Copyright © 2007 by Gerald C. Matics
The last thing Angie wanted to do was parade in front of Walt in a skimpy runner's outfit — let alone do it in front of forty thousand screaming spectators. How badly does she need this job?
Walt speaks almost in Angie's ear, startling her into spilling correction fluid on the document he'd earlier surprised her into screwing up. She hates him sneaking up on her — those goddamned rubber-soled running shoes — and she burns to tell him off.
What she does instead is force a tight smile and take the stack of papers from him.
Walt leers back, puts a hand on her desk and leans over her shoulder, glancing down her blouse like he's being sly. Before coming to work for Mr. H. Wallace Walton, Angie had never been embarrassed to be a C-cup, but over the last two-and-a-half years she has begun to give serious thought to breast reduction. She puts up with it because he is (as he likes to remind anyone who will listen) the president of a $15 million company, and she is two-and-a-half years out of college and needs to pay Center City-sized rent.
"Watchya workin' on?" Walt asks.
Go back to your office! she screams in her mind.
"Paperwork for HR," she says. "One of the women in Marketing is going out on FMLA leave next month."
"Tsk, tsk," Walt clucks. "These girls today get knocked up, lose all sense of responsibility when it comes to work. Then it's all about the bambino."
She glances at him, so smug in his chauvinism. Shame, with his immaculately coiffed salt-and-pepper hair, steely eyes and trim physique, he is nice looking for a man creeping up on fifty. Too bad creep is the operative word.
"Could be a bambina. Anyway, it's a risky pregnancy and she needs to be off her feet. It's not like she's slacking." And it's unpaid leave anyway. Asshole.
"Right," Walt says, barely listening, his eyes roaming her desk. "Well, I'm going back to my office to get some real work done. You carry on out here."
Angie barely manages to nod as he walks away. He stops at his office door.
"By the way, who's the girl in Marketing?" he asks. "So I know who to send flowers to."
Angie glances at the form. "Marlene Majors."
Walt's mouth drops. "Marlene's pregnant? That can't be right, she's supposed to run the relay with us next week."
"What do you mean?"
"You know, the Penn Relays! The corporate distance medley. Marlene's the best quarter-miler we have."
Now it makes sense. Marlene had apparently been quite a speedster in college and was still pretty quick in her late twenties — or so went the lunchroom talk — and Walt treats the corporate DM at the Penn Relays as almost a holy rite. He gets off on racing other corporate executives and beating them to a collective pulp. Angie suspects he often hires with an eye less on competence than on who would make good relay mates. Plus, in Marlene's case, it doesn't hurt that she is a beautifully slim blonde with nearly perfect curves. Angie's own curves are quite a bit more pronounced; though she never thinks of herself as fat, she carries a few extra pounds since college, when she was a pretty good volleyball player on a conference-runner-up team.
Of course, the only curve that matters at this point is the one fast-developing on Marlene's stomach.
"Can't you get one of the guys to fill in for her?" Angie asks. "I'm sure they'd probably run faster anyway."
"Don't you remember the rules?" Walt says, irritated. "You sent the entry form in for me. One of your legs has to be a masters runner — someone over forty, that's me — and another has to be female. You put the weak leg on the 400 meters so you lose the least distance, but Marlene always does really well for a girl. Damn!" He goes back into his office.
Angie sits silently. Some part of her knows even now what is to come. . . .
