by Julia Ariss
"Ah, I see." Actually she didn't see at all how insurance could be that interesting. Isn't 'interesting insurance' an oxymoron? Wudever. "Have you...are you planning to partake of the buffet because you might want to get in there, before the vultures descend on the spoils."
"No. I just popped in to say good-bye to Sheila. She's been a great asset to this company and she was incredibly patient with me when I was getting my start. Very loyal, committed."
"Precious few like her anymore, I should think. I'll have to get over there to wish her a bon voyage. Try to disguise my envy." Jack was strangely solemn so in the uneasy pause that followed she hastily sucked back her smirk. "As a matter of fact, I really should make my way over anyway so I can mingle a bit with the others, meet some new co-workers so..."
"And your job, you're learning the ropes? Settling in alright in Human Resources?"
Really? Haven't we covered this terrain? His line of questioning seemed like déjà-vous, all over again. She'd need to scramble to disengage before he brought up "confidential" services again. "Yes, yes everyone's been quite welcoming." Then to deflect him, she recalled the reason they were there. "Ah, and there's Sheila headed toward the buffet," she said edging away. "Here's my chance before she's deluged with well-wishers and so... very nice chatting, I'll just-."
Thwack. The back of her head throbbed momentarily and while she wasn't seeing stars, she was very conscious of the strong hand firmly gripping her arm, holding her steady.
"Are you alright?" Jack asked, his face closing in, scrutinizing.
"I rear-ended the pillar backing out." He smelled good, she decided as she breathed him in, and mildly soapy, having evidently been warned early on about the horrors that befall those who fail to wash behind their ears.
"Yes, excellent hiding spot, that, but hazardous with the impact from a high-speed collision. Can I get you ice? Some water?" he asked.
"I'm fine, really. Just a mild case of injured pride."
He released her arm, reluctantly, and looked doubtfully into her eyes. "You need to sit down a moment, allow the blood to drain down and collect yourself."
"I'm not dizzy. It was nothing. I'm quite resilient. I'll just go get some refreshments now. Thank Q." Curt and decisive. It was the most she could muster, a pre-emptive strike to dodge the 911 call. She wouldn't put it past him. He had that look again. She crossed the room using the deliberate steps of the wily drunk, careful not to rub the back of her head or her arm where the sensation of his grasp lingered.
Sheila was contentedly inhaling the shrimp with gusto, chatting merrily and beaming from all the goodwill that was being lavished upon her in the final countdown. "No, I'd be flattering myself if I believed he dropped by just to see me off today. Killing two birds with one stone, I imagine."
"I know. He never comes to these things... right? He stays holed up in his office most of the day, from what I hear," Evie said, swiping the last shrimp from the platter. "Everything alright Fanny? Jack is boring holes through the back of your head at the moment. What have you done?"
"Yes, he thinks I'm a liability. My days are numbered, I'm afraid."
"He has a massive workload, and he can be demanding and tedious, but I think it's just that he feels he has a lot to prove. Chronic overachiever. But he rewards allegiance and you're treated very well on the way out," Sheila said.
"Good things come to those who wait," Evie interjected.
"I won't be sticking around long enough to find out. You're made of sterner stuff than me, Sheila."
"That's what I said, in the beginning."
"By the way, where are you off to tomorrow?"
"My husband and I are guests on the company yacht. Ha. I wish. No, but we're noshing our way through Italy on a Tuscan Tasting Tour - drinks included. He only uses the yacht for entertaining clients and people of consequence," she added, winking.
Fanny looked across the room and caught sight of Jack as he slipped out the door with his blonde, yacht-worthy girlfriend. One advantage of being a persona non grata and an underachiever to boot was certain. She would never be considered a person of consequence and so there was no risk of ever being stranded at sea with him and facing the yawning tedium of being his captive audience.
The crowd had thinned out and so after wishing Sheila well and surveying the slim pickings in the room and on the buffet, Fanny and Evie decided to curtail their social obligations and grab a plate of cheese and fruit for the road.
"You know, in the time that Jack cornered me and monopolized my attention I could have been circulating about the room and expanding my circle of acquaintances, and now I've lost my nerve again," Fanny said, in her own defense.
"The trick - and it does take practice - is to constantly stay in motion whilst keeping the tone light and frothy, to see and be seen," Evie explained. "Any mingler worth their salt probably knows that."
"I suppose the seasoned social gadabout gives attention-hoggers short shrift and refuses to be weighted down by heavy subjects."
"They flit about. They go from one lightweight topic to the next and person to person, stopping only to offer a tantalizing taste of themselves, just enough to whet the appetite."
Fanny winced fleetingly and let the conversation drop. The troubling fact was that she felt herself almost perversely drawn to the very opposite. What she inevitably sought out, the long drawn out, one-on-one conversation was anathema to the movers and shakers of the world.
***
When she plopped herself down at her desk she noticed the blinking voice-mail button right away and, wondering whether it was George phoning about dinner, pushed her plate aside as the butterflies in her stomach seized control. This was a guy who could teach her a thing or two about working a crowd. The conundrum was that he was precisely the person she wanted to commandeer for a prolonged heart-to-heart, preferably in a quiet corner, far from the madding crowd. In the end, it was only a message from the H.R. director requesting a meeting which barely left her the time to calculate whether she felt disappointment or relief, as a fleeting glance at her emails revealed yet another note from her, prioritized with an angry red exclamation mark. A quick scroll of the content with its decidedly cheery, upbeat tone gave her reason to hope because occasionally, the director was known to summon one of her underlings and charge them with the task of attending an off-site "conference", in her stead.
Even though Fanny was at the very bottom of the food chain, the H.R. director sat perched on top and being far too busy and important to trouble herself with impromptu morale-boosting tête-à-têtes with newbies, chances were she was being thrown a bone instead, the chosen one for the boondoggle. These events were rumoured to involve sumptuous buffets, open bars, copious freebies, and a short perfunctory "seminar", the stuff of legend for the lowly H.R. assistant. Show up and eat. There were few who wouldn't jump at the chance to escape the monotony of Benefits and Compensation administrivia and Fanny was feeling overdue for a break. Given the recent austerity measures, there were daily harsh reminders that she ought to be feeling less disgruntled and a lot more rah, rah, rah, but her job had been falsely advertised and cruelly exaggerated, a far cry from the one she had applied for and accepted.
...facilitating employee safety, welfare, wellness...and blah, blah, blah...invigorating employee-oriented environment...recruitment, orientation, development...emphasizing the empowerment and goal attainment of a superior workforce within a high-performance culture at Canada's largest privately-owned global commercial insurance brokerage...
Her typical work day was consumed by the needs of the senior pensioners, navigating through their benefits coverage, largely in regard to which podiatrist treatments they were entitled to claim. Toenail clipping was huge apparently, and a bit of a racket, in her opinion. She'd developed a soft spot for her retirees, but she'd learned more about the foot care issues of the elderly than she ever cared to and was hard-pressed to find transferable knowledge she could use to pad her resumé. Anyone could see she need
ed a break.
"Fanny, you need a break." The H.R. director was staring at her from across the desk, her hands clasped together in earnest and her gaze searching deep into the far reaches of her soul.
"Yes, I was just thinking the very same -."
"Oh good, I'm glad you're on side," she said hurriedly, looking visibly relieved. "I think, just with the events of this past week-end, a few days rest are in order, so why don't you take off the remainder of the week and we'll see you back here next Monday."
Really? Could it be? She was being offered a "temporary sick leave", otherwise known as the staycation to her cynical H.R. colleagues, who routinely railed against the extra form filling. Even better than she had hoped for, this was the ultimate coup, to be handled deftly - almost too good to be true.
"But I'm fine. Not that big a deal. Course if you think it's in my best interest..." This was said wistfully to evoke martyrdom, steadfastness, and love of career. "Well then, I guess I'll just tidy things up at my desk. Any forms?"
"I've already got Evie working on your paperwork so, off you go. Try to view this as a gift. It's not often these sorts of directives come floating down from above - from the powers that be, if you see what I mean - so catch up on errands, sit back and put your feet up.
Huh? "Powers that be, you said?"
"Everyone has your best interest at heart, Fanny."
Oh. Goody.
***
Fanny was leaning back, supported by cushions against the headrest of her chaise with her feet up, peering into her laptop screen and clicking, furiously. She had not been home an hour and had already polished up her resumé, checked job ads online, sent Evie a gourmet cookiegram to soften the blow from the staycation paperwork dump, and rescheduled her train ticket to Kingston for Friday morning. If she was being gently nudged out the door by Jack Fitzwilliam and his cronies - and she did feel like the problem child, suspended for dubious reasons until they could manufacture a reason to expel - then now was the time to spring into action. She couldn't afford to be between jobs in such a dismal job market. She'd already reached the unhappy conclusion that a new dress for the fundraiser was completely out of the question given her uncertain future.
Despite her gloomy outlook, she was pleasantly surprised by how much she'd accomplished away from the distractions and constant interruptions of a busy office, so she rewarded her productivity by indulging her surfing habit. She was curious and an irredeemable nosy parker. She could find anything at the click of a mouse. Research, she called it. Google was like a reliable old friend and she asked of it her most burning questions:
Top ten signs you're about to be fired
The next day was spent hand delivering her resumé to companies with the goal of getting face time with the decision-makers, but she was unable to get past the receptionist gatekeepers who smiled diplomatically and shoved her papers to the bottom of heaving stacks of applications.
She was wandering out of a Tim Horton's, absorbed in unwrapping her apple fritter, when she felt a tug on her shoulder.
"Fanny Bower. I was just thinking about you."
"Oh, hi Helena, how are you?" Helena was one of her old Queen's residence pals with whom she had remained in touch, their relationship having survived the test of time. An unremarkable feat in this instance, as it was mostly a numbers game with Helena. She kept a bulging stable of friends on standby who were dutifully attended to and nurtured as insurance against unsightly gaps in her social calendar.
"What are the chances, I was just about to send you a textvite - weird, eh? Anyway, a bunch of us are getting together for tapas later so...girls night out?"
"Hmmm...sounds tempting but I'll have to take a rain check. I'm going home to recharge. I kinda overdid it today. Sapped." It slipped out reflexively, a kneejerk reaction - the auto-decline. She'd sworn she wouldn't, but if her new mantra didn't allow for flexibility she was doomed to failure, like yo-yo dieting, and other similar punishing regimes.
"Recharge? Alone? Yuck. How can that possibly be relaxing? What are you ninety, suddenly?" Helena said, directing her frown at the fritter. Reluctance to party was heresy, tantamount to treason. "Well, there is the Toronto chapter of the Queen’s Alumni Reunion coming up. I'm co-chairing. You are going, aren't you? I forwarded the email."
"Yes, yes I got it. Course I got it." She would scroll through her deleted emails when she got home. But it was incredibly decent of Helena to keep her in the loop after all these years, and for this she was owed gratitude. Possibly, it wouldn't hurt to remain a member in good standing of her social network anyway; her tentacles were far reaching. Helena would put the names to faces for her and she could concentrate on her sparkling repartee.
"I guarantee you'll re-energize or whatever after I introduce you to some of those deeply humanitarian, thinking types you were once so partial to. Only thing is, the evening gets a tad boozy if you're not keeping track-."
"Mark me down as confirmed."
***
"Fanny couldn't escape the feeling that all was not well at work, despite Evie's fevered text updates to the contrary. She was sipping tea at Union Station on Friday morning, zoning out as she killed time lazily watching panicked commuters scurry about, and waiting for her train to Kingston, when she got a call from Evie.
"Three things. Number one, last night Thirsty Thursday just wasn't the same without you. Everyone's so-o-o worried. Quite concerned. Well, curious mostly. Dying to know why you're off. Number two, I signed us up for Piloxing starting Monday. Early. The instructor agreed to do it in our corporate lounge as long as I rounded up enough bodies. I figure they put in those locker rooms with showers for all the cyclists so... Think fusion, think high energy, the ultimate work-out they say. Co-ed. I made sure. Totally pumped. And number three, there's been a smarmy reporter from that newspaper sniffing around and making enquiries. Nervy. Anyway, I intercepted him and basically told him he was barking up the wrong tree and to buzz right off, or words to that effect. So, no need to worry, I've got your back."
"Thanks for the heads up and for running interference. Very... intrepid of you. In fact, you're amazing. And I could use an exercise class to shake the cobwebs off... be good to get those synapses up and firing again. Yah, hmmm... about that number three - the thing with the reporter - I'm thinking it's probably better to just keep that under your hat for now, Evie. Anyway, gotta run, my train is whistling for me. Getting out of Dodge today. See you Monday."
Fanny slid into her window seat in economy, sighing heavily. She always took the train back and forth to Kingston even though the bus was cheaper. Even if she owned a car - an unthinkable luxury - she wasn't equipped with the thrill-seeking, death-defying temperament required to attempt Highway 401, which she had long ago branded and summarily dismissed as the Autobahn. She considered the train the most civilized mode of travel as it permitted her to imagine she was being transported back in time with its cheerful uniformed conductors, food and drinks trolleys and absence of traffic delays. Normally she occupied herself staring out the window daydreaming about a simpler more dignified era but on this trip she remained cemented in the present with its handy plug-in for her laptop and free wifi. A quick query on the tabloid's search engine confirmed her suspicions, revealing a ridiculous piece from the previous day's paper with the teasing heading "WHO'S THAT GIRL?" and a dramatic plea for help to assist in tracking down the "fireball activist." She gasped and inhaled her tea inadvertently, causing a brief choking fit. This kind of foolishness was cobbled together on slow news days. They had never been known for gritty, thought-provoking journalism so the shoddy reporting didn't surprise her, given the source, but the photo was unpardonable. It was a different shot this time and from a slightly different angle but with her same deer-in-the-headlights, bordering-on-insane mug. The reporter was apt to be livid and give up chase the instant he discovered how far she was from the career-enhancing wacky media darling he'd concocted, and this gave her some satisfaction, though minor.
&nbs
p; An article continued from the front page caught her eye, distracting her from the other appalling item. "CONCERNED BUSINESS OWNERS WAGE WAR ON HOMELESS" it proclaimed, forewarning an imminent police crackdown. It was the photo on the front page, or rather, who was noticeably absent that sent shivers down her spine. The image showed an empty guitar case lying next to an abandoned sleeping bag and a discarded beer bottle. Accused of causing falling revenues, certain homeless individuals were reportedly being "relocated" away from once thriving commercial areas to more "suitable" locations.
Her stomach tightened as she began fretting about Erasto's whereabouts and imagined him tussling with thugs or the police. Anyone with a shred of humanity could see he was just a skinny, defenceless kid taking cover under his hair helmet and possibly already wrestling with demons of his own. He had slipped through the cracks, the gaping holes in the system, and was ill-equipped to maneuver within the maze of bureaucracy, the tattered social safety net. She felt a pang when she recollected the delicate matter of his pride. He desperately required a hand up and a hand out, but his needs were well beyond her means. She couldn't even dredge up the funds for the adoption, care and maintenance of a kitten from the Humane Society - she'd crunched the numbers- let alone sponsor a lost soul. But just because she couldn't fix him didn't make him unfixable and it seemed logical there should be something in place to help him fix himself. Strangely, despite her distress about him, it felt like a reprieve to be stewing over someone else's woes for a change. She was still agonizing over the logistics of just how she'd allocate the millions from her Lotto 649 winnings when the train pulled into the station in Kingston.
As the train screeched to a halt she peered out the window and recognized her father, wearing his ancient cardigan with the leather elbow patches, staring vacantly, lost in thought but as she stepped onto the platform he was waiting expectantly, a dopey grin spread across his face.
"Hello daydreamy," he said embracing her, "how was the trip? Hope you managed to broker world peace on the way down - saved me the trouble." It was his standard line; and for reasons unknown, it never got old.
