Coffee
Fandom: Profit
Written for: Carolyn in the Yuletide 2007 Challenge
by fresne
He always said thank you when she brought him coffee in the morning. He said that she didn't have to. That it wasn't 1950 and she straightened his tie or his collar, because in those moments, it always seemed crooked.
If she got a day off, there was always just this one little thing. If she could just do this one little thing. This one horrible little thing that made some poor woman miserable and he terrified her with his deep voice and his just one little thing.
Last night she went to see her mother in that private room with dim lights and tubes going into her proud praising mother. He was sitting there. Sometimes, he sat there in a wheel chair that he moved back and forth to the rhythm of his deep words. The doctors all said her mother's prognosis was good, but what do doctor's know. They kept no promises. But when he said it, she wondered if it was really true and she'd get her mother back, because he always kept his word.
Today she stole a file. She walked down the brown corporate hallway decorated with brown corporate art. She said, "Hello." to Jennifer the V.P. of IT's Admin. Sometimes they ate lunch together. She said hello to her friend and walked down the hallway and wondered if Jennifer ever stole a file. Although she knew Jennifer never had. Jennifer's job was to arrange meetings and get coffee and prepare endless PowerPoint presentations on capacity planning and new initiatives that no one actually read.
Gail walked down the hallway and she went into Martin Rain's office. They started at Gracen and Gracen at the same time. She remembered Martin from the two week class they made new employees take - Family Way, The Gracen and Gracen way. Now Mr. Rain's got executive experience and an office of his own with a view of something important and a fire safe filing cabinet.
She went into Mr. Rain's office like it was nothing. Like she went there every day. She could feel all the eyes of the office siding by as they don't care their way down the brown corporate hallway past the office windows with their open blinds. She went to the cabinet and it was locked. But that didn't matter, because he gave her the key. Or really a ring of keys and she tried one after the other. Her heart pounded as she heard the muffled conversations in the hallway and she expected at any moment someone to say, "What you doing in here?"
But no one did.
They walked down the halls and didn't notice someone fumbling with a filing cabinet.
The fourth key opened the cabinet and she looked through the files until she found the blue one marked, "Reeva Report". She pulled the blue folder out of its green hanging file home. The brown corporate eyes sliding down the halls outside and no one saw anything. She pulled out the folder and she put another blue folder in its place. It was marked "Reeva Report" too.
Then she pushed the lock into place with a final sort of sound inside the cabinet. Although, it wasn't final at all. She had the key.
Just then, Mr. Rain came into his office and her heart jumped, and maybe she jumped a little too. She said, "Hello, Martin. I thought as long as I was down here delivering some reports that I'd stop by."
He looked at her puzzled. She said, "It's Gail. We sat next to each other in that horrible training class for two weeks." She nervously waved the file folder in the air, death gripping it to keep it from flying open. "I saw your name on the door and just had to stop by." She looked around. "So, you've got an office now."
"Uh... yeah," said Mr. Rain looking puzzled and then, "Oh, yeah, Gail. Um... how have you been?"
"Good. Good. Not as good as you, I mean you have an office," said Gail, really wishing someone would stop her because she had no idea what to say, so she stopped herself. "Well, I need to get going. But it was nice seeing you." She smiled really broadly at him, a smile that was only a little bit panicked and walked out the door leaving puzzled Martin Rain behind.
She walked down the hallway with her stolen report and it felt like everyone was looking at her, but they weren't. Arty from Accounting smiled shyly at her and she smiled back. She wondered if Arty ever hit someone over the head and then drove them to a dockyard to be shipped to China in a crate inside a metal box. She doubted it.
She walked down the hall and up the elevator with five other people that she knew. All the while wondering about their secret lives that they probably didn't have. He would know if they had them.
He was there in his office twirling a silver pen in his fingers. If he were a villain, he'd twirl a mustache, but he twirled a pen so he must just be her boss.
She put the file on his desk in front of him and he smiled at her. She felt scared and good at the same time. He asked in that deep just one thing voice, "Did you have any problems?"
"No, it was exactly where you said it would be," said Gail. "Martin, I mean Mr. Rain came in before I left so I said something to him. We were in the same training class together."
He said, "I know," and he smiled at her some more. "You did a good job."
She bobbed her head at him and said, "Would you like a cup of coffee."
"You don't have to." But his cup was there and empty. So she took it.
"No, I don't mind." She bustled off to the Coffee Room to pour him a cup.
Cindy, the CIO's Admin, was there. Cindy said, "Imagine getting coffee for your boss in this day and age."
"Yeah, imagine." Gail tried to smile, but couldn't quite manage it. She filled up his coffee cup and it was the simplest most straight forward thing in the world. She didn't even have to think as she pulled down on the red lever on the coffee machine and the black liquid fell into the cup. All she had to worry about was getting splashed and burned. And that was just skin. But then again, if she got burned, she knew he'd take care of her, because he said he would and he always kept his promises to her.
So she brought him his coffee.
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