"Chloe, did you scan those Chester files? I asked them two hours ago. A couple of pages?" Chloe rolled her eyes at Jane's rambling. "I should just do it myself, really." Jane continued, and Chloe wondered why Jane didn't just do it herself. She always said she should. Every time she complained about Chloe's 'failures,' which was quite often, Jane would end with 'I should do it myself.' And yet, she never actually did do it herself.
"I sent them to you twenty minutes after you asked for them. It took fifteen minutes to locate them and five to scan the thirteen pages. They should be in your inbox." Chloe responded and sighed, not sure why she even bothered.
"Well, I don't have them! You must have done them wrong, do it again."
"Right away," Chloe mumbled under her breath. "Because I'm not doing anything else. I'm just sitting here waiting for you to give my life meaning." She grabbed the Chester file that she had left out just for this reason. At the copy machine, she decided to make copies, the Friday morning meeting agenda for Francis, her actual boss. Francis always forgot and would hold up the meeting by ten minutes while fumbling around the office, trying to get it all together.
Chloe pushed the number of copies and the 'okay' button, and the machine flashed the empty paper tray sign at her. Of course, there wouldn't be any paper in any of the three trays. She didn't think anyone else actually knew how to load the paper since it was so difficult to pull the tray out and drop a stack of clean paper in. She bent down and grabbed three stacks of paper from the box next to the machine.
"Took you long enough to come'" she heard Bill snicker behind her, and she rolled her eyes.
"Hello Mr. Moore," Chloe always called Bill Mr. Moore as not to encourage him, but it seemed to have the opposite effect.
"I've wanted to tell you all morning," He told her as he got up from his desk and walked over to her. Francis walked over just as Bill finished his sentence, "I had a dream of you."
"Francis, can you tell Bill how inappropriate that is?" She asked as she handed Francis the agenda copies and gave a meaningful look that was lost entirely on Francis.
"Hmm? Bill just had a dream about you." Francis said as he looked over the copies. "There's nothing wrong with that. We all work so hard sometimes work seeps into our dreams. Why, just Wednesday I had a dream that I'd lost the Chester file and finally found it in my neighbor's underwear drawer." Francis gave Bill a pat on the shoulder and walked away. Chloe shook her head and continued to scan the Chester file that Francis so happened to have been dreaming about.
"Aren't you curious about my dream?" Bill was still there now wearing a creepy smile as he attempted to bait her.
"Not in the least bit. No." She told him without looking up.
"But it was so… Real!" She could see his creepy smile grow to an even creepier grin out of the corner of her eye as he said that last word.
"Sounds like a real nightmare." She told him with a curt smile before heading to Jane's desk.
"I scanned the Chester file to your email, and just in case I'm doing it wrong, I came to see if it went through correctly," Chloe said to Jane as she reached the desk.
"Oh? Right. Well, let's see if you did it right this time. I doubt it, but we can check. I suppose I'll just have to show you how to do it after all." Jane sighed with annoyed exaggeration as she pulled up her email.
"Ah. There it is, and there are two of them. Hmm." Chloe pointed out the twin files in the scanned folder. "One sent about two hours ago, and one sent two minutes ago. You should call and have your system checked out if it isn't notifying you correctly."
"Uh, yes. Well, um, I'll call Nicki then." Jane picked up the phone as Chloe headed back to her desk.
Chloe sat down with a sigh. She hated her job. She already had enough work without adding Jane's entire workload and the stuff that Francis forgets on a daily basis. She might as well run her own company with all the work she did. If it weren't for Darren saving her at the monthly meetings, she would have blown up the whole place and been sipping margaritas on some random beach with a guy named Milton.
Five more minutes until lunch break. No one had called Chloe to stay behind, and everything's sorted out at her desk. Shut down and closed out to prepare for lunch and got her purse from her drawer. Two minutes until noon, and her phone rang. She growled at it and reached out for the receiver, then paused halfway.
"Nope, I'm going to let it go to voicemail," she said out loud to herself, refusing to answer. She instead grabbed her Blazer and shrugged it on. Then the phone rang again. "Ugh! Seriously, I can't win, can I?" She grumbled as she picked up the phone. "Chloe Harris, how can I help you?"
"Chlo! I need you to grab my suit from the cleaners, Pumpkin Face," the voice on the other end of the phone said in a rush.
"Dear? Why didn't you call me on my cell?" She asked in a tone that suggested never to call this number again, although it was utterly wasted on her husband.
"Huh? Oh, 'cause you always have it turned off during work hours."
For this very reason, she thought.
"Anyway, Sweet Lips, I need that suit for the three o'clock meeting with the partner stores."
"Fine, I'll grab it. Give me thirty minutes."
"Oh, and pick my regular up from Danny's Deli. Love you." He hung up before she could respond. She shook her head and rushed to the door without looking. She noticed too late that Bill was waiting for her.
"Hey, let's do lunch, babe." He gave her that wonderful creepy smile of his as he held the door open for her.
"No thanks, Mr. Moore," she ducked past him through the door.
"Don't worry; I'll let you drive if you want." He smiled pointedly and added a wink to be extra creepy was her guess.
"I'm meeting my husband for lunch." She informed him, moving quickly in the direction of her car.
"Monday then. I know where to get the best sausage in town," Bill called after her.