I try to give her a reason to talk to me. She doesn’t have a reason not to, but that’s how she acts. She stays on her side of the office inventing work to keep herself there. I swear to God she could be done by eleven or latest noon but every day the report or the summary of the report of whatever she’s working on keeps her busy until five sharp and then she’s gone. Sometimes on her way out she’ll stop at Angie’s desk or Mary’s desk and say that she felt like the day just sped by. As a joke. Great joke, huh? On days when she has nothing to do, when Bob or Anderson stops by in the morning to tell her that it’s going to be a light load, you know what she does? She fakes phone calls. I clear my throat or shift so I can catch her eye but she won’t take the bait. Instead I see her pick up the phone and she might only deal three or four numbers, making a show of the last one, which is never anywhere close to seven, and then her voice curls into a conversation that I know she’s not having, oh yes the report went out yesterday and we’re expecting to see a proof of it tomorrow and at that point I’ll be able to review it, oh no I didn’t know that he had said that it’s amazing because I thought the same thing, oh well it was nice to talk to you, and then she hangs up. Can you imagine? Everyone around her must know that it’s fake but they don’t let on. That’s no way to act. Would you say that’s a way to act? By the time we get home I’m sometimes so mad that I can’t even smile at her when we’re sitting at the dinner table.
©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas
No comments:
Post a Comment