Revenge of the Cube Dweller (3 page)

Based on that interview, I’m quite certain that Hal has no idea who he’s hired. Under the pleading smile of a desperate, middle-aged woman content with scanning documents and fixing paper jams is the soul of a competitor. My plan is to remain patient and build a reputation for diligence, and I know the opportunities will eventually materialize.

If all goes as planned, in five years, I’ll have a corner office somewhere at Bishop. I am smart and driven and have nothing to do other than work, which is a clear recipe for success. Today’s audit, with the productive gumshoeing I did around the executive office, is proof that I am capable of going the extra mile to bring in results. Moe and Frank don’t stand a chance against me—and neither will be smart enough to realize this before it’s too late.

After finagling my way into the Bishop building, I arrive back at my condo at 8:45 a.m. On the way home I picked up a pack of Virginia Slims. Cigarettes are cheaper in Tulsa than in Houston and cheaper still when purchased from one of the Indian smoke shops that can sell them at reduced state tax rates. Typically, I smoke two cigarettes a day: one with my morning coffee and the second with an evening glass of white wine.

This is a secret I keep from just about everyone since there are such strong negative opinions about smokers. The Bishop building is smoke-free. For me to smoke at the office would be career suicide. Except for coffee drinking, the Bishop management team could pass for Mormon: no drinking, smoking, swearing, or skirt chasing. Winston’s company was exactly
the opposite; yet another example of the difference between upstream and midstream.

I pour a cup of coffee from the coffeemaker I’d set to brew at eight thirty, grab my portable landline, and open the sliding glass door to my tiny balcony that overlooks Utica Square, an upscale shopping center anchored by the smallest Saks Fifth Avenue in the United States. I didn’t have my cigarette this morning because I left pretty early to get downtown. I light one up, take the first drag, and place it on the crystal ashtray I keep on a small table by my patio chair.

The view from my balcony is charming, with expanses of tulips and pansies bordering the empty parking lots. There is not a single person at the square this morning, only the bronze statues of children and a wooden chainsaw carving of a Victorian woman. All the real people are probably at church. Tulsa is religious, and Bishop is even more so. I have seen mostly white Christians, and devout ones at that, in the corridors of my workplace. During my six-month tenure, I have been invited no fewer than eleven times to join a fellow employee for a church service. Everyone knows I am new to Tulsa, which means I’m fresh meat for any congregation. It never crosses anyone’s mind that I might not go to church.

I don’t. I’m an alumna of the Catholic Church and parochial schools, and I’ve already heard enough Kyrie Eleison for a lifetime. My response to these invitations has always been the same. “That is so nice, but I am attending services with my new neighbor at”—I make something up to say here—“but I will let you know if I feel like venturing out.” This is a pretty easy out because there are more churches in Tulsa than I have ever seen anywhere before.

My thoughts are shaken loose by the telephone ringing, and I pick it up and say, “Hello, Lucy.”

My sister Lucy, while not a card-carrying eco-terrorist, is surely a sympathizer, and at first she was horrified that I was working for Bishop. It is well known that Bennet and Baldwin Bishop fund conservative think tanks determined to undermine the social progress made in the past fifty years. Furthermore, Bishop is infamous among environmentalists for being one of the worst polluters and is the target of many a Sierra Club exposé. But Lucy is a bleeding heart in all respects and understands that a fifty-year-old woman who’s been out of the workforce for twenty years doesn’t have many options and needs health insurance, if nothing else. I believe she was sad that I hadn’t elected to take her up on her offer to move to her farm and live in the vintage airstream trailer she keeps for visitors, but even the biggest extremist can give way to rationalization when her sister is involved.

Lucy is extraordinarily well organized and schedules her calls like appointments. Every Sunday at 9:00 a.m. Tulsa time, I hear “Call from Lucy” announced by the caller ID. I refresh my coffee cup and hunker down for another episode of the latest adventures of Lucy O’Leary, organic farmer and sheep herder, and silently thank God I live in relative comfort, spared from castration duty or hand weeding acres of organic heirloom wheat.

“You bought a gun?” I ask. “You are the last person I would ever think of as owning a gun. Do you even know how to shoot one?”

“Well not a real gun, a paintball gun,” Lucy replies. “I lost three lambs this week to those coyotes.”

“Paintball?”

“I don’t want to kill them, just to discourage them, get them to realize preying on my lambs comes with a blast of purple or yellow paint. I really think that over time this will curb their behavior.”

“And just how long do you think it will take for the coyotes to make that connection? Are there clinical studies on behavior modification of coyotes? What if it backfires, Lucy? What if they actually think it’s fashionable to have purple and yellow fur? Then what?”

“Ha ha ha, smartass! Want to borrow my gun and tag a Bishop brother or two? Perhaps we can modify
their
behavior,” Lucy says.

“Oh, speaking of which,” I say and tell her about getting onto the executive floor this morning.

“Too bad I didn’t know this before. I might have asked you to drop off some Sierra Club literature.”

“Anyway, his secretary leaves her passwords practically out in plain sight, so I downloaded some files.”

Lucy immediately gets more serious. “What kind of files? What’s in them?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I say, nervous about her sudden interest. “I just got carried away. You know how I am. And besides, that’s not the point. The point is that there is this perception that Bishop security is impenetrable, and I proved it’s fairly easy to breach. They need to know that they have some pretty big holes that need to be filled.”

“Oh, before I forget,” Lucy says, changing the subject, “I spoke with Honey last night. Little Lulu got into NYU Tisch School of the Arts! Can you believe it? Broadway bound!” Lulu, our niece, is the youngest daughter of my third sister
Bumby. Honey, our eldest sister, the one who keeps us all connected, is a Catholic nun, and Bumby is the single mother of three daughters. Her husband Shamus was killed in a car wreck ten years ago.

“The tuition’s upwards of $50,000 a year and NYU offers a little aid, but not much. Bumby wants to know if you can help with tuition like you did for the others.”

“Yikes! Lucy. Does it make sense to drop a quarter of a million bucks on an education that could relegate her to waiting tables for the rest of her life?” I am stalling here, pondering the dismal returns I’m making on my portfolio these days. “I thought she wanted to be a nurse like her sisters.”

“She’s always wanted to act, she just didn’t think she’d get in anywhere like NYU. This is a huge opportunity, Tanzie. They’re very selective.”

Winston and I had no children of our own and gladly helped the nieces and nephews pay for their education. Now that Winston has become my wasband, I am fairly certain he will not continue to fund the O’Leary scholarship program. Still, it will not hurt to ask; that kind of money can probably be found under a seat cushion in his home, considering his outrageous executive salary. Plus, he has always adored Lulu and Bumby.

The idea of getting in touch with Winston, however, makes me wince. Maybe I can do it without bothering him. Fifty thousand a year will put a big dent in my portfolio, but I’m not going to be a grunt forever. In a couple of years, I might be making well over six figures a year. I’m not going to let my adorable Lulu turn down a chance like this.

“Of course I will,” I finally say. “Tell her not to worry. We can
figure something out. Find out from Bumby when she needs the money, okay?”

“Okay, I will.”

In our family, we often communicate indirectly, particularly when favors are asked. That way, the requester will not be humiliated if the request is denied. I don’t know if this is a European thing or just an O’Leary thing, but that’s how our business is taken care of. Lucy and I end our call with our family’s traditional Greek Easter greeting that we’ve repeated every Easter since childhood.

“Christos Anesti,” Lucy says.

“Alithos Anesti,” I reply as I hang up.

After my chat, I type up my notes from the morning’s security review and go back over them in preparation for the next day’s staff meeting. I smile and nod. This is my ticket. The simple request to validate base-level building security, thanks to me, has revealed breaches so profound that if the wrong people decided to take advantage of them, they could potentially bring down the company. The competitor in me cannot wait to see Moe and Frank react when I deliver my report. This is first-class work and perhaps the vehicle to move me out from under Moe and Frank altogether and into an office beside them.

I
take extra time getting ready this morning in preparation for the big meeting, applying root touchup to the hint of gray emerging from where my hair parts and selecting the perfect outfit. The expensive black knit St. John suit is a good choice because it screams money, power, and good taste. Most important, though, the stretchy material enables the wearer to look great anywhere within a four-size range.

“Hi there, girlie, you’re lookin’ pretty today.” It’s just before 9:00 a.m. Monday morning. I have been at my desk a full two hours before Hal gets to work. With a “World’s Best Dad” coffee mug in one hand and his briefcase in the other, he leans against my cube opening and waits for me to turn around and reciprocate the greeting.

“Did you have a nice Easter, Hal?”

“Yes I did, Tanzie, yes I did. We all went to church, of course.
Then we had everyone over for lunch and the Webber Annual Egg Hunt. Little Mike won again this year; that’s three in a row.”

I smile politely at my boss and listen attentively as he continues the blow-by-blow coverage. Engineers tend to be even more detail oriented than accountants, so Hal’s descriptions leave nothing out: what everyone wore, what was in each Easter basket, and what was served for lunch.

“Nancy baked a ham and made one of those casseroles, what are they called—with the green beans, onions, and canned soup?”

“Green bean casserole?”

“Oh yes, that’s it! That’s it. Green bean casserole. You girls sure understand a way to a man’s heart. And pie. No restaurant can make a crust like Nancy. Don’t ask her to balance a checkbook, though. Girls have so much trouble with math. Don’t know why; maybe God just made them that way.” Hal leans down toward me. “And I’m glad he did,” he whispers.

“I have a CPA, Hal. I can balance a checkbook,” I say and smile.

“Whoa, now, miss women’s lib. SORRY!” He backs away, waving his hands in exaggerated regret. “I forgot you’re from California. I meant most girls.” Hal chuckles. “Some girls, like you, Tanzie, are great with numbers. Very good trench workers.”

“Thanks, Hal. I appreciate the compliment. Do you think—”

“Keep dressing up like today, Tanzie, and it won’t be long before you find a new husband and can quit this job.”

I let out a sigh as I sit back down and watch Hal walk toward his office. I look at my clock. I have about five minutes before the staff meeting, so I visit the ladies’ room for a fresh coat of lipstick and a quick quality check for lint or stray hairs. I take
some deep breaths and rehearse in my head exactly how I am going to present my findings.

There are only four of us, so we fit around Hal’s small table rather than tie up a conference room. I am the lowest on the totem pole, but I report directly to Hal. That is a political move, because he has two managers and doesn’t want to upset either of them with a disproportionate reporting structure. Thus, even though both Moe and Frank assign my work, and I have only limited contact with Hal, I am invited to the Monday morning roundtable.

The meeting begins with an update of what is on Hal’s calendar that week: meetings, business trips, and lunches with important people. Then he goes around the room asking Moe and Frank to let him know what they are working on and about any progress that has been made since the last meeting. Generally, I don’t have a speaking part, and Frank and Moe answer for me because I work under their supervision. Frank begins his update using the checklist on the memo pad he uses to keep track of his reportable events. I watch him tick the little boxes he has drawn beside each item as he goes down the list.

The most noteworthy thing about Frank is that he is not noteworthy. He is completely ordinary in every respect: neither handsome nor homely; he smiles infrequently and laughs even less; he is medium height, medium weight, about thirty years old with a blond number-three buzz cut. Eyewitness descriptions, should he venture into a life of crime, would narrow the field to about every third man in Tulsa. If not for the cheap polyester ties he favors, Frank would blend in with any beige wall in the Bishop building.