"Night, Geoff," I called as my boss left.
As the resident organizational over-achiever, I constantly stayed at work after everyone had gone home to finish the filing. If it wasn't in my system, I'd never find it. I had tried in the past to get everything in order before the work day was over, but that had resulted in a day of confusion. This way, I could sort through the files at my leisure and get them into an order I understood.
I slipped out of my dark grey suit jacket and searched through my purse. Once I had my iPod clipped on the waistband of the straight skirt brushing the tops of my kneecaps, I slipped the ear buds in and got down to filing.
I know that, if I have music, I'm going to subconsciously dance to it. I also know that I am a very bad dancer. This is why filing alone in a semi-dark law office was ideal for my quality iPod time.
"Love, the kind you clean up with a mop and bucket..." I chanted along with The Bloodhound Gang as I slipped the next to last file into the cabinet. I bumped the drawer closed with my hip and grabbed the last folder in rhythm. "Hieroglyphics, let me be Pacific, I wanna be down inβ"
"Jess!"
My left ear bud popped gently out of my ear as I turned to look horrified at its current possessor, Caramon. He was trying not to laugh.
"Gee-zus Cam!" I shrieked turning red. "How long have you been there?"
"Through most of
Closer
and about half of
Bad Touch
," he snickered. "Anyone ever tell you you're a shitty dancer?"
"
You
didn't seem to complain at the last ball," I snapped.
"So, modern dance escapes you in favor of the intricacies of sixteenth century tedium," he joked. "Yeah, you're officially a rennie."
I laughed and found the drawer for the Chen file and stuck it where it was supposed to go.
"You know," Cam teased, "no one else could ever find anything in these cabinets."
"That, Cutie," I teased right back walking over to him and pushing my index finger into his chest, "is what I call 'job security'."
We both had a good laugh over it. Geoff is Cam's step-dad, but he's better than the biological that no one ever talks about. Cam doesn't even go by his given name because his father named him. Instead, everyone knows him as Caramon, his persona in our reenactment group. This kid is the only person I know that can get away with using the name of a character from
Dragon Lance
instead of something he made up.
"Wha'cha doin' here kiddo?" I asked once I'd caught my breath. "Shouldn't you be out buying tobacco and porn? It is your birthday after all."
"Eh, I did that before I registered for the draft," he shrugged. "You can only go to so many porn stores before you start seeing the same thing over and over. When I got bored, it scared me. Then I remembered that I had Geoff's Palm Pilot in my car. Thought I'd drop it off."
"Dude, he's gonna kill you! He's been lookin' for that damn thing all day."
"Yeah, I know. Why do you think I'm leaving it here instead of taking it home? I put it in his top desk drawer, so he'll go ballistic when he finds it so easily tomorrow. Hey is that a new shirt? Oh my god, it's silk! Where the hell did you get a silk, poppy-print shirt?"
Let me make something abundantly clear. Cam is not gay. He's not even curious. The kid is just way into fabrics because of reenactment. He can spot silk at fifty paces and realize it's poly-silk at twenty.
"I made it, Stupid," I chuckled. "I found this stuff at Jo-ann's, isn't it pretty?"
He reached over and rubbed the fabric between his thumb and two fingers. "Duponi even, I'm impressed."