Wednesday passed for Valerie like a day spent numbed at the dentist. She tried to concentrate on her job, but the little red square she had drawn around Thursday in her Hallmark date book seemed to be seared into her optic nerve. The im-age of it followed her at every turn. She sat in her cubicle facing Shirley, the new word proces-sor they had permanently hired from the temp agency. She studied their contrast. As the new office manager, Valerie dressed in her most conservative creme-colored Oscar de la Renta suit. Her salon tan complemented the color nicely. The dark-haired twenty-year-old's flesh was white as death. She wore a black cowpunk outfit with silver steer-skull bolo and chain bracelets. Even Valerie, who had never been into the club scene, knew that the costume was outmoded. After all, she still read the L.A. Weekly.
'Shirley,' Valerie began without any preface, 'your work here since we hired you from DayJob has not been as good as when you were a temp.' She couldn't shake the impression that she was discussing something very minor in light of what would be happening tomorrow. 'You've let your desk get cluttered with...' She looked at Shirley. Had this girl from Lawndale ever been pregnant, ever had an abortion?
'With what?' Shirley asked, staring at her manager with impatient puzzlement.
'Stuff. Just all those buttons and things. We don't appreciate stickers for groups such as Uranium Holocaust and Stark Fist slapped all over our desks.'
Shirley looked out at her workstation, made the sort of face teenagers make when acquiescing to Mom, and said, 'Can I just stick them on my Wang?'
Valerie felt an odd sort of flush envelop her. She fought it back.
'Being absent three days in your first month also looks bad. Why don't you...' She found no words to complete the sen-tence, merely sat with her mouth half-open, gazing speech-lessly across her desk.
'Are you on something, Ms. Dalton?'
Valerie recovered quickly, saying, 'It's been a tough morn-ing, Shirley. Just get back to work and see that you're not un-avoidably absent again.'
When Shirley had left the cubicle, Valerie took a deep breath and leaned back in her chair. Telling her boss that she needed a second day off this week was going to be tough. She felt a knotting in her stomach that any number of deep breaths would not alleviate. For a moment, the chill thought that there was something alive in her making that knot sent an unbidden shudder through her shoulders and back. She walked over to the vice president's office and knocked, then opened the door.
'Ernie,' she said, 'I need another favor.'
Ernest Sewell sat on the couch across from his desk, legs stretched out, a sheaf of printout resting on his shins and held from spilling onto the floor by upturned feet. As if reading a scroll, he looked over each page, then pulled up another from the stack below, gathering the remainder in his hands. He wore a rust-colored polo shirt and dark beige slacks that pleasantly enhanced his milk-chocolate skin. Laying the computer pa-per on his lap, he looked at Valerie.
'If it's another day off, Val, that'll be a problem. How was your doctor visit?' She took a deep breath. 'I may be out on Friday. I have to have some surgery tomorrow evening.' Her boss set the stack of paper on the floor and rose to walk over to her. 'What's wrong, Valerie?'
'It's nothing. It's outpatient surgery. Just something I have to take care of right away. I'm sorry that it-'
'Never mind about a thing, Val.' He put a hand on her shoul-der. 'If you need tomorrow and Friday, take them both. Just take care of yourself. You're no good to me sick.' Relieved that she didn't have to explain anything further, she returned to her cubicle and telephoned Ron. He was in court, his secretary said. Could she take a message?
'Just tell him that Thursday is on.'
The two major crises out of the way, Valerie moved through the day mechanically, performing only the most necessary activities. She tried not to look over the edge of her cubicle at the clock on the wall a few yards away, but every time her eyes reflexively glanced up, her stomach clenched as she re-alized that so little time had passed. Yet the end of the day caught her by surprise, and she noticed that she had accom-plished very little in eight hours.
Knuckles rapped as best they could against the grey, brushed fabric that lined the outside of her cramped enclosure. Sewell stood in the opening, clutching a stack of floppy disks in one hand, a thick programming book in the other.
'Your sentence has been served, Val. You're a free woman.'
'Thanks, Warden. I just want to finish up the Pro-Dos team roster that Paul gave me.' Sewell hesitated for a moment, his dark eyes gazing around Valerie's office as if looking for clues. His voice softened.
'If it's anything serious,' he said, 'maybe we should talk.'
