Shanna Swendson - Enchanted, Inc

Then I noticed that Slick was looking at Mr. Right as well, and suddenly his face was totally serious. Mr. Right, also serious, nodded his head slightly. Miss Airy Fairy was also staring at me. Now I couldn't help but wonder if this was a conspiracy. Were they going to rob me or try to scam me? Goodness knows, I might as well have been wearing a big yellow button saying "Hick from Out of Town! Please Take Advantage of Me!"

Just then the door between cars opened and a giant chicken entered our car. To be more precise, it was a bored-looking man in a chicken suit—and how sad was it that he was more bored than embarrassed to be wearing that costume in public? I added to my mental list of jobs that were worse than mine. He shook a little plastic box in his left hand, and clucking sounds came out of it. I felt a pang of homesickness, for I used to have one like it on my desk back in Texas. I wouldn't dare put it on my desk here. It would only reinforce the hick stereotype. At the clucking sound, everyone looked up, reacted with mild amusement, then immediately went back to reading or avoiding eye contact. The chicken man then tried to hand flyers to everyone in the car. I hadn't yet learned the technique for avoiding flyers that most New Yorkers seem to have honed, so I took one from him. A new fried-chicken restaurant was opening, which gave me another moment of homesickness as I remembered family Sunday dinners. I tucked the flyer into my briefcase.

This incident didn't do much toward helping me understand New Yorkers. Fairy wings on the subway weren't worth noticing, but a guy in a chicken suit got a slight reaction. Both outfits involved wings. Why was one humdrum while the other was at least a little bit amusing? I noticed that Mr. Right had also taken a flyer. He was smiling and staring at the chicken man, which made me like him even more. Or, it would have if he didn't seem to be in cahoots with the other two, who were still looking at me funny. I forgot about the giant chicken as I remembered why I felt ill at ease.

The train screeched its way to a stop. "City Hall," the conductor said. I wondered if I should get off now and get away from these people. The walk from there to my office would make me late for work, but better late than dead or robbed.

But before I could get to my feet, I noticed that the three weirdos were congregating around the door. I relaxed with a sigh. They were all getting off here, which meant I was being paranoid about them being out to get me. I still had too many New York scare stories in my head from my family, and they crept to the surface at awkward moments, even though I'd never been mugged or even seen a mugging in my whole time in New York.

Besides, I had plenty to worry about without concocting subway conspiracy theories. It wasn't like this morning's events were all that extraordinary in my life.

Weird stuff like this always happened to me, or at least, it had ever since I moved to New York. I was always seeing things that shouldn't be there, like people in fairy wings or pointed ears, people who appeared to pop in and out of existence, and things appearing in strange places. I knew it was likely the result of anover-active imagination and my family's scare stories about New York, but it was almost enough to worry me. I figured if I still noticed strange things that no one else seemed to find odd after another six months in the city, I might have to talk to someone about it.

In the meantime, I had to get to work and survive the day. Fortunately, due to the train's timely arrival and the unexpected express nature of the trip, I was ahead of schedule. To add to my run of good luck, the up escalator at the Whitehall station was actually working. I emerged topside among the soulless modern glass skyscrapers, went into the lobby of my building, and paused to change into my work shoes. Then I put on my employee ID badge, got cleared by the lobby security guard, and headed for the elevator bank that served my floor.

I was seven minutes early when I stepped off the elevator into our lobby, and I was five minutes early when I reached my cubicle, but my boss Mimi was already lurking.

I wondered which Mimi had shown up for work today, the best buddy or the evil beast from hell that would rip me apart with her hairy-knuckled hands. Mimi was about as stable as Dr. Jekyll.

Okay, so I'm exaggerating a little bit. Even on her bad days, her knuckles weren't all that hairy.

'"Morning, Katie!" she called out as I neared my cubicle. "How was your weekend?"

It looked like the good Mimi had shown up for work today. There was no telling how long it would last, so I kept a safe distance and looked for something heavy to use for self-defense, just in case.

"It was great. And yours?"

She sighed blissfully. "Fabulous. Werner and I spent the weekend at his place in the Hamptons." Werner was her richer-than-God (and almost as old) boyfriend. She leaned toward me and added in a whisper, "I think he's getting ready to propose."

"Wow, really?" I said, faking enthusiasm as I edged past her and got to my desk.

"You never know. See you at the staff meeting."

I sat down at my desk and turned on my computer. I'd hoped for a Mimi-free morning before I had to deal with her at the torture exercise we called the Monday staff meeting, but my luck for the day had apparently run out, even if that encounter had been fairly benign. I sincerely wished that Good Mimi was still around when the staff meeting started in fifteen minutes. Otherwise, I might find myself wishing the trio of oddballs in the subway had kidnapped me. Whatever they might do to me would likely be more pleasant than Mimi at her worst.

Although Mimi was my boss, she wasn't that much older than I was. While I'd been running the business affairs of my family's feed-and-seed store in a small town in Texas, she'd been earning her MBA at some fancy upper-crust school. I'd learned very quickly after getting to New York that the degree and related credentials and contacts counted for a lot more than real-world experience, especially the kind of real-world experience I had. A BBA from a public university in Texas and a few years actually running a small business didn't get me much credit in the New York business world.

In fact, I wouldn't even have this job as assistant to the marketing director (in other words, Mimi's personal slave) if one of my roommates hadn't worked her own business network on my behalf. I'd looked at this job as a temporary fix to tide me over until I found something better, but I was still here a year later. I suspected I'd have to gnaw my own arm off to get out of this trap.

My computer finally finished booting up, and I checked my e-mail. The top message, received just minutes ago, said, "Excellent Opportunity for Kathleen Chandler." Excellent opportunities were few and far between, and they seldom came in e-mail. I suspected that, in spite of the seemingly personalized subject line (which probably came from my e-mail address, anyway), it had something to do with enlarging a body part I didn't have. I deleted the message and scrolled down to find the message I always had waiting for me on Monday mornings: Mimi's staff meeting agenda.

I fixed the typos, printed it out, then skimmed over it while I walked to the copier.

This one didn't seem to have too many minefields in it, just the usual status reports. I might survive, after all. I made copies of the agenda and returned to my office. There was a new e-mail waiting for me, probably a revised agenda from Mimi. But when I clicked over to my e-mail program, it was just another "great opportunity" spam, this time adding the words "don't delete!" to the subject line. With a sense of perverse satisfaction, I deleted it. It was probably the only act of rebellion I'd get away with all day.

I knew better than to be late for one of Mimi's meetings, so I put the agendas inside my notepad, got my pen, coffee mug, and lunch, and headed for the kitchen. There, I put my lunch in the communal refrigerator and poured myself a cup of coffee before going to the conference room. I reminded myself that after surviving the meeting, the rest of the day should be easy.