Mim Warner's Lost Her Cool by Lynn Messina

Author:Lynn Messina
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Red Dress Ink
Published: 2005-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

TEN

On Tuesday morning I don’t make it into the office until after twelve. I’ve spent the morning in Williamsburg, showing sunglasses to teenyboppers eating supersized fries at McDonald’s. The Mutants went over well, although the kids with their homegrown version were understandably unimpressed. Girls were again hesitant. The visual cacophony of the mismatched arms and frames made them uncomfortable; the imperfection, though part of the design, seemed too much like an unintended flaw.

When I get to Pravda, Helen is waiting for me. I’m allowed to turn on my computer and fetch a cup of coffee before she orders me into her office.

Helen’s office is large and comfortable, with beautiful curios and elegant fabrics. The room looks exotic—the objets d’art seem express-mailed from the four corners of the globe—but everything is either a suburban flea-market find or a Sears special. The most foreign item in the room is a bonsai tree she bought at Pearl River Trading on Canal Street. The tree looks real but it’s made of a space-age polymer that feels like rubber. All the plants—the fern by the door, the African violet on top of the filing cabinet, the amaryllis in the window—are fake. Helen can’t stand the inefficiency of cultivation. She hates the way plants need water and light to grow.

“You’re late,” she says, shutting the door.

This is true—my Mim report was scheduled for eleven-fifteen—but I don’t apologize or hang my head in shame. I left a message on her voice mail this morning letting her know what I was up to and when I’d be in.

Helen looks at me expectantly and I take out my Filofax. I came to the first meeting empty-handed, which didn’t go over well. She was skeptical of my details because they weren’t marked down in a log. Now I bring props. “Nothing major to report,” I say, running quickly through a made-up list of things I watched Mim do. Giving the Mim report to Helen is a bit like making confession. You sit outside the door coming up with a believable combination of impure thoughts and parental disrespect.

“That’s all?” she asks. “Coffee, shopping, eating?”

“Don’t forget working. A lot of the time she was in her office.” I feel compelled to draw attention to the one thing I actually witnessed.

She nods slowly, makes a notation and smiles. Her belief in the system amazes me. Helen sees only what’s directly in front of her—me at the beginning of her shift, Wendy at the end—and assumes the rest. Her failure is one of imagination: She can’t conceive of her employees not obeying.

“That’s all good. You see, I knew my system would work,” she says, satisfied. It’s been almost two weeks since the USA TODAY quote, and I feel like she should have one of those on-the-job-injuries signs you see in factories: 12 Days Without a Mim Incident. “The new office will be ready a week from Monday. They’re just giving it a fresh coat of paint and refinishing the floors. I’m going down tomorrow to take a look.

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