Oh, I Think So

Their eyes locked and he smiled. "Well, look what the cat dragged in!" exclaimed Handsome.  "I thought you'd fallen off the face of the earth." She smiled broadly at Handsome. "Nope," she said.  "Just working too much and staying off the streets." "Well, if you have a job, you don't need the streets.  Am I right?" he asked with a grin. "Mostly, but sometimes a person needs some mad money," she replied with a chuckle.  She hated when she chuckled but she couldn't help herself. "So good to see you," he said.  "You're a sight for sore eyes." She blushed and said, "Stop.  Stop!"  She felt like a schoolgirl. The receptionist was listening to the conversation and watching it like a tennis game.  Handsome knows HER?  He's happy to see HER?  She knows HIM?  And they're FLIRTING!  It was all over the receptionist's face which they both noticed. "Let's ...

The Universe, being what it is, liked to insuate itself into her life.  The day after the Fourth of July holiday, she was summoned to the H.R. office where she was joined by their big boss, in town for the day. "You're doing a great job," said the boss.  "We are most impressed." "Thank you," she said with great apprehension.  Being called for a meeting with someone in charge when you didn't know that person was in town is jarring. "I can see you're worried.  Stop worrying.  I mean it.  You're doing great.  So great that we want to send you on a seminar for a week in Vegas," he said. Vegas.  Interesting.  She didn't think of Vegas as a place for a seminar, but what the heck. "Next week," said the boss.  "Someone from the Portland office decided he better not go because his wife is due to give birth any day now.  So there's an opening that we don't want to go to waste and I thought you'd be p...

As the Fourth of July holiday approached, she realized that she had a good strong grip on the job and was in no danger of being let go for incompetence.  The company was as crazy as any other company; she knew they could decide at any time -- be it whim, caprice, or just because -- to just close up her office but if her deparment ran well with no major errors then they might put everyone in other offices.  She might not have a job but at least her underlings would have be employed. With her strong grip on the job came the realization that she was bored with the present state of affairs.  She'd worked too many hours these last six months and she wanted to do something that wasn't this.  Her V.P. didn't encourage her to have a balanced life; the company liked the salaried employees to work harder than was necessary.  They gave her a parking space in the building -- "This building has parking?" she'd asked. -- so there was no argument about public transportatio...

June 1st came and spring turned into unrelenting heat and humidity.  She had to ask H.R. to talk to the one guy who rode his bike every day in the hot weather about sponge baths, deoderant, and offensive odors being bad for morale.  She had to address the issue of the 60-year-old, short, chubby lady who insisted on wearing low-cut tops with spaghetti straps, making the office see not just her crepey neck but her super-crepey chest and a lot of her aging breasts. That conversation went like this: "Really?" she asked the woman. "It's hot out," the woman said. "And there's no a/c in here?  Really?" she asked the woman. "Once I get hot I stay hot," said the woman. "Really?  Because you know there's a dress code, right?  That says 'no revealing tops on women'?" she asked the woman. "This isn't that revealing," said the woman. "So you concede it's somewhat revealing?" she asked t...

New Year's Eve was quiet.  She stayed in, cracked open a split of nonvintage French champagne at 11:58 p.m., toasted the local newscasters at midnight, and was asleep at 12:45 a.m.  Before she drifted off she thought about her aunt, now made softer and kinder by a ravaging brain illness, about her cousin who would no doubt go a little crazy, about Kevin and his wife, in the kitchen threatening lobsters with axes, and about Handsome -- no, Conrad, because that's his name -- and how maybe, just maybe he wasn't trying to kill her. Her dear friends thought he was trying to do her harm.  The waitress at the department store, the security guard in her old building, the saleslady with the coat, security at the hardware megastore all thought he was cold.  Kevin seemed capable of hurting maybe a button on his shirt by gripping it too hard and twisting it off but that was the extent of it.  Kevin didn't seem scared of Conrad and Kevin seemed like a genuine person. Who...

From that day, work became a pleasure.  If the clients were cranky, she didn't notice.  If her coworkers were cross, she didn't think badly of them because everyone is entitled to a bad day, even her.  The weekends she spent with her boss, learning the reporting system, was spent learning how to disassemble and reassemble a giant puzzle and she liked this sort of puzzle.  Her boss always took her out to lunch on the weekend, and if they stayed late, her boss gave her cab fare home. A week before Christmas, their local vice president came to the office, assembled the staff and made the announcement.  Her boss would separate from the company on December 31st and she would start on January 2nd.  There was meager applause for her and some tears shed for their manager but these were shed by the hormonal women who cried at card tricks or the office actors whose office performances could earn them awards if it was something more than office acting.  Some of...

Work was especially weird that day:  the calls were long and trying, the clients were cranky and/or demanding, and her manager, one of the most even-tempered people she knew, was in a very crabby mood. She returning from the restroom a little after lunch when her manager intercepted her and asked her to come to her office instead of going back to the phones. "You know we're really busy," she told her manager.  "Shouldn't I just take calls?" "I know, I know, but it won't take long, and it's something I want to tell you," said the manager. They walked silently down the hall to the office and she seated herself while the manager closed the door and sat at her desk. "I am so sorry I've been such a bitch today," said the manager.  "I know you've noticed.  Hell, everyone's noticed.  But you're the only one I can trust to tell things." She'd no idea she'd created such an aura of trust but she...