Maddy Collated: The Complete Trilogy (10 page)

Which was possibly the biggest disappointment of her life, considering the Friday before
that
she had fucked the CEO and COO of her company.

On the CEO's desk.

During work hours.

At the same time.

Yeah.

...Of course, neither of them had called.
Or shown their faces.
Or... anything, really.
And it wasn't like she had been
expecting
them to do so, but the sex had been amazing and they'd had lunch afterwards and talked for two hours and, well, you'd think
flowers
were at least in order, but they were probably too busy exploring the width and breadth of each other's cocks. She'd just been the mediator, really. Chet Taylor, the COO, had harbored a years-long flame for his best friend and business partner, Sam Lake, the CEO. She'd helped them get over the initial awkward phase by screwing the both of them at the same time. She was a peacemaker. Like Jimmy Carter.

Ew
.

...That aside, now that she thought about it, she probably
did
deserve some flowers. But she was not, in any way, surprised that there were none.

I don't like flowers anyway,
she thought.
Always flaunting those gaudy colors. Ooh, look at me, I fuck bees.

Show offs.

A stack of files hit her desk and
Maddy
jumped. Rick stood next to her work station, looking down at her with a look of utmost contempt. That old, familiar look, like he was thinking about all the ways he was better than every else on his team. He really was an awful team lead.
Maddy
wished he would catch herpes and die, not necessarily in that order.

"I need you to put this sales data into the new system," he told her. "It needed to be done by last Friday."

Then why didn't you give it to me last Friday?
Maddy
wanted to ask, but she'd learned the hard way that questioning Rick just meant more work mysteriously found its way to your desk, and it was all due yesterday.

She knew why he hadn't given it to her last week, though. Last week, everyone had still thought she'd been buddy-buddy with the higher-ups. That was before Sam and Chet had failed to show their faces again below the top floor. When they'd wanted to fuck her they'd been sticking their noses around down here on eighth like a couple of
proles
.
Now that they were probably going full-bore gay for each other and had forgotten all about her.

Not that she was bitter. It was, she had to admit, the most innovative and interesting reason she'd ever been dumped. She just wished it hadn't meant that Rick came out swinging for her. This Monday had been terrible because Rick had already yelled at her twice and the work on her desk had just doubled.

Maddy
sighed and flipped open the first file folder.
Columns of numbers stared back at her. They looked like unpaid overtime.

Maddy
threw herself into the work with abandon. After all, it wasn't like she had anything better to do.

After a few minutes, she found herself getting into the lull of the work, the point where tedium overcame all other concerns and numbed her from her brain down to her toes. It was almost like freezing to death, except she always woke up and had to do it over again. Still, in the midst of it, it wasn't so bad. She'd rather do data entry for a hundred years than sit through another meeting with Rick.

She was so absorbed in her data entry that the man standing by her desk had to clear his throat several times before it registered with her that there was someone there. Blinking,
Maddy
surfaced from the file and forced herself to focus on him.

It was neither Sam nor Chet, and she certainly hadn't expected or hoped it would be. That would have been silly. Instead, it was a nice-looking young man in a courier's uniform, holding a nondescript brown package.

"Madeline Marcos?" he asked.

Maddy
glanced around. Once again, the eyes of the office were upon her, although this time it was probably in
judgement
because they weren't supposed to receive personal packages at work. Oh, well. "Yes, that's me," she said.

"Sign here." He proffered a clipboard.
Maddy
took it, gave him her signature on the indicated line, and then accepted the package he handed to her. It was light and clunked a little as it changed hands. The courier tipped his trucker's hat to her and left.
Maddy
sat at her desk and weighed the parcel. The return address was not one she recognized. Should she open it now?
Or at lunch?

Definitely not now, she decided. Shoving it under her desk, she tried to return to work, but the package seemed to draw her to it. Every few minutes she put a foot out to make sure it was still
there,
and more than once the distraction of it caused her to miss a few keystrokes, making her work twice as long.

"Are you going to open it?"

Maddy
glanced behind her to see Sandy staring at her, her mouth quirked in a half-smile.
Maddy
liked Sandy, even though Rick played favorites with her. Sandy had, on several occasions, brought her some dinner when she was working late after Rick decided to dump another stupid project in her lap, due immediately.

"I don't know," she said cautiously. "We're not supposed to get packages at work."

Sandy waved a hand and scoffed.
"So what?
Is it from your boyfriend?"

"I don't have a boyfriend,"
Maddy
said.

"Then who would send you a package at work in the middle of the day?"

"My mom?"

Sandy rolled her eyes. "That's just sad. Open it! I want to see what's so important. It's almost lunch time anyway."

Maddy
glanced around, but no one else was paying them any attention, and it was almost time for lunch. Leaning down, she scooped the package up and grabbed her scissors, slicing open the packing tape. Flipping the top open,
Maddy
raised her eyebrows.

Inside was a box.
A brown, cardboard shoe box.
Across the top, the words "Christian
Louboutin
" were scrawled.

Louboutin
,
Louboutin
. That seemed familiar.

Sandy, craning her neck to see inside the package, gasped.
"Oh my god!"

"What?"
Maddy
said.

"Open that! Open it!" Sandy bounced in her seat. "Oh my god, if there are shoes in there I am going to scream!"

"Please don't,"
Maddy
said, but she opened the box anyway. Nestled inside, swathed in delicate tissue paper, was a pair of red patent leather pumps.

Sandy clapped a hand over her mouth and squealed as quietly as she could. "Oh my god," she hissed. "Oh my god, those are
Louboutin
pumps!"

Maddy
stared at her blankly.

Sandy made an impatient sound. "Don't tell me you don't know
Louboutin
. Oh my god, can I see? Let me see! Let me see!"

Wordlessly,
Maddy
handed them over and Sandy took the box as though she were a nun and the box held the shroud of Turin. Reverently she lifted one sleek red pump out of the box and held it up, her eyes filled with awe and wonder.

"What's so great about
Louboutin
?"
Maddy
asked. She'd heard the name, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

Sandy gave her a look of pure pity. "
Maddy
," she said.
"
Maddy
,
Maddy
,
Maddy
.
These are only the hottest shoes.
Louboutin
is only the hottest designer right now. These are only
seven hundred dollar shoes."

Maddy
choked. "Holy shit!" she whispered. "Are you serious?"

"Look, the sole is red, the name is right there... these are real
Louboutins
!"

Maddy
liked shoes, but she had to admit she had never cared about designers in her life. The sort of people who cared about shoe designers or designer clothing had way more money than she did, had better credit than she did, and had better bodies than she did. What on earth was she going to do with seven hundred dollar shoes?

"Who is sending you
Louboutins
?" Sandy demanded. "I thought you said you didn't have a boyfriend."

"I don't!!"
Maddy
insisted. "I... I don't know who could have sent them!" That was a lie. She only knew two people in the world who had enough money to spend on frivolous shit like seven hundred dollar shoes.

"Is there a note? Look, there has to be a note."

Maddy
riffled through the tissue paper. There was a note, just a bit of scrawled handwriting on a card. She took it out, expecting it to be a thank you note. It wasn't. She frowned at it.

"For Friday," she said out loud.

"Is it signed?" Sandy scooted her rolling chair across the floor, trying to look over
Maddy's
shoulder.

"No," she replied. "No, it's not signed." But it didn't need to be.

Gently prying Sandy's fingers from her shoe,
Maddy
replaced it in the box. She waited for the swell of pleasure to bubble up. This was, after all, far better than flowers.

It didn't come. Instead, she felt only a vague apprehension.
Friday.
What was going to happen Friday?

What were Sam and Chet playing at?

*

Tuesday at eleven thirty found
Maddy
up to her eyeballs in reports. The delivered package had not gone unnoticed by Rick, and he had taken his revenge out on her by loading her up with even more work.
Maddy
liked to think of herself, not as optimistic, but as stubborn. She knew with enough bull-headed persistence she could power through almost anything Rick—or life—chose to throw at her, but the sheer number of files sitting on her desk now filled her with a deep, existential dread. Thick stacks of paper stared at her, taunting her.
You'll never go home again,
they seemed to say.
You will work straight through Christmas and you still won't be done.

I'll get you,
Maddy
thought.
I'll input you so hard your maternal microfiche will feel it.
That didn't really make any sense, but she'd stayed late yesterday and arrived early today and there was only so much data entry one brain could handle before it started to take on the consistency of porridge.
Porridge-brain.
That was her.

And then it happened.
Again.

A cleared throat.
Maddy
looked up, and there was the courier again. "Madeline Marcos," he said, smiling at her and tipping his hat.

Oh please, let Rick be in a meeting,
Maddy
thought desperately. Reaching out, she grabbed the clipboard from him and signed hastily. This box was bigger than the last, but it didn't feel any heavier. Once again it was from an address she didn't recognize, but it was certainly not a huge stretch of the imagination for her to assume that, once again, someone upstairs wanted to give her a gift.

Maddy
shoved it under her desk just as an email hit her inbox. Frowning, she clicked over to her email.

It was from Rick.

Dread curdled in her stomach as she opened it.

Maddy
,

Just a note to remind you about the office's personal parcel policy: please do not have personal parcels delivered to you here at work. Thanks for your cooperation.

—Rick

What an utter tool. For a moment,
Maddy
considered shooting him an email back telling him she had no idea who was sending the packages so could he please back off her nuts, thanks, but she knew he wouldn't care. She was in his sights for some reason.

Just roll with the punches,
she thought.
He probably has personal problems. Like maybe his wife bangs dudes in his bed while he's at work and he knows but can't tell her because he wants to stay together for the kids. Or maybe he has a crippling addiction to sniffing dry erase markers.
That certainly would explain his love affair with white boards during meetings.

Chewing her lip,
Maddy
filed the email away. Then, after a moment of agonizing, she opened the top drawer in her desk. Like most peons here on the eighth floor, she didn't really have a lot of personal papers, but she
did
have the company directory. Of course, Sam and Chet's numbers weren't listed, but the number for the general upper management call desk was right there in the front.
Maddy
picked up the phone and dialed the extension.