Bentley Little: The Ignored

“If you have any other problems or questions, over anything at all, you can come to me.” She smiled, and there seemed to be more than friendliness in that smile. It had been a while since I’d been available or looking, and maybe I was misreading the signs, but it occurred to me that she was genuinely interested. I thought of the light pat on the shoulder in the conference room, thought of the way she’d bent over in front of the TV. She handed me the insurance brochures, and for the briefest of seconds, our fingers touched. I felt cool skin, lingering a beat too long.

She was definitely flirting.

I noticed for the first time that she was not wearing a bra, that I could see the outline of her nipples against the thin material of her blouse.

My face felt hot, but I tried my best to cover it by smiling, nodding my thanks, and backing smoothly away from the counter. I was flattered but not in the market, and I didn’t want to give her the wrong impression.

“Mr. Banks’ office is on the fifth floor,” Lisa said. “Do you want me to show you where it is?”

I shook my head. “I’ll find it. Thanks.”

“Okay, but any problems, you give me a yell.” She waved at me, smiling.

“I will,” I said. “Thanks.”

I stood by the elevator, waiting, willing it to hurry, not daring to look back to where I knew Lisa was still standing, watching me. Finally the metal doors slid open, and I stepped inside, pressing the button for the fifth floor.

I waved good-bye as the doors closed.

I had no trouble finding Ted Banks. He was waiting in front of the doors when they opened, and he reached out and shook my hand the second I stepped off the elevator. “Glad to see you again,” he said, although he seemed anything but glad. I remembered him now. He’d been the surly older man at my interview, one of the two who’d sat silently through the proceedings. He stopped shaking my hand and smiled at me, but it was a pretend smile and did not reach his eyes. Not that I could see his eyes very clearly behind the thick black-framed glasses. “What do you say we walk over to my office so we can get acquainted?”

“Okay,” I said.

“Good.”

I followed him to his office. Neither of us spoke along the way, and I found myself wishing that I had taken Lisa up on her offer to accompany me here. I could not see Banks’ face, just the back of his head, but he seemed to me to be angry. There was something about the way he carried himself that seemed… hostile. I found myself wondering if I’d been hired over his objections. I got the feeling I had.

In his office, he sat behind his desk in a high-backed leather chair and motioned for me to take the seat opposite him. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s talk.”

We talked. Or rather he talked, I listened. He told me about the corporation, about the department, about my job. Automated Interface, he said, was not only an industry leader in the development of commercial business software, it was also a great place to work. It offered a comfortable yet professional working environment and limitless opportunity for advancement for those with ability and ambition. The most important department within the organization, he said, was Documentation Standards, since it was by the clarity of the software documentation that customers tended to judge the user-friendliness of a product. Documentation was in the front lines of both public relations and customer support, and the continued success of the corporation rested in large part with the quality of documentation. In my position, according to Banks, I would be directly affecting, for better or worse, the statue of the department and, by extension, the entire company.

I nodded as Banks spoke, agreeing with him, pretending like I knew what the hell he was talking about even though I had only a vague idea of what was being discussed. Software documentation? User-friendliness? These were not terms with which I was comfortable or familiar. These were phrases I’d heard but had always made an extra effort to avoid. This was someone else’s language, not mine.

“Do you have any questions so far?” Banks asked.

I shook my head.

“Good,” he said.

But it was anything but good. He continued to talk, and I continued to listen, but… how can I describe it? The atmosphere was uncomfortable? There was no rapport between us? We were different types of people? All of these descriptions are correct, but they do not really reflect what I felt in that office. For as we sat there, as we looked at one another, we both realized that we did not like each other — and never would. There is a sort of instantaneous antipathy between people who don’t get along, an unspoken recognition acknowledged by both parties, and that was what was happening here. The conversation remained polite, official, and the surface formalities were observed, but there was something else going on as well, and the relationship that was being forged between us was not one of friendship.

If we’d both been ten and on the playground at school, Ted Banks would have been one of the bullies who wanted to beat me up.

“Ron Stewart will be your immediate supervisor,” Banks was saying. “Ron is Coordinator of Interoffice Procedures and Phase II Documentation, and you’ll be reporting directly to him.”

As if on cue, there was a knock on the door. “Come in!” Banks called.

The door opened, and Ron Stewart stepped into the office.

I disliked him on sight.

I don’t know why. There was no rational reason. I didn’t know the man at all and really had nothing to base my judgment on, but my first impression was strong, very strong, and definitely not favorable.

Stewart walked confidently into the room. He was tall and good-looking, dressed impeccably in a gray business suit, white shirt, and red tie. He strode into the office smiling, offering me his hand, and there was something about his bearing, about the arrogant way he walked, stood, and carried himself, that immediately rubbed me the wrong way. But I put on a smile, stood, shook his hand, and returned his greeting.

“Glad to have you aboard,” he said. His voice was brisk, curt, businesslike. His grip was strong and firm. Too firm.

Glad to have you aboard. I’d known before he opened his mouth that he’d say something like that, that he’d use some sports metaphor, that he’d welcome me “aboard,” tell me he was glad to have me on the “team.”

I nodded politely.

“I’m looking forward to working with you, Jones. From what I’ve heard, I think you’ll be a valuable asset to AII.”

From what he’d heard? I watched Stewart as he sat down. What could he have heard?

“I’ve been talking to Jones about our overall operation,” Banks said. “Why don’t you tell him a little bit about Interoffice Procedures and Phase II Documentation.”

Stewart began talking, repeating an obviously memorized spiel. I listened to him, nodded in the appropriate places, but I found it hard to concentrate on what he was saying. His tone of voice was unrelievedly condescending, as though he was explaining a simple concept to a slow child, and although I allowed no reaction to show on my face, his tone grated on me.

Finally, Stewart stood. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll take you on a tour of the department.”

“Okay,” I said.

We took the elevators downstairs, to the fourth floor, walking through the rabbit warren of modular workstations where the Phase II programmers were housed. He introduced me to each: Emery Phillips, Dave DeMotta, Stacy Kerrin, Dan Chan, Kim Thomas, Gary Yamaguchi, Albert Connor, and Pam Greene. They seemed nice enough, most of them, but they were all so involved in their work it was hard to tell. Only Stacy, a short, ultra efficient-looking blond woman, bothered to look up from her terminal when I was introduced. She met my eyes, gave me a brisk nod, shook my hand, then turned away. The rest of them merely nodded distractedly or raised a curt hand in greeting.