Excerpt
The Way It Happens In Novels
CHAPTER ONE
For the last two miles of the trip in to Software International, Cheryl used Interstate 84. In the brief space between Route 7 and the entrance ramp, she could see what was left of the old state fairgrounds. The grandstand was still visible but the storybook village—the ceramic statues of snowmen, Santa Claus, and Paul Bunyan—had been torn down. A land developer had bought the property and was preparing to build a shopping mall. Cheryl sometimes felt as if everything familiar was being ripped away. But no, not everything, she thought as she stubbed out her cigarette. Her boss, Mr. Raymond, was dependably predictable.
Mr. Raymond smoked a solitary cigar every morning. Had he known that the smell of it sickened Cheryl, he would have ordered her a slightly more elaborate floral arrangement on Secretary’s Day.
Cheryl poked her head into his office. “Good morning, Mr. Raymond.”
“Good morning, dear.”
His smile was impersonal, theatrical. Cheryl was not fooled by the dear either. It simply meant he was preoccupied and could not for the moment remember her name. But he had it right later when she brought him the night’s stack of telex messages. “Thank you, Cheryl.”
“You’re welcome.” Cheryl often wondered if Mrs. Raymond asked her husband to describe his secretary what he would say—surely nothing as specific as red-haired, small-shouldered, wide-hipped. No, she was fairly certain he would spread his long fingers apart, pause for a second, then reply: “Youngish.”
Cheryl was generally glad for his lack of scrutiny. Though her marriage had been annulled two years before, she had not yet notified either of her bosses and probably never would, since she was keeping her married name. Cheryl Freedman might be taken seriously, but she was sure Cheryl Farrell never would be.
Mr. Raymond finished his cigar with one loud satisfied sigh. It was odd, she thought, that he enjoyed the cigar so much but took no pleasure in the Danish he consumed before it. He ate the pastry quickly and furtively with his back to the door. Maybe he was embarrassed because his wife did not cook him a proper breakfast.
Her other boss, Mr. Derrigo, by contrast, was not embarrassed about cooking his own breakfast. Several times she heard him brag about it to coworkers. “Marge,” he would say, “does all the cooking at night and on the weekends. But on weekdays she sleeps in and I’m in the driver’s seat. So I get out that fry pan and I fry my own egg.” It was a terrible eye-opener to Cheryl that a senior manager who signed one-hundred-thousand-dollar contracts and controlled millions in discretionary investment funds was enormously challenged by frying an egg.
But if one remained a secretary long enough, eventually all childhood myths would be shattered. Take, for instance, the myth of the male’s superior business acumen. Cheryl was in a position to know that that was perpetrated simply by desk arrangements. Men seated themselves in quiet, comfortable cubicles while their secretaries (usually female) were put at work stations out in the heavily trafficked hallways. A call director was attached to the desk and the constant ringing of these phones guaranteed that the women could not concentrate on any given subject for more than three seconds at a time.
“Good morning. Mr. Raymond’s office. Yes, he is. But he is not at his desk right now. Could I take a message? Okay. Fine. I’ll tell him. You’re welcome.”
To keep her voice soft, fluid, and nonabrasive, Cheryl took periodic beverage breaks. At ten she bought coffee and then again at three. Each time she fished thirty cents from her wallet, locked her desk, and went downstairs to the first-floor coffee machine, counting in increments of 1.2 as she descended the twelve concrete steps: 1.2, 2.4, 3.6, 4.8…. Coffee with one packet of sugar and a heaping teaspoon of Cremora cost her thirty-five calories, but the downtrip sloughed off nearly fourteen calories and ascending the stairs knocked off another twenty-nine. Therefore, the entire transaction left her eight calories in the red.
Despite the caloric advantages of the breaks, Cheryl went for coffee reluctantly. To the left of the coffee dispenser was a refrigerated vending machine with five windows that illuminated the dark hallway like votive candles in an empty church. Behind the top pane today was a large-pored, thick-skinned orange. Showcased in the next three windows were an apple, a container of yogurt, and a sandwich with yellow curling cheese. None of these items disturbed Cheryl. It was the bottom pane with the hot cross bun behind it that she could not so much as glance at without remembering her first football game and how Richard Olsen had looked in his white and gray jersey as he ran across the field, hands on hips.
All through the game she had kidded herself into believing her growing infatuation with Richard Olsen was as innocent as admiration for a sleek cat or a fine racehorse. Then at work she had stared at the plastic-wrapped roll with pounding heart and flaming cheeks and known better. Maybe it was Stu’s desertion that had left her so vulnerable. But nothing could excuse her. Later, when she read in the newspaper that Olsen had been stricken with an aneurysm, she felt as if her own foul thoughts had somehow blighted him. Now, carrying her coffee, she passed the vending machine with averted eyes and went back upstairs.
Cheryl set the Styrofoam cup down gently, careful not to spill coffee on the list of frequently used phone numbers taped to her desk. A green plush surface meant to accommodate such reminders bordered the front of her work station. But the green pile surface was soft, fleshlike, and she was unwilling to stick pins into it. Instead, in direct defiance of corporate directives, she Scotch-taped all memos to the face of her desk.
“Cheryl.”
Mr. Raymond was back in his office. “Yes, Mr. Raymond.”
She put down her cup. The coffee was just right—hot but not steaming. In five minutes it would be tepid and tasteless. She wished just this once Raymond would come to her. Instead he began mumbling and she was forced to walk into his office. “I’m sorry, Mr. Raymond. I couldn’t hear you.”
He was reclining backward in his executive chair with a set of plane tickets on his lap. He displayed the bottom ticket. “Coming back, Travel has booked me tourist.”
Tomorrow he was going to England, and she could catch up on her filing. It would be a vacation of sorts. Cheryl eyed the blue and green ticket. “Yes, that’s right. Going over you’re on Pan Am and they have a businessman’s class. But you’re coming back EurAir and they don’t offer that service.”
“That was all Travel could book me on?”
“I’m sure.” She was not in a position to challenge the Travel Department’s decision. If Mr. Raymond wanted to tackle Travel, he could. She doubted he would. Raymond was a bully only to his wife and secretary.
Sure enough, he shook his head and said, “That’s all right. It’s not that long a flight. Not like I’m coming back from a symposium in Russia.”
Cheryl nodded and backed toward the door but halted when Raymond asked, “How’s your work going? Everything all right?”
“Fine.” Men had underestimated their own loneliness when they had designed these private cubicles. When his phone was not ringing and subordinates were not dropping in, Raymond often appeared at the side of her desk and asked if her work needed what he called “prioritizing.” She required no such assistance but would obligingly hand him a sheath of papers to rearrange so he could spend a few minutes standing beside her.
Today she couldn’t provide solace. A phone was ringing and her coffee was getting cold. “Mr. Derrigo’s office. No, he’s out of town. Could I help you?” A message began clattering in on the telex: rat a tat tat. Ba de boom. Ba de boom. Raymond’s phone rang and then his overflow line rang. The signals on the call director flashed like miniature Christmas tree lights. “… Yes, he is, but he’s on another line right now. Can he return your call?”
Cheryl looked up as the mailboy noisily dumped an armful of mail into her in box, then lifted a large box from his cart and left it precariously tilting on the ledge over her desk. The box blocked her view, so she slid it down to her desk and then onto the floor. If Mr. Derrigo were in and unengaged, he might have emerged from his office to assist her. But he was visiting three branch offices on the West Coast. Last Friday he had asked her, “You know how to reach me?”
She had managed to nod without smiling, though the question amused her. She had made all his travel and hotel reservations, booked two hotel meeting rooms, and arranged a banquet for him. But in his mind such arrangements took care of themselves in the same magical way that coffee, doughnuts, and lined pads always appeared in his conference room at the beginning of staff meetings.
