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"She was meeting with the big boss. You know how that goes." Rod turned to me.
"Gregor manages the verification department. You'll be working under him."
Gregor got up and came around his desk to shake my hand. He wasn't much taller than I was, and he had a spare tire around his middle. He didn't look particularly thrilled to see me, but I couldn't tell if that was just his usual personality or if he had taken a dislike to me already. "We needed another person in here," he said gruffly.
"We're up to our eyeballs these days."
The other people in the office didn't seem all that overworked. A middle-aged man who looked like the sort of person you meet at a Star Trek convention—not that I'd know that firsthand—sat at the desk to the far right, reading a paperback thriller. A girl who looked like the sitcom stereotype of a Long Island girl sat at the desk nearest the door, painting her fingernails a bright metallic blue. The rest of the desks were empty. I supposed the other people must be out verifying.
"This'll be your desk," Gregor said, pointing to the one behind the nail polish girl.
"The drill is, you wait here until someone calls for verification. We send out whoever's up next, unless they request someone. First few days, we'll send you out with some of the others until you know what's going on, then you'll be on your own.
You might want to bring a book or something to do while you're waiting." He turned to the girl painting her nails. "Angie, show her around the office." Then he stomped back to his desk and sat with a grunt.
"I'll leave you to get settled in," Rod said. "Just let me know if you need anything.
You can reach me by phone, or come down if you have the time."
"Thanks," I said. "I'll see you around." He waved at me and left. I turned to see Angie with a scrunched-up look of distaste on her face.
"Who let the dogs out?" she said in a nasal Long Island voice. Even though I thought her remark was rude, it was nice to have my view of Rod's looks validated, after seeing so many others swooning at his feet.
"He's actually pretty nice," I said, putting my purse and briefcase down at the desk Gregor had pointed out. I'd almost forgotten how unattractive Rod could be, the more time I spent with him. When he wasn't trying so hard to play the charmer, he was much more appealing.
Angie finished her nails, then closed her bottle of nail polish. "Okay, I guess I'd better show you around," she said, waving her hands in front of her face. She held them out, her fingers spread wide, as she got out of her chair and headed to the far side of the office. "Over here's the coffee room. The pot with the orange handle's decaf. When you finish a pot, make a fresh one, and by finish we mean anything less than a full cup left in the pot. No leaving a tablespoon and claiming you didn't empty the pot, like certain people do." She raised her voice and said, "Gary!" apparently addressing the guy who still had his nose stuck in his book. "Creamer and sugar are in the cabinet,
and there's also tea. Hot water comes out of that spout on the coffee machine."
We walked farther into the coffee room, and I noticed that the sink was full of empty coffee mugs. "You'll want to bring your own mug, and you're supposed to wash up after yourself. Refrgerator is community property, but if you want to keep your lunch, put your name on it. Sodas are free. If there's something you like that we don't have, let Gregor know. He'll kvetch about it, but he'll order it. He's also supposed to get us lunch if we want it, but that just wigs out most of us, so we brown
bag. Sometimes we all go out together. "
She walked past me, still waving her fingers in the air to dry her nail polish, and headed down a short hallway. "Supply room's in there—pens, paper, what have you.
Not that we really need it." She didn't pause as she passed the open doorway. "And here are the bathrooms. Any questions?"
"I think that covers it." I felt queasy as I went back to my desk. This wasn't what I'd had in mind. They'd made me feel so important, so special, and here I was in a low-rent version of the secretarial pool. With any luck, I'd stay so busy that I didn't have to spend much time in this depressing office. If verifiers were so important to the company, I couldn't help but wonder why they didn't have better working conditions.
I sat at my desk and, for lack of anything better to do, started opening drawers to see what was in there. I'd just found a stash of multicolored sticky notes when the office door opened and a frazzled-looking woman came in. She was slender to the point of being skinny, with a halo of frizzy hair surrounding her face. I couldn't tell if she was middle-aged or if it was just the effect of her skinniness combined with the obvious degree of stress she was under that made her look that old. She crossed the room without acknowledging me and sat at the desk across from Gary.
Angie leaned back in her chair. "Don't let her get you worried. They didn't catch Rowena before she nearly went around the bend. It's not the job. She's just that freaked out all the time." She then turned back to her desk and started on a second coat of nail polish.
I'd been heading around the bend myself before I found out I wasn't imagining things, so I could sympathize with Rowena. I got up and went over to her desk. "Hi, I'm Katie," I said to her.
She looked up at me, then blinked like she expected me to disappear. Then she squinted, and at last she said, "I'm Rowena." There was something vague about her voice, like she lived in her imagination most of the time. If she really was the dreamy sort, then I could see where being able to see magic all around her would be enough to send her right over the edge.
Gregor's phone rang, and he grunted a few times while taking down some info. Then he bellowed, "Angie!"
"Just a sec, boss," she said, still painting her nails. "I need to finish this hand."
He came out of his seat, his face turning red. "I don't remember the last time we had a personal grooming emergency around here, but we've had plenty of verification emergencies!" he bellowed. He looked a lot like Mimi did before she turned evil.
Angie ignored him, continuing to apply polish to her nails. He grew even redder. And then he turned green.
I blinked like Rowena had, but he was still green, and his eyes were red. It was almost like the Incredible Hulk, but he didn't get bigger, just scalier and greener, and horns sprouted out of the sides of his head. I'd heard about having monster bosses.
I'd had monster bosses. But this was ridiculous.
