1.
Liza Hartson pressed the buzzer on her desk and waited for her secretary to answer. A few seconds elapsed before Merle Bowman's lilting sing-song voice came floating through to her.
"Yes, Mrs. Hartson?"
"Merle, dear" said Liza, "I'm expecting a visitor shortly but I've still got a few things to attend to. When he arrives, will you ask him to wait for a few moments and then I'll buzz you again when I'm ready."
"Oh," came Merle's voice again, now sounding somewhat perplexed and biting her lip. She hated the way her boss kept referring to her as "dear".
Liza smiled to herself; she could see in her mind's eye Merle's puzzled face as she took stock of what she had just been told. Merle, for all her childish giggling and pouting, was and is an excellent secretary and knew every appointment at every time of every day but it was not surprising she knew nothing about this one since Liza hadn't mentioned it to her. Most of Liza's appointments were all documented in the day's diary but there was nothing down for the period from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. which is when Liza usually went out for another boring business lunch with various yawn-inducing associates.
"There's nothing about any meetings in the diary until 3 p.m. today," Merle went on, cutting into Liza's reverie and thinking she was being as helpful as she always hoped her boss thought her to be.
"No," said Liza, "it's a private meeting."
"Oh, I see," replied Merle, not really seeing at all and now sounding more puzzled than ever but she quickly regained her professional composure. "Very well, Mrs. Hartson, I'll ask him to wait as you've instructed. May I ask his name?
"His name's Steven," replied Liza.
There was a click as the two women terminated the businesslike conversation and Liza smiled again as she glanced around the room. Apart from the desk and filing cabinets, everything in the room she had chosen herself, the expensive Turkish rug, the green leather armchair and an ancient framed picture of a girl on the catwalk, circa 1935, and who bore an uncanny resemblance to Ginger Rogers, which hung on the wall alongside the door. Yes, Liza smiled again to herself, she felt quite confident that Steven would find her new office everything he would expect for the newly-appointed Chief Executive of the Wellbeck Fashion House.
Liza went into her own private bathroom attached to her office and glanced in the mirror. She was still pleased with what she saw, despite her advancing years.
Liza was not conventionally beautiful, her somewhat aristocratic features were too sharply defined for that but men seldom noticed the fact, it was her striking presence that made them turn their heads as she shashayed down Madison Avenue. Not that Liza cared much what ninety-nine point nine per cent of the male population thought though she was, of course, grateful, not to say delighted, that she still had the ability to attract the attention of opposite sex but, as far as she was concerend, there was only one man whose opinion she cared about and that was all that mattered.
Today, for the duration of her lunch break, Liza was going to put business aside as she showed her visitor the new office she had acquired following her recent promotion. Any discussions about the Wellbeck Fashion House's latest designs could be put on hold; in any case, meetings were a waste of time in Liza's eyes since, most of the time, she had already made her mind up how she wanted to proceed and a few well-chosen words in the right direction soon saw off any opposition to her plans.
As for those who thought they were going to find things easy with the new Chief Executive, they very soon found themselves being required to revise their opinions. Despite her smile and undoubted elegance, one thing was for sure, Liza was no shrinking violet. An iron fist in a velvet glove - and very much so.
Liza smiled at her reflection, her eyes twinkling beneath her perfectly coiffured hair. She ate healthily, still worked out and went swimming regularly and, in summer, played tennis and there was not an ounce of fat on her very feminine frame. She was proud, too, of the fact that, as a top fashion designer, she could still get into some of the clothes she had designed fifteen years or more ago while the one or two lines that had begun to appear on her face in recent months were carefully disguised by the expert way in which Liza applied her make-up. This, she realised as she gazed in the mirror, would need a bit of seeing to now if she wanted to look her best for her visitor.
Liza bobbed her hair in front of the mirror and then went to work as she scrubbed her face of the morning's make-up and then went to town applying a fresh supply for the afternoon. By the time she was finished, she felt like a new person, as fresh at mid-day as she had been after she had showered at home early that morning.
Three floors below in the secretarial office, Merle was chewing her pen thoughtfully. She had a pile of letters to type up on the computer and get printed out and into the post before she went to lunch herself but she was still musing curiously on who her boss's mystery visitor could be.
"Maybe she's found a boyfriend," Merle said to herself, "it's gotta be five years or so since she and that husband of hers divorced." And if that was the case, Merle also mused, it's about time, too.
The buzzer rang again, emphatically so, breaking into Merle's thoughts and this time from the reception desk on the ground floor.
"Merle," came Alison Shepley the receptionist's voice, breathlessly, "there's a young man here to see Mrs. Hartson. He says she's expecting him."
A young man, eh, thought Merle. Seemed like Mrs. Hartson had not only acquired herself a boyfriend but a toyboy to boot. To the twenty-two years old Merle, Liza was very old, fifty at least, if she was a day.
"Yes," said Merle, "so I've just been told. Ask him to pop up to my office first will you, please."
Merle was expecting Alison to cut off the intercom but instead she kept it on and Merle could hear Alison's voice telling the visitor to take the elevator to the third floor and then turn right for the secretary's office. A few seconds later, with the man safely on his vertical travels within the Wellbeck emporium, and Alison's voice came back down the line to Merle, this time more breathless and tremulous than ever.
"Merle, he's absolutely gorgeous," she said with added emphasis on the last word, "I've come over all unnnecessary. Wonder how that boss of yours knows him?"
"I don't know," replied Merle, truthfully, "but if he's as terrific as you say he is, I can't wait to see him."
"Yes," said Alison, "don't leave me out. I'm coming up to you too, I'll grab a box or whatever and pretend its an important parcel just arrived, or something. I've just gotta see this guy again. Talk about sex on legs."
"Alison," said Merle reproachfully, "I don't think that's a good idea, besides you've got the reception to look after."
"I was just about to go to lunch," came the swift reply. "Susie's just come back and she can take over reception for awhile."
"Alison, I don't ..." began Merle but it was too late. The line went dead and Merle could imagine the receptionist, who was also a good friend, hunting around for something to bring with her as an excuse to visit the secretary's office.
There was just enough time for Merle to bob her hair in the small mirror behind her desk, do a quick repair job on her make-up and straighten her dress and step outside to greet the visitor, as she did all visitors in keeping with her hard-fought-for status as Secretary to the Chief Executive. She opened the door to the outer corridor just as she heard the humming of the doors of the elevator as it opened and almost collapsed at the vision that exited from it and started to approach her. Alison had been dead right, whoever Steven was, he was by far and away one of the best looking men Merle had ever seen in her entire life ...
2.
Merle felt her mouth start to drool as Steven drew nearer with a wide smile of welcome on his supremely handsome and clean-shaven face and looking every inch the successful young businessman, a briefcase swinging importantly in his right hand, his left hand in one of the pockets of his pants. He would be about twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, Merle guessed, she didn't think he was thirty yet, and he was dressed in a dark, expensive and beautifully-tailored business suit that clung to him tightly, enhancing the body inside it, along with a white shirt and perfectly knotted silk tie. "Well-groomed" didn't even go halfway to describing the man accurately.
His dark hair was cut in a neat short style that suited him and his eyes were like buttons, bright blue and sparkling with the joy of being alive. His complexion, too, was divine, his skin crystal clear like a baby's and Merle reckoned he was one of those lucky sods who had sailed through adolescence without being troubled by acne, not even the occasinal single spot as she had had to put up with.
"Good morning, sir," said Merle, somehow finding her voice to speak, "you've come to see Mrs. Hartson?"
"Certainly have," the young man replied, "you must be her secretary. Oh, and by the way, it's afternoon now, has been for the past ten minutes."
"Correct on both points," Merle replied, smiling in spite of herself and her mouth drooling still as she gave a surreptitious lick to her lips, hoping the man hadn't noticed, "would you like to come into the office and take a seat?"
"Where shall I take it to?" said the man, laughing as he followed Merle into the inner sanctum of her cosy office where the wide windows looked down on the city and the bustling sidewalks, the people plus the cabs and buses on the thoroughfares seemingly like speckled dots from so high up, an army of ants scurrying about their daily business.
"Pardon?" said Merle, in answer to the young man's remark as she moved round to sit behind her desk again and tried to look busy. She needed to sit down quickly before she fell down and was dying to know the nature of Steven's business with her boss but it wasn't her place to probe for such personal information.
"You asked me to take a seat," said Steven. "They do that at the dentist and the doctor when what they and you really should say is: would you like to sit down? I've often been very tempted to grab hold of a chair and march outside with it and see what happens, just for the hell of it."
"Oh, ha ha," laughed Merle, trying to sound amused but hoping he wasn't some kind of idiot. "Erm, Mrs. Hartson has asked you to wait until she can see you," she added, changing the subject quickly. "She'll buzz me when she's ready to receive you."
"Thanks," said the young man, "I don't mind waiting here in your delightful presence. But I think I'll stand rather than sit, if it's all the same to you."
He went over to the window and gazed out, looking down at the maelstrom of city life swerling away below them. "Wow!" he exclaimed, "what a view!"
