What Good Secretaries Do, Short Story

Another Day

Monday. Sophie finds herself once again in her squeaky chair at Vintner's Deluxe Winery. She's worked there four years, and every day it's the same. Type letters for Connie. Create presentations for Connie. Arrange travel itineraries for Connie. She talks to her boss more than her own mother. She even dreams of Connie sometimes. Profiled in The Wine Spectator, Wine Today, Napa Valley Style, The Wall Street Journal, Connie Brooks receives dozens of faxes, e-mails, phone calls every day of the week, and Sophie is part of it all. Yesterday, Robert Mondavi called—Connie didn't feel like talking to Robert Mondavi, had Sophie take a message.

Now, Connie lumbers into the office, and Sophie smiles in greeting. Her boss wears a tan raincoat the size of a tarp and clutches her usual Starbucks selection: extra large toffee coffee deluxe with whipped cream and sprinkles. She doesn't return Sophie's smile; instead, she nods abruptly: an "I see you" gesture. Her eyes are red-rimmed and crinkled, and when she thumps past, Sophie feels the hardwood floors heave beneath her boss's girth.

It hasn't always been this way. Connie used to greet Sophie whenever entering the office, grateful for her loyal secretary—who, since starting the job at 18, has always been cheerful, punctual, and smartly dressed, aware of Connie's status, and her own, as Connie's secretary, the secretary at Vintner's Deluxe.

Connie used to be a normal-sized woman too, tall and slim, a size eight maybe. Now she has a double chin. Her shoes squeak in protest as she walks. And those pretty blue eyes have sunken into the flesh of her face. Last week, Sophie saw a smudge of mustard on Connie's chin and wanted to touch her boss's hand as if she were a child and say, "It's going to be all right."

Connie slams her office door. Only last week did she begin shutting Sophie out, even though they've always worked so well together.

The phone rings. "Connie Brook's office," Sophie says. "How may I help you?"

"It's Ralph Cox. Sales, East Coast. I need to speak to Connie."

Sophie knows Connie doesn't want to speak to Ralph; she never takes phone calls before nine o'clock. She likes to drink her coffee and eat her chocolate glazed doughnut in peace. "I'm sorry, Mr. Cox. Connie's in a meeting. May I take a message?"

"This will be my third message, sweetheart," he says. "Tell Connie I want to talk to her."

Sophie remembers Ralph from the sales meeting last August—a squat man in his mid-fifties with dark, salted hair and square-tipped fingers that he extended to every person in the room for a firm shake. Sophie scribbles down the message, but Connie won't call him back. She told Sophie after that meeting that chauvinists like Ralph Cox were outdated pieces of furniture, and the sooner they were dropped off at the Salvation Army, the better.

Sophie wholeheartedly agrees—being called 'sweetheart' by a man she doesn't know—and gives him a warm goodbye, knowing that Connie, in refusing to return his phone call, will avenge his behavior for both of them.

The second call is from Willa Robins, a journalist with Women in Business. Sophie glances at her watch. 9:07. She tiptoes to Connie's door, taps. At this time of day, Connie hasn't come into full force, and Sophie accommodates her boss's sensitive time by limiting her interruptions and speaking in low tones. She peeks inside the office. Connie, at her desk, rolls a pen back and forth beneath her palm. Her face is crumpled like a tossed piece of paper, and tears stream down her cheeks. Sophie's stomach lurches in shock. She shuts the door.

So out of breath she can hardly speak, she takes a message: "Yes, Ms. Robins, I'll have her call you... as soon as possible... yes, yes," all the while glancing at Connie's closed door with the nauseating awareness that things are not what they seem. She hangs up the phone. The shining gold name plaque: 'CONNIE BROOKS Chief Executive Officer' taunts her. She has always prided herself on her ability to read her boss's cues: Connie's neck-slash swipe of "I'm not here" for certain phone calls; her heavy breathing when immersed in thought; how she sits sideways at her desk when she doesn't want to be disturbed, and if she must be, expects Sophie to whisper. To be a good secretary, Sophie must be highly empathetic, capable of reading all of her boss's moods. Now she chastises herself for not having seen the depth of her boss's pain sooner.