Without A Hitch

Corbin shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know, do I?”

Molly stood up. “I hear my phone,” she said bitterly, and she left.

Corbin laughed. “Score one for the home team.”

Chapter 9

Two days later, Corbin sat in the middle of the main conference room at the Maria de Santo Hotel in Washington. Beckett sat on his left, Molly on his right. By coincidence, all three wore light-gray suits. Around them, nearly two hundred people watched speech after speech with feigned professional interest.

Theresa was nowhere to be seen. She secluded herself since the fight with Molly and even refused Corbin’s offer to help with Wilson’s speech.

Wilson began his speech with a joke that received only polite laughter and quickly moved on to outlining the difficulties of running the office. He spoke in rambling, complex sentences and used much larger words than were needed. Though the speech may have looked erudite on paper, it sounded confused and pretentious when spoken. Without a doubt, Corbin knew Theresa had sabotaged it. He smiled.

“What’s so funny?” Molly and Beckett asked in unison.

Corbin waved them off as Wilson droned on, having moved on to the lack of attention the office received in the media: We’re often called the forgotten office because we rarely end up in the newspapers. In fact, I can’t think of the last time we made the papers.

“Too bad the papers didn’t ignore his last divorce,” Molly whispered in Corbin’s ear.

“It’s hard to ignore allegations of a naked car chase.”

“What did she say?” Beckett whispered, nodding toward Molly. Owing to the ambient noise of the room, neither Beckett nor Molly could hear the other when they whispered to Corbin. Thus, Corbin found himself passing along each comment.

“Wilson’s last divorce.”

“Oh, right,” Beckett snickered.

. . because our function is so specialized, many people don’t even know precisely what it is that we do.

“Hell, I don’t know what we do,” Corbin grumbled.

My goal for the coming year, a year that may result in consequential changes to the manner in which we operate, is to introduce a new paradigm to the office that is both forward looking, pragmatic, and goal oriented, though consistent with our core mission.

“What the heck does that mean?” Beckett asked.

Notwithstanding recent changes in our enacting legislation, I expect we will see significant alterations to our regulations. As many of you have recognized in the past, our regulations are some of the most complex in the world, and are not easily understood.

“Did he just say our regulations suck?” Molly asked, as a smile crept across her face.

“That’s how I took it. Maybe this is his mea culpa?”

“Can’t wait to see what he confesses next. My money’s on erectile dysfunction.”

Corbin let out a surprised laugh, which he immediately covered with a phony cough.

Consequently, I am normally hesitant to discuss alterations to our regulations with an audience of this size. Yet, I am confident that the people in this room are some of the brightest in our industry. Thus, I am confident that I can address these matters without fear of giving an impenetrable speech.

“Bingo!” Molly whispered.

“Bingo?”

“‘Impenetrable’. I also would have accepted ‘flaccid’ or ‘impotent’.”

The concerns many commentators raised in response to our requests for comments notwithstanding, significant pressure has been building for the issuance of new regulations.

“This is boring,” Molly said, as she began kicking the empty seat in front of her.

It has been said that achieving the right level of regulation is the most difficult balancing act one can perform because you never know if the regulations are correct until after they are implemented. It is like the problem of knowing when you are in love. You may think you are in love a dozen times, and each time you believe with absolute certainty that you are correct. But it is not until you truly are in love that you realize that each of the prior times was not love, but something lesser.

“What the heck does love have to do with our regulations?” Molly whispered. She wrinkled her nose. “Do you think our regs might be worth reading?”

Corbin shook his head and mouthed the word “no.”

The process of regulation is much the same as figuring out whether you’re in love. You create regulations that appear to be correct, only to discover later that you were not correct, although with each passing attempt, you ultimately draw closer. This time, with our new proposed regulations, I believe that our regulations finally truly are correct.

“This is nonsense. What an awful speech. I wonder how much longer this is going to last?” Corbin asked as he checked his watch.

Finally, let me address the issue of staffing.

“Here it comes, get your waders on.”

Our office is dangerously understaffed. We are so understaffed that our mission is being imperiled and a significant backlog of work is developing. This may cause our service to suffer. Unfortunately, we cannot correct that situation alone. We need each of you, who recognizes the importance of what we do, to contact your representatives and demand increased support for our office.

Beckett looked around the room. “Do you think anybody’s buying this?” He no longer bothered to whisper.

“Who knows, some people will believe anything.” Corbin stopped whispering as well.

It is a large backlog and will require significant man hours to overcome.

Beckett whispered to Corbin. “I had another thought about the duffel bag.”

“This isn’t the best place to discuss that,” Corbin said, nodding his head toward Molly.

“She can’t hear me.”

“Let’s not test it.”

Again, notwithstanding the criticism leveled, our actual experience is quite different.

Molly rolled her eyes. “I wish he’d stop saying ‘notwithstanding!’” Suddenly the room erupted in applause, which dissipated almost instantly, as people began streaming toward the reception area at the back of the room. “‘bout flippin’ time,” Molly said, as she grabbed her purse. “You boys staying for the reception?”

“Not on a bet.”

“Good, who wants to buy me lunch?”

The following morning, Kak sent out an e-mail praising Wilson’s speech. Kak called the speech “brilliant and visionary,” causing much hilarity in Corbin and Beckett’s office. Kak did not acknowledge Theresa’s assistance. Around noon, Corbin paid Theresa a visit.

“Nice speech, very subtle.”

“I figured you’d get it.” Theresa smiled.

“Oh, I think we all got it, except for Kak and Wilson that is.”

“Do you know that bastard didn’t even give me credit for writing the thing?” Theresa complained.

“Did you want credit?”

“Absolutely not.”

Corbin leaned against a large filing cabinet. “On this thing with Molly. . I wouldn’t worry too much about what Molly says. Nobody really listens to her.”

“I’d rather not talk about it.”

“All right. Beckett and I are going to lunch, if you want to tag along.”