Feyn: I mean, you guys are my closest friends. Well, not all of you.
Ms. sexy exec: This is boring. I’m going to another chat room.//wave
Judith was sorry she brought the subject up at all.
Her computer made a tingling bell noise, and she saw an Instant Message window pop up. It was from Roger.
Roger: Hi there. Sorry if this is getting uncomfortable. Are you okay?
“I’m fine,” she typed back. She liked Roger, what little she’d seen of him. He was a doctor in Atlanta, and had an active social life. He was the one that recommended Filofax over the system she’d been using, now that she remembered it.
Roger: Really? Work going okay? I hear ad agencies are slave drivers.
She rubbed at her eyes. “Well, it’s been tough. I mean, my job’s going great, but I’m catching a little flak from a friend…got her a job, and then she quit. Rather spectacularly. People are casting a few aspersions.”
Roger: {{{Hugs}}} That’s bad. Sorry.
She smiled. “It’s not that bad.”
She was now ignoring the chat going on in the “Busy People” Room completely. A few other people she knew had entered, and were involved in a huge debate over whether or not Feyn should go on medication or at least rehab for his online tendencies and basic insecurity. They were also going into the pros and cons of various antidepressants and talking about how long they’d been in therapy. As her family didn’t do therapy, she doubted she’d have much to contribute to the conversation.
Roger: So what happened?
“One of our Account Supervisors ran her pretty ragged, granted, but that was no excuse to quit the way she did. Besides, everybody works those hours, when necessary.”
Roger: Even you?
“Especially me,” she typed.
Roger: I just get the feeling you’re more stressed than you’re letting on. Otherwise her question wouldn’t have shocked you quite so much.
She felt herself freeze at the comment. She wasn’t the type to let her feelings project—not like some of her co-workers, who wore their frenzied expressions like badges of honor. Yes, I really am so incredibly busy and important that I’m just this side of insane, their faces seem to say. Not Judith. She preferred cool, competent, composed.
“Why do you say that?” she typed, instead of her usual oh-it’s-nothing response. Roger usually had interesting posts and observations—maybe he’d have an insight she hadn’t thought of.
Roger: The way you word things. Tight, controlled.
Judith smiled. “That was the idea.”
Roger: Those sort of people usually have all sorts of private demons that they’re keeping a lid on.
“I do not!” Judith said out loud, starting to type it, then backspaced. “Interesting theory,” she sent instead.
Roger: Well, I like private demons. They’re more interesting than the facade protecting it. I get the feeling you’re an interesting person, Judith.
Judith read the message a couple of times, gauging his tone. She’d seen him flirt with others, nothing serious, and usually at their instigation. Was this flirting? It had been so long, she couldn’t tell if she should be worried or just amused.
“You’re running a line on me, aren’t you?” she typed.
Roger: LOL! Is it working? :)
Judith laughed, then glanced behind her, as if David had suddenly come into the house invisibly and was frowning with disapproval over her shoulder. “Well, that’s very flattering, but then my husband would hardly approve.”
Roger: I’m in Atlanta and you’re in L.A. Somehow the idea of a clandestine affair between us seems…moot?
Judith frowned. He was right, of course. She was being ridiculous. He was three thousand miles away. Even if he were flirting with her, what difference did it make?
Roger: Judith? Sorry. I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable. It’s just the Internet. I figure, if I don’t have to talk to people, it almost doesn’t exist. Really sorry. Friends?
Suddenly, Judith felt foolish. “Of course. Seduce away…somehow, I’ll find the strength to resist.”
Roger: LOL!
Judith smiled, feeling better than she had in a long, long time.
Sarah sat at the desk at her temp assignment. It was a naked cubicle, with a standard issue desktop computer, a phone with a hands-free headphone set flanking it, and an ancient calculator with that ticker-tape thingy attached to it. She glanced over her brand-new organizer, the one Judith had nudged her toward, going over her mission statement until her new “boss” came to tell her the details of the job. She couldn’t help but feel like the new kid at school, as people either looked at her curiously or ignored her completely.
It doesn’t matter what they think. I am going to do this job to the best of my ability. Sarah smiled, making a little notation on the “daily” page.
Short term goal: get hired, full-time, permanent. She had always wanted to try working for a marketing department, and this was apparently an affluent one. She could work out a career plan from there. That was on her list of long-term goals: develop a career plan.
Under relationships, she had regroup and decide on qualities of potential mate.
She liked this system, she decided as she shut the organizer and zipped it closed. It gave her a sense of direction.
She tucked the organizer into her small, ergonomically correct knapsack, along with her lunch. It seemed a little more casual than a briefcase, granted, but somehow she doubted professionalism was at a high premium here. She was dressed more formally than most of the staff, who wore that brand of “office casual” that consisted of khakis for both sexes and polo shirts. She wasn’t entirely sure what most of these people did, but unlike the agency, they didn’t seem to be in very much of a hurry about it.
The office itself was like any other office she’d been in: the people sitting like ice cubes in trays of cubicles. Their cubicles sported pictures and cartoons, all the personal touches that made three walls a home of sorts. The amount of crap collected usually signified how long a person had been there. Sarah glanced at the cubicle across from hers. She was surprised that the woman in the vibrant tiger-stripe tank top and gold colored slacks could fit in the overstuffed monstrosity. Every square inch was covered with something, either pinned to a wall or sitting on a shelf. The woman had to have been there for years.
“Sarah?”
Sarah snapped her gaze up, feeling guilty for cube-peeping. “Yes?”
“Great. It’s good that you’re on time. I’m Ms. Peccorino.” The woman held out her hand, and Sarah stood up and shook it. “My! Don’t you look nice!”
Sarah self-consciously straightened her navy-blue skirt and white blouse. She’d slung the matching jacket over the back of her chair. It was just a Ross special, but she felt like she might as well have been wearing a prom dress in this casual atmosphere. “Thank you.”
“So few people here know how to dress appropriately for the office.” Ms. Peccorino shot a quick glance over her shoulder at Ms. Tiger Stripe before turning back to Sarah. Sarah noticed that the woman in question flipped Ms. Peccorino off. Sarah kept her eyes riveted on Ms. Peccorino, or Janice, after that, terrified that she might burst out laughing and have to explain it. Janice herself was dressed in a pink Chanel-wannabe suit with black trim. Her blond hair and dark eyebrows suggested that her coloring had nothing to do with nature, and everything to do with Miss Clairol.
“I’m sorry—they didn’t mention much at the temp agency, except that I needed to know Excel and PowerPoint,” Sarah said, glad that her voice was steady.
“Oh, certainly. We’ve got plenty of projects here that need lots of help,” Ms. Peccorino said, as if she were looking to Sarah to save her from drowning. “I’ll show you your first one.”
Sarah followed the woman through the maze of dun-colored cubicles, over to a bank of filing cabinets. Janice gestured to a stack of cardboard banker boxes, sitting three high and three across.
“W
e’ll need all of these ad comps and direct mail pieces filed here,” Ms. Peccorino said, with a voice of woe. “I’m afraid there’s a lot of them. This could take you a while.”
Sarah stared at the boxes. They were really long boxes. There had to be a couple hundred files there.
“And we need you to weed through all these files, as well. Anything older than a year needs to be archived.” With that, Janice approached a cabinet, and reached for its handle.
The drawer exploded open. File folders were crammed in so tight that she couldn’t see how the dumb thing stayed shut.
“Are all the drawers like that?” Sarah said involuntarily, aghast.
“I’m afraid so.”
“And when was the last time these files were archived?”
Janice looked embarrassed. “Well…we haven’t really had the time before, or the budget for a temp…”
In other words, Sarah thought, a sinking feeling in her stomach, never.
Sarah spent the whole day weeding through old files, getting paper cuts and cursing silently. Good thing I know all these computer skills, she thought to herself as she filled and labeled the tenth box that day. They’re so coming in handy.
She glanced at her watch. It was twelve-thirty. Is that all? She felt like she’d been filing for the better part of a week.
“Wow. That’s a lot of boxes.”
She glanced up. A good-looking guy with black hair and really tanned skin was smiling down at her from where she sat on a rolling office chair. She squelched the desire to stand up. “Yup. Lot of boxes,” she agreed inanely. And one cute fella.
For an inexplicable moment, she felt guilty—like she was cheating on Jam. She glanced down at the boxes.
“You’re a temp, aren’t you?”
“Is it that obvious?” she asked, then felt like biting her tongue.
He laughed. “Well, the suit is sort of a giveaway.” His eyes studied her in a friendly but predatory way. “Looks good, though. If you don’t mind my saying.”
“Um, thanks.” There it was again. Guilt pang!
“So…think you’ll be busy later?”
Oh, my God. Cute guy asking her out. Guilt with a capital G!
“Um…what did you have in mind?” she heard herself ask. Stay calm. “I may be busy,” she hedged. There. She was playing hard to get. Feeling guilty had nothing to do with it. Martika would probably even agree with that.
“Well, I can wait.” His eyes were warm, almost hungry, even though his tone was casual as the rest of the office. “I’m sure you can help me with my particular problem, but I don’t want to rush you.”
She frowned. His particular problem? Ick! “Well, I certainly don’t like to be rushed,” she said emphatically. “I like to take my time with these sorts of things.”
“I see.” He quirked an eyebrow at her. “It’s good to see you’re so conscientious.”
She felt like a spinster or something, but her lips still drew together primly. “Better that you know now. Up-front, I mean.”
He shrugged. “Besides, my folders aren’t going to go anywhere.”
Suddenly, Sarah felt like she’d walked into a foreign film without subtitles. “Your…folders?”
“Yes. I need a whole mess of labels made. My filing system’s a mess, and since you’re doing so much work here, I figured you could help me with it.”
Aha. Not what was she doing later socially…just when would she be done with the project.
“Oh. Well…I’m…I’ll be sure to do it as soon as possible.”
“Like I said,” he explained, obvious amusement in his eyes. “No rush.”
He walked away, leaving Sarah to blush unnoticed, her face was practically buried in the file drawer.
On the plus side, she didn’t feel guilty anymore. She just felt stupid. A minor step up.
“I cut out of work early so I could watch this. This is my friend, Pink. She’s got an absolutely fabulous eye for clothes.”
Pink smiled demurely and removed her dark glasses. She was wearing a magenta car coat over a black body suit that would have done justice to Emma Peel. She wore black half-boots. The most striking thing about her, however, was her hair—a soft, baby-girl-pink pageboy that curled gently around her face. Her eyes were an icy gray-blue by comparison.
“I was named Pink before the singer was,” she said, holding her hand out. “Had the hair color, first, too.”
Sarah, who hadn’t even realized there was a singer called Pink, politely shook hands. “Nice to meet you.”
Pink then did the quick fashion-circle tour, just as Joey had. Sarah felt awkward, just as she had then.
Pink glanced over at Martika. “This is the one with the asshole ex, right?”
Sarah protested. “It’s a long story…”
“Yes,” Martika said unequivocally, frowning at Sarah.
“Got it,” Pink said, jotting a few notes. “So. Basic clothing type recommendations, keeping in mind guy-hunting component. So what I’m going to do is ask you a few questions, keep in mind your coloring and body frame, and then show you what I think you should be wearing.” She gave Sarah a quick, almost clinical once-over. “Great tits, by the way,” she said off the cuff.
Sarah blushed scarlet. Now Martika laughed.
“I’m bi, I guess I’m as good a judge as any. So let’s talk colors,” Pink said, leaving Sarah to wonder if she’d really heard the first sentence correctly. “What colors do you usually wear? What colors are you drawn to?”
“I, um…” Sarah began, still hung up on the last statement, and surprised by the fact that Pink had produced a clipboard from her black patent leather bag and was quickly jotting down notes on some sort of form. “I like pastels.”
Martika shook her head, but Pink nodded. “Good. A jumping off point, at least. Any sort of pastels?”
Sarah glanced at her room. “Blues, greens, lavenders.”
Pink saw the direction of her gaze, and stood up. “Mind if I go in your room?” she said, and walked in. Sarah followed her. Pink opened the curtains and glanced around. “Ah. Monet water-lilies kind of colors. Got it.”
Sarah nodded.
“So you’re a romantic-type,” Pink said, jotting a quick note. She looked her over. “We can work with it as a starting point, anyway. What do you do for a living?”
“I’m sort of between jobs at the moment,” Sarah said, feeling embarrassed again.
Pink sighed. “Let me rephrase. How do you see yourself in a job? What sort of work do you like doing? What are you good at?”
Sarah paused, no longer embarrassed. Rather, she was intrigued. No one had ever asked her a question like that. Usually it was more, “What are you planning to do with your life now?”
“Hmm. What I’m like at work. What I like.” She sat down for a second. “I handle crises, and I get people through them. I’m good at putting out fires and making people feel comfortable.” She thought about it a second, then laughed. “I guess that means I should be wearing a fireman’s hat and an apron.”
“Not that kind of party, but it’s a start,” Pink said, all business. “Question 2: sex.” She shot Sarah an inquisitive stare, expectant.
“Sex?” Sarah said weakly.
“You know. What sort of person are you trying to attract? What are you comfortable with? What do you like?” She saw Sarah’s look of dismay, and chuckled. She turned to Martika. “You know, Taylor’s right. She’s absolutely Japanimation adorable.”
“I know,” Martika said, with that proud tone of voice. “With the right clothes, the right places…”
“I feel it,” Pink said with a nod. “Well, Sarah?”
“Um…I like sex. I guess.”
Pink and Martika looked at her, then looked at each other, then looked back at her.
“Houston, we have a problem.” Pink started jotting notes down furiously, while Martika just stared at her.
“What?” Sarah stared back at them defensively. “What’d I say?”
Sarah was torn between feeling insulted and feeling confused.
“Not a problem, not a problem. She just hasn’t hit her groove, as it were,” Pink said, in a clinical tone. “No biggie. Let’s approach this from a different angle. What actors make you hot?”
Sarah blinked. She was definitely leaning more toward confused, now. “Um…”
Pink huffed impatiently. “Leonardo di Caprio? Russell Crowe?”
“Russell Crowe,” Sarah said quickly, and felt a slight blush for no good reason.
Pink noticed the blush, and smiled. “Ah. Now we’re getting somewhere. Are we talking Russell Crowe in Gladiator, or Russell Crowe in Virtuosity?” At Martika’s curious look, she clarified, “You know. Younger, thinner.”
“Gladiator,” Sarah said, thinking about it, then smiled to herself. “And L.A. Confidential.”
“Totally,” Martika said approvingly.
“Okay. And did you see him working with Kim Bassinger? Or that red-haired chick from Gladiator?”
“No,” Sarah said, then was surprised at the quickness of her response. “I mean, I was glad he got together with them since he was the hero and all, but I don’t really see him with those sorts of people.”
“So who do you think he’d be perfectly cast with?” Pink probed.
Sarah thought about it. This was fun. Weird, but fun. She was glad they weren’t talking about clothes anymore. “I don’t know. I think I’d like to see him with…hmm. Not Gwyneth Paltrow…”
“God, I should hope not,” Martika input, but Pink silenced her.
“Let her struggle it out,” Pink reprimanded gently.
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