More of Chapter Four

The next morning Joe had several meetings. The two barely had time to say goodmorning when he passed Charlene’s desk.

The morning passed slowly for Charlene without her talking more to Joe.

At lunch she walked a hundred steps from the front door of her office building and found a bite to eat and a cup of coffee at the little dinner where she usually ended up.

The service by the old, female, proprietor was always quick and the food was better than most of the eateries near by, or so it seemed to Charlene. She usually sat at the same small table for two in the rear of the little cafe.

The furniture and floor showed just how long this place had been open in this neighborhood. the ancient concrete foundation was visible where asbestos floor tiles had been worn through by the decades of feet walking over them.

There was little time for Charlene to wander too far for lunch and she had discovered this spot of serenity years ago on a tough, rainy day.

After drinking a good cup of coffee and eating half of her corned beef sandwich, she found her way back upstairs to her cubicle and pulled and pulled up the calendar on the computer again. She looked it over very closely.

Charlene looked up at the grey ceiling and mulled over her chances of going with Joe on this trip. She waited anxiously for him to call her into his office. They both had much to do with all of the writers they were working with in the last few months s the end of the year approached.

She saw the blurry figure of a woman walk by her desk through the foggy glass wall that separated her desk from others on the main hallway. It was one of the editors walking to a meeting.

Charlene often stared out the window near by her to daydream about Joe and the other matters of importance in her life. She sat as the guardian of her desk and the hall to Joe’s office, or so she thought. She felt that she was the gatekeeper to accessibility to Joe’s office and him, though it wasn’t true. She felt protective of him, now more than ever.

Charlene wondered what the odds were that Joe might agree to let her accompany him on his exotic trip. She thought that she had made it very clear to Joe how important tis trip was to her. She wondered if he even cared, “just a little.”

Her broken heart had begun to heal since Joe’s marriage was oof for good this time. She hoped that it was true. These last few months had been a rollercoster of emotions and pain.

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More later today.

We’re off to volounteer at the hospital as we do every Tuesday.