Harry Turtledove - Supervolcano :Eruption

“Oh,” Louise said: a word full of gloom if ever there was one.

“Want me to walk you through it the first time?” the woman asked. She added, “I’m Patty. If you don’t learn it from me, Nobashi- san sure as hell won’t be able to explain it to you.”

“Thanks! Would you, please?” Now Louise knew she sounded pathetically eager, but she didn’t care. Maybe there was a cork ring on this ocean of trouble after all.

“Here. What you gotta do is…” Quickly and deftly, Patty did it. When she noticed she was working on copies-Louise hadn’t even renamed them yet-she let out a wry chuckle. “You ain’t so dumb, are ya, sweetie?”

“If I’m not, what am I doing here?” Louise asked in return.

This time, Patty laughed out loud. “You see how I set up the inventory transfer?” she asked. When Louise shook her head, Patty did it again, slower this time. “Okay,” she said, rising from the chair. “Now you try it.”

With no enormous hope, Louise did. Damned if it didn’t work! Louise clapped her hands together in amazed delight. She just missed cheering out loud.

“See? It ain’t so tough,” Patty said. “Now e-mail the spreadsheet to the boss and go on to the next one.”

Before Louise could, the phone rang. Answering it was part of the job. When she did, somebody started gabbing at her in excited Japanese. “One moment, please,” she answered in English, and pressed the HOLD button. Then she fumbled her way through transferring the call to Mr. Nobashi. Patty also helped her there.

“You’re a lifesaver,” Louise exclaimed, remembering her thought of a few minutes before. “Why didn’t you get this slot?”

“ ’Cause I didn’t want it,” Patty answered calmly. “I’d sooner just crunch numbers most of the time. Nobashi pretty much leaves me alone, on account of he knows goddamn well I’m good at what I do. But you-you’re gonna have to deal with him, you poor thing, you.”

“Does he try to get his girls to go to bed with him? Is he one of those?” Louise asked. “I’ll knock his block off if he does.”

“Nah.” Patty shook her head. “He knows better’n that. Guy he took over for two, three years ago thought he could get away with that crap, like he would’ve in Japan. The gal he hit on didn’t slug him. She sued the company instead-won a pile of dough, too. So Nobashi keeps his hands to himself.”

“What’s so bad about him, then?”

Mr. Nobashi chose that minute to yell “Coffee!” from his inner sanctum. “Coffee and sweet rolls!”

Louise rapidly discovered that he ran on coffee and sweet rolls. Tea? Rice? Sashimi? Ramen, even? When sugar and caffeine weren’t enough to rock his world, he sent her down the street to pick up big boxes of drumsticks and thighs at Popeyes Chicken amp; Biscuits. So grease was definitely one of his basic food groups, too.

He also guzzled bottled water by the case. He didn’t go to the refrigerator to grab a bottle himself. God forbid! That would have been beneath a boss’ dignity. He yelled for Louise to fetch and carry instead. No matter what else she was doing, bringing his supplies was more important.

By midafternoon that first day, Louise understood exactly why Patty wanted nothing to do with the position she now occupied herself. Mr. Nobashi might not be a lech, at least on company time. A pain in the ass he definitely was.

But the ramen company paid pretty well. The woman that other exec from Japan had sexually harassed hadn’t taken them for every nickel they owned. Besides, as long as there were college students, no ramen outfit would ever go broke. Marshall sometimes seemed to live on the stuff. So had Rob, in his college days. Vanessa… From what Louise remembered, ramen was beneath Vanessa’s dignity.

As soon as it got to be half past five, Patty said, “I am so outa here. If you’ve got sense, you’ll bail, too. Otherwise, they’ll think you want to make like a salaryman and they’ll keep you here 24/7. Sometimes I think Mr. Nobashi lives in that crappy little office of his.”

Bail Louise did. A different rent-a-cop was guarding the parking lot: a burly Hispanic guy who might have been an ex-Marine. He tipped his Smokey Bear hat to her as she slid into her car.

Teo was home before her. Better yet, he’d brought back Thai takeout so she wouldn’t have to mess with ground round or chicken. “You’re so sweet!” she said. Colin would never have done anything like that. He expected to be fed. Just like Mr. Nobashi, Louise thought, a little surprised at herself.

“Hey, it’s your first day, er younger lover said, opening packages. The smells of spices and coconut filled the condo. “How did it go?”

“It’s not exciting, but I coped. One of the gals there is showing me the ropes, so that helps. The Japanese guy in charge is a real piece of work.” Louise was checking out the plastic and styrofoam package. “Oh, you got that squid salad I like!”

“I thought that was the one.” Teo made a point of keeping in mind what she liked and what she didn’t. Even though they’d been together for almost three years now, Louise still wasn’t used to that. What had she ever been to Colin but a convenience?

He was still hanging out with that geographer or geologist or whatever she was. That vaguely irked Louise, who hadn’t expected him to make anything last. After all, if she couldn’t put up with him anymore, what halfway-sane woman would be able to? Well, from what she’d heard, her ex’s squeeze was a lot younger. Odds were she didn’t have standards of comparison.

Louise did. She knew just how lucky she was. Teo’d barely had to lift a finger to sweep her off her feet.

“How was your day?” she asked him as she spooned food onto a paper plate. If she wasn’t going to worry about cooking tonight, she wasn’t going to worry about doing dishes, either.

“No sweat,” he answered. It made her laugh, the way it always did. For Teo, sweating-and making other people sweat-was making a living. It was also what made him look so good. Colin was like a brick with soft corners. She’d forgotten what a man ought to be like till she signed up for the aerobics class. She knew now, by God, and she’d never forget again.

“How many girls want your special program?” she teased. She knew she hadn’t been the first one he’d attracted. She just hoped-and kept hoping-to stay interested enough to keep ahead of the competition.

He grinned at her. He knew what she was thinking. Sometimes he sassed her about it. Always gently, though-a younger man didn’t want to set an older woman worrying. A younger man with a heart didn’t, anyhow. “Nobody you’ve got to worry about. Believe me,” he said now.

And Louise did believe him. She brought the paper plate over to the table and sat down beside him. No police scanner farted out calls. The TV wasn’t on, tuned to the news. Nothing but the two of them and dinner. Who needed more?

Sitting by Teo, she had no trouble forgetting Mr. Nobashi, either, or her anxieties about Excel. And if that wasn’t magic, what would be?

Colin Ferguson tried to carry around in his head a map of everything the San Atanasio Police Department was doing at any given moment. The city grid was easy enough. He knew the routes the patrol cars took, and when each car would be where.

He also knew where the detectives were working, and about the meth buy the drug squad was trying to arrange. Before long, though, something always screwed up his perfect picture. There’d be a big accident, or a knifing outside a strip club on Hesperus, or a shooting in one of the Cuban bars at the north end of San Atanasio Boulevard. Like splashes in a calm pool, the ripples from something like that would distort the picture for a while.