One Lonely Shoe Part 2/?
Author's Note: I kinda messed with some facts as far as the current Philippine political climate. In case you're interested, the current president (whose name really is Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo) was the first elected official and shortly after she came to power, had the former president arrested and jailed. Many people are protesting her ability to govern and consider her elitist, and she relies on the military to prevent "anarchy." Also, in Zamboanga, three American captives are being held hostage by Muslim extremists. The Philippine government has refused US money and the terrorists claimed to have killed one of the Americans- though this has not been confirmed. They have already executed some Filipinos. The hostage situation continues, as far as I know. I do not intend to offend any one- just merely commenting on a political situation and making it partly fiction.
***
Margaret is a very excitable gal, and since I am the assistant with the most sang-froid, I am generally appointed to be the one to calm her down.
Okay, I'm not really "appointed." I'm voted into doing it. Every time. Alas, we are a democracy. A democracy that consistently, without fail, asks me to be the voice of reason to Margaret's paranoia on almost a daily basis.
Personally, I think Kathy should do it. She has nothing better to do other than steal and snarf down Sam's food. (And yet, I'm the one with the office rep for duplicity. How??? How???)
So off to Leo's office I went but for the grace of God and the Assistants' Democratic Vote.
Margaret was not fearing for her life. Nor was she heartbroken or in tears. This time, she was royally pissed.
"I can't go to the embassy ball," she grumbled, hanging up the phone.
"What embassy ball?"
"The embassy ball. You know, white ties, fine cuisine, the President of the Philippines"
"The President of the Philippines?"
"Yep."
"When's he coming?"
"It's a she."
"Pardon moi, when is she coming?"
"Friday, for the embassy"
"Ball, yeah, got it. Why can't you go?"
"Well, you see, my sister? You know, the one that lives in Baltimore?"
I nodded. Margaret only has one sister. When Margaret gets overly upset, she goes into explanation hyperdrive. I settled into a chair. This was going to take a while, I had a feeling.
"Well, she and her husband decided to go to Florida to celebrate their anniversary- it's their fourth, no, their fifth whatever, anyway, they're going to leave on Friday and they need me to watch their dog."
"Their dog?" She had to be kidding.
"Sergio, yeah. He's a greyhound. He's huge. He used to run in the races and all, but once he reached a certain age, they put him out to pasture and my sister bought him. Anyway, he gets real nervous when he's not around people and tears up the house and stuff so I have to baby-sit him."
"And you can't leave for a few hours to go to the thing?"
"Not unless I want to redecorate, reupholster and refurbish every room of her house. And Leo the fascist dictator in there does not pay me enough"
"Whoa, whoa, back up. What did Leo do?"
"He scheduled the damn thing."
"The anniversary trip?" I was so confused. This happens to me once Margaret starts going. I lapse in and out of consciousness and become disoriented. Margaret Madness Syndrome, or something akin to that.
"No, the embassy ball. The President set up this thing months ago and specifically left it up to him whether he could have it this week or next week. And he picked"
"This week. Yeah. So what can you do?"
"Nothing. I hate him," she pouted.
"C'mon, he's not that bad. Not as bad as some other bosses around here" I gestured to Josh's office. "Did I tell you about him and the filing cabinet yesterday."
I filled her in on Josh and his battles with the Filing Fiend of Hell, as I heard him curse it later in the afternoon.
Her spirits were considerably lifted- though she was still smarting over the scheduling conflict.
"Why don't you get somebody else to watch the dog for that night? I mean, it's just a couple hours, right? Pay 'em a few bucks and go to the ball."
"A dog-sitter! That's perfect!" Her face lit up. Then, just as quickly as she had perked up, her countenance drew into a frown. "I don't know any dog-sitters."
"Maybe there's some in the phone book."
We checked. No such luck.
"How 'bout a neighbor?"
"She has scary neighbors. One of them dances around naked in his living room listening to"
"_I don't want to know_!" Then, a flash of brilliance came upon me. Josh says this happens to him all the time. I guess now I know how it feels. "What about Kathy? Ask her to watch Sergio." Take that, Assistant Democratic Vote!
"She's going."
"What?"
"She already bought a dress. She's going with some guy from accounting."
"She never told me! Nobody even told me there was a thing on Friday!" Out of the loop again. This is what I get for obsessing over Joshua and silly things like making sure he doesn't lose a limb.
"So you're not busy on Friday?" Hope reigned on her face. Damn. Walked straight into that one, didn't I? All righteous indignation and it bit me in the ass.
I sighed and resigned myself to my fate. A sentence for stupidity. "I'll watch the damn dog."
"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!!!" she gushed, giving me a big hug. I had to keep reminding myself, "I like dogs" so that I wouldn't throttle her.
Then she went on and on about some really hot Czech ambassador who was screaming at Leo that morning. He, of course, would be at the goddamn ball. No matter that it wasn't originally for him and that he really had no business being there. He was a hunk and he was going to the ball and I wasn't. I was babysitting a greyhound. I like dogs, I like dogs.
As I was leaving her office, I knew I got screwed. Viva democracy!
What I wouldn't give to be Socialist.
And that was how I got a date with Sergio for Friday night.
***
"You're late!" Donna rushed at me as I was briskly making my way into my office. Give me some credit- for a guy with a massive hangover, I moved pretty damn quick.
"Yeah, no sh-"
"You have staff in like" she glanced at her watch, "Now. Pretty much now." She yanked my coat off, sending me full force forward into my office. Trying to stumble gracefully, is, by the way, a very difficult thing to do. Somehow I don't think I pulled it off.
She thrust files at me, screaming all the while. Well, at least, I thought she was screaming. She was probably talking in normal tones, but I was a man on the edge. Mice bellow at me when I get like that.
"Where the hell have you been? I've been calling your apartment"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know" As I had been dragging myself up from the carpet, I knocked my phone off the hook. I left it there and cursed at it when it made those beeping noises but there was no way in hell I was replacing it. Cuz if I went down, there was no way in hell I would have gotten up again.
She gave me a scrutinizing glare and wrinkled her nose in disgust. Damn. She knew. But then most people with even bad eyesight can tell when I've had one too many. At least, that's the rumor they like to prevaricate. I still hold that she knew because she has some kind of weird ass psychic thing going on. Either that or she's bugged my apartment with the same equipment she's got in my office.
"Get to staff, now," she ordered.
"Ja, mein damen commandant."
As I shuffled out of my office behind her, she went to her desk and grabbed her coffee mug. "One sip, Joshua."
I smiled. She was broken at last!
Or not.
She glared, raised her index finger, and spoke sternly. "One sip. And only enough so your breath doesn't reek of beer when you open your big mouth to explain why you're late to staff."
I just grinned and took my allowed sip. It was damn good. No matter that I almost choked on it as she shoved me down the hall and wrenched the cup from my hand. That morning I drank from the cup of small victories, my friends.
Yeah. Don't hate me cuz I'm cool like that.
So I went to staff.
"How was school vouchers?" I asked sitting down next to Sam.
"Buried- so we hope," CJ replied.
"We got enough Senators to reject the proposal," Sam said, sipping from his coffee cup. I smugly reminded my growling stomach that I had enough coffee to last me for a while. The Victory Sip!
"Even Greggs will have to admit he lacks the vote, he can step down and we can move on," grumbled Toby. "To more important things. Like the embassy ball." And he glared at me.
The others followed suit. Damn. Leo just sat back in his chair with this smug expression on his face. A You've-Made-Your-Bed-Now-Lie-In-It-Without-Any-Help-From-Me kind of face mixed with a little bit of an Oh-How-I-Enjoy-Watching-You-Squirm grin.
"Let me just say that none of you thought this was a bad idea when I brought it up." Still glaring. Damn. "We just got vouchers off the agenda! C'mon- it won't be that awkward."
"Do you know of any commonalties between the Philippines and the Czech Republic?" Sam asked skeptically.
"You're gonna have two very important people in a room, with nothing to say to one another except 'move over, it's my turn to talk' as they vie for the President's attention!" CJ balked.
"They can talk about the weather!" I countered. "Don't they both have weather?"
Okay, maybe not the smartest thing to say. But at least people are no longer yelling at me. CJ was grinning, Sam sipped his coffee silently, and Leo still had on The Face.
Toby sighed. "This is not what I wanted to discuss. We have to bring up the hostage situ-"
Leo cut him off. "I think offending one dignitary per week is enough, don't you? If you bring up the hostage thing, you're gonna piss Arroyo off."
"So we piss her off! She's eating our food, the least we can do is tell her what we think of her!"
And off launched Toby on another one of his- balls are a waste of food without an agenda that potentially offends the guest- spiels. He apparently has no qualms about pissing people off- as long as he's the one who gets to do it. When I do it, it's encroaching into Toby Territory. Or something.
Anyway, he was ranting about a hostage situation that had taken place months before, when Muslim extremists held a three vacationing Americans hostage and threatened to execute them unless well quite frankly, I'm a bit fuzzy on their motivation. Most things right now are a bit fuzzy. A Sip can only do so much. Anyway, they were vehement, they were nuts and they were fully ready to behead about two dozen Filipinos and our citizens.
Yeah- and you thought the guillotine was a thing of the past.
Actually, what kind of instrument they were planning to use on executing them is pretty fuzzy too but I'm sure it would have been nasty. The Muslims were protesting or something whatever. The thing is, the government in its stubborn no-ransom policy wouldn't take our advice, or our assistance, and one of the hostages died. The other two will probably have bad dreams for the rest of their lives.
And Toby was angry. And remained so. And wants to transfer this anger onto the new president, who quells the protesters in the streets with armed force.
He has this thing for protesters, he really does. A love-hate relationship. One minute they're amateurs who shouldn't be allowed to hold signs and the next, he's willing to jeopardize foreign policy for them.
I pointed this out to the group.
Then it was made known that I jeopardize foreign policy unequivocally, every day that they let me speak to someone in importance. Which is probably why they don't let me do that much.
That, and I've never been very good with languages.
But then, I don't need to. I speak the International Language.
Yep, that's right. The International Language of Love.
Which reminded me that I was a man without a date for a Philippine President roasting on Friday night.
So maybe I'm not fluent in that either. But hey- the Victory Sip! And I had not yet been mauled by the hunk of scrap metal in the corner of my office. True, I had barely spent two minutes in there so far today, but that's all the time a Filing Cabinet of Death needs to gore a man alive.
I was alive and well and glowing from coffee that was not mine.
Everything else would fall into place.
***
Josh would not stop blathering on about the coffee thing this morning. I swear, no one else but me would put up with this. Anybody else would have murdered him in inventive ways.
Drawn and quartered.
Tarred and feathered.
Chopped into teeny tiny pieces with a letter opener.
That day, quite frankly, I had decided that I would not mind if the filing cabinet eats him alive.
Then, to coin a phrase, I got a bit of my own back.
Josh was searching for a date. Now, generally this kind of thing would worry me into a state of half jealous- okay more than half jealous- frenzy and I would obsess for days.
But he can't find one.
Yeah, I was happy. It was so adorable. Him, tearing his hair out over a date like that. You would have thought it was the Inaugural Ball or something.
He took me to the Inaugural Ball. Well, to be fair, we also worked through most of it, but hey- he took me. Because he can't get a date.
Mister I'm So Perfect, I Have Women Fawning Over Me Left and Right, can't get a date.
Then since I'm kinda one of those fawning women- I'm on the right, by the way- maybe I shouldn't really gloat so much.
"Why don't you use your normal method?" I had questioned.
"Normal method?" The man was confused beyond belief.
"Oops, I'm sorry, did I just step on your foot?"
"Oh, that method. Won't work."
"Really? And what earth-shattering occurrence clued you in?"
"Donna, this is serious."
"No, actually it's hilarious."
"I live for your amusement." If he hadn't been so insufferably sarcastic, I would have thought that was a sweet thing to say. But I just sat on the edge of his desk, swinging my legs back and forth as he looked for phone numbers of available females.
He kept clearing his throat- as if I would take it as a signal to leave. The poor man didn't want to be embarrassed as he pleaded on the phone! So I pretended not to hear and continued to mock him until Sam came in.
"Hey, Josh, ya busy?"
"He needs a date." I smiled.
"Huh?"
"What do you want, Sam?" sighed Josh.
"You need a date?"
"Sam, what do you want?" Sam, unfortunately, can get easily led off track. Damn, and I was having fun watching Josh squirm.
"Toby's ranting about Arroyo again and apparently the President agreed that he had a point."
"Oh God."
"We're doing a verbal reprimand."
"How bad? A warning, a detention or a spanking?"
"Uh- somewhere between no more TV and no car priveleges."
"Ouch."
"You need a date?"
Big Josh sigh. I decided to respond for him. "For the embassy ball on Friday."
"Oh, yeah. That. Well, what about that girl at the thing" Sam began making gestures and Josh started to make gestures and I lost my grip on the whole conversation.
"Oh, okay. Fine. What about Donna?" Sam pantomimed at me.
"I am previously engaged," I replied stuffily.
"What?" That shocked him.
Sam smiled. "That's great."
"I have a date of sorts"
"Of sorts?" Poor man, his voice cracked.
"Uh-huh."
"See, Sam, wouldn't work," he said and I was pretty sure he was trying to cover up some disappointment. Well, I liked to think so.
"Okay then- well I have a diatribe to write so happy hunting"
Josh tried to clear his throat again. I guess it goes without saying that I paid absolutely no attention.
"Uh, Donna, d'ya think you could, like, go do some stuffout there" he gestured to the bull pen, "for awhile. I- I have to make some calls"
"What kind of stuff?"
"Don't you have a memo to type or something?"
"All typed."
"A folder to file?"
"All filed."
"A solitaire record to beat?"
"Beaten it."
"Look, Miss Over-Achiever, could you get your rear end off my desk and go torment some one else?!"
"Well, there's no need to get hostile."
"I do not get hostile!"
"Yes you do, and you are right now."
"Go! Go now!"
I hopped down off the desk and couldn't resist one last comment: "Too bad Joey Lucas isn't in town since you've decided to gather rosebuds"
He threw a file at me. What puerile behavior, honestly! Yet, it didn't come within three feet of me. That's cuz, Josh, no matter what he likes to say about being an athlete or an outdoorsman, has no skills whatsoever.
Unfortunately, in my happy mood, I was completely oblivious to the fact that I was about to eat crow.
***