by Louise Clark
Ava bestowed an indulgent smile on Faith. ”Exactly. I think you should, Faith. You need to build more positive relationships with your fellow workers.”
The last time Ava had given Faith a pep talk, she’d said that Faith was management and as such had to keep herself separate from the support staff she supervised. It would be nice if Ava could sort out her priorities.
Unaware of the negative thoughts running through Faith’s mind, Ava continued on, “The picnic is an excellent setting in which to do this. The mood is relaxed, people are enjoying themselves, they are willing to see a side of their fellow staff members that they might not otherwise notice. I do hope you will reconsider your decision.”
There was nothing to reconsider. Faith had planned to go to the company picnic all along. “Of course I’ll come, Ava. I look forward to it.”
Ava beamed. “Excellent! I know Cody Simpson will be attending too. I’ll make sure you two have ample opportunity to get to know each other.” She paused, tapping her lips with her forefinger as she thought. “Perhaps you could pair up in the volleyball tournament. That way you could work closely together as a team. Hmmm, I’ll have to think about that. Hot dogs or hamburgers?”
Faith had been visualizing Cody Simpson dressed in shorts that showed off his long legs and a t-shirt that molded his chest in a very attractive way. The sudden change of subject left her bemused. “Excuse me?”
With an airy wave of her hand, Ava said, “Would you like hot dogs or hamburgers? I’m tallying the numbers today so that we can purchase the food. “Pop or juice? Salad or chips? Cheesecake or apple pie?”
“I’d like one hot dog, apple juice, salad and cheesecake, Ava. Anything else you need to know?”
“I think we’ve covered everything.” Ava stood and headed for the door. There she paused and smiled, her hand on the knob. “Do try to work more effectively with Cody Simpson, Faith. I know you can do it, especially when the stakes are so very high.”
Chapter 7
Faith wondered about Ava’s comment for the rest of that day and into the next. On the surface it sounded as if Ava was trying make Faith feel positive about a difficult situation, but the longer Faith considered it, the more she thought Ava’s words sounded like a threat. But what kind of threat? Would she be demoted to the bullpen if she didn’t have Cody Simpson do the computer jockeying? Or would Ava actually fire her?
You’re being paranoid, she told herself. Of course Ava was not threatening her. Why would she? Ava was responsible for ensuring that the staff utilized their time as effectively as they could and she was just reminding Faith that there was someone else who would be better suited to fixing the bullpen computers. That was all. It was Faith’s own need to do her job perfectly that was making her look over her shoulder.
Maybe that was it. Maybe she just needed some balance. On the one hand she had Ava demanding utter conformity to procedure. On the other was Cody Simpson whose organizational style seemed to be benign anarchy. Somewhere in between was Faith, who believed in empowering people and flexibility. With two powerful personalities, each with a conflicting style, pulling at her from either direction, she wasn’t in a position to achieve balance on her own. She needed input from outside. She chose Liz.
They met after work on Wednesday. “Great idea to take in a movie, Faith,” Liz said as they stood in line outside the multiplex theatre. She flexed her shoulders, rolling them back and forth with a sigh. “I’ve been analyzing dinosaur footprints all day, trying to determine behavior patterns and how they relate to modern herd animals. There was a moment this afternoon when I realized I’d been sitting hunched in the same position for over an hour. I thought the muscles in my shoulders and back had frozen into one solid block I was so tense. A night away from technical details is just what I need.”
Faith laughed as she bought the tickets. “I’m a little tense myself. There’s so much stuff going on at work I sometimes wish I could just disappear.”
Fifteen minutes later, burdened by extra large buckets of popcorn, liberally spiced with assorted seasonings, and waxed beakers of high-calorie pop, they settled into the perfect seats. Dead center, three rows from the front, the location provided the maximum sensory overload and had been the sisters’ favorite theater seating since they’d been old enough to go to the movies on their own.
Faith slumped in her chair, leaning her head back so she could look up at the screen, which was only showing advertisements at this point. She stretched her feet out and began to munch her popcorn.
“So what’s up?” Liz said, turning to view Faith as she popped a handful of popcorn in her mouth.
Faith glanced at her, then stared at an image of women’s high fashion sandals, available only—so the ad said—at a national chain of popular shoe stores. Seen on the movie screen, each shoe was enormous and, with the high spike heels, vaguely phallic. Faith wondered if the makers of the ad had really intended for the product to relate to people on a sexual level or if her over active imagination was seeing something that wasn’t really there. She certainly seemed to be thinking about sex a lot these days.
An image of Cody Simpson on the stairs, leaning against the wall, his torso beautifully filling out the dark blue t-shirt, slammed into her. She sat up abruptly. Her drifting thoughts had brought her to an unexpected place, one she didn’t want to go to. “I think I’m losing it at work.”
Liz raised her eyebrows. “Sounds dire.”
Faith laughed at her sister’s dry tone. “Doesn’t it? I suppose it’s not all that bad, but you know, Liz, I’m making mistakes. I’ve got Ava Taylor telling me we all have our job descriptions and mine doesn’t include computer troubleshooting. Then I’ve got Cody Simpson, who’s supposed to be troubleshooting, not doing it. And then there’s Angela, whose computer should probably be replaced, but hasn’t been, and that’s out of my hands too. I feel like my department is falling apart and I’m not doing my job properly. I hate that.”
Music blasted out of the sound system as the pre-movie entertainment shifted from the advertisement about shoes to one promoting the soundtrack of the film they would soon be seeing. Liz glanced at the screen, ate popcorn until it was quieter, then said, “Ava the Tyrant Lizard has been harassing you since she was hired, but what’s Cody Simpson been up to? Fill me in.”
Faith shot her sister a disapproving look. “I’ve never described Ava as a tyrant. Or a lizard.”
Liz laughed. “I like to call her that because she reminds me of the largest of the dinosaur predators, good old tyrannosaurus rex. He was big and dangerous, but not as smart as the raptors, which were half his size. That’s the way I see Ava, mean and ruthless, but not very bright, like some corporate hatchet man out of the eighties. I thought those types had died out with the turn of the millennium.”
“She’s not a hatchet man—person,” Faith said, not quite sure why she was defending Ava.
Liz grinned mischievously. “I guess that means she’s mutated into another form, like birds evolving from dinosaurs. Now she’s the company tyrant.”
Faith snorted. Liz laughed again. “Tell me something. Does Ava have a computer background?”
“No. She’s got a business degree, like I do.”
“Ahh,” Liz said, tilting her head back and dropping popcorn in her open mouth. Faith thought she looked remarkably like a baby bird being fed by its parent. Liz washed the popcorn down with a sip of pop. “Ava the Tyrant Lizard must hate that.”
Faith shook her head. “You’re not making any sense, Liz. What would Ava hate?”
“Being different.”
“Get off it! She’s not different, not the way I’m different! She just has different skill sets than Cody Simpson’s. Why would that make her so insistent he has to be the one to do what amounts to a technician’s job? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Back up a step,” Liz said. “How important is Cody Simpson to NIT?”
Faith frowned, then shrugged. “Pretty important, I guess. Ralph used t
o do a lot of the software design, but he’s focused on sales since Cody was hired. I don’t get into the technical details, but we’ve expanded and I know that there was hot competition for at least one of the contracts we recently won. Whether NIT got the contract specifically because of Cody’s work, I don’t know. I’m not part of the executive committee.”
“But Ava the Tyrant Lizard is.” Trailers for the movies appearing on other screens in the multiplex were now being shown. It wouldn’t be long before the movie began. Urgency added impact to the rest of Liz’s words. “Sounds to me like you’ve got yourself into the middle of a power struggle between the big guys. My suggestion to you?”
The in-complex trailers shifted to ones for upcoming films. The movie was next. Once it started their conversation was over. Faith nodded. “Tell me.”
“Act like one of those cute little rodent-sized mammals from the dinosaur age. Burrow deep and keep your head down. Let the overgrown tyrannosaurs fight it out between themselves.”
As advice went it was pretty sensible stuff. The trailer ended. The screen flashed dark. In the moment of silence before the new images began, Faith said quietly, “Cody Simpson isn’t a tyrant. He’s a pain, but he’s not like Ava.”
“Whoa!” said Liz. “Where did that come from?”
The screen burst into life as the movie started. Faith was relieved she wouldn’t have to answer her sister’s question.
Because the only answer she had was a disturbing one.
She wasn’t constantly thinking about Cody Simpson because he refused to do the job Ava had assigned to him. She was aware of him on another level, a personal level that had allowed physical attraction to slip past her barriers.
Not a reassuring scenario. So how should she handle it?
As the credits splashed across the screen, she slumped down in her seat. Maybe Liz was right. Burrow deep and keep her head down.
Thursday was almost over when Angela appeared in Faith’s doorway. From the chagrinned expression on her face Faith guessed she’d done it again. “What’s up?”
“I typed the letters you assigned me into my computer.” Angela’s pale features didn’t register an expression, but she leaned her body against the doorframe with a lazy sensuality Faith had never noticed before.
She gave herself a mental shake. Last night she was fantasizing about spike-heeled shoes. Today she was looking at one of her clerks and seeing her in an entirely different way. Angela was one of those people who never stood out. Her straight hair was a true, pale blond, but it lacked vibrancy. Her body was the same way, not too tall and not too short. That pretty much defined her manner as well—pleasant, undemanding, unassertive. If there was any sensuality in her movements, it was because Faith had imagined it, not because it was really there.
Dragging her thoughts back to Angela’s comment, Faith said briskly, “Good start. I assume there’s more?”
Angela straightened. Clasping her hands together and holding them in front of her in a prim way, she said, “I was going to print them off, but…”
“Let me guess. Your computer froze. It lost the letters. It exploded in a hail of shrapnel that took out all the lights in the office and there was a major panic…”
Angela’s eyes widened to round saucers, then she giggled. “No one was hurt!”
“That’s good to hear.” Faith shot her a considering look. “So what happened?”
“Well, you were right, sort of. My computer refuses to print them. I’ve tried everything I can think of, but still it won’t work. Can you fix it?”
With Ava’s sweetly uttered command still fresh in her thoughts and Liz’s practical advice to keep her head down, Faith was not about to allow herself to become involved in fixing what sounded like a reasonably simple problem. “I’ll call Cody Simpson and ask him to come down.”
A sudden intelligent gleam brightened Angela’s eyes. Evidently she didn’t expect Cody to show up anytime soon. “If he doesn’t come can I go home early?”
“Do you have any time owing to you?”
Angela shook her head.
“Then no. Take the opportunity to clear up your desk and see if there is any filing to be done around the office.”
Angela’s plain, undemanding features screwed up into a temperamental expression that on another woman Faith would have described as a pout, then she stomped back to her desk in a way that looked remarkably like a flounce. Faith reflected that she was only a year out of school. She supposed it was as good an excuse as any for having a hissy fit in the office.
She called Cody, reached his voicemail—of course!—and left a message explaining the problem and asking him to come down and fix it. Then she went back to work.
Her first inkling that something odd was happening was about five minutes later. Her office door opened out into the bullpen, but her desk faced the window with its panoramic view of the parking lot, so she heard what was going on rather than saw it. Usually there was a low murmur of sound as people exchanged information relating to their jobs. Occasionally, there was laughter and very rarely, when something out of the ordinary happened, there was an excited babble.
Like now.
Over the next couple of minutes the volume rose. Mystified, Faith went to her doorway. From her viewpoint all she could see was that the whole place seemed to have congregated around Angela’s desk.
And they were giggling.
She had a bad feeling about this. Had Angela gotten bored and decided to access the net? Had she found a site that featured beefcake photos? The local firemen did a calendar every year that Liz loved, because the firemen had such outrageously gorgeous bodies. Maybe they did a website too. And maybe Angela had found it…
Or maybe not.
One of the women crowding around the desk moved away, allowing Faith a clear view of the person sitting in Angela’s chair. And it wasn’t Angela.
It was a man. A man with dark hair, wearing a shirt that fit across his broad, muscular shoulders in a way that made a woman want to rub her hands along it. A man with dark hair, working on a computer. Was it possible? Had Cody Simpson actually descended from his secluded office to fix a lowly word processing clerk’s computer?
The group shifted again and Faith’s amazement grew as she saw that Angela was perched on the edge of her desk in a way that could only be called flirtatious. She was leaning toward Cody, watching him. From time to time she touched her dress, smoothing the fabric against her thighs. A little bemused at the difference a man could make, even in a timid soul like Angela, Faith observed the scene unabashedly.
Cody typed furiously on the keyboard. Dialogue boxes appeared and disappeared. He asked Angela a question. She pouted and shrugged. More dialogue boxes flashed on the screen and then he said, “I think that will fix it for awhile, Angela. Just be sure you don’t…”
It had taken Cody all of ten minutes to fix the glitch. Faith glanced at her watch. It was twenty-eight minutes after four. Wow, thanks to Cody Simpson she really was going to get away on time. There was a spring to her step as she retreated to her desk to log off her computer and lock up.
In the bullpen the female giggles were joined by a deeper male voice. Faith frowned. Was Cody Simpson flirting with the clerks? She went back to her task. If her staff wanted to flirt with Cody and he with them it was none of her business. It was four-thirty, quitting time. They were no longer her responsibility, any of them…
“Good. You haven’t left yet.”
Faith was so deep into her mental meandering that she shrieked and jumped up, knocking her chair, which wheeled away leaving her teetering precariously on the edge of falling on her backside. Cody leapt forward, caught her by the arm and steadied her.
“Thanks,” she said, a little breathlessly.
“Sorry about that.” He spoiled the effect of the apology by frowning at her and adding, “I didn’t think I moved that quietly.”
Faith took a deep breath to steady herself. “I was going over what needed to be
done and planning my day tomorrow. I tend to be pretty focused.” No way was she going to admit she’d been thinking about him.
He nodded, accepting her explanation. Not surprising, since he was known to concentrate on a project so intensely that he might not emerge for hours on end.
“I found the problem in Angela’s computer.”
“Oh?” Another thing she did not intended to tell Cody was that she, like the rest of the women in the office, had been watching him work. He had a big enough ego as it was.
“It’s a simple problem, operator generated.”
She frowned at that. “So you’re saying that Angela causes her problems by something she does?”
“You’ve got it. What’s more, I think she does it intentionally.”
Faith was so astounded her jaw dropped. She couldn’t help it. “Angela? Angela who types correspondence for everyone in the office? Angela in the bullpen?”
He nodded.
Faith laughed. “Give it up, Cody! Angela is a timid little mouse who would never intentionally disrupt anything because she’d be too scared of making waves.” Faith had an uneasy memory of Angela propping up her doorframe, then later, leaning toward Cody, her hand on her thigh, her expression worshipful.
Cody had raised his brows. Perhaps he was visualizing the same behavior that Faith was. “Angela likes the attention she gets when her computer goes down. It breaks up the monotony, makes her day more interesting. Sue was tracking her requests for assistance. Before Sue’s accident Angela was calling once a week, usually on a Friday, often just before lunch, but not always.” He stopped when Faith sucked in her breath. “Ah, I’ve hit a nerve.”
Now that he mentioned it, Angela would often say that her computer was down just before she took off for lunch. She even said it was terrific timing as it could be fixed while she was away from her desk. Sometimes she returned within her usual forty-five minutes, others she was a few minutes late. It wasn’t a big issue when her workstation was occupied by Sue Green and she’d only be standing around looking useless anyway.