Only ten minutes at her desk and the phone rings; the boss wants
a coffee. She gets the coffee but forgets that he doesn’t like cream,
and gets yelled at; she walks back to her desk, and the phone rings, and
it’s her mother; it appears that she has forgotten her sister’s birthday--why
does she always do things like this? Doesn’t she realize there are
other people in this world besids her?
When she gets off the phone, she looks to the clock, and realizes it’s only 9:15. She straightens her hair, and fixes a loose earring, but the phone rings again; she picks up the phone and this time it’s her boss and there is a meeting at ten that she has to be at, and can she remember this time to make coffee without cream, because cream clogs arteries, and she should know better because she’s been working at this firm for fourteen years, and always under the same boss, how’s that for irony, and she should know him by now. When she hangs up the phone, she feels the sting of tears in her eyes, but can’t remember what it is she’s sad about; is it because there aren’t any pictures of children stuck with large thumbtacks on the gray walls of her cubicle? Her mug says “#1 Secretary” not “#1 Mom”.
Then the phone rings again, and it’s the boss’s wife Maria, who says that her lawyer will be in contact with his lawyers, and to not have the boss call her but to have him call her lawyer. She hangs up the phone and fiddles writes down the message: “Maria called. Call her lawyer. Have your lawyer call her lawyer.” She sends the message off with a passing temp.
She spends about an hour stapling memos together, until she notices the smell of burning coffee. Someone must have put the pot back on without filling it up. Dutiful, she bustles over to the machine and tinkers around with it until there’s a new cup brewing, and in the process scrapes her leg against the table and puts a run in her nylons. When she turns to go, she notices that there’s a hand on her shoulder, and it’s her boss. He heard about the call from Maria and she wants to make sure that she’s okay. Did she sound upset? Maria’s always emotional. And he apologies about the cream-in-the-coffee incident. He’s been stressed.
She wasn’t really listening to the boss because all his cologne was reminding her of something else, their weekend in the Cayman Islands. And how it was strange that when she was there with him she still felt like his secretary, and not his . . . companion? Lover? Concubine?
Her phone rings, but the boss is still whispering in her ear, and she catchces his last line. He wants her to come visit him, later, when people are going home. Sometime around five. There’s something he needs to talk to her about. He kisses her sloppily on the cheek, more because she’s worming her way out of his grasp than lack of coordination. As she goes back to her desk, she can smell his cologne clinging to her clothes, a stubborn reminder of him.
By the time she gets to the phone, it’s stopped ringing and she hesitates. Soon the message light blinks on, and dialing the answering service extension, she listens to a very angry woman--Maria--go on about alimony and something having to do with “knowing about Sheila.” She hangs up the phone. It rings again.
She answers, “Thank you for calling Dwight, Dwight, and Epson.
This is Annie speaking.”
I stopped by your apartment today. Well, actually, it was
yesterday, but it was at one in the morning, and you weren’t home.
I don’t know if you were out at Donegal’s Pub or if you were visiting your
mother, or Catherine, but the lights were all off, and the door was locked.
You could have been sleeping, but you never answered the door, even though
I kept knocking. Your neighbour, Mrs. Dupre, turned on her light,
and had a baseball bat in her hands, and I waved at her in the window.
She frowned and left. Actually, she shook the baseball bat first--it’s
a nice bat, really. I think she wanted to show it to me, knowing
how much I like baseball.
Anyway. I found this really long reciept in my pocket from CVS, or RiteAid. I stared at it for a long time because so many of the things on it were yours. Cheese doodles. You love those, and I hate them. Not to mention all the beef jerky.
Wait. I don’t think that was you, come to think of it. The beef jerky, anyway. I bought the beef jerky for Piddles, your mother’s dog. I know she says it isn’t good for Piddles, but the little animal just perks up so much every time she smells jerky on me. I can’t help but add to her happiness.
I wanted for quite some time at your door, just checking out the reciept. The light above your door keeps flickering, by the way. You might want to get that fixed. I thought I would just wait for you to come home from wherever you were, but someone stopped by and asked me to leave. He was an officer of some kind, I think, and I assured him that I was simply waiting for you to arrive. I don’t know, he mentioned something about a restraining order, and I knew he had to have meant someone else. I explained to him that I was just an exceptional friend. A wonderful friend, I am--I know all about you. I told him I know you get up at 7am every morning and run from 3rd street to Mulberry and back. And your mom’s name is Irene.
Then there was a little bit of a fire. I had matches in my pocket, of course, but that wasn’t what lit the mail in your box on fire. Personally, it had something to do with spontaneous combustion. The officer said it was me, that I actually lit the matches and threw them in the box as an act of delinquincy. He said I was a menace. Did I mention he came back as soon as the fire started? I think he was waiting for something to happen. He just didn’t like me, and was probably looking for you anyway.
The officer wasn’t very nice about it, either. He shoved me into the back of his car, and brought me to jail, leaving me in a cell all night. You know, he called me an arsonist. Well, the one thing that was rather nice about the whole jail thing is that it gave me some time to think. I had a pen on me, and used the back of the reciept to write this.
The warden, I guess that’s what you call him, keeps looking up at me suspiciously. There’s another woman in the cell, her name’s Matilda, and she seems to think I’m a menace, too. I’m pretty sure that the officer told her things about me that weren’t true. I asked the warden for a cigarette, and he said I wasn’t allowed.
I know what you’ll say. You’ll say you’re not really my boyfriend. You know, I think you might not even recognize me. They asked if I had anyone who might bail me out, and I mentioned you. They said that wasn’t right. I thought your mom and Piddles might come help me out, but that’s not going to work. So I asked the warden to give you this letter, so you can see what really happened. I know we never really talked much before, but I know all about you. You’re caring and loving.
You’ll understand. I know you will.