Under My Boss's Desk - Under Him

“Oh, I uh, Mr. Dawes. I um,” Dan stammered in embarrassment.

“That was the worst cannon ball I ever saw,” Harlan said, beginning to laugh as he plucked his sneaker out of the water.

Mahira splashed at Dan as he retreated in a backstroke. Tory was fixed on Harlan’s smile until he caught her gaze and returned it. Unable to offer anything witty, Tory submerged and began to swim away, towards the far end of the pool. Taking advantage of the playfulness in the air, Harlan pursued.

The door opened and Trace Linder took a peek inside before entering, then slipped in with a mix and match six pack of craft beers. Mahira climbed out of the pool and strutted towards Trace in her bright swimsuit before grabbing a beer. Tory rose from the water at the opposite end, catching his eye.

“Come and join the party?” Mahira offered, as Trace gazed across the room to see Harlan climb out of the pool.

“I’ll dip my feet in. Who is that with Harlan?”

“Victoria,” Mahira explained, as they watched Harlan wrap his towel around Tory’s shoulders.

Trace tempted Mahira with his selection of fancy beers and she nodded them away.

When Harlan turned to them, he waved Trace over. With an uncertain look on his face, Trace approached, walking along the pool as Dan did a lazy backstroke in the opposite direction. Trace could see the light of sudden enthusiasm on Harlan’s face and wondered if it was related to the images he’d just finished or the excited looking young beauty he had clearly overlooked.

“Did you have a chance to look through the latest from this afternoon?” Trace asked Harlan, while still a few paces away.

“I was just looking at them again, as a matter of fact, when I got a really great idea,” Harlan said, smiling widely.

“You’ve met Trace Linder, right?” Harlan asked Tory.

“Hi,” Tory said meekly.

“I found myself on the verge of talking shop with Stadler, because, as you know, I truly suck at small any form of small talk, when it occurred to me that we have a group of very talented young people in house for the duration.”

“Well, yes…” Trace concurred.

“Some fresh eyes on the icon design couldn’t hurt,” Harlan clarified, as delicately as possible, sensing Trace’s unease.

“We still have more than a week, plus Brian and Janis will start working from home on Monday,” Trace offered.

“I know. But you know how it is,” Harlan remarked, turning to include Tory as well before continuing, “Part of a deadline’s span must include what we like to call acceptance time, around here. So often, we come up with something we think is great, then wonder if it is great, then doubt its greatness, then repeat the cycle.”

Tory laughed. Harlan grinned in awe, upon seeing how the beauty of her face when she let herself go, clearly disarmed Trace Linder.

“That’s, well, yes but, Ok. Let’s give it ago,” he stammered, no longer able to find the logical threads of any argument he could make against working with her as Mahira walked up within earshot.

“What are we giving a go?” Mahira asked, excitedly.

“I was just telling Trace that I am inviting all the contest winners to come into the design studio tomorrow and give us their take on how to update the iGo App Icon. It will be like an internship. Or temporary employment, so to speak.”

“Oh my god, That’s amazing! We are going to work at Nextthing.Net! You’ve just turned our resumes into gold, Mr. Dawes, Gold!” Mahira said beaming, then called out across the pool, “Dan!”

Trace Linder said nothing. He just chugged a Grapefruit IPA and jumped in the pool with his shirt on.

Chapter 10

Looking out over the city and its lights, Harlan tried to quiet his mind, which was racing in so many directions. He looked out over the gentle slopes of streets bounding westward across the avenues but couldn’t help wondering about the usefulness or importance of the iGo App as the length of the emergent quarantine scenario started to look indefinite.

He slowly walked down the steps to his sunken lounge taking in the slightly differing perspectives on the glittering cityscape. Harlan placed his phone in its base.

Certainly, allowances and grace periods were being considered by many agencies as the economic results of COVID-19 quarantine were being forecasted but Harlan wanted to hold himself and his business to a higher standard. This led him back once again to her. “Victoria,” Harlan said aloud, allowing himself to feel the pleasure that came in the mere thought of her. Smiling, he recalled the sound or her unbridled laugh, her complete surrender to it was so enticing.

Distracting him from further imaginings was the concern that Trace Linder might not be the right designer for the iGo app and couldn’t see that himself.

Trace had wanted to take it on personally at the very beginning and had welcomed the idea of being stuck at work for the duration. No matter how many times Harlan would look at Trace’s designs for the icon’s new look, all he saw was another version of the same thing.