'We've hardly had any snow. I'm sure we'l be fine.'
'I don't know how you stand it, honestly.' Brenda, finished with her salad, had started casting longing looks at the
other half of my sandwich.
I was pretending not to notice. I might only have been
hungry enough to finish half, but the rest of it would be
dinner tonight. 'The lack of snow?'
She laughed then lowered her voice with a conspiratorial
look around the empty lunchroom. 'Gawd, no. I meant
Paul. I don't know how you can stand working for him.'
'He's not that bad, Brenda. Realy.'
She got up to get a snack cake from the machine. 'Tel me
that in another month.'
'What's going to happen in another month?' I wrapped my
sandwich carefuly in the thick white butcher paper.
Grease had turned it translucent in a pattern of dots and
Grease had turned it translucent in a pattern of dots and
made it unusable, which was too bad. Butcher paper was
great for coloring pictures. Arty loved it.
'Paul hasn't managed to keep an assistant for longer than
six months, tops.'
'I've been here for almost six.'
'Yeah,' Brenda said with the knowing nod of someone
who's been keeping track. 'And you can't tel me you
don't notice he's a little…particular.'
The days when a good secretary was unfailingly loyal to
her boss had apparently passed. Even so, I didn't leap to
agree with her. 'I said, he's not that bad. Besides, it's not
like he screams or anything if things aren't exactly right.'
'He'd better not!' Brenda was already indignant on my
behalf. 'You're his assistant, not his slave.'
I gave a smal snort that tried and failed to be a chuckle.
'Slaves don't get paid.'
'Just remember this conversation in another month when
you're groaning to me that he's become impossible. They
al do, eventualy,' Brenda said. 'He's gone through seven
assistants already since he's been in our department.'
'They al quit?'
'No. Some he fired.' She raised a brow at me. 'They
were the lucky ones, if you ask me.'
I checked my watch. Five minutes left before I had to
rouse myself from my postlunch lethargy and head back to
the office. Time for a snack cake, if I wanted to stuff my
face with processed sugar, or a cup of coffee from the
communal pot. I didn't want the calories or the germs. I
did crack the top on my second can of cola, though.
'Why were they lucky?' I asked mildly, not so much
because I cared, but to make conversation.
'The ones who quit had to put up with a lot more garbage,
that's al. I heard the last girl he had went to work at some
