A Dog With Two Tales by Ellen Riggs

Author:Ellen Riggs [Riggs, Ellen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

Wilf Darby carried himself like a guy who’d been a high school hottie 40 years ago. Time had claimed most of his heat but in his own mind he still had a full head of hair, an angular jawline and a six-pack. It seemed like he expected people to feel grateful for a moment of his attention.

None of this would have bothered me one bit if he’d been a good leader, but our department had dwindled during his reign. The staff that once made up my work family had left for other challenges. Most had given up on Flordale and found greener pastures. Jilly was behind quite a few of those departures. I didn’t blame them—or her—but I missed my pals. For the last three years, my former passion had become no more than a job that was sucking the soul out of me.

On Monday morning, I noticed the curious stares as I walked into the office. I’d chosen my best suit—black, lightweight wool cut just right—to shield me from all the eyes. Some were genuinely sympathetic, and those were the eyes I avoided most. Sympathy would only make me feel more vulnerable. I needed to keep up the front and get this day behind me. Tonight I could visit Keats again, and plot our retreat to border collie country.

The message arrived with a ping before I’d even hooked up my laptop at my workstation. Wilf had issued his summons. I put my purse in my bottom drawer and walked to his glass-walled corner office with the spectacular view. Shoulders back, shields up, fake smile firmly in place. There was a dribble of sweat between my shoulder blades but no one could see that.

“Morning, Killer,” he said, when I walked in and perched in the chair opposite his desk. He took his time finishing up whatever he was doing on the computer.

“Morning, boss.”

I hated it when he called me Killer. It diminished the impact our work had on people—real people who frequently left their final meeting with me in tears. The men were more likely to cry than woman, I’d found, perhaps because their identity was so tied up in their professional lives. They knew how hard it was to find a new job when the downsizing stain appeared on their records. I referred many of them to Jilly, whose small but mighty company had the highest success rate of any headhunter in the city. Seeing them thrive in a new role was good for her, good for the client and balm for my beleaguered soul. I kept a record of those I’d downsized, and what happened afterwards. Jilly told me I got too attached; now I saw the toll that had taken.

When Wilf finally turned, I said, “How was your weekend?”

“Good.” He cracked his knuckles and then folded his beefy hands across his belly. His smile was as fake as mine. With glass walls, he needed to keep things clean. “How ya feeling? You looked green around the gills when you left our meeting on Friday.

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