‘Sit here, Benjamin,’ I say, but when I do I realise something even more horrifying than all of the rest of the weird urges bubbling up inside of me. His name … the way it sounds …
It’s better than the way Woods used to say Ms Harding. The whole thing just rolls right off my tongue, with emphasis I don’t intend on syllables that shouldn’t have it. And when he takes the chair opposite my desk – all of his big body folding down into it as though he’s half the size he actually is – I’m almost certain he knows it.
He knows how I’m saying it. Those guileless blue eyes and that almost-smile on the faint imprint of his mouth … they tell me what I need to know.
‘Are you OK, Ms Harding?’ he asks, as I sit behind the vast safety of the desk that once belonged to him. Unfortunately, doing so just makes me wonder if he ever needed to hang on to it the way I’m doing right now.
I’m like the survivor of a shipwreck. Barrett and Bates is going down in flames, and I’m thinking about some awkward creature’s secret face signals.
‘I’m perfectly fine, Benja–’ I catch myself this time, though I’m sure he notices. Something flickers across his otherwise completely innocent gaze, something I recognise without even trying to. And then I get control of myself and start again. ‘I’m fine, Ben. I just want to get across a few things to you, before we go any further.’
He nods, eagerly. I wish to God I didn’t have to add that ‘eagerly’ onto that description.
‘Of course, Ms Harding. I mean – I guess I’m your assistant now. And to be honest, that suits me a lot better. You’re so direct, you know? So –’
‘Stop!’
I don’t mean to shout it, I swear. It just happens. A lot of things seem to be just happening, and I don’t know if I can cope with them all.
‘Sorry. You go ahead, Ms Harding. I’m listening. I’m really doing my best to be all ears.’
Lord, he punches the air a little, after that last statement, the way a cartoon character from the fifties might have done. Gee willikers, Ms Harding! I sure am glad I’m working for you, gosh yes!
‘You’re doing fine, Ben. But what I really wanted to stress to you is this: you’re not my assistant. You weren’t really Mr Woods’ assistant. You –’
‘Oh my God, am I fired? Oh man, I –’
‘Benjamin,’ I say, and am deeply disheartened to find that his full name has the exact effect on him I expect. It freezes him in place, big hands clutching the chair arms. Those soft eyes caught somewhere between wounded and a promise that he can do better. I wish he wouldn’t want to do better for me quite so badly.
‘You’re not fired. I’m simply trying to tell you that you’re a clerical assistant. That’s what you were hired for – to help with general office paperwork, mail and filing. You’re not here to bring me a Scotch.’
He isn’t really anything of the sort – he was always Woods’ PA. It’s just that I can’t have him being something like that right now. I need him to be away, writing letters for other people who don’t need a letter writer at all.
‘Oh,’ he says, but he doesn’t look as embarrassed as I’d feared he would. There’s a hint of sheepishness there, true, but then I imagine that’s his default state. Whereas the other emotion on his face – disappointment – probably isn’t.
He looks like the kind of guy who takes most things in his stride. Unless it’s his brand-new boss telling him she can’t possibly spend her time ordering him to do humiliating menial tasks on her behalf. Then he just seems as though his entire world is falling apart, right before his eyes.
And oh, I don’t like what that completely naked expression on his face is making me want to do.
‘I don’t need you to caddy for me at the golf course.’
I really, really don’t like what it’s making me want to do.
‘I don’t require you to dry my hands for me after I’ve been to the ladies’ room.’
God, I know it’s going to make me do it.
‘But if you want, you can … compose letters for me. And compile some reports.’
Damn it.
‘Really?’ he says, and oh Jesus he just looks so hopeful. No one should ever look that hopeful over the prospect of writing to the head of the board to ask what the fuck is going on. I mean, a phone call might have been nice, you know? Promotion would have gone down a lot easier if it hadn’t been phrased thusly, in a letter:
You’re now the managing director of Barrett and Bates, effective immediately. If you have any concerns, contact several people who don’t give a shit.
‘I hardly see why not,’ I say, though I know it’s a mistake. And I know it more strongly when I ask Benjamin to leave, and on his way out of the door he says:
‘Thank you, sir.’
Of course, he realises his error almost immediately. He’s that sort of person, I think – the kind that makes many goofy blunders, but is intelligent enough to know he’s made them only a second later.
Though it doesn’t make it any easier, I know. It still makes his mouth open and close, that sweetly curving upper lip of his compressing as he searches for a way to rectify what he’s done. He called me sir, even though I’m a woman. He called me sir, and for reasons we won’t go into it’s making him all flustered.
‘Sorry – I meant –’ he starts off, but I cut him down dead.
‘Sir is fine,’ I say, as I wave him out the door.
* * *
Of course, sir is not fine. And after he’s gone I sit at my new desk and consider all the ways in which it isn’t fine at all. It’s what I used to call Woods, for a start. It’s meant for a man, for afters. And then there’s the fact that it makes my body flush from the tips of my toes to the roots of my hair.
Yeah, there’s that.
I close my eyes and try to think of something else. There are a million things for me to think about, after all. Woods had apparently allowed a whole department to keep operating unnecessarily, for reasons left unclear in the paperwork he never actually did. Tomorrow I’m going to have to fire every one of them, while he most likely suns himself in Barbados.
And yet my mind returns to that one word over and over, so casually said. Sir, I think. I am somebody’s sir, and then I have to count all the things about him that aren’t right, just to keep myself on an even keel.
His mouth is strange. It’s like it has no corners or definition around it, no real shape to keep it in place. Of course, occasionally when he talks it’s given a proper outline, but then, it’s not really the outline I want it to have. Movement just makes those lips plumper, more obviously sensuous, and then when he stops talking all I can see is how smooth and soft that mouth is. If he didn’t have that heavy jaw
