“All right. I’ll — ” I began.
The phone clicked as he hung up.
I sat there listening to the dial tone. Bastard, I thought. I replaced my handset in the cradle and looked down at the original copy of the overview on my desk. It was strange that he would even call to tell me something like that. It didn’t make sense. If he was going to correct my work, why didn’t he just do it and order me to type in his revisions? Why had he even called me with this song and dance? There was a reason for this, I knew, but I could not figure out what it was.
Derek was looking at me. “Watch your ass,” he said.
I was not sure if that was a threat or a warning — it was impossible to tell from the old man’s tone of voice. I wanted to ask him, but he had already turned away from me and was busily scribbling notes on a typed piece of paper.
That was Wednesday. When Thursday and Friday passed, then Monday, Tuesday, and the next Wednesday and I still hadn’t heard back from Stewart on the overview, I made a trip over to his office.
He was seated at his desk. His door was open, and he was reading a copy of Computer World. I rapped lightly on the doorframe, and he looked up. He frowned when he saw me. “What do you want?”
Nervously, I cleared my throat. “Did you, uh, have a chance to go over my work?”
He stared at me. “What?”
“The overview I wrote for the File Inventory System last week. You said you’d get back to me on it. You said you had some new things to add?”
“No, I didn’t.”
I shifted uncomfortably. “Well, I thought you said you had to okay it or approve it or something before it was sent to Mr. Banks.”
“What do you want? A pat on the back each time you complete a simple assignment? I’ll tell you right now, Jones, we don’t work that way around here. And if you think I’m going to allow you to just mope around while you wait for some sort of ego gratification, you’ve got another think coming. No one here gets medals for simply doing their jobs.”
“It’s not that.”
“What is it, then?” He stared at me, unblinking, waiting for an answer.
I didn’t know what to say. I felt flustered. I hadn’t expected him to flat-out deny what he’d told me, and I didn’t understand what was going on. “Sorry,” I mumbled. “I guess I misunderstood what you said. I’d better get back to my desk.”
“I guess you’d better.”
It might’ve been my imagination, but I thought I heard him chuckling as I left.
When I returned, there was a note from Hope waiting on my desk, written on a sheet of her pink personalized stationery. I picked up the paper, read the message: “For Stacy’s birthday. Sign the card and pass it on to Derek. See you at the lunch!” Paper-clipped to the stationery was a birthday card that showed a group of goofy cartoon jungle animals waving their arms. “From the whole herd!” the front of the card said.
I opened the card and looked at the signatures. All of the programmers except Stacy had signed it, as had Hope, Virginia, and Lois. Each of the signees had also added a short personal note. I didn’t know Stacy at all, but I picked up my pen, wrote “Hope you have a great birthday!” and signed my name.
I handed the card to Derek. “What time is the lunch?” I asked.
He took the card from me. “What lunch?”
“Stacy’s birthday lunch, I guess.”
He shrugged, didn’t answer, signed the card, placed it in its envelope. Ignoring me, he walked out of the office, taking the card with him.
I wanted to say something to him, to tell him what an inconsiderate jerk he was, but as always, I did nothing.
Ten minutes later, my phone rang. I picked it up. It was Banks. He wanted me to come up to his office. I had not been to his office since the first day, and my initial thought was that I was about to be fired. I didn’t know why or what for, but I figured that between the two of them, Banks and Stewart had finally come up with a plausible reason why I should be let go.
I was nervous as I waited for the elevator. I didn’t like my job, but I certainly didn’t want to lose it. I stared at the descending lighted numbers above the metal doors. My palms were sweaty. I wished Banks had not asked me up to his office. If I was going to get fired, I thought, I would have much rather been notified through the mail. I had never been good at personal confrontations.
The elevator doors opened. An older woman in a loud print dress got out, and I stepped in, pressing the button for the fifth floor.
Banks was waiting for me in his office, seated behind his huge desk. He did not say hello, did not stand when I entered, but motioned for me to sit down. I sat. I wanted to wipe my sweaty hands on my pants, but he was looking straight at me and I knew it would be too obvious.
Banks leaned forward in his chair. “Has Ron talked to you about GeoComm?”
I blinked, stared dumbly. “Uh… no,” I said.
“It’s a geobase system that we’re developing for cities, counties, and municipal governments. You do know what a geobase system is?”
I shook my head, still not sure where this was leading.
He gave me a look of annoyance. “Geobase is short for geographic database. It allows the user to…”
But I was already tuning him out. I wasn’t going to lose my job, I realized. I was being given a new assignment. I was going to be writing instructions for a new computer system. Not just partial instructions, not just one-page rewrites, but an entire manual.
I wasn’t going to be fired. I’d been promoted.
Banks stopped talking, looked at me. “Aren’t you going to take notes?”
I looked at him. “I didn’t bring a notebook,” I admitted.
“Here.” Sighing heavily, he pulled a pad of yellow legal paper from the top drawer in his desk, handed it to me.
I took a pen from my pocket and began writing.
When I returned to my office an hour later, it was a little after eleven-thirty. Derek was gone. I put my notes and the papers Banks had given me down on my desk and walked over to Hope’s station. She was gone, too.
As were the programmers.
And Virginia and Lois.
They’d already left for Stacy’s birthday lunch.
I did what I always did, waited until twelve-fifteen, until most of the other people in the building had gone, and then drove to McDonald’s, ordering my lunch from the drive-thru and eating in my car at a nearby city park. I don’t know why, but I was hurt by the fact that they hadn’t waited for me. I shouldn’t have expected anything else, but I’d been asked to sign the card, Hope had written “See you at the lunch!” and I guess I’d let myself think that I was actually wanted and welcome. I ate my cheeseburger, taking out the pickle, and listened to the radio as I stared out the car window at a teenage couple making out on a blanket on the grass.
I drove back to work feeling even more depressed.
They arrived back from the lunch a half hour late. I was walking from desk to desk, passing out interoffice phone directories that Stewart had left in my in box and asked me to distribute, when Virginia and Lois passed by me on their way to the steno pool. They were both walking slowly, both holding their hands over their obviously full stomachs.
“I ate too much,” Lois said.
Virginia nodded. “Me, too.”
“How was it?” I asked. It was a pointed question. I wanted to make them feel guilty for not waiting for me, like Charlie Brown in the Christmas special when he sarcastically thanks Violet for sending him a card she obviously did not send.
Virginia looked at me. “What?”
“How was the lunch?”
“What do you mean, ‘How was the lunch?’”