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PENNY’S EYES FLICKED back and forth over the computer screen, her finger lingering over the mouse, waiting for her brain to send the go-codes. All she had to do was click one little button and she would strike a blow for abused executive assistants everywhere.
Gabriel stepped into her cubicle and she clicked off the page, revealing the quarterly costs spreadsheet open on her desktop.
“O. M. G. Have you seen what Margie is wearing today?” Gabriel whispered between his cosmetically altered teeth.
“I try not to notice anything about Margie,” Penny joked in her tiny voice. She swallowed her words and the quip came out flat, causing Gabe to ignore it and burst into his diatribe.
“Seriously? It’s as though she spent the morning finding a vintage furniture store, digging in the dumpster for a discarded couch, and cutting herself a blouse out of the upholstery.”
“I’m doing my best to avoid her today, probably a good thing I did,” Penny said.
“Thank the Lord above, because, honey you would lose your lunch over that wonderful little scarf you’ve chosen to accessorize with today. Where ever did you get that little piece?”
“Oh, I found it on sale at Bloomingdale’s,” she lied. There was a discoloration hidden by the knot at her neck, an irregularity that landed it in the clearance bin at Marshall’s.
“Matches the low-cut blouse you have on there to a tee. Way to show off the goods today, Pen.”
She blushed. Penny supposed she had a good figure, despite the time she spent scrutinizing herself in the mirror, pinching a bit of fat here, sucking in to flatten her tummy there. She’d spent a lot of time at the gym lately. Not because she had some fitness obsession, it was more to avoid spending her entire life stuck on her couch reading magazines and eating peanut butter from the jar with a spoon. She had trouble hiding her glee that Gabriel would take notice of her. That anyone would notice her, really.
“All right, enough of the gabbity gabbing gorgeous, we’ve got a budget meeting in forty minutes and I’ve got a few expenditures I have to reconcile. What’s the best way to get a reimbursement for going to Bardot and getting silly on Grey Goose martinis?”
“You could call it celebutantertaining.”
“My stars and garters, I’m stealing that. I knew you’d have an answer. Peace.”
“Bye, Gabriel,” Penny smiled, giving him a little wave.
Penny turned back to her computer, but before she could return to what she was doing, a gargoyle’s voice approached from behind her.
“Penelope?”
Margie and her mother were the only people on Earth who called her Penelope. As a child, she didn’t mind the name; she actually reveled in its relative rarity. But when she was in junior high, Penelope came up in her Greek Mythology unit of English class. Delighted that she’d received her namesake from the wife of the great Odysseus, she couldn’t wait to get home and ask her mother about it. She never regretted a question more in her life.
“Mythology? Honey, you were named that because you were conceived in the parking lot of Penelope’s World Famous Chicken Fried Steak in Colorado Springs. Me and your dickhole daddy were on a road trip to see ELO in concert in Denver. I don’t know about World Famous, but they gave me the runs somethin’ awful for ‘bout a week.”
She never wanted to be called Penelope again.
Margie, however, when she hired Penny, saw her full name on her Social Security card. She determined that the name Penelope was much more pleasant sounding than plain Penny, no matter how many times Penny tried to correct her. She actually took pleasure in thinking she knew the best thing for Penny, down to what she should be called on a daily basis.
Penny swung her chair around and looked up at Margie, having trouble hiding her disdain for the rotund banshee standing before her.
“What can I do for you Margie?”
“Well, Penelope,” Penny ground her teeth at the sound of her name, “When I asked you to put together this presentation for our new corporate branding proposal, I specifically asked that the previous brand logos be collated by color and not chronologically.”
“You told me to place them in order of where we’ve been and where we’re going.”
“And in what way does that imply chronology?”
Fireworks burst beneath the surface as Penny’s exterior revealed nothing but a sudden flush in her cheeks.
“I’m sorry I misunderstood you. Next time I’ll ask you to be more specific,” Penny said, swallowing her words in veiled hatred.
“It never hurts to ask. There are no stupid questions, but the ones that go unasked,” Margie’s nostrils flared, her condescending tone punctuated with a self-satisfied smirk.
“Now you’ve created twice the work for yourself. Please rearrange these. Standard rainbow spectrum from Red to Violet. I don’t think I can get more specific than that. Oh, and Penelope, we do have a dress code here, let’s try to keep the twins in check, shall we,” she smiled through her over-applied lipstick, waving her finger in the general direction of Penny’s chest.
“Sorry, I’ll get right on it,” Penny said, lowering her eyes. Her fingernails dug deep into the upholstery of her ergonomic desk chair, all of her rage channeled into the plush fabric. Margie flashed her coffee-stained, crooked teeth at Penny before turning like a soldier and huffing back into her office.
Penny looked down at her barely showing cleavage, unbuttoned the top button of her blouse, and opened the web page back up, hitting the “Order” button with no reservation. Soon Marjorie Wells would be receiving a rather disturbing package and Penny would have her revenge.
- Writer
