Agency

In Which Bertrand's Toe Makes an Appearance

that same evening, down the hall

Berry's big toe was poking through his sock. He could feel it, strangling itself against the edges of the hole in his cotton-poly-blend HBC men's department hosiery. He wiggled it, trying to reverse it back into the hole, but it was well and truly through. He'd have to remove his shoe and ungracefully yank the sock back into position.

He stole a glance at the rest of the accounts area. It was 7 pm. Most of the accounts people had already left for client dinners or events. Only Otto was still at his desk, swivelling nonchalantly and flicking the wheel on his mouse to pan down what looked like old fashioned personal ads.

Berry didn't want to remove his shoe in the office. Not out of a sense of propriety, but because he knew his feet would pong after a whole day's imprisonment in his Rockports. To be honest, they could stink pretty badly at any time of day. Berry sometimes worried that clients could smell them from under boardroom tables. The more stressed he was, the more insistent the stink could be. He'd tried shoe sprays and foot creams. The only thing that worked was a new pair of shoes but, even then, only briefly. Although he'd considered it, he wasn't about to invest in new shoes every month to address this minor embarrassment.

So, there were a number of good reasons not to remove his shoe here in the office. On the other hand, his toe was really annoying him, and it was only Otto.

Berry swept a file folder to the floor to create a distraction and bent forward to yank his shoe off under his desk. He pulled the damp sock back over his toe, hauling it unnaturally over to the left, trying to reposition the hole. It bounced back immediately, revealing Berry's toe again. He huffed angrily and yanked the sock upward, twisting the fabric of it and trying to lodge the twisty end under the ball of his foot as he wedged his shoe back on.

"Everything alright over there, Ber?" asked Otto disinterestedly, eyes still on the screen in front of him.

"Yeah, yes. All good. Just my... just cleaning up under the desk," he replied.

"Heading out soon? Want to grab a sneaky pint?"

Berry considered it. A beer would be a welcome delay to his inevitable return home, but a beer with Otto was never just a beer. It would end with both of them ordering straight bourbons and staying out until 2 am. He shook his head.

"Can't tonight. Berenice wouldn't like it." He thought of his wife, probably already annoyed with him, their two blonde girls resisting bedtime with the same hellish determination they will have resisted eating supper and every other thing Berenice will have reasonably proposed that evening.

"What's that you're looking at?" he asked, to delay his leaving another few moments.

"Jewish Friend Finder," answered Otto matter-of-factly, who wasn't Jewish in so far as Berry knew.

"But you're not..." started Berry.

"Nope." returned Otto. "Sometimes wish I was though," he added cryptically.

"How come?"

Otto shrugged. "Hard to say. Just one of those things. You ever feel you were meant to be something else? Like, someone different than what you turned out to be?"

"Guess so," Berry replied casually. Did he wish he was someone else? Only all the fucking time, he thought. In Berry's thinking, you don't end up an Account Director if you have any particular allegiance to who you are as a person. It's the kind of thing you end up doing because nothing you were better at ever presented itself. You just sort of fall into doing a thing like this. Nobody chooses it. Nobody goes to school thinking, one day, I'm going to take people out for lunches, make presentations in overheated boardrooms and fudge billable hours on monthly timesheets. This wasn't anyone's goal state.

He wondered briefly if this is why Account people are mostly men. Women seemed better at identifying what they're good at and pursuing that. Like Berenice.

He sighed and pulled his bag from the hook on the exposed brick wall, waving at Otto on his way out. Otto raised the hip flask he kept hidden in his bookcase and saluted him.

***

Berry's Rockports echoed down the empty hall. He stopped when he saw the creative team room still lit and wondered if he should stop in to see how the Atrabax work was coming. Margot would be on it, he knew. He liked Margot. He liked the way she smiled at him in the halls and the way her dark hair curled crazily around her head, springing from pins and clasps. Wild. Unbroken.

As much as he wouldn't have minded a quick look at Margot, and at the work she'd be doing for his pitch, he didn't want to risk running into David. Obsequious little shit, Berry thought. He grimaced to himself and turned toward the elevator bank.

Better get home.