James Hynes - Kings of Infinite Space

“Am I working for that woman,” Paul asked, his voice low and tight, “or with her?”

“Hm?” Rick blinked up at Paul.

“You heard me.”

Rick’s eyebrows wobbled, and he drew a deep breath. “Well, son, you’re working for the Texas Department of General Services at their sole discretion. So just like me, and Olivia, and everybody else in this cheer building, you do whatever’s necessary to serve the people of the great state of Texas.”

He held Paul’s gaze until Paul looked away. The twisted limbs of the dying oak beyond Rick’s office window seemed to be reaching for him.

“Is that all?” Rick lowered his eyes to the file folder.

Paul leaned over the desk and, with both hands, turned Rick’s file right side up. Then he wheeled out the door. Back in his own cube, Paul could feel Olivia across the aisle working her pen like a scalpel through the RFP. He heard the busy tap and scratch of her pen, heard it stop, heard her utter a bonechilling “ Hm .”

I can’t do this, Paul thought. I can’t sit here all afternoon while she does that . Callie, where the hell are you? He stood and snatched three soda cans from the row of empties against the back of his desk. Squeezing the cans together between his hands, he bolted around the corner into the fluorescent glare of the elevator lobby. He half expected to see Dennis the Dead Tech Writer beyond the tall window, smoking a cigarette and laughing at him, but the landing was empty. On wobbly knees Paul approached the recycling box, a waist-high, square-topped cardboard shaft with a single, can-sized hole in its fitted lid. ALUMINUM ONLY, it read across the front, NO BOTTLES PLEASE, NO TRASH. Paul set the cans on top of the lid, and he violently flattened one of them between his hands, raising sharp angles against his palms. Squeezing his lips bloodlessly together, he jammed the can through the lid, expecting to hear it hit the other cans in the box.

Only he heard nothing. After the pop it made going through the hole, the can had made no metallic clink of contact with the other cans. It made no sound at all. Paul stood very still for a moment, then leaned over and peered into the hole. All he saw was blackness, so he bent lower and turned his ear to the opening. He still heard nothing, but was that a slight breeze he felt, dank and cold, brushing his earlobe?

He cradled the second can in the curl of his fingers. Without crushing it, he gingerly stuck it through the hole and held it there for a moment. Then, at the instant he released it, he jerked forward over the hole and peered in. Again, nothing, so he turned his ear once more to the hole, listening, listening, until he almost thought he heard, after a long, breathless wait, a tiny, distant, echoing clink!

Paul started back from the box. The last can was sitting on the corner of the cardboard lid. Paul picked up the can and, at arm’s length, slowly slid it halfway into the hole. He held his breath, but before he could release it, the can was jerked from his fingers, as if something inside the box had grabbed it. Paul leaped back, all the way across the lobby, until he was pressed against the floor-length window. Through the pounding of his pulse in his ears, he swore he could hear, issuing from the infernally black little hole on top of the box, a long, inhuman sigh.

BUT IT WAS ONLY THE ELEVATOR, making its groan of hydraulic ennui as it reached the second floor. The door rattled open, and a pert young woman in a trim, green business suit stepped blinking into the entry. She was clipping a TxDoGS visitor’s badge to her lapel, and as Paul peeled himself off the window, she turned a blank, overly made-up face to him. Her eyes lit up and she delivered a megawatt smile.

“Paul?” she chirped, cocking her head. “Paul Trilby?”

“Yes?”

“I was just coming to see you!” She stepped towards him, beaming. “The security guard sent me up! I almost didn’t recognize you!”

“Okay.” Paul warily noted the exits — he could bolt around the corner to the men’s room or back through the doorway into cubeland.

“How you doin’?” The young woman spoke as if she knew him, canting her head so that her bangs bounced.

“Good.” Paul shot a glance at the recycling box, half expecting to see the lid lifted from within by pale fingers.

“I got somethin’ for you,” said the woman in a kittenish growl, pursing her bright lips. She was clearly a little too much for TxDoGS. The waist of her jacket was nipped in too tight, her skirt was too short, and her legs were too trim. She reminded Paul of a younger, prettier, more fuckable version of his landlady, Mrs. Prettyman.

Erika! he nearly cried aloud. The young woman from the temp agency who had found him the job at TxDoGS! And she’s here with my retroactive paycheck!

“Oh, good!” Paul said, with a great deal of relief. After the shock of finding himself yoked to Olivia Haddock, and after his semihallucinatory little encounter just now with the recycling box, fate had wheeled the lovely Erika into view, with her bright mouth and narrow waist and lovely legs, bringing him money.

“I hope you like it,” Erika said. She turned up her lovely palm and offered him a little blue cardboard box.

“I beg your pardon?” Paul took the box. TIFFANY & CO., read the lid.

“It’s our Outstanding Stand-in award!” squeaked Erika.

Paul lifted the little lid and found a silvery tiepin on a cushion of cotton.

“You’ve been doing such a great job for us here,” Erika was saying, “I can’t begin to tell you! When Rick called us last week to tell us about your raise — and congratulations, by the way!” she cried, touching him lightly on the wrist. “Well, he just raved about you! Said he wished he had a permanent position for you!”

Paul tipped the little box onto his palm. The Outstanding Stand-in tiepin was a reproduction of the agency’s logo, a tiny, sexless, stylized figure, arms outstretched, inscribed in a circle.

“It’s genuine silver plated!” Erika sounded as happy as if she were receiving the award herself. “It’s designed specially for us by Tiffany’s of New York City! You can’t buy it in stores!”

“I’m not surprised,” said Paul. So much for his extra money. He felt like the little figure trapped in the tiepin — tiny, dickless, crucified.

“Now I made real sure you got the tiepin and not the earrings.” Erika sounded a little worried at Paul’s lack of enthusiasm. “Unless you want the earrings.”

“No,” said Paul. “This’ll do.”

“Fantastic!” Erika revved up to full force again. “Keep up the good work!” Her smile dimmed as she turned towards the elevator. The click of her heels into the car was like the last nail being tapped into the coffin of Paul’s dignity.

“Erika,” Paul said, jumping forward, “about my raise—”

“Sorry?” Erika brightened slightly as the elevator door slid shut, and then she was gone.

Paul fumbled the tiepin back into the little box, then he stuffed the box in his pocket and went back to his desk, his shoulders sagging, his legs like lead. He endured an hour or so in his cube, trying to ignore Olivia’s vibe from across the aisle, until finally he snatched up the Wells volume and went down to the corner table in the empty, dusky lunchroom. After only five minutes of pretending to read The Island of Dr. Moreau , Paul was in luck; Callie appeared at the far end of the room and weaved between the empty tables towards him, her head down, her arms crossed. Paul closed the book, so relieved he almost teared up.

“You have no idea,” he said, before she even sat down, “what a crummy fucking day I’ve had.”