Chapter Text
“Carson!”
Carson, wincing, pauses. She is on her way back from lunch and running three minutes late – it’s not a good time to be caught by Dina Campari.
“Hi, Dina.”
Dina glides towards her, beaming. “I’m so glad I caught you, although,” the other woman checks her watch, flicks her waterfall of blonde hair over her shoulder, and tuts, “You are a little late!”
“There’s was a queue,” Carson murmurs, “for the bathroom. Sorry, I-”
“I’ll let it slide,” Dina laughs, “just this once. Anyway….” The blonde pauses, “You know I got engaged last month?”
Carson nods, “Yes. Uh, congratulations?”
Dina gives a little shrug that somehow manages to flash the huge diamond on her finger in front of Carson’s face, “Thank you. Well, Tommy is a doctor. Brain surgeon, you know.”
Carson does know. Every person who works at Pace magazine knows – all 300 of them.
Carson wonders where this is going. She really needs to get back to work. “Uh-huh,” she supplies, “that’s wonderful, Dina.”
“And so…” Dina pauses for dramatic effect, “I’m leaving!”
This takes Carson a little by surprise. “Leaving?”
“Oh,” Dina coos, “you’re going to miss me. Carson Shaw, you are just the sweetest!”
Carson blinks at her. “Er, yes, you’ll be missed. Uh, very much. Where are you going?”
“Going?” Dina says, tilting her pretty head.
“Did you get a job at another magazine?”
Dina stares at her for a second and then laughs her twinkling laugh. “Oh, no, silly. I don’t need to work.” She dips closer to Carson, her voice dropping to a stage whisper, “Tommy – well – he earns so much. I don’t want to say how much, because, obviously, that would be gauche, but,” she winks at Carson, “it’s a lot.”
“Great,” Carson says, still unsure. She’s pretty sure Dina wanted to be a fashion designer. “So, you’ll work on your designs at home?”
“Designs? Oh, oh, yes, I suppose,” Dina shrugs. “Anyway, my last day in two weeks time as of this Friday.”
“Wow, that’s- that’s soon.”
“Isn’t it! Gosh, I’m so excited.”
Carson nods. “Well, good luck, Dina. I’m, um, happy for you.”
“I knew you would be!” Dina trills. She grips Carson by the arms and squeezes. “And-oh, Carson, you’ve got mustard down you.”
Carson glances down at herself and groans. There’s a huge mustard stain over her right breast. She loves this blouse.
The mustard stain does mean, however, that Dina lets her go suddenly.
“Well, I’ll let you get back to work. By the way…”
Carson hums, trying to dab at the mustard stain.
“I’ve added planning the annual gala to your list. What with tying up all the loose ends for Greta – oh,” she laughs, “sorry, Ms Gill, I just have too much on my plate. And I’m sure you’ll do a wonderful job as long as you remember,” she pauses, waits for Carson to supply the words.
“Not to let contractors walk all over me,” Carson murmurs dutifully.
“Perfect!” Dina chirps. “Well, I best be off! And Carson?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t be late back from lunch again!” She wags a finger in Carson’s face, her monstrous engagement finger once again glittering in front of Carson’s eyes.
~
Maybelle pounces on her as soon as she makes it back to the office.
“You just missed the witch,” Maybelle rushes. “And you’ll never guess what!”
“She’s leaving?” Carson says flatly. She’s scrubbing at the mustard stain with a crumpled-up tissue from her pocket, succeeding only in smearing the yellow substance further over the white blouse.
Maybelle droops a little, “you heard?”
“Bumped into her on the way back from lunch.”
Maybelle shudders, “Poor old you. Well, she told us – didn’t she Shirley?”
“She did,” Shirley says from her desk, leaning back and stretching till something in her back audibly pops.
“She told us that she wanted to thank us for our work. As if, we work for her.”
“It sort of feels like we do,” Carson murmurs.
“Oh, I know,” Maybelle huffs and slides into a well-practised high-pitched voice full of gloss, “This line work is shoddy, Maybelle. Have you sent the emails to Mr Baker’s office yet? Accounting is chasing, have you not run the accounts for Ms Gill’s office? You should keep your elbows in more when you type, Carson, it’s terrible form. Oh, look at the state of this office – how can you work like this!”
“She just gave me the job of organising the annual gala,” Carson sighs. The mustard stain is going nowhere.
“She didn’t? Everyone knows that is the editor-in-chief’s assistant’s job!”
“She says she has too much to do – what with leaving.”
“Poppy,” Maybelle snaps, “cock.”
“Carson,” Shirley tuts, “your breast is yellow.”
“It’s mustard. I don’t know Maybelle… she could be busy? People say Ms Gill is really demanding.
“Dina says Ms Gill is really demanding.”
“Here,” Shirley says and shoves a stain remover pen into Carson’s hands. “That should get it out. You’ll need to wash it out after though – else it might bleed the dye.”
Carson takes it gratefully. “Thanks.”
“Best treat it soon. Once mustard dries…” Shirley trails off and widens her eyes ominously. Stains, Carson knows from personal experience, are one of Shirley’s Top Ten Most Worrying Daily Occurrences – a list not to be confused with Shirley’s Top Ten Most Worrying Weekly Occurrences or her Top Ten Most Worrying Life Occurrences. All of them, however, involve spontaneous clown appearances.
“I don’t really understand why she’s leaving,” Carson says, flicking the remover pen over and squinting at the instructions.
Maybelle rolls her eyes, “she’s getting married. Told me straight out as if she hasn’t been waving around her left hand like a blasted orchestra conductor for the last two weeks.”
Carson frowns. “Is that a reason to leave?” Carson can’t imagine leaving Pace Magazine just because she’s marrying Charlie.
“Speaking of marriage…” Shirley swivels around in her desk chair, hands clasped in excitement, “Have you and Charlie set a date yet?”
“Er, no,” Carson avoids her friend’s gaze, “soon.”
“You’ve been engaged now for what… a year?” Maybelle hums.
“14 months,” Shirley offers.
“Got get on that hon, else someone might steal him off you!” Maybelle winks at her and Carson, used to this line of teasing, grins easily. Maybelle, who likes men who ride motorbikes with names like Chad and Austin, is as likely to steal Charlie as Dina is to stop waving that gargantuan ring around.
“Carson,” Shirley urges, “your mustard stain is drying!”
~
Carson walks the long way to the woman’s toilets on the basis that there’s less foot traffic and therefore less risk of bumping into Dina Campari again.
The woman’s fouth floor toilet is thankfully empty. She tugs off her blouse and dabs at the mustard stain with Shirley’s remover.
She’s just finished rinsing the blouse out under the tap when someone sniffs quietly from the furthest most cubical.
Carson freezes.
There is another sniff, a small hiccupping noise, and then, louder, the sound of someone spooling out toilet roll, blowing their nose.
The nose-blowing sounds defeated, sad – the kind of nose-blowing that happens after someone has spent a good half an hour in a toilet cubical crying.
Carson wavers, caught in indecision about whether to call out, asking if the other woman is okay.
Before she can decide, the toilet cubical opens and- and Greta Gill steps out. She freezes at the sight of Carson.
They stare at each other for a long moment. In the silence, Carson’s blouse begins to dip wet droplets onto the floor in a steady little tap tap tap.
“Er,” Carson says, and holds up a wet hand, “hi!”
Ms Gill blinks at her. Her eyes are puffy and red-rimmed, her face pale. The other woman’s usual red lipstick is missing.
“You’re topless,” Ms Gill says.
Embarrassment flairs in Carson like a beacon. She clutches her blouse against her chest automatically, cringing when the material slaps wetly against her skin.
“Sorry, uh, sorry, I was- I had, um, an altercation with some mustard.”
Ms Gill tilts her head; peers at Carson like she’s the most interesting thing she’s ever seen. It makes Carson itch.
“Are you one of our writers?”
“No,” Carson offers and side steps awkwardly a few paces towards the hand dryer. “I’m, um, just a general secretary. Not that- I mean- I’d love to be a writer. It’s what I wanted to do, actually, um, when I first got here. Work my way up to it, you know. I’d like to be a features editor. History, um, that’s mostly what I write. Fashion history.”
God, Carson mentally kicks herself, why is babbling about her career ambitions? She takes another little awkward step towards the dryer. Ms Gill remains fixed in her spot, watching her thoughtfully. There’s a balled-up tissue in her hand; mascara smudges beneath her eyes. She is still, even tear-stained and crumpled, the most gorgeous woman Carson has ever seen.
“I don’t think I’ve seen you around before,” Ms Gill says quietly.
“No, um, I don’t get up to the sixth floor much,” Carson says with an apologetic shrug. “I know your assistant though, Miss Campari?”
Greta’s face wavers for a second, her bottom lip trembling. “Right,” she says, and her hand tightens around the ball of tissue.
Carson swallows and wonders if she should ask. Ms Gill is her boss (her boss’s boss’ boss actually) but she’s also a person – a person who looks like they are having a bad day. “Are you… okay?”
Ms Gill blinks at her again, eyes focusing on Carson’s face almost hungrily. She ignores the question and says instead: “How is it working out for you? Working up to being a writer?”
“Oh,” Carson murmurs, “fine. Fine. Um. I’m still a secretary. But… I like my job. Sometimes I get to write the odd article if a freelancer drops out last minute.”
“Really?” Ms Gill says and sounds, to Carson’s increasing bafflement, genuinely interested.
“Um, yeah. I wrote a review for March’s issue on Kazuo Ishiguro’s latest novel.”
“And did you like it?”
Carson shrugs; smiles a little awkwardly. “I thought it had some great, uh, pacing?”
It’s a feeble joke. Cringeworthy really. If she had said it to Maybelle, Maybelle would have thrown a paperclip at her. But Ms Gill laughs, if a little weakly.
They smile at each other for a second and Carson feels warmth flicker up her spine, settle low in her belly. She feels hungry all of a sudden, even though she’s only just finished lunch.
Ms Gill opens her mouth, lips half-formed around another question when something beeps loudly.
The editor-in-chief snaps her mouth closed and glances down at her watch. She taps at it; the beeping stops. “I have to go to my next meeting.”
“Right,” Carson nods frantically, “and I have to try and make my blouse less see-through.”
Ms Gill’s eyes drift down Carson’s body and the hungry feeling inside Carson intensifies.
“Good luck in your meeting,” Carson breathes.
“Good luck with the dryer,” Ms Gill says back and then she’s gone.
Carson listens to the other woman’s heels tap away down the corridor until the bathroom room swings closed and the noise is lost.
~
She doesn’t see Ms Gill again for two weeks. Why would she? Carson is a secretary. She does what all good secretaries do: her work. She keeps to the second floor, although her thoughts are far less professional and wander, frequently, to the sixth.
She tries to keep her mind off the other woman by drafting up an article on the history of power dressing. She gets lost in the shoulder pads of the 1970s, Yves Saint Laurent’s Le Smoking evening suits, the new style of Coco Chanel in the 1920s, and the tight-fitted bodices of the suffragettes running for parliament in the 1890s.
If she thinks about Ms Greta Gill striding across Pace Magazine’s lobby dressed in every outfit she comes across, well, that’s her business.
~
Charlie calls on Saturday.
“Hey,” he says down the phone.
Carson softens at his voice. He’s been back in Idaho all week, helping a family friend with a divorce case. She missed him. “Hi. How’s Idaho?”
“Good,” Charlie says. “How’s Rockford?”
“Same old,” Carson laughs.
“Yeah? What are you doing?”
“Writing,” Carson murmurs, spotting a typo in her draft and pinning the phone between her ear and shoulder while she fixes it.
“Oh, yeah, they going to let you publish something else in your fancy magazine?”
“Oh,” Carson says, “no, this one is just for me.”
“Right,” Charlie mutters and Carson picks up, even though the phone, the faint strain of puzzlement in his voice. She supposes it’s fair. Charlie wouldn’t work on a case for fun – for free. She knows that it’s difficult for him to understand sometimes why she loves writing, why she spends her weekends hunched over her laptop rather than taking him up on his offers to follow him around the country chasing cases.
“Mom was asking after you.”
“Yeah?” Carson says. Charlie’s mom is sweet, although Carson can’t shake the feeling, deep down, the older woman thinks Carson is not quite good enough for her son. “How is she?”
~
Dina Campari leaves.
Carson, Shirley and Maybelle dutifully troop up to the staff lunchroom on the third floor for her leaving party.
Dina, standing in the middle of a throng of editors, waves at them but doesn’t come over.
“Let’s steal some cake and get out of here,” Shirley murmurs out of the corner of her mouth.
“Oh, and some wine,” Maybelle adds.
Carson is selected as the wine mule because, as Maybelle points out, squishing her cheeks together, no one would ever suspect this cute, little farm face.
She edges her way over to the table set up with bottles and shoves the first one to hand, red and clearly fancy as hell, up the back of her sweater.
The wine bottle is cold against her skin and she’s just wriggling it into a better position when the hairs on the back of her neck sit up.
She’s being watched.
She lifts her head and looks up directly into – oh god – the eyes of Ms Gill.
The woman is watching her from across the room, head tilted, lip caught between her teeth. Carson freezes; every muscle in her body seizing. Slowly, she makes to put the bottle back on the table.
The editor-in-chief smiles slightly, shakes her head, and then, slowly, raises a finger to her lips.
The message is clear: Ms Gill is not going to say anything about wine thievery.
Carson wavers, indecision gripping at her.
There’s a squeal from across the room: Dina Campari is wavering around that monstrous engagement ring again.
Well, Carson reasons, she has, technically, already been caught. She might as well benefit from the crime.
She smiles tentatively back at Ms Gill, shoves the wine bottle more firmly up her sweater, and makes a break for it.
Shirley and Maybelle catch up with her outside of the room and, giggling like schoolgirls, they scamper back to their own office.
They devour the cake and the wine but, even as Carson lays tipsy and sugar-high on the floor of their little office, slurring toasts to Dina Campari leaving them in peace, she can’t shake the feeling that Ms Gill looked sad. So sad. Heartbroken even.
~
On the Monday of the third week, Carson arrives at work to find Shirley standing stiffly at her desk and Jo De Luca perched casually on her own.
“Hello,” Jo says placidly as she enters.
Carson mind immediately scrambles to name everything she’s ever done wrong. She has to be in trouble. The creative director doesn’t suddenly appear in the general secretaries’ office for a chat. But she’s on time and she hasn’t missed any deadlines of late and-
The wine-thieving suddenly rears up in her memory. Fuck.
“Hello,” Carson warbles, “is this about the wine? Because I swear it was an accident! It just got into my sweater, all of a sudden and- and- I’m really sorry and it won’t happen again and-”
“No,” Jo De Luca says pointedly. Her eyes sweep up and down Carson thoughtfully. “It’s not about… wine. It’s about Ms Gill.”
“Ms Gill?”
“Yes. Miss Shaw, would you come with me, please? It won’t take too long.”
“Er…” Carson says but Jo De Luca is already striding out the door.
~
Jo escorts Carson to the elevator where, once in, the other woman presses the button for the sixth floor.
Dread settles in Carson like concrete. She knows what this is about. Ms Gill has met her twice now. Once topless in the bathroom and once shoving stolen wine up her sweater. She probably thinks Carson is some sex-crazed, alcoholic pervert. No wonder the other woman had been asking about her job. She was probably trying to work out who Carson was so she could fire her at the earliest possible opportunity.
“You’re trembling,” De Luca says blandly as the elevator slowly glides upwards.
Third floor, fourth floor, fifth floor-
“Am I in trouble?” Carson spills out just as the elevator dings its arrival at the sixth floor and the doors slide open.
De Luca smiles and says out of the side of their mouth, “Depends on your definition of trouble. Come on.”
~
De Luca walks her to a glass-fronted office. There’s a small, empty desk sitting out front.
The glass office is fancy. Beyond fancy. Carson’s apartment is not this nice.
It has two armchairs and a couch upholstered in thick red velvet. There are deep sweeping sash curtains pulled back from the glass, lots of expensive, mahogany-coloured furniture, and enough potted plants that watering them all could single-handedly kick off a drought in the state of Illinois. One of the plants is a tree. A whole tree.
The office also contains, sat behind a huge wooden desk, Ms Greta Gill. She looks up, smiling, when De Luca steps in, beckoning Carson after her.
“Thank you, Joey,” Ms Gill says, “you can leave us now.”
De Luca salutes jauntily and then strides away. Carson stands in the doorway of the office and tries not to look too terrified.
Ms Gill smiles warmly at Carson and waves a hand at the seat across from her desk. “Please.”
Carson sits because she’s pretty sure running away would be rude.
“I read your review,” Ms Gill says.
Carson gapes at her.
“And the very nice piece you wrote about the strike in GAP’s New York factory for last year’s December issue. And the one on the history of the cowboy boot for the September issue.”
Carson gapes some more.
“I liked them,” Ms Gill says.
Subtly Carson reaches over with her left hand to pinch, hard, at the skin of her wrist.
“You are a talented writer.”
“Th-thank you.”
Ms Gill hums. “Miss Shaw, I don’t want to keep you from your work so, I’m just going to come right out with it.” She smiles invitingly at Carson. “You are aware that my assistant has moved on?”
“Miss Campari? Yes.”
Ms Gill twitches a little, something like pain flickering through her eyes. “Right. Well, I find myself in need of a new assistant.”
“Right?” Carson manages. “Did, er, did you want me to post an announcement?”
Ms Gill looks amused. “I have not advertised the post yet because, well, I was hoping that maybe you would like to be my new assistant.”
Several emotions surge forth in Carson at once and begin to fight for space in her brain. “Me?” she squeaks.
“You,” Mss Gill nods. “It would not be a… traditional assistant role. In fact, we might need to think of a new title for you.”
Out of the tussle of emotions ricocheting around her head, bafflement emerges triumphant. “Not traditional?”
“For two reasons.” Ms Gill stands, pushing smoothly back from her chair, “Can I offer you a drink? Water? Or,” she flashes Carson a mischievous smile, “something stronger.”
It’s tempting but… “It’s 9 am.”
Ms Gill shrugs - an elegant gesture which makes Carson’s eyes flicker briefly up and down her silk pant-suit. “Just water then?”
“Please.”
Greta hands her a glass and Carson sips gratefully at it. When she feels like she’s got more of a grip on herself she says, “What are the two reasons?”
“Well, firstly, I’d like you to be my assistant but I’d also like you to write. You’ll pitch ideas to me and, if those ideas have legs, we’ll lighten your load so that writing can take up more of your working hours.”
Joy, indescribable blazing joy, elbows its way up next to bafflement. Carson finds that she’s grinning, beaming.
“Oh,” Ms Gill says faintly, “you have dimples.”
“You want me to write? Like, as part of my job?”
“Yes,” Ms Gill says, eyes fixed on Carson’s face, “if that’s something you would like?”
“Yes,” Carson rushes, “yes!”
Ms Gill smiles at her, “Good. I spoke to the features editor – she agreed, we could use more of your voice in the magazine.” She tilts her head, glances at a note by her right hand, “Actually, she wants to meet you – on Wednesday. I take it you’re amenable?”
Carson nods frantically, “Yes. God, yes.”
Ms Gill clears her throat, the soft smile on her face dimming. “Uh, the second reason is more… delicate.”
“Delicate?” Carson echoes. Her ears don’t really seem to be working properly. Ms Gill wants her to write. To write for Pace Magazine. On a regular basis. Like a real writer. She has a meeting with the features editor.
“If you would rather not agree to this, uh, second reason, then I will completely understand. We can find you a role that will allow you to write as part of your job in a different area of the magazine. Perhaps adapt your current role?”
Ms Gill, Carson realises suddenly, is nervous. The other woman’s hands are smoothing down creases in her pant-suit. The gesture looks habitual, like an unnoticed tick.
“Ms Gill,” Carson says and tries to tone down her own frantic joy, “what is the second reason the role would be untraditional?”
Ms Gill clutches her own elbows and chews at her bottom lip. “This is… confidential. Even if you wish not to take the role, please do not,” she glances up at the ceiling, eyelashes fluttering, “divulge this… aspect to anyone else.”
Carson frowns, unsure. As far as she knows, this isn’t how Pace usually works. Nobody-secretaries don’t suddenly get pulled from their offices and offered exciting, mysterious new jobs out of the blue. But… instinctively she trusts Ms Gill. There is something about the other woman. Something sweet and almost fragile. As if the editor-in-chief is made of glass and is terrified that the world might find out how breakable she is.
Carson takes a breath; decides. “I won’t say anything. You have my word. You can trust me.”
“Yes,” Ms Gill murmurs, her eyes once again fixed on Carson’s face, “I think I can.”
She shuffles a few papers on her desk. “Miss Shaw, I have certain needs. I work hard. Very hard. Often, I don’t leave the office until late at night. Sometimes I don’t leave the office at all.”
Carson suddenly has a sense of where this is going. Ms Gill – who does, admittedly, look a little thin, a little tired – needs someone to look after her. Bring her meals. Do her dry cleaning. That kind of thing. Carson can do that. Actually, Carson wants to do that. She wants to look after this beautiful, kind, glorious woman who single-handedly runs one of the most successful magazines in the country. “Okay,” Carson says.
Ms Gill falters for a second, “Okay?”
“Okay,” Carson repeats, firmer this time, smiling hugely. “You need someone to look after you.”
“Yes,” Ms Gill says slowly, “look after me.”
“I can do that. I want to do that.”
The other woman blinks at her. She’s blushing faintly. “It wouldn’t be all the time. Just… when I need it. When I’m stressed.”
“Okay,” Carson says again, enthusiastically. “Whenever.”
Ms Gill is still staring at her, looking at Carson like she’s somehow the best thing she has ever seen.
A third emotion steadily climbs its way out of the buzzing swarm of Carson’s mind and this time, this time, Carson is paying enough attention to know what it is. Not hunger, not excitement, but desire.
“So, you’ll take the job?” Ms Gill asks. She looks so hopeful, so cautiously excited that Carson, firmly, presses down the newly acknowledged desire. So what if she thinks Ms Gill is beautiful? Every woman in the whole office probably thinks Ms Gill is beautiful. She’s heard Maybelle say on multiple occasions that Ms Gill is drop-dead gorgeous. It’s not a big deal. It’s a girl crush. And people have crushes on their bosses all the time. It’s nothing. Nothing.
“I’ll take it,” Carson agrees.
~
Greta walks Carson to the door of her office.
Carson is awfully aware of the space between their bodies – the 30 or so centimetres of office air in between their swinging arms.
“I’ll have the paperwork sent down to you,” Ms Gill says as they hoover in the doorway. “Can you start next Monday?”
“Yes,” Carson says. She has to tilt her face up to meet Ms Gill’s eye.
“Great,” Ms Gill breathes, “great.”
~
Shirley and Maybelle are vibrating with anxiety by the time Carson makes it back to the office.
She is promptly pounced upon, manhandled into a chair, and interrogated.
“Are you fired?” Shirley rushes, “Have you been demoted? Are you okay?”
“Shirley said De Luca came to get you! De Luca! God! What happened. Carson, what happened?”
Carson feels suddenly exhausted. She sinks back into the chair, allowing a delighted grin to spread across her face, “Ms Gill offered me a job. A job writing!”
Maybelle caws as Shirley grabs Carson tightly around the shoulders and shakes her with excited joy. “You’re going to be a writer?”
“Yes! Well, and Ms Gill’s assistant. Both. I’m both. But guys, guys she liked my articles! She read them! She says she wants me to pitch her ideas and, if they are good, she’ll rearrange my workload so I can write!”
Maybelle launches into a song which, admittedly, is less of a song and more of a high-pitched chant: “Carson’s gonna write! Carson’s gonna write! Carson’s gonna write!”
“Wait- wait-” Shirley mutters, “Maybelle, will you shut up a second! You have to be Ms Gill’s assistant too? Like, take Dina Campari’s job?”
“Ohhh,” Maybelle croons, “you’re gonna be so much better than that toffee-nosed stuck-up-”
“-I guess?” Carson says over Maybelle. “I think Ms Gill needs someone to kind of…” Carson remembers suddenly Ms Gill’s nervousness, her insistence that the second ‘non-traditional’ aspect of her role be kept private, “…do admin,” she finishes lamely. “You know, lots to do up there. Emails. Paperwork and stuff.”
“And write at the same time?” Shirley eyes her suspiciously. “That sounds… odd.”
“No,” Carson says firmly, “it doesn’t. It’s good. A way for me to move up, right? A way for me to write!”
“Carson’s gonna write! Carson’s gonna write! Carson’s gonna write! Carson’s gonna write-”
~
The paperwork does come through. The next day actually.
Carson prints off the contract and takes it home. She sits at her little kitchen table and drinks a beer while she reads through it.
Mostly the contract looks like she expects it too. With the exception of one section. The section is subtitled “other duties” and it reads… oddly.
The employee will also perform other tasks at the discretion of Ms Greta Gill. Duties will be limited to Ms Greta Gill’s office and the employee may the decline task at any time. Duties will be performed under a strict guarantee that Ms Greta Gill will be tested on a monthly basis during the employee’s contract of work to ensure the safety of the employee.
Discussion of these duties is prohibited. Any discussion of said duties will result in the employee’s immediate termination from the post and Pace Magazine’s employment.
Carson reads the section over and over again but still cannot make sense of it. Why would Ms Gill need to be tested monthly for her safety? Does Ms Gill have some contagious chronic illness she is keeping at bay?
And… how can these ‘other tasks’ only take place in Ms Gill’s office? Carson’s pretty sure she can’t collect dry cleaning, can’t make sure Ms Gill is getting enough to eat, if she is confined to the other woman’s office. Ms Gill’s office is big, sure, but Carson is pretty sure she would have noticed a fully stocked kitchen and dry-cleaning equipment.
And, most worrying of all, the clause of termination. What task could Ms Gill possibly have in mind so serious that it necessitates firing Carson for talking about it? Maybe Ms Gill does have dry cleaning equipment hidden in her office, behind some sliding secret bookshelf, and she is going to ask Carson to clean a fur coat made of endangered big cats?
Carson thinks, briefly, about calling Charlie. Charlie’s a solicitor and, while mostly he works on divorce cases, he’s much better placed to understand this contract than Carson is.
But Charlie, Carson knows, will worry. He’ll tell Carson not to take it. And Carson… she wants this job. Whatever this task is, Carson will do it. She’s going to be a writer.
She can handle it.
She signs the contract, scans it into her laptop, and sends it back.