how to compliment a lady's new hairstyle. Men like Fiyero, really, except... well, except that something had always felt not quite right there. But that was just because she hadn't met the perfect one yet. The right man was out there somewhere, even if her mother's constant parade of "eligible bachelors" hadn't produced him.
Though really, of all the ridiculous things her panic-stricken brain could have come up with...
She could always say she'd made a mistake about who she was dating. Pfannee and Shenshen would play along - they'd done it before when Galinda needed to avoid particularly persistent suitors at social events. But Pfannee would crack under the first pointed question about their relationship, and Shenshen... well, Shenshen couldn't even keep a straight face that time she tried to convince everyone she hadn't ordered four boxes of pink office supplies on the company card.
Elphaba and Galinda’s antagonism was legendary around the office. Just last week, they'd had a showdown in the break room over Galinda's habit of leaving her designer coffee cups in the sink. "Some of us," Elphaba had said, "actually clean up after ourselves instead of expecting others to do it." As if anyone had died from a temporarily unwashed cup.
Galinda had smiled her most dazzling smile and replied, "Some of us have better things to do than police other people's dishware, but I suppose we all need hobbies."
And that wasn't even their worst encounter. There was the time Elphaba had methodically dismantled Galinda's work in front of the board, pointing out every single flaw. Or the way she'd sat through Galinda's presentation last month in silence, only to send her a dissertation-length email afterward explaining why everything needed to be redone "for the sake of accuracy." As if Galinda hadn't spent weeks crafting that proposal. As if Elphaba's precious data somehow mattered more than understanding what people actually wanted.
The thought of what people would say made her stomach turn. She could already hear the whispers that would follow her down the hallways. Galinda Upland, who'd been voted "Most Likely to Succeed Through Charm" at university (and also "Best Hair," which was frankly the more important achievement), dating Elphaba Thropp, who seemed to take pride in making people uncomfortable. The woman who'd reduced Boq to tears last month over a rounding error. Even Fiyero, who never spoke ill of anyone, had once described her as "brilliant, but possibly part dragon." And Nessa from Legal would be horrified - she already struggled with how her sister conducted herself in meetings, constantly apologising for Elphaba's "direct" approach to feedback.
The absolutely tragical thing was how Elphaba swept through the office like some sort of social thundercloud, completely unbothered by the way conversations scattered whenever she appeared. Not that Galinda made a habit of watching Elphaba's entrances and exits, of course - she simply had an eye for detail, the same way she noticed when someone committed the unforgivable sin of using Comic Sans in their signature or wore last season's shoes to a client meeting.
Galinda herself had invested years perfecting the delicate art of making people actually want to be around her. Meanwhile, here was Elphaba Thropp, stalking through life in those hideodeously sensible shoes as if other people's opinions were entirely irrelevant. Not even relevant enough to dismiss - more like they simply didn't register on whatever complicated spreadsheet she kept in that big head of hers. Still, there was something sort of impressive about how Elphaba managed to stand apart from everyone else during workplace bonding events, as if she'd rather endure them in silence than pretend to find them anything but pointless. The woman probably hadn't told a social lie in her entire life - she'd sooner give a frighteningly thorough presentation on the ethical implications of workplace deception than play along with something like this.
Which made the fact that Galinda had just volunteered to pretend to date her even more ridiculous than it already was. And Momsie would probably faint dead away at the dinner table if she met Elphaba. Actually, that wasn't an entirely unappealing thought...
Galinda stared at Momsie's message until her phone screen started to blur. This was getting absolutely out of hand. Elphaba would probably show up to dinner with Momsie wearing those exact hideodeous shoes. But... Momsie would probably be so distracted by Elphaba's complete lack of style that she might forget all about interrogating them about their relationship.
Though really, what sort of relationship could anyone even pretend to have with Elphaba Thropp? The woman probably thought candlelit dinners were a fire hazard. She'd probably want to discuss quarterly projections during romantic walks. She'd definitely refuse to participate in cute couple photos for social media - not that Galinda was thinking about that, because this was all completely hypothetical and absolutely not happening.
But... if it did happen... No. No, Elphaba would say no. Of course she would say no. She'd probably launch into one of her lectures about integrity and authenticity and whatever other big words she used to make everyone feel small. And then Galinda could tell Momsie that her heart was just too tragically broken to consider dating again for at least six months.
Wait. That was actually perfect. Momsie always backed off when she thought Galinda was nursing a broken heart. Like that time in college when she'd pretended that boy from her Economics class had devastated her - she'd gotten out of three separate setup attempts with her mother's friends' sons.
She opened a new email, then immediately closed it. If she was going to orchestrate her own romantic tragedy, she should at least look fabulous doing it. And Elphaba's office lighting was surprisingly good for making her hair look extra bouncy.
In the distance, she could hear Elphaba's voice: "No, that analysis is completely inadequate. Do it again."
Galinda took a deep breath and checked her reflection in her phone screen. She had survived boardroom presentations (even the one where her heel broke), client meltdowns, and her Momsie's passive-aggressive holiday dinners. She could survive this too.
After all, Elphaba was definitely going to say no.