by Hope Lyda
“I suppose you heard Cecilia is in Texas. Most unfortunate timing since she and I had planned to meet for most of the week. But after thinking on it, I’m glad to have a chance to study some of the client files and get used to the flow around here. Maybe you could show me around today in place of Cecilia.”
“Of course.” I said the words, but then I thought about it. I wasn’t Cecilia…I wasn’t a partner showing another partner around. I would be a secretary showing her boss around. And I would, for the first time, have to face people in every department as an assistant. I would deal with the looks of “Oh, right…poor Libby” and have to avoid any dialogue about my change.
It was my job though. There wasn’t anything wrong with his request.
He studied my face during my internal digression.
“You know what? Ken Dunson will be back in town tomorrow and is meeting me for lunch. He’ll want to do the tour thing to show me the scope of his company, I’m sure. Sorry. Wasn’t thinking.”
I looked at my savior for a second time. He knew exactly what I was thinking. I felt very vulnerable all of a sudden. I glanced down to see if my slip was showing. He made me want to be professional. Cecilia was demanding, but only in a scary, dysfunctional way. She really didn’t command excellence as much as she demanded service.
Blaine flipped through a file on his desk and raised it in front of his face. “First thing I like to do is review personnel files. The only reason I even tell you this is because your file is strong. Your reviews are excellent. Your attendance is impressive. Your extra hours reflect a strong team player…putting out when the company needs you.”
Putting out. Strange wording on his part. He paused for a second…realizing something didn’t sound right but not sure what.
“However, there is something in the file that I feel must have gone unnoticed in the past. And that concerns me. The information from your business program…”
Oh, no. Could Dirk’s comments really be on my business file?
“I can explain that. Totally. I’m not a freak,” I blurted before I could think about it. My outburst actually negated the sentence I just said.
“Wait.” He held up his hand. “Though I’m curious as to what would follow that opener, I’m about to share a good thing.” He laughed.
Great. My stupidity amused him. I became a bit defensive.
“I thought you were referring to…well, switching majors at such a late date in my program. That could look like I didn’t know what I wanted, but I assure you that I did.” That was a 9.5 recovery, at least.
“I was referring to your change, but in a good way. It seems that when you were hired, the business course work was emphasized more.” He seemed almost apologetic as he tapped his fingers on the glass surface of his desk. “The fact that you switched to a more creative major tells me that maybe Reed and Dunson has been missing out on some of your strengths.”
Oh.
“I don’t see any mention of you serving on any of the creative teams, even though it seems you were the right-hand person on several accounts involving creative tactics.”
“Yes, that’s true.” Cecilia liked to do all of the event planning and publicity brainstorming. It gave her an excuse to shop for inspiration or take all-day lunches for her brainstorming sessions.
“Did you prefer it this way? Maybe I spoke out of turn.”
“No, I wanted the opportunity.” How could I say this tactfully? “She…Cecilia, loves a good party. I mean…she has celebration in her blood. That aspect of the overall strategy suits her.”
“Well, as much as I like a good party,” he said sounding more like Walter Cronkite than a true partygoer, “I like a team that uses the strengths of its members. You’ll be working with me on my accounts and no longer for Cecilia’s client list. And I’m bringing some accounts with me that could use some fresh perspective. Are you interested?”
“Yes.” I was very excited about the idea of investing time in the creative aspects of a PR campaign instead of filling spread sheets with demographic research and strategy forecasts. And this meant that my file was clean of any Dirk mentions, or surely Blaine would have caught it.
“As I set up my schedules, I will keep your interest in mind.” He handed me a printout of clients. “Could you pull these files for me today? I want to take them home with me tonight to start reviewing them. Some are reassigned from Cecilia’s group, so you’ll recognize them. Others are accounts that will need new files set up. They are the companies or individuals who agreed to wait on signing their previous contracts in order to join me at Reed and Dunson.”
“That has to be flattering. Nobody has ever waited for me.” I said that last part? Nice pathetic touch.
Blaine smiled. “I find that hard to believe.”
“No, it’s true.” I almost started crying. What was the matter with me? Breakup blues? It couldn’t be the demotion because this meeting felt better than anything I had experienced here in five years. I was actually hopeful about my career for once. Missing out on a pink slip and my golden chance to have a real job and a real vacation didn’t even seem like such a bad trade-off.
I stood up to avoid showing any further emotion. The poor man was just trying to do his job, and he had to walk on eggshells around me. I decided to change the subject. “I will get right on this. Say, when will your family be joining you?”
“They were here this last weekend, actually. I wanted to ease Adam into the transition and make him part of the apartment search and all those big things. Hey, let me show you a picture of him.”
Of him, but what about the little woman?
He went to the photo box and pulled out a picture of the three of them at a baseball game. At first my eyes only focused on Blaine. He was in the middle and he wore a white T-shirt that showed off a summer tan. His sunglasses were pushed up on his forehead and he had an arm around Adam. Adam. Man, he looked just like…who? Something about the baseball cap…
Dang.
My heart started beating quickly. It was the kid I frightened at the park. If not for the distraction of those binoculars, Adam would have pointed me out to Blaine and his wife! My lip quivered at the thought.
I barely glanced at his wife. She was model beautiful and perfectly tanned and toned. It only took a glance to take all that in.
“Cute!” I exclaimed with false enthusiasm.
“Thanks. He’s nine. Do you have kids?”
Great. I look like someone with kids. Somehow that felt like an insult. Either because I was so very single and without any chance of getting pregnant or just because it made me feel plain old. “No. No. Definitely have been spared that.”
That sounded rude. I tried again. “I mean, I just haven’t gotten lucky.”
Not so good. One more time.
“I mean…not lucky enough to find the guy, yet. You know.”
“I understand.” He didn’t even laugh at my faux pas. “It is so cliché, but Adam really is the joy of my life. I would hate to think who I would be without him. He helped me define myself at a time when I really needed it.”
I understood that. Until recently, I was waiting for something to define me. Now I was trying to define myself.
Instead I said, “By the way, thanks for the pen, Blaine. It’s fantastic.”
He paused and rocked back and forth, heel to toe a few times. I thought I lost him for sure, but then he uploaded again. “You’re welcome. I wanted to thank you for the work involved in starting a new job, especially when you’re joined with someone totally new. And also, I wanted to apologize in advance in case the life stuff gets mixed up with my work for a while.”
“Life stuff?”
He motioned toward the photo. “My apartment hunt, settling into the city, that stuff. What I mean is, if this gets too…” he paused and seemed at a loss.
I tried to help him. “If this gets personal, you mean?”
His bright eyes returned and he nodded. “Exactly. We wouldn’t want th
at.”
It almost seemed as though he was asking a question.
Eleven
I stepped out into the hallway with the list of impressive clients. I could do creative PR campaigns for the likes of Winfield Galleries, the Chicago Center for Artistic Endeavor, The Seattle Film Center, Crest Ridge Vineyards, and on and on. This demotion, truly, was the only way I could have gotten out from under Cecilia’s thumb. I’d never really thought that through before. Sure, I had plotted takeover tactics to implement during her next trip to the spa, but I had not planned for a day when I would not directly answer to her. Maybe all the women on death row understood this land of untapped opportunity. Maybe assistant land was the faster route to shareholding and paid parking. I already knew that if I had landed a job assisting someone like Blaine five years ago, I’d be a lot further along.
I was still mulling over the benefits of grunt work when Marsha asked if I was headed for coffee break. I told her I was reviewing budget details with Rachel. Entirely made up, but I didn’t want Marsha to join us for our off-site extended coffee break.
“Very well.” She twirled her dyed blond hair with a startling red nail. It was chipped and she had been picking at it. That’s what that annoying sound had been.
From another cubicle came Tara. She bounded actually. Tara was in her early twenties and assisted the assistant to Ken Dunson. She handled a lot of the corporate travel details for the bigwigs and occasionally sought out my advice for trips. The trips I planned meticulously except for the part of how I’d actually take them.
Tara smelled like Love’s Baby Soft from my grade school days. I’m sure it was something more hip than that. Tara had always come across calm and quite professional for someone hired based on a one-sentence résumé: “Ken’s daughter-in-law.” Although she was educated, she only entered the inner circle because of her selection of husbands. Ken’s son was an engineer with Boeing, and they were trying to save up to buy a house, which in Seattle takes a lot of money. And I imagined that they wanted a lot of house too.
“Welcome, Libby!” Tara hugged me. So far everyone had treated my job change as a positive thing. Nobody mentioned the “D” word…but I guess after so many people lost their jobs entirely, it was understood how great it was just to stay on board.
“Thanks, Tara. How goes it in the head office?”
“So far, so good. Though we’re supposed to add a corporate executive in a couple weeks…without an extra assistant, so I will have my hands full. It’s sort of a figurehead position but was part of the merger arrangement. I think Ken is beginning to regret signing off on that part of the deal.” Her hand went to her mouth and she looked around. “That wasn’t just spoken. I’m sorry. It slipped. I’m usually so careful.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I would think Ken had to do a lot of compromising to get the merger through.” Like, Cecilia is still here, I wanted to joke. Instead, I added, “Sacrifice is part of growth sometimes.”
Marsha was still twirling her hair and biting the morbid nail. Her eyes brightened as a thought entered her head, “Hey, that reminds me. Libby, you should join our book club. You’re a reader, right? We meet this Thursday at the Elliott Bay Book Company. Downstairs.” I wanted to ask who the “we” was first, but I got my answer.
“Yes! That would be great,” Tara added. “We” must be some of the assistants.
“When is your first meeting?” I asked innocently.
“Oh, we’ve been meeting for two years. It was a larger group, but now it is just Tara, Sasha from design, and myself. I’ve taken the lead.” Marsha said, not catching on that this information led to a different question…why wasn’t I invited before? I didn’t have to ask it, though. I was starting to understand that this company was divided into a caste system. Seemed like a pretty self-imposed one, though. It could be good for me to feel a part of an office group. Before, I was in no-man’s-land between management and the secretarial staff. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I wondered if getting too involved at this level could keep me here, but I let that concern go. It resembled something my mother would think.
“Oh, right. I believe I have heard of it.” I cleared the air. “I love to read. Maybe a reading group would be fun. What are you reading?”
“Temptation in Tuscany.” Marsha’s eyes grew bigger and she winked.
I laughed, but she didn’t. Her eyes stayed big and she kept winking. Did I just sign my Thursday night over to discussing a romance novel with some long-haired hero on the cover?
Tara looked at me and nodded knowingly. “Not our typical selection…but it was Marsha’s month to choose, so we decided to go for it. It actually is a pretty great read!”
“All right. Well, I’ll go get a copy of it and join you guys on Thursday. Thanks.”
“Come on, Tara…our break is almost over.” Marsha started to head out. Rachel looked over her cubicle wall as they were leaving and motioned with her head for us to exit the other way.
“One sec.” I buzzed Blaine quickly. It was going to be hard to get used to checking in and out with someone. It had not occurred to me to ask first.
“Hey, Libby.”
“Uh…Blaine…I’m headed out for real coffee. I mean, if that’s okay. Can I bring you anything?”
“You mean a frappacino doesn’t count as a personal errand? I’m in luck.”
I blushed slightly. I was starting something with this offer, but I didn’t mind things like this.
“I will take a venti mocha brownie frappacino with whip…without…no, with…thanks.”
“So you aren’t a real coffee drinker, I take it.”
“Are you judging my order?”
“Yes. But I will go get your melted down candy bar with a straw.”
I could hear Blaine laugh before I hung up.
Rachel whispered, “So it’s ‘Blaine’ already, is it?”
“He asked me to use his first name. And thank goodness. The guy is maybe three years older than me. How humiliating to have to use a proper salutation all the time.”
“Let’s go.”
We took the elevator to the ground floor headed out the main doors to a surprisingly warm morning. The wind was calm, and we made our way to the closest Starbucks without having to hold our hair or dresses in place. The line was quite long, so we kept walking. There is always another a few feet away.
Rachel said, “I didn’t want Marsha and Tara to know I was in earshot…but I almost interrupted when I heard them mention the reading group.”
“Why don’t you go?” I asked as we entered the next location and placed our orders.
She gave me a “you’re kidding” look.
“I thought it was sort of…” I wasn’t sure if I was about to insult her.
“An assistant thing?” she said without taking offense. “It is. Which is fine…but sorry, hanging around these people all day and then joining them for an entire evening is not what I want to be doing.”
“I hadn’t thought about that.” I grabbed my drinks from the counter. We wandered over to a free table in the corner and cleared off sections of the Seattle Times.
“I probably sound like a total snob, but if I were you, I’d be a bit careful. Maybe sign on for this book and then have something come up later that conflicts with the time. Something like a regular manicure appointment. This group would consider that valid.”
“Do you think it’s bad to hang out with them?” I valued Rachel’s opinion. Maybe I had jumped into the secretarial pool without a life jacket.
“I could be totally wrong, but…”
“Rachel…tell me!” I was starting to worry.
“They’re eager to have you be one of them. You know, welcoming a demoted assistant AE into the fold makes them feel good. Sorry, but I had to say it.”
“You have to come with me, then,” I said before I could think. I didn’t want to feel like the welcomed failure.
“Look, I might be wrong. Either way, they gossip incessantly, menti
oning information about their bosses that I know is confidential. I despise Cecilia as much as the next person, but I wouldn’t talk about her with them. I’ve watched them undermine each other several times.”
I felt so naïve. That was exactly Marsha’s style. But Tara seemed normal. I said this to Rachel as we drained our lattes.
“Tara is smart and clever, so that makes me more leery of her.”
“Wait. If they are obvious gossips, you don’t trust them. I get that. But if someone is smart, you don’t trust her either? Isn’t that extreme?”
“Truth is, you’re the only person I’d trust with information around here. I know you wouldn’t use it later just to get ahead.”
“Oh, sure. The demoted chick is safe,” I said, twisting her words intentionally to lighten the mood. “I do appreciate the heads up. I’ve worked here for five years, and yet I feel like the newbie. I always kept to myself before. Maybe that wasn’t such a good tactic.”
“It doesn’t mean that they aren’t nice. They can be great coworkers. Just avoid the loose talk part.”
“So how about the reading group? Please? Now I will feel like a lamb going to the slaughter.”
“It might be totally fine.”
“And you’re saying this so that you don’t have to go with me?”
“Yes,” she said, laughing as we headed back out to the street. “I really would consider going, just to help you out, except that I have already established myself as the secretarial loner.”
“What have I done?” I shook my head and promised myself to be more careful. I was so eager to be accepted by anyone that I was pretty gullible. I looked down at the frappacino in my hand…what if I was misreading Blaine? Could his talk about creative work and using my skills really be about earning loyalty in a new setting? Would I really see anything come of his big talk? Suddenly I was extremely skeptical of Blaine’s motivation. Yet I’m a pretty darn good judge of character.
