The Ignored (7 page)

After we moved in together, I stopped saying it.

So did she.

But we did love each other. More than before. It was just that… it
wasn’t the way we’d imagined it. We enjoyed each other’s company, we were
comfortable together, but when I came home after work I didn’t rip off her
clothes and throw her on the kitchen floor and rape her then and there. She
didn’t greet me wearing nothing but a G-string and a smile. It wasn’t the
intense passionate romance we’d been promised by books and movies and music and
TV. It was nice. But it was not all-encompassing, not constantly exciting.

We didn’t even make wild passionate love after an argument, the way we
were supposed to.

We made love that night, though, before going to sleep, and it was good.
It was so good that I wanted to tell her that I loved her.

I wanted to.

But for some reason I didn’t.

At work, my duties became more substantive. I don’t know why this was,
whether my success with previous assignments had proved me capable of handling
more difficult chores, or whether word came down from on high that I should be
pulling my weight and earning my salary by doing real work. Whatever the reason,
I was given first one press release to write, then another, and then a full
overview for a set of previously written instructions for something called FIS,
the File Inventory System.

Stewart made no comment when I turned in the first press release, a
two-page piece of unabashed hype modeled after a press release of his own. I
attempted to be a little less Madison Avenue in the second release, putting
forth the positive attributes of the product in a more objective, journalistic
manner. Again, no comment.

The overview was harder to write. I was supposed to describe what the
File Inventory System accomplished and how it worked without getting bogged down
in too much technical detail, and it took me nearly a week to finish it. When it
was done, I made a copy on the Xerox machine and took it over to Stewart, who
told me to leave it on his desk and get out of his office.

An hour later, he called.

I picked up the phone. “Hello. Documentation. Bob Jones speaking.”

“Jones, I have some things I want to add to your FIS overview. I’m going
to mark up the copy you gave me and let you type in the additions.”

“Okay,” I said.

“I’ll look it over one more time after you’re finished. I have to
approve it before we send it on to Mr. Banks.”

“All right. I’ll—” I began.

The phone clicked as he hung up.

I sat there listening to the dial tone. Bastard, I thought. I replaced
my handset in the cradle and looked down at the original copy of the overview on
my desk. It was strange that he would even call to tell me something like that.
It didn’t make sense. If he was going to correct my work, why didn’t he just do
it and order me to type in his revisions? Why had he even called me with this
song and dance? There was a reason for this, I knew, but I could not figure out
what it was.

Derek was looking at me. “Watch your ass,” he said.

I was not sure if that was a threat or a warning—it was impossible to
tell from the old man’s tone of voice. I wanted to ask him, but he had already
turned away from me and was busily scribbling notes on a typed piece of paper.

That was Wednesday. When Thursday and Friday passed, then Monday,
Tuesday, and the next Wednesday and I still hadn’t heard back from Stewart on
the overview, I made a trip over to his office.

He was seated at his desk. His door was open, and he was reading a copy
of
Computer World.
I rapped lightly on the doorframe, and he looked up.
He frowned when he saw me. “What do you want?”

Nervously, I cleared my throat. “Did you, uh, have a chance to go over
my work?”

He stared at me. “What?”

“The overview I wrote for the File Inventory System last week. You said
you’d get back to me on it. You said you had some new things to add?”

“No, I didn’t.”

I shifted uncomfortably. “Well, I thought you said you had to okay it or
approve it or something before it was sent to Mr. Banks.”

“What do you want? A pat on the back each time you complete a simple
assignment? I’ll tell you right now, Jones, we don’t work that way around here.
And if you think I’m going to allow you to just mope around while you wait for
some sort of ego gratification, you’ve got another think coming. No one here
gets medals for simply doing their jobs.”

“It’s not that.”

“What is it, then?” He stared at me, unblinking, waiting for an answer.

I didn’t know what to say. I felt flustered. I hadn’t expected him to
flat-out deny what he’d told me, and I didn’t understand what was going on.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I guess I misunderstood what you said. I’d better get back
to my desk.”

“I guess you’d better.”

It might’ve been my imagination, but I thought I heard him chuckling as
I left.

When I returned, there was a note from Hope waiting on my desk, written
on a sheet of her pink personalized stationery. I picked up the paper, read the
message: “For Stacy’s birthday. Sign the card and pass it on to Derek. See you
at the lunch!” Paper-clipped to the stationery was a birthday card that showed a
group of goofy cartoon jungle animals waving their arms. “From the whole herd!”
the front of the card said.

I opened the card and looked at the signatures. All of the programmers
except Stacy had signed it, as had Hope, Virginia, and Lois. Each of the signees
had also added a short personal note. I didn’t know Stacy at all, but I picked
up my pen, wrote “Hope you have a great birthday!” and signed my name.

I handed the card to Derek. “What time is the lunch?” I asked.

He took the card from me. “What lunch?”

“Stacy’s birthday lunch, I guess.”

He shrugged, didn’t answer, signed the card, placed it in its envelope.
Ignoring me, he walked out of the office, taking the card with him.

I wanted to say something to him, to tell him what an inconsiderate jerk
he was, but as always, I did nothing.

Ten minutes later, my phone rang. I picked it up. It was Banks. He
wanted me to come up to his office. I had not been to his office since the first
day, and my initial thought was that I was about to be fired. I didn’t know why
or what for, but I figured that between the two of them, Banks and Stewart had
finally come up with a plausible reason why I should be let go.

I was nervous as I waited for the elevator. I didn’t like my job, but I
certainly didn’t want to lose it. I stared at the descending lighted numbers
above the metal doors. My palms were sweaty. I wished Banks had not asked me up
to his office. If I was going to get fired, I thought, I would have much rather
been notified through the mail. I had never been good at personal
confrontations.

The elevator doors opened. An older woman in a loud print dress got out,
and I stepped in, pressing the button for the fifth floor.

Banks was waiting for me in his office, seated behind his huge desk. He
did not say hello, did not stand when I entered, but motioned for me to sit
down. I sat. I wanted to wipe my sweaty hands on my pants, but he was looking
straight at me and I knew it would be too obvious.

Banks leaned forward in his chair. “Has Ron talked to you about
GeoComm?”

I blinked, stared dumbly. “Uh… no,” I said.

“It’s a geobase system that we’re developing for cities, counties, and
municipal governments. You do know what a geobase system is?”

I shook my head, still not sure where this was leading.

He gave me a look of annoyance. “Geobase is short for geographic
database. It allows the user to…”

But I was already tuning him out. I wasn’t going to lose my job, I
realized. I was being given a new assignment. I was going to be writing
instructions for a new computer system. Not just partial instructions, not just
one-page rewrites, but an entire manual.

I wasn’t going to be fired. I’d been promoted.

Banks stopped talking, looked at me. “Aren’t you going to take notes?”

I looked at him. “I didn’t bring a notebook,” I admitted.

“Here.” Sighing heavily, he pulled a pad of yellow legal paper from the
top drawer in his desk, handed it to me.

I took a pen from my pocket and began writing.

When I returned to my office an hour later, it was a little after
eleven-thirty. Derek was gone. I put my notes and the papers Banks had given me
down on my desk and walked over to Hope’s station. She was gone, too.

As were the programmers.

And Virginia and Lois.

They’d already left for Stacy’s birthday lunch.

I did what I always did, waited until twelve-fifteen, until most of the
other people in the building had gone, and then drove to McDonald’s, ordering my
lunch from the drive-thru and eating in my car at a nearby city park. I don’t
know why, but I was hurt by the fact that they hadn’t waited for me. I shouldn’t
have expected anything else, but I’d been asked to sign the card, Hope had
written “See you at the lunch!” and I guess I’d let myself think that I was
actually wanted and welcome. I ate my cheeseburger, taking out the pickle, and
listened to the radio as I stared out the car window at a teenage couple making
out on a blanket on the grass.

I drove back to work feeling even more depressed.

They arrived back from the lunch a half hour late. I was walking from
desk to desk, passing out interoffice phone directories that Stewart had left in
my in box and asked me to distribute, when Virginia and Lois passed by me on
their way to the steno pool. They were both walking slowly, both holding their
hands over their obviously full stomachs.

“I ate too much,” Lois said.

Virginia nodded. “Me, too.”

“How was it?” I asked. It was a pointed question. I wanted to make them
feel guilty for not waiting for me, like Charlie Brown in the Christmas special
when he sarcastically thanks Violet for sending him a card she obviously did not
send.

Virginia looked at me. “What?”

“How was the lunch?”

“What do you mean, ‘How was the lunch?’”

“I was just curious.”

“You were there.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

Lois frowned. “Yes, you were. I was talking to you. I was telling you
about that accident my daughter got in.”

I blinked. “I wasn’t there. I was here the whole time.”

“Are you sure?”

I nodded. Of course I was sure. I knew where I’d been for lunch, knew
what I’d done, but I nonetheless felt chilled, slightly uneasy, and the thought
irrationally crossed my mind that there was a doppelganger out there, a double
acting in my stead.

“Huh,” Lois said, shaking her head. “That’s weird. I could’ve sworn you
were there.”

I was ignored. By everyone.

I hadn’t noticed the extent of it at first because the company was not
one big happy family. It was a pretty impersonal place to work, and even friends
did not get much of a chance to speak in the hallways beyond a quick “hi”.

But people seemed to go out of their way not to notice me.

I tried not to think about it, tried not to let it bother me. But it did
bother me. And I was reminded of it each workday, each time I sat in my office
with Derek, each time I walked through the halls, each time I took my breaks or
went to lunch.

It seemed frivolous to dwell to such an extent on my own problems, to be
so chronically self-absorbed. I mean, there were people in Third World countries
dying every day from diseases that science had the means to eradicate
completely. There were people in our own country who were homeless and starving,
and here I was worried that I didn’t get along with my coworkers.

But everyone’s reality is different.

And in my reality, this was important.

I
thought
of talking about it with Jane,
wanted
to talk to
her about it, even
planned
to talk about it, but somehow I never seemed
able to bring it up.

On Friday, Hope passed out the checks at four o’clock, the way she
always did. I thanked her as she handed me my envelope, and I opened it up to
look at the check.

It was sixty dollars less than it was supposed to be.

I stared at the printed number, not sure of what to do. I looked over at
Derek. “Is there anything wrong with your check?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Don’t know. Haven’t looked.”

“Could you check?”

“It’s none of your business,” he told me.

“Fine.” I stood up and took my check down the hall to Stewart’s office.
As usual, he was sitting at his desk, reading a computer magazine. I knocked
once on his doorframe, and when he didn’t look up, I walked in.

He frowned at me. “What are you doing here?”

“I have a problem,” I said. “I need to talk to you.”

“What kind of problem?”

There was a chair available, but he didn’t offer it to me and I remained
standing. “My paycheck’s sixty dollars off.”

“I don’t know anything about it,” Stewart said.

“I know. But you’re my supervisor.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? That I’m responsible for everything that
goes on in your life?”

“No, I just thought—”

“Don’t think. I don’t know anything about your little check problem, and
to be honest with you, Jones, I don’t care.” He picked up his magazine, began
reading it again. “If you have a question, talk to Accounting.”

I looked down at the check, at the attached pay stub, and I noticed
something I hadn’t seen before. I cleared my throat. “It says here in the hours
box that I only worked four days last week.”

“There you go, then. That’s why your check’s short. Case closed.”

“But I worked five days.”

He lowered his newspaper. “Can you prove it?”

“Prove it? You saw me. Monday I helped you with the IBM memo and retyped
that page for the new keyboard. Tuesday I met with you and Mr. Banks to talk
about GeoComm. Wednesday and Thursday I worked on the list of processing
functions for GeoComm. Friday I turned in what I’d done and started on that
Biweekly Report System update.”