Pencil Him In

Anna’s mouth fell open. Jim Bellows. Camilla was really reaching to be bringing up Jim. Anna had dated Jim when she first started working at Arsenal as a receptionist. They broke up when Anna started getting promoted. “Is this about a boyfriend? Because I think Jim proved that this job isn’t all that conducive to relationships.”

“The way you do the job isn’t conducive to relationships.” Anna opened her mouth to defend herself, but Camilla kept talking. “When was the last time you did something, anything that was fun?”

“I do fun things all the time,” Anna answered, even as the words came out of her mouth she knew she was lying and that it would be only one more nail in the coffin Camilla was making for her. The coffin she was going to have to spend six months in.

“Anna.” Camilla’s tone softened and Anna’s backbone stiffened in response.

“Fine, have it your way. I quit.” She jabbed her finger at Camilla. “I don’t want to have anything to do with an organization that treats its hardest workers like this.”

Part of Anna had believed Camilla would quail under this threat. She had a half-baked notion of Camilla taking it all back and offering her the president position immediately.

But Camilla’s eyebrow arched in the silence and Anna felt sanity slipping right out of the room.

“I could get a job anywhere,” Anna shouted and Camilla’s other eyebrow arched. “Don’t play with me, Camilla.”

“I know Mernick and Simon would kill to have you….”

“That’s right, Mernick and Simon and a dozen other companies,” Anna shot in.

“Is that what you want?” Camilla asked softly.

“It’s the only choice you’re giving me.” Anna couldn’t believe this conversation was continuing.

“Look, I’m giving you six months. If you want to go to another company, fine. You want to forget about all the work you put in here, go right ahead. Andrew will have every one of your accounts. You can say goodbye to Goddess Sportswear.”

Ouch. Camilla really knew how to kick a girl when she was down, which used to be one of the things Anna kind of admired about her. It wasn’t so pretty being on the receiving end of that honesty, however. Goddess Sportswear was Anna’s baby, her very own. She had cultivated Aurora Milan, a ditzy woman with a good idea, had spun her designs into what was going to be the leading sportswear line for women in the country. In turn, Goddess would cement Arsenal’s future.

Anna hung her head for a moment, overwhelmed by the sudden changes Camilla was making with her life.

“Or you can take six months off and come back and all of this will be yours.” Camilla gestured at the view and the office and kingdom she had built and was ready to lay at Anna’s feet. After six months. “I’m not playing with you.” Camilla took a tentative step forward and Anna held her ground but she knew her expression must have been dark because Camilla stopped a safe distance away. “I’m trying to save you Anna. If you continue to work like this and take over Arsenal, you’ll never have the opportunity to enjoy your life. You’ll work yourself right into the grave with nothing to show for it but a bunch of advertising campaigns for sports bras and vodka.” Camilla braved a step closer and Anna, feeling the walls close in on her, growled low in her throat. “Sweetheart, don’t you want a family?”

Anna felt something sharp twist in her chest and she tried to ignore it. She had been ignoring that twist more and more over the past year and had, in fact, become a pro at pretending that there wasn’t some internal clock ticking away inside her body. She had blocked off the part of her brain that had started counting the years that were flying by. If she noticed that all the women she knew her age were married, some with kids, she quickly rationalized it with her career. Some women chose family and some women chose career. Anna had made her choice and if sometimes that choice seemed a little lonely, then she only had to look at one of the million billboards or magazine ads for Goddess Sportswear to feel vindicated.

Besides, she was no good at family. She was good at Arsenal.

“You have to trust me,” Camilla was saying. “This is for your own good.”

Anna took a deep breath and turned to face her window and the view of the harbor and mountains behind it. The birds. She knew every single detail by heart. She had been looking at that view for fourteen hours or more a day for almost five years, ever since she’d moved into the office from her cubicle.

It had taken many long years to get from her spot behind the receptionist desk to this view.

Ten years of service to this woman and her company and this is where I end up. Anna shook her head.

Feeling empty and lost, she looked around her office, the familiar bland artwork and the pictures of her sister Marie, some of Camilla’s kids and the one grandchild that she had gotten close to over the years. Those few pictures were really the only things that made her office different from any other office in any other building in any other city.

Looking at her desk, nothing surprised her, nothing was not just as she had left it. She knew what every file contained, what was in each stack of paper set at right angles. Her pens lined up across the top of her desk blotter. Her phone with the egg timer beside it that she used to keep herself on schedule. Because once you got off schedule, there was no going back.

This was her life. Her whole entire life.

“I think I hate you,” Anna told her friend as she unwrapped another piece of chocolate and shoved it into her mouth. “Really, I think I hate you.”

“I expected as much.” Camilla pushed off the desk and reached into the briefcase she brought into Anna’s office before dropping this bomb. She pulled out a stack of papers and looked through them idly.

“How can you so calmly ruin my life and still look like a woman in a makeup ad?” Anna asked, digging into her bag of candy again. “It’s not right, Camilla. In fact, as I think about it, it’s sick. How does this happen?”

“Anna, I am thirty years your senior and for a while I worked as hard as you do right now. But I always had a man standing right behind me, helping me out.” She was, of course, referring to Michael, her husband and the father of their three children. “Being loved and helped and cared for when I needed it has made all the difference in my life.”

So beyond caring, Anna put a finger down her throat and made a gagging sound, then bit into her chocolate.

“Then I got you,” Camilla said and Anna looked up surprised. “I didn’t have to work as hard because you were working hard enough for the both of us.”

“Damn straight,” Anna said with her mouth full.

“As a result, I feel a little responsible for the way your life is going.”

“I like the way my life is going,” Anna shouted and when chocolate flew out of her mouth she didn’t even care.

This is how low a person can sink in the span of an hour, Anna thought wiping the chocolate off the highly polished surface of her desk.

“We’ll see, Anna.” Camilla looked at the thin watch on her wrist. “It’s eight o’clock. You need to pack your things.”

Anna heaved a big sigh. She put the candy back down, beginning to feel a little bit sick and pulled out her briefcase. When she started to put her files into her bag, Camilla stopped her.

“No work,” she said.

“Who’s going to take care of Goddess?”

“Andrew,” Camilla said.

Anna saw red. “You’re giving Goddess to Andrew?”

“I’ll be advising, it’s going to be fine.”

“What about Bluetech and Norway Vodka and Frederick’s?” Anna asked after her other major clients.

“Andrew and I can handle it,” Camilla nodded her head once. “Keep packing.”

Anna looked at Camilla for a moment in real disbelief and then didn’t even try to hide it when she started muttering things about Camilla under her breath.

“My mother has nothing to do with this,” Camilla said, but she was smiling. Anna collected her personal digital assistant, cell phone and pager to put in her bag, but again Camilla stopped her.

“You won’t need those,” she said.

“What am I allowed to take?” Anna asked, throwing her hands up again.

“Well, you can take those oranges you’ve got in your desk and that candy. It will probably be the only food you have in your house.”

“Fine. Great. You know, as I think about this, this is a great idea. Six months away from your manipulations will serve me a world of good.” Anna went to the small closet in her office. She opened the door and pulled out the suits hanging there. There were several, for those odd times that she slept on the couch.