As Per Usual

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Susan Isla Tepper

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In the bodega I ordered four cups of black coffee. After I paid, the register girl put the four cups into a small cardboard tray with cup grooves. I carried it over to the little counter with the sugar and non-sweetener packets and the thumbnail size containers of Half & Half, setting it down. I looked around. Nobody else was using this counter, and the bodega was fairly empty since the early work crowd already got their take-out coffees and buns. I looked around again. Then I reached into my purse and took out the one Valium I’d wrapped in a tissue, dropping it into one hot coffee on the left side closest to me in the tray. Then I put covers on all the coffees and threw a handful of the other stuff, including wooden stir sticks, into the tray.  Leaving the bodega. It was a nice fall day. 

I crossed the busy city street at the light and went into our office on the first floor. It was Monday. Sales meeting day. My turn to get the coffees. We rotated. Today, the Boss, our torturer, would find himself at peace with the world. All thanks to me.

Jeff and Sandra were in their chairs dragged in from our area. Someone had dragged my chair in, too. They sat across from the Boss who was ensconced behind his big boss desk. I placed the tray on the edge of it and took his cup out first. “Here you go,” I said, smiling.  

He nodded. It was the best he could do. When his wife had needed a haircut and told him it would cost $15, he threw a fit and told her that he’d cut her hair. When he relayed this story to us, it was with great indignation that his wife should expect that amount of money on what he viewed as a ridiculous luxury. Poor wife. He probably put a bowl on her head and cut around it. I was sort of wishing his wife could be here today to see what transpires. But of course that was absurd because she was never at our meetings, why would she be? He kept her at home barefoot and pregnant, as the saying goes.  

I handed the other two cups to Sandra and Jeff. I was all breezy.  

“I got extra Half & Half, Jeff, cause I know you like your coffee very light.”

“Thanks, Nell,” he said, “I appreciate that.”

We all stirred in what we needed. The Boss took a sip then looked into his cup. I was watching carefully. He sort of shrugged it off and began the meeting. I was thinking maybe the Valium made the coffee taste bitter. But all seemed to be going as normal, as far as these meetings were concerned.

He started with his usual complaints. Revenues coming from our office were down. He mentioned some stats from the competition. Sandra and Jeff, per usual, kept their expressions blank. I did the same. I was the newest here and took my cues from them. The Boss took another sip and again looked askance but blew it off to continue his bitch session.

Jeff mentioned more advertising. The Boss cut him right off. “Have you any idea what TV ad prices run these days?”

Of course Jeff did not. Normally the Boss would go on a tirade, making fun of Jeff, but he didn’t. Hmm… Already he’d started looking less tightly wound. He even giggled a few times, causing Jeff and Sandra to look really surprised. I, of course, kept my expression neutral.  

As the meeting progressed the Boss got looser and looser. At one point, he took his pencil onto a lined register, to mark something, and his arm slid out and he sort of slumped across the desk. He stayed that way a moment looking totally stunned.  

I had to squeeze my mouth tight to keep from falling apart laughing. Sandra and Jeff now looked completely confused. The Boss seemed befuddled. As if he’d landed in an alternate universe: one where he didn’t feel hatred coming out of him every moment. It was refreshing. The meeting continued on, the Boss so loose by noon that he decided to end early, rather break for lunch than keep us on the hot seats until nearly 6.

We dragged our chairs back into our area, and Jeff shut the Boss’s door the way the Boss expected.  

Jeff’s eyes were wide. “Wow,” he said,  “what the hell was that all about?”

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Susan Isla Tepper is a twenty-year writer and the author of 12 published books of fiction and poetry. She also writes stage plays. Forthcoming is a new novel Hair of A Fallen Angel from Spuyten Duyvil Books.

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