Chapter 8: Overtime

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June 2014 (Present Day)

David sat alone in his office, staring at the spreadsheet on his screen. His eyes roved back and forth across the columns of numbers, but their meaning failed to penetrate. He minimized the window with an irritated click of the mouse. He was running too far behind at this point - hadn't been able to concentrate properly for days now. He leaned forward and rubbed his bleary eyes with the heels of his hands.

It had all started with her email last Friday: one week ago today. If only he'd taken it more seriously. Emailed back with some question or expression of concern. Something other than that thoughtless, semi-drunk reply: "Very funny, my love...."

Instead, he'd let the whole weekend go by without giving her email a second thought. He'd strolled into work Monday morning and saw she wasn't at her desk - and still, he hadn't felt the slightest twinge of concern. Late again, he'd thought with a grin. He'd spent the next 15 minutes rehearsing in his mind how best to give her crap about it.

"Why Penelope Stewart. Fancy meeting you here!"

He'd used that line too many times before, he remembered thinking to himself. He should probably have a serious word with her about the importance of punctuality. She wasn't doing herself any favors, career-wise, with the chronic lateness. But that wouldn't be any fun. He'd glanced down at his watch and smirked to himself as an idea struck him. Maybe he should run up to Chinatown and buy her one of those fake diamond Rolexes from the street vendors who line Canal Street. Leave it draped across her keyboard with a little note: "When the little hand points to the 9 and the big hand points to the 12...."

He'd sat there in his office imagining the scene. What kind of smartass retort would she shoot back at him? "Gosh, I'm sorry, Mr. Powers. Perhaps you'd like an accounting of all the unpaid overtime I've put in this month?"

It wasn't until lunchtime that the doubts had started to creep in. He'd tried to call her at noon, but the call went straight to voicemail. Then the kid from the mail room had come by and dropped that thick manila envelope on his desk. He'd recognized her handwriting, of course. She'd gone to some trouble to make it legible - better than her usual indecipherable scrawl:

Human Resources Department
c/o David Powers
Dewitt Hathaway Worldwide, Inc.
60 Wall Street, 16th floor
New York, NY 10005

He'd run his thumb across the thick block letters. Human Resources Department... Why was she sending something to human resources? And more to the point, why had she addressed it to him? It was her job to handle his correspondence, not the other way around.

He hadn't opened the envelope. Not right away. He'd set down his half-eaten chicken salad sandwich and picked up his phone to call her again.

And that was when he'd finally understood - that moment when he dialed her number and heard that thick manila envelope start to ring.

That had been five days ago already, and the envelope was still sitting on his desk beneath the ever-growing stack of mail. He'd gone all week without an assistant. He'd missed phone calls, left emails unanswered. It was starting to get out of hand.

He'd lost his temper at an intern this morning. Over some notecards. David squeezed his eyes shut and rested his head against his two clenched fists, digging the knuckles into his forehead. Not just any notecards. Pink notecards. Penny's pink notecards. Penny's things were all just where she had left them at her desk, waiting for her to resume her place among them. And when he saw that intern with her grubby little hands on Penny's things, walking away with Penny's stack of pink notecards... Well, he'd probably overreacted. People didn't know about the notecards.

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