9.
In early October, a selection was made for the next contract aide. A young woman, Mary Olson, came on board, and was trained by both Cerise and Sandra. It is Carl's understanding that she is still serving, to this very day, as contract aide. The fact that she has stayed on the job for several years speaks to her efficiency and ability. Laura and Kris had finally hit on the right person. Mary not only learned and performed quickly, but where her predecessor had crashed and burned, she persevered.
Much to the relief of the clerks around him, after his petty victory over the wording on his evaluation, Carl recovered quickly from the sick mental state he had affected. Soon he responded with his usual joking manner whenever anyone spoke to him. He did made a conscious effort, however, not to initiate any personal conversations during working hours. While the more onerous criticisms had been softened on his evaluation, and he did receive his five percent merit increase (which he would have anyway, having been rated satisfactory), Sandra told him that Kris insisted the no-talking plan should remain in effect, and he took the hint. He was still being watched.
However, Carl still harbored a heavy cargo of anger against Kris, and the system she represented. He has never been able to adapt fully to the corporate structure, even in its milder forms of civil service. He has preferred being on the low end of the bureaucratic class system precisely because only there is he free of the obligation to kick around anyone below him. There simply is no one below him.
As an artist, he is fortunate: he can take out his feelings of frustration by writing in his journal. Furthermore, doing simple clerical work leaves his mind free to wander the universe of fantasy. Other people take their work and office worries home at night. Carl brings the stars into the office, and often spends his lunch hours reading or writing about them. He only needs to stay at work from eight to five. No late evenings or unpaid overtime for this little clerk. Not like the buyers in Purchasing, or the City Manager's assistants for whom he works now. Or the unprotected political slaves of the elected Council and Mayor.
Yet, even while writing thoughts like that in his journal, he still shuddered to remember that once he might have given up the free universe, only to become a contract aide! There had been a time -- only a few months ago -- when Carl wanted that job so much that he cried when they chose someone else. Now Cerise was actually leaving, and Carl would one day go to Hollywood. His rejection tears seemed to have fallen ages ago, not just a few short turns of the moon before.
After Mary Olson was pretty much trained, Kristin took Cerise out to a big lunch to mark her departure from the office. The sendoff luncheon is a traditional bureaucratic farewell gesture. Of course, none of the lowly clerks were invited. Only the four women involved, Kris, Sandra, Cerise, and Mary. They left the office at 11:30. Carl did not go to his own lunch break until 12:30, and shortly before 1:30, heading back, he ran into the four of them, laughing, just a few paces ahead of him, returning from their two-hour lunch. Cerise was carrying a bundle of balloons and a couple of boxes. How nice, Carl thought, they've given her some little goodbye presents. Pretty big sendoff for only five and a half months of work. But as they all funneled through the front door of the building, he noticed that Cerise had been crying, and she did not seem very happy. He wondered what was wrong.
Meanwhile, new rumors joined with the old ones being fed under the clerical desks. In addition to the old belief that Kris and Cerise were close buddies, and Cerise had only been picked for contract aide because Kris pushed for her, there was now new gossip revolving around Cerise's imminent departure. She only had her new job in the Police Department because Kris had pulled a string or two left over from her days in the City Attorney's administrative staff. She would have been bounced back to the Attorney's office without Kris's intervention. That Kristin was, in effect, Cerise's golden parachute.
Carl tried to see these for what they were, rumors founded on rumors founded on rumors. Intuition told him there was more smoke here than fire, and that one day, if he were patient, he might get both opportunity and nerve to actually ask Kris what had come down between them. Then he stopped, and thought to himself: What a pipe dream that thought is! Ask her? As if she will ever tell you anything personal like that, Carl. Not.
But the strangeness was not over yet. Just when Carl thought events had played themselves out, a new wrinkle raised its head. Cerise worked her last week after the luncheon, before her scheduled move to the Police Department. But... imagine the surprise next week when each day Carl came to work, Cerise was still there, reporting to the planet of Purchasing. The official training period for Mary was over, yet from what Carl could see, both Cerise and the new contract aide were still working together, out of the same office, going over the same contract documents together. What the hell happened? He chewed on the thought.
Lisa Castro leaned over toward his desk on Tuesday afternoon and asked him if he knew why Cerise was still here. "Wasn't she supposed to leave after last week?"
Carl only shrugged and bit his tongue.
By Wednesday the rumors began to really fly thick and fast about why Cerise had not gone as previously announced. The P.D. had heard about her and refused to accept her. Someone in the City Attorney's Office had warned them about Cerise's record. Laura Schwartz had told Cerise's future supervisor what had happened at Purchasing.
Like most rumors, these vicious speculations were seductive on the outside, more insulting under the surface, and -- in some points -- patently illogical if you dared to gaze into their depths. For example, if Laura wanted Cerise out, why would she tell anyone she was incompetent? That would leave her stuck with the very person she wanted out. But rumors are not supposed to make sense. They are only supposed to be sharp, controversial, or even mean-spirited.
Carl finally got up the nerve to ask Cerise what had happened. Here's an iconoclastic move, he thought, ask the woman herself what happened, instead of listening to gossip behind her back.
"Carl, they're telling me now that the training division has frozen the position in an attempt to cut back their budget prior to the next fiscal year."
"But...they told you they would take you on!"
"Yeah, it's pretty cold, isn't it? But that's the system for you. Promise you something with one hand, then take it away with the other."
Now he began to feel for her in a way he never thought he would. He felt sorry for her, even pitied her, felt regret for the woman who had taken and (he thought) failed at the job he'd wanted. It wasn't fair that she was getting the royal brush-off. Of course, no word came down from department management, and in that silence Carl began to think Cerise was now an embarrassment to Laura and Kristin. A royal embarrassment for the lesser lords of the City.
But he needn't have worried. The management of the planet of Purchasing found a place for their failed admin-aide, in the newly expanding contractor compliance division, upstairs. And so, after two weeks of no one knowing where she would be working next, Cerise Chimera vanished from their floor, and in early November, Mary Olson at last began to take on her work singlehandedly.
Carl, meanwhile, continued to dream of the Wheel of Fortune. And nurse a grudge toward Kristin Fulton.