Russell Wiley Is Out to Lunch Read Online Free PDF Page B

her intimidating pointy shoes.
    It’s not simply a question of beauty. Beauty I can deal with. It’s like art. I appreciate it and move on. Erika Fallon is in a separate, more disturbing category.
    Maybe it’s chemical. Maybe it’s just the way her pheromones mix with mine.
    Whatever it is, it creates a sensation that I like and don’t like. A feeling that even if I take a step back, part of me stays where it was, hovering outside my body. Being in the presence of Erika Fallon makes me experience a yearning to rethink every aspect of my existence. It makes me realize that the various pieces of the life I have constructed don’t fit together in the proper shape. I’ve sculpted something that bears no relation to my original vision. Erika Fallon makes me understand that for thirty-seven years all I’ve done is make one choice after another without ever being a hundred percent certain what the hell I’m doing. Every time I’ve chosen one door over another, the opportunity to go back and find out what was behind that other door has disappeared. And every door I go through reduces the number of choices I get to make in the future. My life is contracting, not expanding. After all the choices I’ve made, after all the doors I’ve closed behind me, this is where I’ve ended up: in a twenty-fifth-floor office, surrounded by meaningless papers, with a dopey black cat waving its plastic paw at me, spending most of my waking hours working for a company that wants only to squeeze me a little harder so I can help it monetize a fading asset for at least a few years more, dealing with an endless line of people trooping in to tell me the latest petty nonsense that’s troubling them, and a boss who spends more time worrying about his corporate viability than he does attempting to solve our most pressing business challenges. And if I do my job well, the only reward I get is the chance to come back and do it all again on Monday and the next day and the day after that. And tonight when I go home craving some affection, needing to sense a simple human connection that will help me transcend all this and simply feel warm and comforted and loved, I can’t even be sure of that. There’s a good chance my wife won’t even touch me.
     
     
    “This is it. I’ve had it. I can’t take this place for one more fucking second,” says Susan Trevor.
    “Give it to me,” I say, glad to be snapped back to petty, nonsensical reality. I can always tolerate Susan in small doses. She’s a complainer, but her grievances often reveal a depth of passion that is somehow inspiring. After eighteen years at the company, she remains devoted to her job and outspoken in her opinions, especially on the topic of our senseless senior management. Up till now our senseless senior management has tolerated her because they have no idea how she does what she does, which is to head up our advertising services department. Susan’s the person who makes sure all the ads appear where and how they are supposed to in the paper each day. Outsourcing her function to India has not yet surfaced as an option.
    “Have you seen this?” she says, brandishing a sheet of paper.
    “What is it?”
    “The agenda for Monday’s Henry meeting.”
    “Oh good. An agenda for once.”
    Susan’s six years older than me. Married with two kids and living out on Long Island. She’s half Italian and—except for the times when she goes on a strict diet, loses several pounds, buys new clothes, and undergoes a personality change that makes her think she’s a teenage sex kitten—she’s attractive in a curvy, Mediterranean way. Her diets are extreme, but they never last long, and the weight always comes right back. That’s OK with me. I like her more when she’s heavier, with her curves hidden behind a more conventional and demure work wardrobe. I lean back in my chair, wondering how much of her passion Susan manages to save for when she gets home. Even with the pressures of family