INNOCENCE AND ARROGANCE

by Kimberley Reeves

  Mina didn’t say much on the way to the office and knew he probably assumed it was because she was nervous but that was just fine with her. She didn’t want to talk about the weekend because it would just make it that much more difficult for her to try to keep the line clearly drawn between the man she’d come to know personally and the man she’d be working for.

  Scott was greeted numerous times on their way up to his office and stopped each time to introduce her. Once they got to her desk he told her to fill out the paperwork that was waiting for her while he went back to check his messages. Mina’s desk and work area was huge and she loved the dark, rich wood of her desk. She also noticed they’d already had a nameplate made up for her and felt very official with it sitting there for everyone to see.

  She finished the paperwork quickly then sat patiently waiting for Scott to return. She greeted the employees who passed by with a warm smile and said good morning to each of them but not one of them stopped to welcome her. It made her wonder if the last assistant had been so impersonal with everyone they now assumed it was part of the job.

  She didn’t have much time to worry about it after Scott joined her and started showing her where everything was. He showed her where all the contracts were kept, how the client files were categorized, and where the books on contract law were stored. Mina listened carefully, taking notes only when she felt she’d need a word or phrase to prompt her memory.

  “Is it too soon to ask you to get a couple of letters out for me?” Scott asked after they’d been there for a few hours.

  “Of course not. Do you dictate to a machine or would you like me to take it down?”

  “It’s been awhile since any of my assistants were able to take a letter. To tell the truth, I hate talking into that stupid recorder. Why don’t you grab your pad and come back to my office.”

  Mina had already explored her desk and found the pad easily. She closed the door behind her and took a seat in front of his desk. Scott, she discovered, liked to pace when he dictated, occasionally stopping behind her chair to watch her write for a few moments before moving around the room again. She loved listening to the sound of his deep, rich voice when he spoke and was surprised that she hadn’t caught any grammatical errors or poorly constructed sentences. Her previous employer had relied on her heavily to make any necessary changes, but she doubted she’d have to make even the slightest corrections to Scott’s letters. In all, he dictated four letters before telling her he’d have to do a little work before he gave her a few more to do.

  Mina returned to her desk and pulled up the address book on her computer for the clients he was sending the letters to. She’d just completed proof reading the third letter she’d typed into the computer when Scott called her on the speaker phone.

  “Mina, would you pull the file on Cowles Trading Company and bring it back please?”

  “Yes, Mr. Travis,” she replied then rose to retrieve the file. She carried it back to his office and set it on his desk then turned to leave.

  “Mina? Is anything wrong?”

  She turned back around to face him. “No, why do you ask?”

  “You called me Mr. Travis.”

  “I didn’t think it was very appropriate to call you by your first name while we’re at the office.”

  “I don’t see anything wrong with it.”

  “Did any of your other assistants call you by your first name?”

  Scott didn’t understand why she’d slipped into such a serious mood and wanted the other Mina back, the one he’d come to like so much over the weekend. “No, they didn’t, but I’d like you to.”

  “If that’s the way you want it,” she said.

  “I do. Will you be able to get those letters to me before lunch?”

  “Yes, sir, I should have them all completed in about twenty minutes.”

  Scott’s brows drew together. Sir? “Did I do or say something to upset you?”

  “No, sir.”

  Scott stood up and planted himself in front of her. “Then why are you being so formal with me? Where’s the Mina who raced me through the grocery store and stole the pepperonis off my pizza?”

  Mina forced herself not to smile. “I’m sure you don’t want me to be silly like that in your place of business.”

  “No, but I don’t want you calling me Mr. Travis or sir either. Surely we can be friends as well as work together.”

  “I’m sorry, I guess I wasn’t quite sure how to act.”

  “I just want you to be yourself.” When she finally gave him a big smile, he felt himself relax. “Now that we have that all settled, let me know when you’re done with the letters and I’ll take you around to meet your co-workers.”

  ****

  There were probably about thirty people in the same area as Mina, and Scott introduced her to them all. It became evident to her that it was out of the ordinary for Scott himself to make the introductions. She could see it in their faces and the strange looks she got, as if he’d somehow set her apart from all the others. When they finally finished making the rounds and returned to his office he apologized for not being able to take her to lunch on her first day there.

  “I didn’t expect that you would,” she told him.

  “Maybe not, but I was really hoping I could get out of my lunch date.” He handed her three contracts. “I need these proofed when you get back from lunch. I’ll probably be gone for a few hours but I’ll be back to help you with them when I return.” He handed her several pieces of paper. “I’ve also made a list of files I need pulled and the types of contracts we’ll need for each one.” He seemed to hesitate for a minute then picked up a stack of files and handed them to her. “These are companies that have called with complaints about their shipments. The name and number of the contact is on the inside of the file. I need you to contact each of them and find out what the problem is so I can figure out how to resolve it. Try not to feel too overwhelmed. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  Mina sat there for a few minutes after he left trying to decide what to do first. There were a lot of things that had gotten backlogged over the two weeks since his assistant had abandoned him and Mina wanted to get them out of the way so she could get into a routine of her own . Foregoing lunch, the first thing she did was proof the contracts. She’d pulled the files for the corresponding companies to see if they’d had similar contracts in the past or if these where new to them and since the contracts had originally been created from her computer, they were easily corrected. She marked the changes she made on the copies Scott had given her then set them aside.

  Next, she pulled the files he’d requested and located the contracts on her computer. Mina went over the hand written notes Scott had given her and clipped them to each file. She filled in the client information on each contract, deleting or adding the

  stipulations Scott had noted then printed them off. Mina checked the time and was pleased she’d gotten so much accomplished. She still had almost half an hour before she expected him to be back so she moved onto the files of the clients who’d had complaints.

  The stack had looked bigger than it actually was because a few of the files were so thick. Still, there were five people that needed to be contacted so she pulled the first one from the stack and called the woman. She identified herself as Scott’s new assistant and assured the woman they valued her business and wanted to correct the problem as soon as possible.

  “The shipment’s two days late,” the woman complained, “and I really needed them before Wednesday.”

  Mina apologized again and promised to track the shipment down and let her know the status. She looked up the extension for the head of the shipping department and explained what they were looking for.

  “I know exactly where it’s at,” Ben Romane told her. “The label had fallen off so we weren’t sure who it belonged to.”

  “May I ask why you let it sit for two days without calling up here to see if we could help track down the destination?”


  “I’m afraid your predecessor wasn’t as anxious to resolve shipping issues as you are, Miss Harmon.”

  “That was unfortunate, but I assure you I’ll be more than happy to help whenever I can. So now that you know where the shipment needs to go, tell me what we need to do to insure it reaches them by tomorrow.”

  Mina created a form she could put her notes on regarding what the problem was and how it was resolved. She had Ben’s promise that he would personally walk the shipment to the loading dock and make sure it got taken care of. Then she called the woman back and assured her the shipment would arrive the following day. After printing out her notes, she clipped them to the file and moved on to the next problem.

  Most of the issues were very similar and easily resolved with an apology and a promise to deliver at the earliest possible time. Mina was on the last call when Scott returned from lunch. He smiled as he walked back to his office and she groaned inwardly when he didn't shut his door because the client she was on the phone with was being very disabreeable and she wasn't really comfortable having Scott close enough to over hear their conversaton Mr. Ryan Burns was extremely upset that only half his shipment had been received. Mina said a silent prayer of thanks that she’d already contacted Ben in shipping before making the call to see where the rest of Mr. Burns’ shipment was. She discovered it had inadvertently been left behind in their warehouse in Jackson, Mississippi and was already in route here.

  “When is the truck due to arrive?” She’d asked Ben.

  “It should be here any time, Miss Harmon. We’ll unload the truck when it comes in and deliver the shipment to Mr. Burns tomorrow.”

  “I’d like to do better than that,” she told him. “Burns and Associates is just across town. Load his shipment on the first

  available truck and get it over to him today. It seems silly to upset our client even more by making them wait an extra day. I’d appreciate it if you’d call me as soon as it’s on the way to him.”

  Mina only had to wait a few minutes before Ben called her back to tell her the truck had arrived. It would take about thirty minutes to unload and she had his promise the truck bearing Mr. Burns’ shipment would be on its way within the hour. She’d thanked him profusely then called Mr. Burns. Now she listened patiently as he vented.

  ****

  “I understand your frustration Mr. Burns and sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.”

  “It’s not just an inconvenience to my company,” he snapped. “I expected that shipment by this morning. Now I’m going to have to wait for it to show up tomorrow and I’ll miss half my son’s baseball game. I know it probably doesn’t mean anything to your company, but you’re not the ones that have to see the diappointment on his face when I tell him I can’t make it on time.”

  As soon as Mr. Burns mentioned his son played baseball, Mina opened her desk drawer and started shuffling things around. With a happy smile, she picked up the stack of company baseball tickets. “Actually, Mr. Burns, I completely understand how you feel. I have four brothers and every one of them was on the baseball team. They’d have been crushed if my Dad didn’t show up. I’ve already checked with my shipping supervisor and we’re sending out a truck today solely to deliver your shipment. As a matter of fact, they should be on the way to your company within thirty minutes so you’ll have it in your hands between three and three thirty. How many children do you have, Mr. Burns?”

  Caught off guard by her assurance he would have his shipment followed immediately by questions about his family, his anger was instantly dispelled. “I have two sons.”

  “Well, I just happen to have four tickets to Saturday’s baseball game. It looks like we’re playing the Red Sox and these are for the Executive Suite. I know it doesn’t make up for the trouble you’ve had, but I’d be happy to courier them over to you so you can take your boys. There’s four tickets in all so if you want to take a fourth person, you’re more than welcome.”

  “That would be great,” he said happily. “My boys will be ecstatic to know they get special treatment.”

  “I’ll get these over to you as soon as I can and see if I can’t arrange for refreshments to be sent to the suite before you arrive.”

  “Thank you, Miss Harmon. You’ve been very pleasant in spite of my rather rude treatment of you and I appreciate how quickly you took care of this.”

  “Not a problem Mr. Burns. I’m just glad we could get everything resolved for you.”

  Mina hung up, quite please with herself, and immediately called their courier service to order a pick up. She slipped the tickets into an envelope addressed to Mr. Burns and carried it up to the receptionist then returned to her desk to finish typing in the notes for Burns and Associates then printed and clipped them to the file. A few minutes later, Scott called and asked her to come back and bring all the things he’d given her before lunch. Mina put everything in a neat pile and carried them back to him.

  Scott eyed the neatly typed forms on the front of the files and pulled out the one for Burns and Associates. “I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation with Mr. Burns.” He glanced over at her. “So you gave away my tickets for Saturday’s game. Did it occur to you I might have wanted to use those tickets?”

  Mina leaned back in her chair. “No,” she said simply.

  “No?”

  “No, it didn’t occur to me you’d want them because I knew you didn’t.”

  A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “And what led you to that conclusion?”

  “Two reasons. One, you haven’t used any of the tickets this season so far. It’s wasteful and you really should consider offering them to one of your clients if you don’t want them. The second reason is that it’s a day game, and since you told me you always work on Saturdays, the chance of you using them was slim to none. At least this way your client is happy and his two little boys will think their Dad’s something special for getting the Executive Suites.”

  “You’re right, I wouldn’t have used them. You handled Mr. Burns very well, Mina. He’s not a very pleasant man to deal with either. I guess I should have been more clear before I left because I didn’t expect you to hop in and try to take care of this before I got back.” He pulled out the other files that had complaints on them and scanned her notes. “You did a great job on all of these, I see. Keep your notes on top and put the files back in the cabinets when we’re done.” He pulled out the three contracts and saw her marks indicating the corrections she’d made. “You’ve already made up the new contracts?”

  “Yes. I’m sure you’ll want to check my work, but I doubt you’ll find any errors.”

  Scott chuckled, somehow knowing he wouldn’t find any either. Then he got to the clients he asked her to pull contracts for and saw they were filled in. “I really wanted to sit with you on these before they were filled out. I made notes, you see…”

  “I read them and made the changes you’d written down.”

  “Well I…I’ll go over them and see if anything was missed. You’re really something else, you know that?”

  She felt herself beginning to blush. “I’m just trying to do my job.”

  “Do you always pick things up this quickly? I barely even explained any of it to you.”

  Mina shifted uneasily. She didn’t like telling people exactly how she was able to remember so much so easily because they always looked at her as if she was some sort of freak, but she didn’t think she’d get that kind of response from Scott.

  “I have total recall,” she blurted out.

  “You have what?”

  “Total recall. It’s similar to having a photographic memory, except I can totally recall everything I’ve read and every conversation I’ve ever had.”

  Scott stared at her incredulously. “But I saw you taking notes when I was going over everything with you.”

  “I call them prompters. Sometimes I just need a key word or phrase to help me recall it faster. I’d recall it eventually if I concentrated hard enough
though.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You’re pulling my leg.”

  Mina shrugged. She was used to people not believing her. “Test me.”

  He thought about it for a moment. “Okay, tell me what I said last Friday when you asked if I was still offering you the position.”

  She closed her eyes for a few seconds, then opened them and looked directly at him. "You said, have you seen the women who’ve trooped through here? I’ve seen all the botoxed lips and silicone enhancements I care to see. I’m looking for an assistant, not a playmate. I didn’t have to read more than half your resume to know you were more qualified than any of the women I’ve interviewed over the past few days. If your references check out, I’d like you to start on Monday morning.”