Author's Note: See Chapter 1 for disclaimer.
* * * * * THE TALE OF MARIAN
CHAPTER 2 - SOMETIMES WORK SUCKS (BUT WE LOVE IT)
It began in earnest when Marian finally decided to take a vacation. Well, yes, I talked her into it, and, yes, I might have (very subtly, I might add) steered her in a certain general direction, but it had been her decision to go. More or less.
For years I had been trying to convince her to quit and open up her own office, with me as a partner. Of course, she never took me seriously. It became more of a game, an idea to toy with during those times when things went wrong, our boss Ed was upset, or we were frustrated out of our minds. Then one of us would announce to the room in general, making sure Ed was nowhere around at the time, that WE WERE GOING TO QUIT! Of course, after the third or fourth time no one believed us and some of the melodrama was lost, but it was always good for a superb bitch session that would clear the air and release the collective tension of us all for at least a day or two. It was a miracle that we didn't get fired. Marian and I would decide where to put our office, which clients to steal, what our guiding principles would be. We made up names for our company, and whose name would go first. (I still think mine would have sounded better going first.) We argued about what color the carpet would be and whose desk would get the window. Very few of us had windows. Not enough windows, in an architecture office, mind you. When we weren't threatening to quit, we made plans for midnight raids with saws-alls to cut skylights in the roof. But, since Ed was only renting the building, we restrained ourselves. If he had owned it we would have gladly torn it apart for him when he wasn't looking. He may even have enjoyed it. When we were threatening to quit, we complained bitterly about what we did for a living and how underpaid, underappreciated and misunderstood our noble profession was.
The sad facts were: 1. We fiercely loved what we did for a living; 2. We knew we could do it our way, true to our own philosophy, if we went out and did it on our own; 3. We were too chicken to go out and do it on our own.
Then one day after a particularly grueling all-night work session, Marian declared (again) that she was going to quit. This time, I think she might have been serious. So I talked her into going on a vacation instead, to sort things out. No matter that I had been planting the seeds of this particular vacation idea in her head for quite some time (I am patient as well as subtle). Quitting would have served the purpose too, but I thought she needed more time. I know I'm being obscure, but you'll see soon enough what I mean.
I remember that night. We sat for the third evening in a row, Marian strumming her fingernails on her drafting table and staring at her screensaver, the smell of Sharpie pens and Pantone markers hovering over her cubicle and drifting over into mine like a headache just waiting to happen.
Strumm. . . Strumm. . . . . . . . . . Strumm.
"Please, just stop it!" I blurted out. We were both a little testy by this time.
I straightened up from my computer and gave her a long-suffering look. She was staring at her screensaver. Redwoods misty in the rain, pearly drops of water dripping from wet-gleaming ferns in the foreground.
"Bite me, Jason," she said absentmindedly. She sighed and tore off another piece of tracing paper. I came over to look over her shoulder as she quickly sketched the meeting room of our library project on the other side of the grand entrance, rotating it so that the entrance doors angled nicely to the courtyard. I thought it had promise.
"Shit!"
Well, maybe not.
"Damn it! Now the whole relationship of the workroom to the stacks is screwed up again. Wait a minute, didn't we just try this a couple of hours ago?"
She looked longingly back at the screensaver, and I followed her gaze. Shafts of morning sunlight piercing the fog through the forest branches, the air dense, heavy, mysterious. A magic moment, when anything seemed possible.
"Where?" I challenged.
"Where what?" she growled back, crumpling the tracing paper and tossing it over my shoulder toward the trash. Missing again.
I leaned over and back to grab the trace, arching it into the trash can and pivoting myself up rather too close behind her. She was looking over her shoulder at me with a rather puzzled look on her face.
"Where shall I bite you, seeing as how you have finally succumbed to my many charms?" I purred and caressed her neck with my breath. I swear she gave a barely perceptible shiver. I have been told I am difficult to resist. I know this is true. I have also been told I am a smug, self- centered, self-admiring skirt chaser. Usually it is Marian who calls me this, and much worse.
She finished turning around (difficult to do, considering how close I was standing to her) and looked up at me. I gave her my most devastating drown- in-my-deep-blue-eyes look.
"What, and go where all women have gone before?" She looked more closely. "Do you realize that your eyes are more bloodshot than mine are?"
"Well, they wouldn't be if the fumes from your little color crayons were not gagging me. Why don't you ever do this on the computer, Marian, it would be so much easier?"
"Because I am a dinosaur and I can't think on that thing, and you know it. When the concept works, I'll fine tune it on there, don't worry." Then she paused, her eyes twinkled, and her voice lowered: "What you are missing, lover, is the feeling of pen on paper, that. . . . . sensual mind/hand connection that your creative side craves. A computer cannot give you that pleasure, Jason."
"Ah, Marian, do not try to beat me at my own game. I am the master. You will fail miserably, and for what? The computer responds to my every touch, my every command. I make it sing, I make it glow. I can make you glow too, my Marian. Why do you think I am here so late with you, year after year, night after night?"
"Do NOT make me throw up, Jason," but she smiled in spite of herself. I tried to look hurt. "You are here for the same reason I am, because we have a design presentation tomorrow, we want to keep our jobs, and we want to figure this out and make it look bloody brilliant. Now shoo, go back to your computer and let's finish this before we fall asleep on our desks."
Instead, of course, I leaned over her and looked at the multitude of overlaid, over-taped sketches on her desk.
"This is a mess."
"Thank you for stating the obvious," she said dryly. Then she squirmed. "Will you help me? I feel like I've almost got it, but I'm too tired to see it."
"I am always at your beck and call, my dear, if only you could see my total devotion to you." Bowing, I turned to retrieve my chair, draw my chair up to her desk and sit.
"I still say that you take ballet lessons in secret, Jason," she whispered, the puzzled look back on her face.
I looked around swiftly as if someone might be eavesdropping. Fat chance, we were the ones with a looming deadline this night. "Do not ruin my reputation. If you will not surrender, I will have to turn to another beautiful woman to rain attention on, like Jennifer."
"She's EIGHTEEN! She's impressionable! All you'd have to do is whisper a few endearments in her ear and she would fall head over heels with you. You can't be that cruel!"
"Cruel! I have had no complaints, no tears. Only compliments and thank- you's. However, you know that I prefer more mature, more experienced women...or men," I shrugged.
"Can we please concentrate on work for a few minutes?"
"Fine, we will find the key that will unlock this puzzle, this inside- outside problem, then we will drink coffee and watch the sun rise together over Starbucks."
"You will never make me drink coffee, any more than you will ever get me into bed."
Yes, but you like me to try, I thought to myself. All women do. It makes them feel as beautiful as they all really are.
"Drink diet cola then, if you must punish your body that way, and watch ME drink coffee in the sunrise."
"See this mirror, Jason?" She showed me myself in her compact as she grimaced, no doubt over the sickening thought of cola in the morning.
"Yes..."
"You are such a BLOND."
A tiny wave of homesickness came over me. I hope it didn't show in my face, but Marian could read me a little too well. "Where I come from everyone is blond," I said proudly, sticking my chin in the air.
"Jason, your MOTHER isn't even blond."
"Well," I said, waving my arms for emphasis, "everyone besides my mother is blond."
"Remind me to tell her how sorry I am next time she visits you."
* * * * * THE TALE OF MARIAN
CHAPTER 2 - SOMETIMES WORK SUCKS (BUT WE LOVE IT)
It began in earnest when Marian finally decided to take a vacation. Well, yes, I talked her into it, and, yes, I might have (very subtly, I might add) steered her in a certain general direction, but it had been her decision to go. More or less.
For years I had been trying to convince her to quit and open up her own office, with me as a partner. Of course, she never took me seriously. It became more of a game, an idea to toy with during those times when things went wrong, our boss Ed was upset, or we were frustrated out of our minds. Then one of us would announce to the room in general, making sure Ed was nowhere around at the time, that WE WERE GOING TO QUIT! Of course, after the third or fourth time no one believed us and some of the melodrama was lost, but it was always good for a superb bitch session that would clear the air and release the collective tension of us all for at least a day or two. It was a miracle that we didn't get fired. Marian and I would decide where to put our office, which clients to steal, what our guiding principles would be. We made up names for our company, and whose name would go first. (I still think mine would have sounded better going first.) We argued about what color the carpet would be and whose desk would get the window. Very few of us had windows. Not enough windows, in an architecture office, mind you. When we weren't threatening to quit, we made plans for midnight raids with saws-alls to cut skylights in the roof. But, since Ed was only renting the building, we restrained ourselves. If he had owned it we would have gladly torn it apart for him when he wasn't looking. He may even have enjoyed it. When we were threatening to quit, we complained bitterly about what we did for a living and how underpaid, underappreciated and misunderstood our noble profession was.
The sad facts were: 1. We fiercely loved what we did for a living; 2. We knew we could do it our way, true to our own philosophy, if we went out and did it on our own; 3. We were too chicken to go out and do it on our own.
Then one day after a particularly grueling all-night work session, Marian declared (again) that she was going to quit. This time, I think she might have been serious. So I talked her into going on a vacation instead, to sort things out. No matter that I had been planting the seeds of this particular vacation idea in her head for quite some time (I am patient as well as subtle). Quitting would have served the purpose too, but I thought she needed more time. I know I'm being obscure, but you'll see soon enough what I mean.
I remember that night. We sat for the third evening in a row, Marian strumming her fingernails on her drafting table and staring at her screensaver, the smell of Sharpie pens and Pantone markers hovering over her cubicle and drifting over into mine like a headache just waiting to happen.
Strumm. . . Strumm. . . . . . . . . . Strumm.
"Please, just stop it!" I blurted out. We were both a little testy by this time.
I straightened up from my computer and gave her a long-suffering look. She was staring at her screensaver. Redwoods misty in the rain, pearly drops of water dripping from wet-gleaming ferns in the foreground.
"Bite me, Jason," she said absentmindedly. She sighed and tore off another piece of tracing paper. I came over to look over her shoulder as she quickly sketched the meeting room of our library project on the other side of the grand entrance, rotating it so that the entrance doors angled nicely to the courtyard. I thought it had promise.
"Shit!"
Well, maybe not.
"Damn it! Now the whole relationship of the workroom to the stacks is screwed up again. Wait a minute, didn't we just try this a couple of hours ago?"
She looked longingly back at the screensaver, and I followed her gaze. Shafts of morning sunlight piercing the fog through the forest branches, the air dense, heavy, mysterious. A magic moment, when anything seemed possible.
"Where?" I challenged.
"Where what?" she growled back, crumpling the tracing paper and tossing it over my shoulder toward the trash. Missing again.
I leaned over and back to grab the trace, arching it into the trash can and pivoting myself up rather too close behind her. She was looking over her shoulder at me with a rather puzzled look on her face.
"Where shall I bite you, seeing as how you have finally succumbed to my many charms?" I purred and caressed her neck with my breath. I swear she gave a barely perceptible shiver. I have been told I am difficult to resist. I know this is true. I have also been told I am a smug, self- centered, self-admiring skirt chaser. Usually it is Marian who calls me this, and much worse.
She finished turning around (difficult to do, considering how close I was standing to her) and looked up at me. I gave her my most devastating drown- in-my-deep-blue-eyes look.
"What, and go where all women have gone before?" She looked more closely. "Do you realize that your eyes are more bloodshot than mine are?"
"Well, they wouldn't be if the fumes from your little color crayons were not gagging me. Why don't you ever do this on the computer, Marian, it would be so much easier?"
"Because I am a dinosaur and I can't think on that thing, and you know it. When the concept works, I'll fine tune it on there, don't worry." Then she paused, her eyes twinkled, and her voice lowered: "What you are missing, lover, is the feeling of pen on paper, that. . . . . sensual mind/hand connection that your creative side craves. A computer cannot give you that pleasure, Jason."
"Ah, Marian, do not try to beat me at my own game. I am the master. You will fail miserably, and for what? The computer responds to my every touch, my every command. I make it sing, I make it glow. I can make you glow too, my Marian. Why do you think I am here so late with you, year after year, night after night?"
"Do NOT make me throw up, Jason," but she smiled in spite of herself. I tried to look hurt. "You are here for the same reason I am, because we have a design presentation tomorrow, we want to keep our jobs, and we want to figure this out and make it look bloody brilliant. Now shoo, go back to your computer and let's finish this before we fall asleep on our desks."
Instead, of course, I leaned over her and looked at the multitude of overlaid, over-taped sketches on her desk.
"This is a mess."
"Thank you for stating the obvious," she said dryly. Then she squirmed. "Will you help me? I feel like I've almost got it, but I'm too tired to see it."
"I am always at your beck and call, my dear, if only you could see my total devotion to you." Bowing, I turned to retrieve my chair, draw my chair up to her desk and sit.
"I still say that you take ballet lessons in secret, Jason," she whispered, the puzzled look back on her face.
I looked around swiftly as if someone might be eavesdropping. Fat chance, we were the ones with a looming deadline this night. "Do not ruin my reputation. If you will not surrender, I will have to turn to another beautiful woman to rain attention on, like Jennifer."
"She's EIGHTEEN! She's impressionable! All you'd have to do is whisper a few endearments in her ear and she would fall head over heels with you. You can't be that cruel!"
"Cruel! I have had no complaints, no tears. Only compliments and thank- you's. However, you know that I prefer more mature, more experienced women...or men," I shrugged.
"Can we please concentrate on work for a few minutes?"
"Fine, we will find the key that will unlock this puzzle, this inside- outside problem, then we will drink coffee and watch the sun rise together over Starbucks."
"You will never make me drink coffee, any more than you will ever get me into bed."
Yes, but you like me to try, I thought to myself. All women do. It makes them feel as beautiful as they all really are.
"Drink diet cola then, if you must punish your body that way, and watch ME drink coffee in the sunrise."
"See this mirror, Jason?" She showed me myself in her compact as she grimaced, no doubt over the sickening thought of cola in the morning.
"Yes..."
"You are such a BLOND."
A tiny wave of homesickness came over me. I hope it didn't show in my face, but Marian could read me a little too well. "Where I come from everyone is blond," I said proudly, sticking my chin in the air.
"Jason, your MOTHER isn't even blond."
"Well," I said, waving my arms for emphasis, "everyone besides my mother is blond."
"Remind me to tell her how sorry I am next time she visits you."