Page 65 of A Light in the Dark
As promised, I hired a cab to her hotel, and the driver helped unload her sewing machine, going as far as taking it up to her room. He also helped carry my new acquisition into mine, earning himself a nice tip for the hassle. I was reading the manual on my new toy in my kitchen when a soft glow drew my attention to the window.
Joel visited my roses, which were still in their travel pots and awaiting planting. I set aside the papers, unlocked my back door, and stepped outside, drawing in a slow and long breath. “I’ll be planting everything tomorrow after work.Today, I took my co-worker to the fabric store, where she went on a rampage rather similar to mine but with sensible materials.”
The luna moth shifter fluttered his wings and went to land on a new bloom.
I gave it ten minutes before the man was so high he couldn’t see straight. Laughing over his inability to leave my roses alone, I went inside, dug out a piece of fruit from my fridge, and cut it up for him. Leaving the door open, I returned to my investigation of my new machine, which had cost an unholy amount of money and could embroider by itself with minimal help and guidance from me.
Eventually, my winged guest came inside for his snack, and as he had last time he’d been given free rein to enjoy the roses, he passed out on my counter. Amused over the whole situation, I closed the door and went about my business, taking my rabbit fur wool upstairs before moving the old sewing machine out of my craft room and relocating it to the table and hauling my new prize to where it belonged. By the time I finished, Joel had roused himself enough to take up residence on the old machine. “It eats silk for breakfast, velvet for lunch, and we don’t discuss what it does to satin. That machine only accepts cotton fiber, and it does so grudgingly. If it weren’t illegal, I’d chuck it out of the second story window into the flood waters.”
The luna moth fluttered his wings at me, and he followed me around my home while I did my chores before settling in at my window nook to read a book. He picked the nearby lamp as another napping spot, and I settled in to the serious business of relaxing before having to deal with a long week of rogue invoices, unregistered payments, and hockeyfanatics going wild. When my bedtime rolled around, I worked my hand under the sleeping luna moth, carried him to my back door, and bounced him until he woke up. “Off you go. It’s sleep time, and as it’s not Friday or Saturday night, you’re free to go.” I laughed, tossed him into the air, and smiled as he fluttered away, landing on the neighboring rooftop, likely to regain his bearings after having been sent off in such a rude fashion. Only when he took to the sky a second time did I close my door.
The next morning, I went about my business, went into work to discover a hyperactive Madeline twirling around in a sundress made from fabric she’d acquired the night before, pausing only to sort through papers in her hands, assign them to one of the many piles on the floor, and resume her journey through the space, somehow dodging the papers without tripping. I sipped my tea, which I’d hauled to work in a green leakproof tumbler, amused I’d degraded to needing an adult sippy cup to keep from making a mess on my work.
I assumed my new co-worker or my boss had learned from me, as Madeline had a similar cup on her desk but hers was gray.
The source of her activities, in the form of a massive stack of papers, devoured a quarter of our usual space. “Mr. Accor, what have you done to my office?” I wailed, aware only one person would be so brave as to dump that much crap on the floor with any expectation of someone—me—cleaning it up.
Our boss came in, and he’d openly joined the adult sippy cup brigade, saluting me with a pale blue one. “Joel relayed our costs to some of his friends and family, and this wasfaxed to us overnight along with signed contracts, as I’d given him a few boilerplates for him to send to said friends and family. I asked Madeline to separate the sheets by company owner, but you’re to handle the onboarding personally. The Sampson Sigil files will start coming in on Monday.”
That sneaky luna moth. “They’re all from that little town of his, aren’t they?”
“Apparently, his family can’t handle their taxes with grace, and they’re tired of getting hit with penalties, so they’re begging for us to help them. Don’t fret. According to Joel, their files are not complicated. It’s just everything they have for this year so far, and they want us to file their corrections so they pay limited penalties. It’s only a few days per contract for the accountants, and I already warned them. If you’re organizing the chaos, it might only be a day per contract to get them caught up and on a maintenance schedule thereafter. They’re willing to go digital and paper records.”
I loved when companies and individuals were willing to do both. Paper records let us warehouse everything for the required five years, and digital records let us be redundant without investing much extra time. “I’m going to be drowning in papers on Monday, aren’t I?”
“They’re going to be hauling in the papers for this year in a box trailer, so yes. I dealt with crying accountants first thing this morning. His, and it was from joy. You are now a beloved entity in his company, and most of them haven’t met you yet.”
“I will try to remind him to be sensible.”
“Can you remind him after he finishes doing the recruitmentwork for us? They count towards your production tally, too.”
“I can probably wait to issue those reminders for a week or two.” I laughed, set my cup on the edge of my desk, and giggled at the notes Madeline used to create her zones for storing papers. Each new company had been assigned a hockey team name, and each company had player positions with types of papers in it. “This’ll help a lot. Thank you, Madeline.”
The refugee beamed at the praise. “Mr. Accor brought me this cup this morning, and he said you’d started it, as you hate spilling things on papers, and the cups never leak.”
“Nothing sucks more than getting stains on important work papers. It happened to an accountant once, and she sobbed relentlessly over it. We had to take the pages to a graphics firm to scan and remove the stains to have better copies to work with. I’d already taken to using an adult sippy cup at that point, and we’re all using them now. It’s been a while since we’ve had a spill.”
“Monday, once you’ve started reining in the chaos, I want you to cherry pick which accountants are getting the Sampson Sigils contract. You’re familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of each accountant, so I trust you can put together a strong team. Friday, you’ll be going to the job fair with me. I’ve already gotten our guidelines for requesting interviews. If we feel we need to work Saturday to see the second day of the fair, overtime has been authorized.”
I foresaw having to go to the fair on Saturday if my boss had gone out of the way to authorize overtime in advance. “With luck, we finish everything Friday.” I allowed myself a sigh. “We’re not that lucky, are we?”
“It’ll be a coin toss,” my boss admitted.
One lost Saturday wouldn’t kill me. “I’m sure it’ll be fine. Please don’t add to my day, sir. If you want me going anywhere on Friday, I need to haul ass on this.” I took another sip of my tea and regarded the maze of paper piles. “If you can’t find me, I’m probably under a fallen stack. Just kick papers until you find me.”
“I’ll make sure she doesn’t get crushed from the paperwork,” Madeline said, returning to her sorting, twirls and all.
If I could bottle the woman’s joy, I’d make a fortune. Rather than indulge in a fit of jealousy over her happy state, I cracked my knuckles and went to work.
There werenew faces on my street, and something about them bothered me. Under the guise of photographing my foundation, a common enough occurrence after the floods, I snapped pictures of them. The first of them, with blond hair, a physique that implied he spent a lot of his time working out, glared at everyone and everything.
I disliked the way his gaze lingered whenever it landed on me.
His companion, on the darker side of the spectrum, also took being dour a step too far for my comfort.
They both wore suits, which was about as out of place as knowing the owner of Sampson Sigils lived a few doors up the hill. Joel, however, made efforts to belong to our strange little street.
The visitors, who mostly hung out on the other side ofthe road, checking out the businesses still shuttered from the storms, may as well have worn clown suits and danced around. More than a little disturbed, I retreated into my home, texted the photographs to Roger, and notified him of their strange behavior.
