Desk Jockey Jam (2 page)

Dan waved a knife at him. 
“So what did you mean by saying Bree’s a suck up?”

“I...” 
Ah shit
, what
did he mean?  He had no idea why Bree got picked for the role over him, he just
knew it burned.  Which gave Dan the perfect opening.

“You mean your smart
admirable bosses chose Bree not because of any sexual favours or even the
promise of them, not because she’s got good tits, but because she’s more
suitable than you.”

“Fuck no.”

“Well what then?”

“Look Dan, just because
you had a freaking epiphany about women.”

Dan dropped his knife on
his plate.  Fluke jumped.  “Screw you, Ant.  What does that mean?”

“Keep your hair on I’m not
insulting Alex.”

Dan exhaled hard.  He put
his fork down without clattering it.  He wasn’t taking the bait.  Which was
good, because even though a topic change would be a godsend, Ant hadn’t intended
to ride up Dan’s arse.  “Why did Bree get the job, Ant?”

“Bloody equal
opportunity.  She got it because she’s got tits and wears a skirt.  She’d have
gotten it if she had no tits and her skirt was a freaking circus tent?” 

Mitch chose that moment to
prove he could do two things at once.  He abandoned his scan of the sports
pages to say, “Is it?”

“No.”  Ant twisted to look
at Mitch.  “She is delectably fuckable.  But it has nothing to do with what she
looks like, just what she doesn’t have between her legs.”

There was a scrape of
metal on polished cement, the table bumped and Dan was standing.  He slapped a
twenty and a ten down.  He had a wild look in his eyes.  “You just don’t get
it.”  He leaned over the table till he was right up in Ant’s face.  Ant could
see the salt drying in the crinkles at the edges of his eyes.  Dan was mad
about the epiphany comment.  He was way too sensitive about Alex.

“What don’t I get?” 

“That she got the job
because she’s better at it than you.”

“That’s not what happened.”

Dan straightened up.  “I’d
like to beat it into you, except I know that won’t work.”  He shifted upright,
put a hand on Fluke’s shoulder, bobbed his chin to Mitch and left.

What!
  Ant
turned to Mitch and Fluke.  “Did he just walk out?”  Dan had never walked out
of a sticky conversation before.  Dan who you could say anything to, tell
anything to, without having to worry he’d think badly of you, even if he did
threaten you with violence.

“I think he did, mate,”
said Fluke.  He had a sly bloody smile on his face, like he was in on the
secret to success.  Fluke. 
Jesus.

“Shit.  He’s really taking
this putting women on a pedestal seriously.”

Fluke shook his head.  “For
a smart guy, Ant, you have shit for brains.”

“Whatever you reckon,
school teacher.”

“You can’t even entertain
the thought this Bree chick is better than you.”

“Nope.  It’s just equal
opportunity at work.”

Mitch chucked the folded
paper in the middle of the table.  “So I’m a humble tool belt wearer, tell me
why this being equal thing between men and woman is a bad thing.”

Ant looked for their
waitress.  It was a three macchiato morning.  “You’d be right under Belinda’s
thumb wouldn’t you?  I didn’t say it was a bad thing by definition, but it’s a
bad thing when it’s attached to positive discrimination.”

“Meaning you think Bree
got the job because your smart bosses discriminated positively in an equal kind
of way.  How is that a bad thing?”

Ant didn’t have the
eye-contact knack Dan did.  He could not score a glance from any of the wait
staff.  “Are there many women on building sites, Mitch?” 

“I know one sparkie and a
heap of landscapers, some architects, but not a single brick layer or plumber.”

“So there’s a lot of equal
opportunity in your profession then?”

“Wait on, how is this
about me?  You could just as well ask me how many female partners there are at
Bel’s law firm.  Four out of fifty.  Sounds pretty unequal to me.  And if Bel
wants to go back to uni and study to become a paralegal, or even a fully
fledged lawyer, then I hope the boy’s club will give her a go.  And if it takes
whatever you called it,” Mitch looked at Fluke, but Fluke was reading a text,
“positive equality.”

Fluke laughed, “That’ll
do.”

“Then I’m all for it.”

“Let me get this straight.” 
Ant had eye-contact.  He had a coffee order.  He was not letting Mitch make him
out to be a whinger.  “You’re comfortable some chick got promoted over me
because she’s a chick.”

“I didn’t say that?  I’m
not going to hire a woman to work on any of my building sites unless she’s
good, as good as a bloke.”  He looked at Fluke again.  “Is that bad?”

Fluke pocketed his phone. 
“Nope.  It’s about merit.  Best for the job.  Look at teaching.  There are
twenty-seven teachers in my school.  Five blokes.  We just hired a new science
teacher—another woman, because she was more experienced than the male
candidate.  That works for me.  It should work for you too, Ant.”

They didn’t get it.  They
just didn’t understand where he was coming from.  He’d lost out to sexual
politics not merit.  He had a right to be angry about that.  “It might if I
thought Bree was better at her job than me.  She’s not.”

“Dead set, you know for
sure?”

“What do you want for
proof—a statistical analysis?”  It wasn’t near as simple as that.  If it was,
he wouldn’t be reduced to sounding like a whinger and feeling like a victim,
but they wouldn’t know that.

Mitch cut in.  “Sounds
like something you’d bet on.”

Ant ran a hand over his
hair, stiff with salt.  There was one way to stick this to them.  Especially
Dan with his freaking women hold up half the tent, or whatever the saying was. 
“You’re on.  We have an annual office competition to build a fake share
portfolio.  The winner is the one who makes the most fake money for their fake
client.  It’s been going all year.  We have a month left.  I’m going to cream
Bree.  And when I do, will you accept the fact she’s not better than me?”

Mitch looked at Fluke. 
Fluke laughed.  “If she wins, we win.”

“Right.”  His coffee
arrived.  It took three seconds to finish it and want another one.

Mitch said, “What do we
get?  And we’re counting Dan in on this.”

Ant thought.  “Dinner for
you guys, Bel, Carlie and Alex, on me.”

“Nah, too easy,” said
Mitch.  “You just buy your way out of trouble.  If Bree wins this has to hurt
you.”

“It’s already hurt me—that’s
the point.”

Fluke said, “I’ve got it. 
If Bree wins, you’ll bring her to dinner and formally apologise in front of us
all for being a bastard who doubted her abilities.”

“Evil genius.”  Mitch
slapped Fluke on the back. 

“Hold on, she’s a
colleague, I have to work with her.”

Fluke rolled his eyes.  “I
can imagine how collegial you’re being right now.”

“Too hot for you?”  Mitch
had an instant hard on for this. 

Ant looked down at the
mess of coffee cups and plates on the table.  There was no chance Bree would
top him in this.  None.  This was as safe a bet as Sydney houses were
investments.  He fixed the boys with his best Machiavellian grin.  “Never. 
You’re on.  May the best,” he cleared his throat for emphasis, “man win.”

2:        Big Swinging Tricks

She was
The Senior Analyst
. 
Which meant dancing in the tea room on her first day as
The Senior Analyst
was probably inappropriate.  But it was 7am and no one else was in yet, so Bree
turned the jug on and had a little boogie, shaking her tail feather and shimmying
her other assets while it boiled. 

This was her favourite
part of the day.  The office was library quiet, emptied of the ego and
testosterone that usually drove it, the competitive spirit that made it the
most exciting and exhausting job she’d ever had.  When it was empty like this,
she felt completely in control.  In thirty minutes, the peace would be
shattered, as would her belief she knew what she was doing.  First to arrive
would be the big boss, Bryan Petersen, grandson of the founder, and the
smartest man in the room, any room.  He scared the heck out of her. 
Fortunately senior analysts had very little to do with the big boss and she
only had to worry about her smaller boss, Doug, and the other analysts in the equities
research team.  That meant Anthony. 

She had to worry more about
Anthony Gambese now that she was
The Senior Analyst
, because if pissed
off had skin and could walk around, it was a tall, thick set, dark eyed,
swarthy complexioned, sharp suit wearing, booming voiced, hunk of ridiculous, brooding
man-boy of Italian origin.

She did a quick spin
because it would be a cosmic joke if he was standing behind her. 
All clear.
 
He rarely came in this early.  He tended to slog through the other end of the
day.  Bree was turn the office lights on, Anthony was turn them off.  They knew
this about each other because on occasion the pattern got messed up and he came
in early, but rarely as early as she did or she worked late, but rarely as late
as he did.

On the whole this was a
useful thing.  It was easier to avoid Anthony when the entire team was in the
office.  Not that he was a bad guy.  He was almost exactly the kind of guy she
was attracted to, except he was a bit too intense, a bit too loud and
confident.  Unless he was mad about something.  And then he was a lot too
intense, incredibly loud and confident and scarily surly.  Plus he was
different to the other guys.  He made working hard look easy. 

And Bree had long ago
sworn of tall, dark and surly men to whom things came too easily.

They’d been doing the
almost territorial morning-evening ownership thing since they were hired, both
of them keen to get through the traineeship, the probationary period as
analysts and make it to senior analysts without getting bounced out of the
program.  Maybe a better word for what they were both like was determined. 
Though in Bree’s case her doggedness was based on being shit scared of failing
and in Anthony’s... Ah, she had no idea, what drove Anthony to work like he
did.  He was the one everyone thought would get the senior analyst job.

She made a plunger full of
coffee, filled her personal milk jug, grabbed a mug and danced her way to her
workstation.  When she next lifted her head out of weekend market reports the
office was beginning to wake. 

“So what happened at the
track?” said Chris. 

Christine Mason was the
only other girl in the team of six, the only other girl in the whole office who
wasn’t an admin assistant, and most definitely the only person of any sexual
persuasion in the office who knew about Kitty Caruso and what she did on a flat
track most weekends in summer.

Being in a Roller Derby
League team called the Big Swinging Tricks wasn’t the kind of thing an up and
coming Senior Analyst at Petersens did.  An up and coming Senior Analyst at
Petersens went to the art gallery or a foreign film on the weekend.  She didn’t
belt around a track on wheels aggressively trying to knock people over.

“We smashed ‘em.”

Chris laughed.  She didn’t
get Bree’s enthusiasm for roller derby but she was heartily amused by it. 

She’d been threatening to
come to a bout for the last six months, since the day she’d cornered Bree in
the bathroom, grilled her about her bruises and found out about it.  Bree knew
there was very little risk of Chris giving up time with her new husband to
attend a jam though and she was pleased about that. 

Roller Derby and Petersens
were like
Aerogard
and mosquitoes—mutually repellent.  And it was best
it stayed that way, and since Chris had never seen Bree as her derby doll alter
ego it was kind of like a big joke between them, as though it wasn’t real and
Bree was making up amusing stories about characters with outrageous names to
entertain Chris on Monday mornings when they’d both rather still be in bed.

“Body count.”  Chris
always wanted to know the gory bits.

“One broken nose, a couple
of dislocated fingers.”  It’d been a surprisingly easy win against the Hurley
Burleys, especially since they’d crushed the league table leaders, The Weapons
of Mass Production, the week before.  And everyone knew the Weapons were the
team to beat.

Chris’ eyes went down to
Bree’s hands still on her keyboard.  “Not yours.”

“No, thank goodness.”

“What are you going to do
if it’s your bits that get broken?”

“I’m that good, it won’t
happen.”

Chris poked her index
finger towards her open mouth and made a gagging sound.  Bree laughed and gave
a more realistic response.  “I’ll lie.”

“And say what?  You walked
into a door?”