Her name was Grace, and she was amazing. Everyone called her
Amazing Gracie, but never to her face.
And such a beautiful face it was. Grace was tall and nicely built with
ginger hair and green eyes. Every guy in the office had a secret crush on her.
In my case, it was outright love. I felt that I was
justified to be in love with her; after all I was thirty and single and she was
a couple of years older, or at least she looked that way. Most of the other men
in the office were married. But I knew my love would never be returned. I was a mere project assistant and she was a
manager. Office romances were frowned
upon. Still, they couldn’t stop what was
in my heart.
She arrived at work as usual 15 minutes early. Despite the
protestations of her secretary, she put a pot of coffee on herself and then gave
the first cup to that same secretary.
She was nice that way . . . no pretensions. She then retreated to her office and
proceeded to read her e-mail. Everyone
knew that Grace never read any business e-mail except at the office. But as usual, there were several that would
require her attention first thing. So
she called in Sandra, her secretary, and gave her several tasks to do; research
mostly, but also a couple of appointments to make. It was a typical morning. I was deep into preparing a proposal for a
new project, so I pretty much had my head down all day. Late in the afternoon, however, I was called
into a meeting on the progress of the proposal; a meeting being chaired by
Grace. She asked me to sit next to her
so she could see my charts and numbers.
I started to perspire (Remember horses sweat, gentlemen perspire, and
ladies flush – I was half way between horse and gentleman).
Grace had arrived at the company three years ago. She had a very short resume which included her
university marks and one previous job in another town. Supposedly, she had been recommended by an
acquaintance of the HR Manager. Her
interview was lengthy but she had finally been offered the job of project
assistant. By then, I had been with the
company for about a year as more or less a gopher. But I was studying at night school for a
qualification in project management.
Grace worked hard and was soon elevated to manager of a
couple of small projects. That’s when I
first came to her attention. I was asked
to build the schedule for these projects which had me talking to her as I
developed the details and she reviewed them.
She was very pleased with the work that I had done and asked what
training I had been taking. When I told
her, she nodded and said that I was on the right track. Such an endorsement! I blushed and thanked her. A few days later she told me that she had
talked to my boss and that she wanted me to be her project assistant for the
big project that was then brewing. I
almost fainted. I tried to remain calm
as I told her that I would do my best and was pleased to work with/for
her. It was a couple of months before
the project started and I fretted the whole time that she would change her mind
and go with one of the more experienced project assistants. But the project eventually started and I
buckled down to work. Gracie turned out
to be a great boss.
Slim Jim was on the prowl and his target was Grace. Jim Merriweather was the Quality Assurance
Manager so he got himself involved in every project in that capacity. Jim was married with two sons not yet ten
(the sons not Jim. He only acted
ten). For the last few months, he had
been telling everyone, especially Grace, that he was about to “dump the old
lady” because he said she was being unfaithful.
I had met Mrs. Merriweather and she was a nice lady, but she had become
a little dowdy since the boys were born.
She adored her sons and Jim so I didn’t see her being unfaithful to
them. But Jim spent many hours around
the coffee machine or the water cooler trying to convince everyone that that,
in fact, was the case.
Jim was exceptional, at least in his telling. He was exceptional at everything so his
legend went. He was exceptional at his
job, as a father, in sports, as a lover and in any number of other
endeavours. He wasn’t a bad looking guy;
tall and of course slim with a relatively large, handsome head. In his opinion, Grace and he would make the perfect
couple. They were both good looking (true) and intelligent (questionable in one
case), and with his prowess, he would make Grace very happy. They would produce very handsome and
intelligent children that would revolutionize the world. I don’t think he ever told that to Grace, but
he hinted about it to office colleagues who, he hoped would convey the message
to Grace . . . subtly of course. I hated
Jim! But it turned out I was not alone
in this feeling.
The more the project progressed, the more time I spent with
Gracie. Sometimes it could be quite
unnerving to try and concentrate on your work when you were looking for any
excuse to be with her, or was it Her. Grace started a Friday evening get
together with the project team at a nearby pub.
Since some of the team members were often out of the office during the
week, this was a good opportunity to get caught up with each other. The first time I was invited to join, as part
of the project team of course, I just about passed out. An opportunity to socialize with Grace! What could be better? But most weeks there were a lot of people
there and I was usually at the other end of the table from her, so socializing
with her was difficult. I did get to
know other team members and that’s how I found out that all of the other guys
were enamoured with her.
One Friday, Grace and I arrived at the pub about the same
time and she said, “Paul, why don’t you sit next to me.” Paul.
That was me and she was inviting me to sit next to her. This was getting interesting. We all started talking about the project and
what had gone on that week. Half way
through the session, Jim arrived. He
tried to manoeuver between Grace and I, but she showed him to a seat on the
other side of her. Inevitably the talk
slowed down and people started to leave to go home. Suddenly, there was only the three of us
left; Jim, Grace and me. Then things got
tense. Jim not-too-subtly tried to get
me to leave, “Don’t you have somewhere to go Paul?” or even, “Maybe you should
leave us grownups alone, Paul.” But each
time, Grace would chime in and say, “It’s okay Jim, Paul and I were having an
interesting chat when you arrived, so I’d like to finish that.” But things just kept getting tenser. At one point, I thought Jim was going to
physically try to throw me out. But I
decided that I would hang in here and see what happened. After all, it’s not like Gracie showed any
real interest in Jim. She seemed to be bemused
by the situation and in her own subtle way she too seemed to want to see how
this thing turned out too. After some
more bantering back and forth, I saw and heard something I had never heard
before; Grace got annoyed. She finally
snapped at Jim, “Don’t you have a wife and kids to go home to?” Jim started to protest, but saw very quickly
that it was not going to work so he reluctantly got up and left. Grace and I didn’t actually stay around that
much longer. It was as if the whole
evening had been about the contest and after it was over, there seemed no more
purpose to stick around. I asked if she
would like me to see her home, but she just chuckled and said her car was
nearby, “but thank you anyway”.
The following Monday, Jim came to my cubicle and asked
snidely, “So did you make it with your boss on Friday?” I said, “A gentleman never tells.” With that, Jim stomped off looking for all
the world as if he were looking for someone to punch.
And so the project carried on. Slim Jim started to try and harass me by
finding problems with my work. In most
cases they were so trivial that they seemed laughable, but I never laughed at
Jim. I didn’t laugh with him either when
he told one of his inane jokes or tried to make fun of someone. Grace and I continued to work closely and to
get to know each other better. But it never
became anything more than a workplace friendship. The project looked like it was going to be
very successful. Even the money guys
seemed happy that we were sticking to the budget and schedule. It became such a pleasure to work with Grace
since she was so fair and sharing of plaudits.
And unlike other managers that I knew, she could be very decisive when
decisions were required.
Things went along in this vain until one week in May. Grace hadn’t seemed right all week. It was so unlike her since she never before
showed signs of any infirmity. All week,
she seemed slow and lethargic. She would
forget words and on one occasion that week missed a meeting. At times her shoulders seemed slumped and she
was walking slower that her usual purposeful stride. However, if you tried to offer some
suggestion or a pain killer she would tell you that everything was fine, and to
just leave her alone. In the past, she
had never asked anyone to leave her alone, except perhaps Slim Jim, but that
was for other reasons. On Friday after
work, she even refused to join the rest of her team for a get together at our
favourite pub, something that had become sacrosanct for the entire team. Slim Jim seemed particularly peeved by
this. Did he still think that he a
chance with her?
On the Saturday morning, I was downtown looking for some
used books. Coming out of one store, I
saw Grace walking down the street very slowly and somewhat ensure. I decided to see if I could help her in any
way so I started after her. She was
about half a block ahead but I was walking much faster than her and figured I would
catch up in the next block. Suddenly she
turned into an old office building. I
walked up to the same door and looked through a grimy window as she paused
outside a ground floor door. I followed
her into the building and was about to call her name, when she entered the
door. I went to the same door which had no name or other identification on
it. I could barely see through the
window, but I could see Grace standing in there stock still. I carefully opened the door when a middle
aged man came out of a hall and stood in front of Grace. I froze but did not close the door, just
stood there. The man started to take off
Grace’s blouse and then her bra. What
was this guy up to and why was he undressing my Gracie? When he had her naked from the waist up, he
went to her back. There he peeled back a
piece of her skin, only about 2 by 2 inches.
Once he had done that, he opened a small trap door underneath the square
of skin. As he opened it, I heard a
monotone, mechanical voice come from Grace, “Fix me”.
© Gordon
Forbes, 2016
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