Megan Hart - Switch

been because by the time I got to my desk, my boss had

already piled a stack of files on it. It could have been

worse. He could have been standing over my desk with

the empty coffeepot in his hand. He did that, sometimes,

though I knew he was as capable of making coffee as I

am. More, maybe, since he inhaled the high-octane stuff

am. More, maybe, since he inhaled the high-octane stuff

like it was air and I limited myself to a mug once or twice a

day.

Spying the empty Starbucks cup in the trash, I knew he'd

already had his first dose of the day. I was safe a little bit

longer. I could get the files ordered and put away without

him breathing down my neck. I decided to put the coffee

on anyway, though, just in case. There were many days I

could predict my boss's every move, from the midmorning

break when the bagel man came around, to his post-lunch

trip to the bathroom.

Today wasn't one of those days.

"Paige. Listen. I need you to get those files taken care of,

okay?"

I turned from the smal bar sink, where I'd been filing the

coffeepot with water. "Right, Paul. Of course."

Amazing how someone with only a community-colege

education could stil deduce simple things.

"Good." Paul nodded and smoothed his tie between his

thumb and forefinger while he watched me fiddle with the

thumb and forefinger while he watched me fiddle with the

coffeemaker.

I hadn't yet figured out if Paul hovered because he

expected me to screw up, or if he hoped I would. Either

way, it didn't bother me the way it would have some of the

other personal assistants on the floor. Brenda, for

example, liked to brag how her boss, Rhonda, spent most

of her time traveling and she barely had to deal with her.

She also liked to brag that she'd worked for Kely Printing

longer than that Jenny-come-lately Rhonda anyways, and

knew what she was doing, so why should she have to run

everything by someone else when she could get her work

done faster and better without interference?

I never told Brenda I found Paul's constant supervision

more comforting than annoying. After al, if he never

alowed me the autonomy to make decisions, I couldn't

exactly be held accountable for anything that went wrong.

Right? Even when Paul did his share of traveling, he never

left without making me a sheaf of notes and lists…lists.

I thought of the cards I'd found. Two, now. Two

misdelivered notes with explicit, mysterious (to me)

instructions. I could stil feel the sleek paper under my

fingertips. I regretted not taking the time to smel the ink.

fingertips. I regretted not taking the time to smel the ink.

With the coffee set to brewing, I turned to face Paul.

"Anything else?"

"Not right now, thanks." Paul smiled and disappeared

back into his inner sanctum, leaving me with the cheery

burble of the coffeepot and a bunch of files to herd.

This is what I knew about Paul Johnson, my boss. He had

a chubby, pretty wife named Melissa who sometimes

forgot to pick up his dry cleaning on time and two

teenagers too busy with wholesome activities like sports

and youth group to get into trouble. I knew that because

I'd seen their photos and overheard his telephone

conversations. He had an older brother, the unfortunately

named Peter Johnson, with whom he played golf several

times a year but not often enough to be good. I knew that

because he'd asked me to make a reservation for him at

one of the local golf courses and to cal his brother to

confirm the date. The request was slightly out of the realm

of my professional duties, but I'd done it anyway. I also

knew Paul was forty-seven years old, had earned his

MBA from Wharton, attended church on Sundays with his

family and drove a black, but not brand-new, Mercedes

Benz.

Benz.

Those were things I knew.

This is what I thought about Paul Johnson, my boss. He

wasn't a tyrant. Just precise. He held himself to the same

level of perfection he expected from an assistant, and I

appreciated that. He could be funny, though not often, and

usualy unexpectedly. He gave every project his ful

attention and effort because it pained him to do anything

less. I understood and appreciated that, too.

I'd worked for him for almost six months. He'd told me to

cal him Paul, not Mr. Johnson, but we weren't anything

like friends. That was okay with me. I didn't want my boss

to be my chum.

Though sometimes it felt as if al I did was make coffee

and file, my job did actualy have more responsibility. I had

documents to proof and send, invoices to fil out and

appointments to book. I did al this to leave Paul free to do

whatever it was that he did al day long in his lush, swanky

office. If hard pressed, I wouldn't have been able to tel

anyone what, exactly, that was. I didn't hate or love my

job, but it sure as hel beat working at a sub shop or being

an au pair, which was what I'd done while looking for a

an au pair, which was what I'd done while looking for a

job that would use my freshly minted degree in business

administration. If I never slung another plate of hash or

wiped another ass I'd be happy for a good long time.

There was another advantage to having a boss who

needed everything just so. He was wiling to do what it

took to make sure he got what he wanted, whether it was

leaving me a three-page e-mail of the week's work, or

taking five thorough minutes to describe to me exactly

what he wanted me to get him for lunch. Also, if he sent

me out to get him some lunch, he usualy treated me.

Today it was a pastrami sandwich on rye from Mrs. Deli.

Mustard, no mayo. No tomatoes, no onion. Lettuce on the

side. Potato salad and an extralarge iced tea with real

sugar, not what he caled cancer in a packet.

I met Brenda in the hal on my way back. She took one

look at the bulging paper sack from Mrs. Deli and sniffed

hungrily. She held a smal, boxed salad I recognized as

coming from the same guy who sold bagels in the morning.

I'd had one of those salads once, when I'd forgotten my

lunch and had been so desperate for food I'd been wiling

to use my laundry quarters.

"Gawd, Paige," Brenda said. "Lucky. I wish my boss

would send me out for lunch. Heck, I'd like to just get out

of this place for an hour."

Officialy, we got an hour for lunch, but since our building

was located in a business complex on the outskirts of the

city, by the time you drove to anyplace decent for lunch,

you'd barely have enough time to eat and come back.

Rhonda might not hover over Brenda, but she was a

stickler about office hours and break time. Everything has

a trade-off.

"Let me just drop this off with Paul and I'l be right down."

Brenda looked at the box of sadness in her hand. "Yeah,

okay. I've only got about forty minutes left, though."

"I'l hurry."

Paul's door was half-closed when I rapped on the door

frame. At the muffled noise, I pushed it al the way open.

He sat at his desk, staring at his computer monitor. The

screen had dissolved into a rapidly changing pattern of

expanding pipe-work, his screen saver, and I wondered

how long he'd been sitting there.

"Paul?"

"Paige. Come in." He gestured and swiveled in his chair.

Careful not to spil or drip anything, I puled his lunch from

the bag one item at a time. It felt like a ritual, passing lunch

instead of a torch. Paul settled each item onto his blotter.

Sandwich at six, potato salad at nine, plastic fork and

napkin at three. His drink went to noon, and he looked up

at me.

"Thank you, Paige."

It was the first time since I'd started working for him that

he hadn't lifted the bread to make sure the sandwich had

been prepared properly or sipped the tea to make sure I

hadn't mistakenly brought presweetened.

"Do you need me for anything else?"

He shook his head. "No. Go ahead and take your lunch

now. I wil need you back here by one-fifteen, though. I've

got that teleconference thing."

"Sure, no problem." Taking my own sandwich, I headed

down to the lunchroom to meet Brenda.

down to the lunchroom to meet Brenda.

Since no clients saw it, the lunchroom had seen better

days. The vending machines were new, but the tables and

chairs looked as if they'd been salvaged from the garbage

more than once. My chair creaked alarmingly when I sat,

but though I poised, prepared to hit the floor if the rickety

thing colapsed, it held. I unwrapped my food quickly, my

stomach already rumbling.

"This weather, huh?" Brenda stabbed at her limp lettuce. "I wish winter would make up its mind."

"In another three months everyone wil be complaining

about it being too hot."

She looked at me with a blink. "Yeah. I guess so. But I

wish it would get warmer. It's nearly March, for cripe's

sakes. Though we did have that blizzard in '93, right

around Saint Patty's Day. I hope that doesn't happen this

year."

Under other circumstances we'd never have been friends.

Not that I didn't like her, but we didn't have much in

common. Brenda was older than my mom and had twin

girls in colege. She also had a husband she referred to

girls in colege. She also had a husband she referred to

constantly as "my sweetie," and whose name I hadn't even

yet learned. I imagined him as a Fred, though, for

whatever that was worth.

"We've hardly had any snow. I'm sure we'l be fine."

"I don't know how you stand it, honestly." Brenda, finished with her salad, had started casting longing looks at the

other half of my sandwich.

I was pretending not to notice. I might only have been

hungry enough to finish half, but the rest of it would be

dinner tonight. "The lack of snow?"

She laughed then lowered her voice with a conspiratorial

look around the empty lunchroom. "Gawd, no. I meant

Paul. I don't know how you can stand working for him."

"He's not that bad, Brenda. Realy."

She got up to get a snack cake from the machine. "Tel me

that in another month."

"What's going to happen in another month?" I wrapped my

sandwich carefuly in the thick white butcher paper.

Grease had turned it translucent in a pattern of dots and

Grease had turned it translucent in a pattern of dots and

made it unusable, which was too bad. Butcher paper was

great for coloring pictures. Arty loved it.

"Paul hasn't managed to keep an assistant for longer than

six months, tops."

"I've been here for almost six."

"Yeah," Brenda said with the knowing nod of someone

who's been keeping track. "And you can't tel me you

don't notice he's a little…particular."

The days when a good secretary was unfailingly loyal to

her boss had apparently passed. Even so, I didn't leap to

agree with her. "I said, he's not that bad. Besides, it's not

like he screams or anything if things aren't exactly right."

"He'd better not!" Brenda was already indignant on my

behalf. "You're his assistant, not his slave."

I gave a smal snort that tried and failed to be a chuckle.

"Slaves don't get paid."

"Just remember this conversation in another month when

you're groaning to me that he's become impossible. They

al do, eventualy," Brenda said. "He's gone through seven

assistants already since he's been in our department."

"They al quit?"

"No. Some he fired." She raised a brow at me. "They

were the lucky ones, if you ask me."

I checked my watch. Five minutes left before I had to

rouse myself from my postlunch lethargy and head back to

the office. Time for a snack cake, if I wanted to stuff my

face with processed sugar, or a cup of coffee from the