Magical Midlife Detectives 1 / Chapter 2
Chapter 2 New Endings
‘You heard?’
One of the young girls peeked over the partition screen. I took off my reading glasses (only recently had I given in to the fact that I needed them) and tried to look as if I had been miles away, concentrating on a difficult insurance claim.
‘I’m sorry… you were saying?’
‘Have you heard that they made the decision about who will be our new boss?’ The girl looked over her shoulder and then turned back again, lowering her voice, you know – woman to woman, in confidence.
In my opinion it was more like girl to woman. She had just turned twenty. Her first real summer job. But she was nice enough, had manners and didn’t wear a ton of makeup like young women often did, even if they didn’t need any. But if the canvas is smooth, it’s nice to paint on, and the newness of being the object of desire by men can be intoxicating.
I remembered mornings when I was twenty. It took me an hour to get myself away from the mirror. These days I more or less played hide and seek with any reflective surface, unless I really had to make myself look presentable.
I stole a glimpse at the diplomas I had pinned to the screen walls of my cubicle – the wall that was visible to anyone walking past. I had studied while I worked for a degree in insurance law. I had the most years of experience under my belt in this department. And I had applied for the managerial job.
I knew I was the best candidate and was prepared to receive the position. I smoothed my skirt under the desk, hoping she wouldn’t notice I had kicked the heels off, and nodded in answer to her eagerness.
‘I’m sure we will hear about it soon enough.’
I turned towards the computer screen and typed something. The eager face disappeared. I deleted the nonsense I had written.
I was lunch friends with my boss’s secretary. She had told me two weeks ago that all the other applicants were much younger. She knew the boss would never hire a young woman as they inevitably got pregnant. Of course, he never admitted as much as it was illegal, but she had heard his drunk talk often enough in ‘customer evenings’. As for the young men – none had worked in insurance before and had no real work experience.
Lunch time came, and still no sign of the boss. I did not ask Anne, the secretary, for lunch as I didn’t want to be seen around the boss’s office. Yet.
‘Aren’t you hot in those?’
I jumped at the voice behind my back. Anne had appeared without me noticing her. She was pointing at my legs.
‘Oh these? I just moved and couldn’t find all my clothes yet. I grabbed these at a store that was open and didn’t realise they were so thick,’ I told a partial truth. Didn’t want her to pay attention to the hairy legs, even if the sixty-denier weight effectively hid them.
‘You moved? Not we moved?’
I nodded and paid great attention to the salad bar.
‘So you finally left him. Good for you, Nora!’
I was glad I was looking down as her words caught me off guard. She kept talking with a low voice. ‘I hated it when I saw him with that twenty-something the other day. You know the customer evening arranged for the big boys.’
She had known? Had everyone known? I had only learned of this a week ago when he had announced he had found someone else. Someone more exciting than me.
Holding on to the remains of my dignity, I pretended this was not the first time I had heard he had actually paraded his young girlfriend in front of others. As far as I knew, invitations to the boss’s customer evenings were only extended to men, who, no doubt, now considered Paul quite the stallion. I guess my reaction was similar to when you fall and get up as quickly as possible, checking if anyone has noticed, hoping they haven’t.
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