Maybe, Maybe Not

1. Maybe

Her life was nothing to write home about. Boring dead-end job, divorced, and now an empty nester. She could be out enjoying her life, but there were bills to be paid and limoncello to enjoy alone watching her fireplace. Or staring at the ceiling fan go round and around in a daze.

While at work all she seemed to do was daydream as well.

"Jakinda!"

That jumped her out of her darkness feeling sorry for herself.

She turned to see her boss, Franklin Dorchester, at her desk, a stack of files in hand. He was an old grumpy man who barely noticed her within the past four years she worked at the agency. Just because she did not have fifty-eleven degrees like everyone else did not mean she was dumb or incompetent.

When he hired her she always felt he hired her for her assets, not her brain power.

"Why were these files sitting on my desk?"

This man was ridiculous. The same files he asked for first thing in the morning that she pulled and arranged on his desk?

"Those are the cities we did not have enough information collected on. You asked for them."

"But they were all scattered around my desk."

He was a lie. "They were in alpha order, in a neat pile, atop the corner edge of your desk, just as you like them."

"Oh...well..." He had nothing else to complain about. "Keep up the good work."

He left her desk that was in front of the government agency where she worked. When she was hired she thought she would be an assistant to the Director of City Planning, but her job encompassed so much more. She was the agency's lead receptionist, the Director's assistant, and anyone else's little gofer. It was a good thing she liked the people, most of the people, and the pay was good.

Franklin started as a good boss. Asked her the dumbest question while interviewing her. "Do you smoke cigarettes?" No, she did not, but if she did, would he have hired her? She felt as if she had to defend the honor of smokers. What was his hang-up with it? There were smokers in their department which he confessed to her he would get rid of one by one.

"St. Louis Metro Council of Governments, how may I direct your call," she greeted a call on the ten-line phone system. They got more calls than anything, even when they could be directly connected to whoever they were calling. "Please hold."

She put a few calls on hold, to weed out any unimportant, then she connected all the calls expertly until the lines were cleared. All this while she also finished typing up minutes from a previous meeting she had to give back to Franklin to review before they sent out to members.

Another busy day in her life.

The elevator dinged and someone stepped off but she did not bother to look up. A stack of mail thudded on her desk and she grimaced and looked up because that's not where it usually went.

She looked up at the delivery person. "The mail goes over there." She directed the person to the bins with a sign that said outgoing and incoming mail. Was he blind that he did not see that?

"Sorry about that ma'am."

She had to look at who was calling her ma'am with that sexy voice. This was a new mail person. Way younger than their regular guy who was older, married, and white. This was a young whipper snapper, a cat daddy, and he was too damn sexy to be carrying just her mail.

She raised an eyebrow and peeked over the counter at him as he turned and she took a look at his backside, nice, round, and firm as he dropped the mail into the bin and grabbed the stack of mail going out.