The Bow Tie Challenge
“Will you take these? And these? No, not these. Take these too, and…” Regardless of the amount of documents she keeps piling up on my arms in an increasingly wobbly pile, she has the nerve to say, “And take these too,” before putting a couple of folders on top that she’s probably been hiding in her drawer since her first day in the office.
“Great,” I say, as I set off.
“Ah, hold on!” says Margaret, raising a cautionary finger.
I knew it was too good to be true…
“I forgot these,” she says with an angelic smile.
“Nothing else?” I ask sarcastically.
“Hmm…” she ponders. “I think…” she turns round and looks at her desk. “Yes, that should be everything. But I’ll call you if something else turns up,” she says, dismissing me and instantly forgetting I exist.
Welcome to The Chronicle. On your right, a harpy clad in a red pants suit known as Margaret Banks, head of the Culture and Entertainment section and, contractually, my boss. She’s a lovely person except for this bad habit she has of overloading me with work – a habit that everybody who ends up in the office for more than a week or so seems to develop: if they need someone to spend two hours of their life searching through the archives, they ask me. The same thing happens when there’s a delicate phone call to be made. And who do they turn to when there’s some bizarre character to interview? Always and exclusively me. Except when it’s time to share the credit, in which case it becomes “Who? Sam? Sam who? Never heard of her. Does she work here? Seriously?”
And that’s my career in a nutshell.
Trying not to trip over, I leave her office and walk in a straight line until I bump into my desk. My workstation is a very small cubicle in a corner just by the window. There’s a grey table, a grey office chair, a grey desktop PC, and an imposing card index cabinet, the only object in my little personal space which is a completely different colour: black. Well, off-black, if I’m totally honest, so I should probably say it’s another shade of grey, but I still like to think of it as black so I don’t get too depressed. It’s pretty hard to keep your spirits up when you spend all your days crammed into eighteen square feet.
“Ah, Sam…” says a voice from across the hall. “There are some e-mails that need sending.”
“Sure, fine…” I grumble, dumping the pile of documents I’m holding onto my desk. I start cursing to myself even before knowing what these e-mails are about, hoping that spontaneous combustion or something will save me from this boring task. I know from previous experience that I’m very soon going to find out what he’s talking about in any case.
It’s a fact: whenever there’s a problem, one way or another it always manages to find its way over to me, so all there is for me to do is sit down and decide where to begin. Before I start, though, I check the time. It’s only ten, I know, but I’m already as desperate for my coffee break as a camel is for an oasis after crossing the desert. I can’t stop staring at the clock, hoping that soon it’ll be time for me to get out of here and find solace in one of those styrofoam cups. Caffeine… It’s the only thing stopping me from munching my way through those cookies I’ve got hidden in the third drawer of my desk.
It wasn’t always like this. At the beginning I was actually happy to work for a newspaper, especially because The Chronicle is not just any newspaper, it’s the newspaper around these parts. And these parts are San Francisco. When they offered me an internship here, I couldn’t believe it. I was twenty-three years old, I had just finished college and I had a head full of dreams. I could already picture myself holding a Pulitzer prize, and had a very moving speech prepared for the occasion. Three years later, I wish I could say that there’s been some progress, but unless you count me now having a company badge, nothing has happened. I’m paid the same salary and my colleagues treat me just as dismissively and look at me just as suspiciously. Only my workload has tripled. The long and the short of it is that I live my working life squeezed between a cheese plant and the printer, and instead of dreaming of a Pulitzer, nowadays I dream of being able to afford a top of the range vacuum cleaner. In other words, the expectations I had for my life have been drastically downsized. I’m not a natural pessimist, it’s more like the direct consequence of the failure of yet another diet which Vogue promised was ‘infallible’. To be more specific, I’m talking about the lemon diet which I tried last year after me and the waistbands of my pants had a bit of a falling-out. It felt like this time it was going to work, but as it turned out I didn’t lose a pound and I wasted four hundred dollars on buying a small greenhouse for our garden, plus another two hundred on the doctor. On the bright side, my mother can now grow strawberries in December and there is always a cheesecake in the fridge.
“What a face!” says Terry as she joins me. She’s in the same boat as I am, working in the same department with the same approach: grim tolerance while we await the day of our revenge.
“I just found out that I’m going to be spending the whole day searching through publications, newspaper articles and reviews for stuff about Millie Brown – you know, that artist who creates her pieces by vomiting up paint,” I tell her, while staring dejectedly at all the files Margaret gave me.
Terry comes closer, looks at my desk, then, without a word, steals a chair from another cubicle and sits down next to me. “Sounds like an interesting artist. I wonder what she could do with a chocolate milkshake…” Strangely, she isn’t giving me a hard time, and that immediately puts me on my guard.
“What are you planning?” I ask her suspiciously while spontaneously pushing my chair back.
“Nothing, what do you mean?” she says, feigning innocence, and in the meantime takes a file out of a folder and looks it over. “Let’s see…” she murmurs thoughtfully, caressing her face and pressing her fingers on her lips. When she reaches the bottom of the page, she raises her head and looks at me carefully.
“What? Do I have something in my hair?” I ask, touching it instinctively.
Terry doesn’t answer me, she just keeps examining my appearance: the dark rings under my eyes and the rolled up ponytail that resembles a scruffy porcupine. I must be looking awful.
“So?”
“No,” she murmurs. “We are going to dump this task on Bob,” she decides eventually, crossing out some notes with a big black line before moving to the next point in her endless to-do list. Ok, now I know what’s going on.
“No, please,” I beg, when I realise what she’s about to ask me. “I’m already up to my neck in work!” I point again to all the files Margaret gave me to underline the drastic situation I’m in.
“Don’t worry, it’s practically nothing,” continues Terry regardless, passing me a freshly printed memo. “Here it is.” I would love to ignore it, but I’m too curious and scan through the document.
“Who the hell is this Otis Farrel?” I ask.
“Someone who broke Jin Songhao’s world record by staying under the snow for forty-seven minutes and twelve seconds.”
“Are you joking?”
“Not at all,” she replies seriously.
“But why? Why did he do it?”
“Apparently he’s Judge Farrel’s son and our editor’s nephew has a thing with the judge’s sister’s brother in law. I got the call directly from Tom’s office. They’ve scheduled an interview for this afternoon at four.”
“No, you’re going to have to do Otis, I haven’t got time to leave my desk today,” I say, trying to hide behind my numerous commitments. Terry raises her eyes to the ceiling in frustration, but when she sees just how much of the office backlog I’ve got to deal with, she gives up.
“Ok,” she snorts. “In that case, you can take something from tomorrow’s list.”
“What have you got?” I ask, taking back the list. “Oh, that’s not bad: Carl Urban visits the Lewis Baltz exhibition. I think I could sacrifice myself for that,” I say, with a sly smile.
“Forget it – there’s the interview with Grieg Murphy first.”
“With who?”
“Grieg Murphy.”
“I don’t want to sound repetitive, but who?” I’ve never heard of him.
“He’s the owner of the funeral home Murphy & Son in Japantown. He was one of the first to use permanent make-up on corpses. To celebrate their thirty years of being in business they’ve decided to put their most successful, err, clients on show.”
“Hey, no way, José – I am not writing about funeral homes!” I explode, throwing up my hands.
“You have to.”
“No, I don’t have to.”
“Yes, you do. It’s your turn, because if you remember I had to interview the Belgian explorer in your place because you’re scared of spiders.”
“Come on, that’s totally unfair! And anyway I already covered for you last Wednesday when I had to sit through that two hour conference about the growth of the nesting population of beetles in America.”
“Okay, fine. We’ll just have to play for it and see who wins.”
“I agree,” I say, accepting her proposal immediately and we both turn towards the cubicle where Nicholas writes his obituaries.
“Green with polka dots,” says Terry.
“Wrong!” I laugh. “Red stripes. Today is Monday, so Mel from typography will be coming by, I reckon he’ll have dressed up for her.”
“Is that your final answer?” she asks in a low voice, trying to make me waver, but that’s not going to happen: my body is a temple and my mind is a fortress. Well, sort of.
“You bet it is!” I say confidently.
“And I say that it’s green with polka dots.”
“Yeah, sure it is…”
“Who’s going to check, you or me?” she asks.
“You can. He hasn’t been speaking to me since I asked him to write up a note about Judge Johnson passing away,” I confide.
“Hold on, I don’t follow you? Why isn’t he speaking to you?” she asks, sounding surprised.
“Well…” I mumble, fiddling with my hair. “I think it’s partly down to his personality, but I also guess he would rather have written an obit for someone who was actually dead.”
“You’re the worst.”
I can’t help sniggering.
“I’m not kidding,” she says, “you are going to burn in hell.”
“Just get your ass in gear and find out!” I say, elbowing her. “I can’t wait all day.”
“Shut up, you’ll ruin my mission!” hisses Terry before lifting her head, coughing a couple of times and calling out, “Hey, Nicholas! Do you know the phone number of the mayor’s press office?”
“Here we go… the moment of truth,” I whisper, crossing my fingers and repeating, “Red stripes, red stripes, red stripes…” I peer over the card index cabinet to take a look and…
Aw shit, no! I bang my head on the desk in despair when Nicholas pops up over the cubicle dividing wall wearing a green bow tie with polka dots and a ridiculous plaid shirt. “How the hell did you know?” I ask quietly while she pretends to write down the number.
“I read on a post-it he had on his monitor yesterday that said ‘Dinner with Mom’” she reveals when she’s finished.
“But that’s cheating!” I grumble.
“Hell, yeah!” she confirms with a big smile, pulling her bag out from under the pile of folders and documents on my desk. Before she leaves, she reminds me of the results of our challenge. “Remember: tomorrow at half past three. I’ll email you the exact address.”
“You do realise that you cheated, right?” I protest – in vain, because she’s obviously not listening to me any more. She makes sure she’s got everything and heads towards the corridor singing to herself. Of course she’s happy: she gets to meet Carl Urban while I’m stuck with Uncle Fester!
I should have known it would end like this, but why? Why is it always me? I’m going to start my week with a horror show, how is that fair?
“Damn you, Terry…” I whisper, but suddenly something in the room appears on my personal radar, and everything else loses its importance. My attention is now completely focused on the main entrance which is visible down the corridor. My heartbeat starts to speed up, my brain goes all foggy and the rest of my body becomes unresponsive to stimuli. Terry recognises the symptoms as soon as she hears my first moan.
“Uh-oh!” She walks back over to me to rub salt in my wounds, asking mockingly “Should I call a doctor?”
“Shut up!”
The handle turns, the hinges creak. Here we go.
I check the time: it’s half past ten. He’s punctual, as always.
I lean over the edge of my cubicle to see and almost stop breathing. If my hay fever doesn’t get me first, this unmanageable emotional incontinence of mine – the result of youthful overindulgence in Jane Austen and Lassie Come Home – is going to be the end of me.
In the meantime, I see him approaching from the opposite side of the newsroom office. It’s Dave, the walking proof of the existence of God – a God who loves ties with a Windsor knot.
He is thirty-six years old, has brown hair, green eyes and a smile that could give you a heart attack. He’s my personal standard when judging men, who I file under the categories ‘absolutely not Dave’, ‘a bit Dave’, ‘very Dave’ and ‘totally Dave’. Nobody reaches the standard of perfection of the original Dave Callaghan, though, and if there was any justice at all in the world, he would be the only possible father of my children.
Unaware of my slightly improper thoughts, The Chronicle’s vice editor takes his jacket off nonchalantly and asks Jane, the editorial secretary, to hand him his black planner. Jane has recently been upgraded to coffee bringer and chief excuse maker for any appointment he forgets.
They talk to each other for a while, mainly about work and his schedule, and she fills him in on the latest news from the Civic Centre and about the people he should talk to. Halfway through, though, their ability to co-exist in the same space runs out and they part ways. She goes back to organising the administrative office’s mail and Dave takes cover in his office, checking the notes about the meetings he has scheduled with an expression of concentration on his face.
As undignified as it is to admit it, I hold my breath until I hear him slamming the door behind me and only then, when I’m sure he can’t see me, do my cheeks regain some colour. All of which my nosy colleague seems to find absolutely hilarious.
“Not a word,” I say menacingly.
“Do you need a tissue?” she asks mockingly, perching on the edge of my desk. “You’ve got some drool dripping off your chin.”
“You’re not funny.”
“You do realise that you have no chance at all with him, right?”
“Yes, I’m perfectly aware of my situation,” I admit, “but I started hoping again after I saw Hugh Jackman’s wife. If a woman like her can net herself someone like the Wolverine, surely I can aim for a deputy editor from San Francisco.”
“Yeah, sure…” she replies sceptically.
I’m about to reply when Terry interrupts me abruptly, putting her hand over my mouth.
“Suspicious movements at twelve o’clock.”
“What?” I ask looking around.
“Shut up! He’s coming!” she warns me, picking up a random document from the pile on my desk to give the impression of being too busy to notice him.
“Who? What are you talking about?” I ask. I start hysterically fiddling with the folders too, almost sending the whole lot crashing to the floor. “You mean it’s him?”
“Yes, he’s here, hurry up!” she murmurs, pretending to read the file she’s holding.
“Oh, God, what should I do?”
“Dammit, Sam, just pick something up!” she mutters, sticking a memo into my hands. It’s the notice Jane sent me yesterday about the new time for this morning’s meeting. When Dave finally reaches my cubicle, Terry is completely absorbed in my shopping list and I am correcting imaginary mistakes on a memo I should have thrown away hours ago.
“Sam, may I have a word?” he asks, leaning over the dividing wall.
“Oh, good morning,” I greet him, pretending not to have noticed his arrival earlier. “Sure – what can I do for you?”
He gives me a smile which has an effect on me like hard drugs: it kills me very slowly and even though I am well aware of the damage it’s doing me, I don’t put up any resistance – I’m absolutely incapable of stopping my tormenter.
“We moved the meeting forward, did you read my memo?”
“Sure, I was just about to email Mag about it.”
“Ok, well listen…” he hesitates. “I need to see some people…” he hesitates again. I’ve lost count of the appointments I’ve been late for because of these thoughtful pauses of his. “Do you by any chance have a couple of spare minutes to run some errands for me?”
Here we go again.
“Sure I do!” I answer without thinking. Terry, who’s still sitting next to me stares at me in shock, then turns to look at the piles of work on my desk. “I’m not that busy,” I continue, unable to contain myself, “No problem!”
“That’s great,” murmurs Dave, sighing with relief. “You’re an angel, Sam, what would I do without you?” He smiles again, and I feel like I’m about to melt into a gooey mess on the tiled floor. “Are you sure it’s not a problem?” he asks, probably feeling somewhat guilty.
“Sam, weren’t you supposed to check—” cuts in Terry, hoping to save me from myself. But it’s too late now.
“Of course not, it’s no problem, really,” I reply, without letting either of them finish what they were saying. “I’d be glad to.”
“Ok, then,” shrugs Dave. “Give me a minute and I’ll send Ben over with the stuff,” he says before disappearing behind his door as quickly as he appeared. I think he also said something as he was leaving, but I honestly can’t remember what. It doesn’t matter, I’ll find out all about it very shortly anyway and probably have to spend the rest of my working day dealing with it.
“You really should stop it,” Terry scolds me as soon as Dave has gone.
I know she’s right, but I just can’t resist him. I can never say no to those puppy eyes of his, they just make me lose my head.
“Sam, I’m not kidding,” she continues, “it’s always the same story. He can’t make you do all the extra work that’s built up. And anyway, you’ve already got Margaret to deal with.”
“Don’t make a big deal out of it, he hardly ever does it.”
“That’s not true!”
“Of course it’s true!”
“No, it’s not!”
“Whatever – I’m only trying to be useful,” I defend myself. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life correcting drafts.”
“And you really think that becoming his doormat is going to help you with your career, do you? Good plan.”
“It can’t be worse than being fired, can it?”
“I…You… Listen…” she stammers, trying to stop herself from swearing, then throws up her hands in frustration. “Hey, you know what?” she says, “I give up. You’re never going to listen to me, anyway.”
“Wise girl. Now go and get ready for your appointment with Otis Farrel!” I say with a smile.
“Who? Oh, Otis Farrel, right…” she snorts, realising all of a sudden that she’s going to have to do it. “I’d better get a hustle on then,” she murmurs miserably. “What about dinner tonight?”
“Nah – I think I’ll just have a sandwich.”
“Ok, tomorrow then?”
“I don’t know…” I try to play for time, but the truth is that I don’t really feel like going out.
“You don’t want to spend your whole life rotting away behind that desk, do you?” she protests, and I realise that she’s not going to give me much of a choice. “If I don’t see you beforehand, I’ll come pick you up at around eight. And try and be ready – I don’t want to turn up and find you in your pyjamas, okay?”
“Okay,” I answer unenthusiastically.
Terry shakes her head and finally leaves. I take another look at my desk and momentarily succumb to despair. But only momentarily.
“Come on, Sam, it’s not that hard,” I tell myself optimistically. “You’ll be done in a couple of hours.” But Ben appears out of the blue and dumps a couple of reams of paper next to my keyboard. What the hell can these documents be about.
“The boss needs this done by three. I’ll be back when you’re done.”
What the hell?! Okay… I guess I’ll just have a bit of a cry for a couple of minutes.