“Really? Sounds to me like she was drunk!”
“Well, she was drunk, that’s true.”
“Maybe she has a hangover today, and can’t get out of bed?”
“Come on, that was two days ago. A hangover doesn’t last for two whole days!”
“Who knows? She did have an awful lot to drink. Maybe it’s still in her system.”
“Well, I guess you ought to know, Supervisor Hamamoto. You had quite a bit to drink yourself!”
“Not as much as you, Supervisor Tachibana.”
“Me? Well, I know I had a few. But nothing compared to all the plum and shochu grog you were chugging down!”
“Oh, come on now. I think of the two of us, I was rather moderate. I noticed you got hooked on the shots of whiskey right from the start!”
“Well, I don’t know about that!”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Supervisor Tsukada said. “We all drank more than we should have. It was ‘ladies’ day,’ after all.”
“And you, Supervisor Tsukada—well, you were under the table!”
Wa ha ha. All three laughed uproariously. Just then the director called from the other end of the corridor.
“Tsukada-saaan! Hino-san has just telephoned: she’ll be coming in a bit late.”
Supervisor Tsukada turned in his direction and gestured with her hands—“Got it!” She turned back with a triumphant look. “See? What did I tell you? She hasn’t quit after all.”
In her telephone call from the police box, the Woman in the Purple Skirt appeared to have given the director a full account of what happened.
The director was treating her to a can of hot coffee from the vending machine.
“Otsukare-san. That must have been quite a shock this morning.”
It was three in the afternoon. The Woman in the Purple Skirt, who had come down to the cafeteria for a belated midday break, deferentially accepted the coffee he held out to her, and bowed her head.
“I’m terribly sorry to have been the cause of so much trouble.”
“Not at all,” the director replied. “You haven’t been the cause of the trouble. You’re the victim in all of this. There’s nothing to apologize for. The person at fault is that pervert who groped you. What a creep. As a man myself, I find it inexcusable. You must have been terrified.”
The Woman in the Purple Skirt dipped her head.
“It might be best to come in on an earlier or a later bus. The perpetrator has been apprehended, I know, but even so: you never know if someone like that might sneak up on you again.”
“Yes. But there isn’t another bus that gets me here at the right time. The one that comes before arrives far too early, and the one that comes after gets me in too late.”
“Hmm. That is a concern. . . .”
“But it’s quite all right! If anything happens to me, I’m sure the other passengers and the driver will come to my rescue.”
“Really? You say that, but . . .”
“It’s quite all right. Please don’t worry about me.”
“No, but it is concerning. I was quite worried this morning. Although you made it here safely, there was no word from you even after the morning meeting started. You know I told you that our new employees sometimes just quit, with no notice.”
“I would never do that!”
“I know you wouldn’t. And the floor supervisors all insisted you wouldn’t. Did I hear you went drinking with them a couple days ago?”
“Yes. I was just about to head home when they invited me to go with them.”
“I hear you can really hold your alcohol. That surprised me.”
“Oh no! Did somebody say something?”
“No, no, don’t worry, it’s good. Very promising. . . . You can handle your job, and you can also hold your alcohol.”
“Oh, but actually that’s not true. Quite the opposite, in fact. If anything, they didn’t let me say no. At some point I began to feel like I might throw up, and well, frankly, I have no idea how I managed to get home. . . .”
“Really? Hm. That sounds dangerous.”
“And also, I don’t think I deserve any credit for being good at my job. I think it’s all because Supervisor Tsukada explains everything so well.”
“Ha ha ha. Well, I’ll make sure to tell her that. And I’ll let her know you’re hoping to take over for her eventually.”
“Oh, but . . . that’s not what I said.”
“I’m only joking, don’t worry. But, well, it’s something you might consider. . . .”
“What?”
“Well, this is strictly between you and me, but at some point I’m thinking of relieving you of housekeeping and making you one of the in-house trainers.”
“Me? One of the trainers?”
“Well, I don’t mean immediately. But I intend to, as soon as I can. So when your training finishes, I want you to start preparing yourself to be a supervisor.”
“Really? That may be more than I can handle. . . .”
“Nonsense. Look, it doesn’t take any particular skill to be in that job. Surely that should be clear. All you have to do is look at those women—every one of them careless as can be. One or two of them are so lazy that the minute they become supervisors they begin to think they can do whatever they want, and begin blowing off work. I think you might add an element of freshness, Hino-san, if you were to join them—they definitely need someone to make them sit up a little. Still, I’m afraid this won’t make any difference to your terms of employment—you won’t get any perks, and your uniform will be the same one you have now. At most, you could expect your pay to go up about thirty yen per hour. Of course, if you stay, you’ll eventually be considered for a promotion to a regular member of the staff, and, if you wanted to, depending on the results of an assessment you’d have to take, there might even be the possibility of getting assigned to the head office. Did I hear from Supervisor Tsukada
