New Hope For Small Men: Chapter 39

by Grant Bailie

The manager was fired. Not the next day or the day after that but a week or so later, under mysterious circumstances for unspecified reasons. A memo was released to all personnel saying that he had decided to pursue other opportunities and the company wished him well, but all personnel had seen those memos before and knew what they meant.

A new manager came — a man who stayed in his office most of the time, and used only one color marker. He shook Robert’s hand on his first day, made a point of introducing himself to Robert and telling him how impressed he was with what he had done. It had felt good when the new manager said it, in a way it had not felt good when the police or his coworkers had called him a hero.

The day after that, Bree started coming to work in blouses and blazers and sensible skirts or slacks. Her shirts always covered the tattoo of the squirrel on her arm now. Robert never asked her why and they still had cigarettes together on their breaks and took the same train home from work. Nothing changed there. They were friends, and the memory of her in short skirts remained the fodder of his dreams, but became in time, a memory of something less clear than the girl he sat next to at work. The back of her knee, the small of her back, the glimpse he once saw down the front of her blouse on the train became as vivid and unreal as the heaven and angels he had imagined as a child.

But work went on, the board in front of the office was a matter of simple numbers now. Robert’s numbers were no better than before, but he served a function — he was the semi-famous human face of the cable company, and he was never criticized for taking too long with a call or not making a sale. The difficult and the lonely were transferred back to his desk. He was the hero of the dispossessed. Even Frank Taylor had thanked him. And if Kate never called, if Bree never wore another short plaid skirt, if Mr. Carleton’s daughter never came, at least he was that.