Up to the Minute

Noticing the door was ajar, I wobble over in my snazzy new secretary heels and hold it steady as I knock. Through the gap I see him rise quickly from the desk. He crosses the room and stands with his hands clasped behind his back, staring out of the window at the impenetrable cloud of grey that is London in springtime. Knocking once more, I step into the room; a few seconds before I hear him clear his throat and bark 'enter!' over his shoulder towards the door, in a well practised gesture.
I stand and wait, trying not to laugh- he's just so frightfully pretentious.
He addresses me without turning around "Miss Clarke," he says. "It's your second week working with us now. Is there anything you'd like to tell me? First impressions, that sort of thing."

I think, and my hand raises automatically to play with my hair; the archetypal pose for the Deep In Thought.

I could confess that it was me who broke the paper shredder. I could tell him I know exactly how long I have to tap on the desk-top with my fingernails before the other deskbound folk begin to get annoyed. I think about telling him how many stops it takes me to get to the pub over the road; and how it always takes two more to get back.
A plane passes the window.
09:34.
I smile slightly; I could tell him I know exactly how many planes pass the office windows on any given day that he has me deskbound.
Or, I think as I adjust my seamed stockings, I could tell him how very disappointed I get when nobody in the office notices my carefully constructed clothing references.
I hesitate; where should I start? "No," I say. "I don't think there's really anything."

He turns around then, and catches me frowning at my myriad reflections in the panelled glass of his bookcase. I bite my lip, widen my eyes, and try to look like I'm at least trying to be helpful.
"Nothing at all?" He askes hopefully, scanning my face.

I think about how the hardened office women call me 'Immy' with an air of forced joviality. I think about how one of them has already asked to borrow my yellow trenchcoat and my Gina shoes, despite being a size sixteen and one shoe size up on me. The memory makes me wince, so I move on; I could explain how I spilt coffee on my keyboard, and now the escape key won't work, along with all the others along the top left hand corner of the keyboard. But I don't know what they do, so it's fine.
I look up at him and smile a teeny bit- confused, but I want to help!

He sighs.
"Imogen," he says. "We're all playing on the same ballpark here." My smile freezes in place, and I notice another plane pass the window.
09:42
He keeps talking; "...you're piece on the football match at such-and-such a primary school wasn't quite what I had in mind, Miss Clarke." He finally gestures for me to sit and I do, crossing my legs demurely. He leans across the desk to say, almost conspiratorially, "too many like, literary refernces, you know. Like, our readers, they just won't pick up on them. I'm a university man myself of course, but they're like, too oblique for the general public."
I stare at him, and find disgust is a hard ally in such close quarters; my gaze lingers perhaps overlong on the monobow, the pierced ear, the Mickey Mouse tie.
I want to tell him I didn't go to the fucking football match, how I detest football; it takes a hot player to enable even the slightest show of interest, and a primary school match just wouldn't cut it. I want to explain how I went round the city Banksy spotting, and wrote about that.
More than anything, I want him to know there are no literary references in the piece; how I asked Mrs Next Door's son about the match. How he gave me all the details I needed in exchange for an Easter egg and a promise to babysit.
Another plane passes the window behind him.
09:54
"So Miss Clarke, I just wanted to ask you in light of this; is there anything you'd like to discuss with me? No problems settling in? I like to think we have a jovial friendly atmosphere. The pieces you submitted just seemed so promising."
Ah, I think; literary refernces it is then.
I wonder if he noticed that none of the pieces I submitted to get this job were most decidedly not sports related. I wonder if he knows he has a nickname in the outer office, and whether he's aware of how many times he's abused the word 'like' in the last twenty minutes.

I hesitate, and then something clicks with the undeniable immediacy of a stiletto heel in a hospital corridor.

"I'm bored," I say.