ELENA
"Elena."
I did not look up from the file.
"Elena."
"I heard you."
"Then look at me."
I looked up. Maya was standing in my office doorway with her arms crossed and the expression she used when she had decided to say the thing she had been not saying for several days.
"Sit down," I said.
"I'm already standing."
"Then stand there and say it."
She said it.
"You're doing the thing," she said. "The specific thing. Where you get close to something and then you build a wall and then you work very hard and you reorganise things and you are professionally perfect and you do not let anyone get near whatever the actual thing is."
I looked at the file in my hands. Put it down.
"I'm working," I said.
"You've been working since six this morning."
"I have a full week."
"You had a ful
