She switched on the lights, swung her coat on the rack, then plopped her purse in the lower desk drawer. Almost sixty and wrinkled and grey, with a figure still slender and sleek, she tiptoed tentatively in her high-heel shoes, performing her morning ritual before the others arrived: She clicked on the coffee maker, filled the pot with two pints of water, measured out four spoons of brew; she restocked the copy paper, filed the faxes, sharpened the pencils, capped all the ball-point pens; then she knelt on the carpet to collect the loose lint with a strip of sticky tape. Eventually, smoothing out her skirt and hitching up her hose, she took a deep breath of the caffeinated air and took her seat behind her desk. She clasped her hands in front of her, stiffened her back, hooked her heels, and waited for nine a.m.
It was now eight fifteen.
Margie felt a bit uneasy this morning. Her stomach ached, her palms perspired, her neck stood stiff as a soldier on display. For the past nine months, Margie had served as a loyal lieutenant in the army of American industry: She never once had called in sick, never once refused an order -- not once, never. Her job performance had been sublime, always profes- sional, undeniably impeccable. But today, regrettably, Margie was forced to inform the Stallings that, against her wishes and deepest desires, she must unequivocally resign. Her son had fallen ill upstate, had contracted some rare neurological disorder. With no one there to care for him, to tend to his cleaning, to his bathing and his meals, Margie had no choice. Her train was leaving this afternoon. Her bags were packed, her mind made up.
There would be no negotiation.
At five past nine, the office door burst open. In rushed Candace with a mop of wet hair. "Oh, God!" she blurted. "I'm late! Is anyone here? Does anyone know?" She had no makeup on.
"No one's here," Margie sniffed.
"Oh, God! Thank God! Thank goodness!"
As Candace raced for the ladies' room, her blow dryer bounced in her big leather bag, its long electric cord dangling out around her knees.
A few minutes later, Mr Stallings walked in -- his sons, Edwin and Edward, in tow. All three Stallings wore their standard Stallings work attire: starched white button-down shirts, thin black navel-length ties, grey slacks, black shoes. Each of them carried a thin black briefcase, each wore a flat-top crew cut, neat and trim, their heads all fuzzy in the buzzing office light.
As the three Mr Stallings paraded past her desk, Margie stood up at attention, her fingertips flat on the blotter.
"Oh, Mr Stallings," she said.
They all three turned around. They all three looked at her.
"Mr Edmund Stallings," Margie specified, bowing her head as an act of devotion.
"I'd like to speak with you, sir, if I may this morn- ing -- whenever you have some time."
"That'll be fine," the eldest Stallings gruffed.
Then he and his sons stepped into their offices, their three doors shutting one after another -- slam, wham, bam.
Wincing, Margie sat back down at her desk as Candace returned from the ladies' room, makeup caking her face.
"Anyone here?"
"They just arrived."
"Oh, God! Thank God! Thank goodness!"
Turning then to the project on her desk, Margie began correcting a stack of shipping slips -- the same stack Candace had botched the previous afternoon. Faced with Candace's sloppy work, Margie began to worry. How would the Stallings ever survive with only Candace to help them? The girl could not file. The girl could not type. Whenever she made a photo copy, she somehow always jammed the machine. She was worthless, useless, an absolute waste, with no redeemable qualities -- except perhaps a perky personality and a pert little pair of brazenly braless breasts.
Just then, Edward Stallings stepped out of his office, a slip of paper in his grip.
"Oh, Candace," he queried. "Could you type this, please?"
Though his tone was strictly professional, Margie, glancing up by chance, caught Edward flashing a wink at Candace and Candace winking a lash back at Edward. Edward and Candace were having an affair: Margie just knew it! She noticed how Edward would giggle at Candace, how Candace would wiggle at Edward. Had they no decency? Had they no shame?
"Anything you say, Mr Stallings," Candace cooed.
"Anything is everything," Edward Stallings gooed.
Margie was sick to her stomach.
Once Edward Stallings returned to his office, once the bolt of his office door clacked shut, Candace rose from her desk like a weed. With Edward Stallings' slip of paper pressed between her palms, she minced on over to Margie's desk.
"Margie," she peeped. "Could you type this, please? I just did my nails."
"But, of course," Margie smiled, secretly seething inside.
She wound a sheet of stationery through the typewriter reel, then began transcribing the letter. She was nearly through when Edmund Stallings opened the door to his office, poking his head out into the hall.
"Oh, Marge," he coughed. "You wanted to see me?"
Margie looked up, but Candace spoke first.
"She's typing something, Mr Stallings."
"No problem," Mr Stallings said. "No rush. No worry. We can talk later on."
He pulled back his head like a tortoise in a shell, then closed his office door. The bolt clacked shut.
Candace, smiling, swiveled in her seat.
Margie, infuriated, continued to type the letter.
As the clock on the wall tick-tocked another minute, Candace picked up her telephone, dialed a friend and started to gab. When the other line rang, she simply ignored it. The line rang once. The line rang twice. It rang a third, then a fourth and fifth time. Finally, huffing, Margie picked it up. She told the caller in her kindest tone that the Stallings were all in a meeting. She wrote down a message word for word, read it back slowly, said "Thank you so much," then replaced the phone on its cradle. A moment later, peeling the paper off the typewriter reel, Margie stood up and laid the letter flat in front of Candace.
"Did you proof it?" Candace asked, putting her friend on hold.
"Twice," Margie humphed.
That's when, once again, Mr Stallings opened his office door.
"Margie, may I see you, please?"
Margie gulped. The time had come. She pressed her hands down the front of her skirt and started down the hall. She was scared. She was nervous. A spot of perspiration beaded up beneath her arm and slid down her side like a spider on a string. How would the Stallings ever take her sudden news? She hoped to God they wouldn't be hurt. She hoped they wouldn't be too disappointed. She never meant to abandon the Stallings. She had worked so hard to please them, so diligent, so dutiful, so dogged and determined.
She stepped through the door into Mr Stallings' office.
With the sweep of his hand, the eldest Mr Stallings motioned Margie to please sit down. She sat in the chair in front of his desk, in the artificial leather chair with the artificial leather arms. On the matching artificial couch sat Edwin and Edward, each with a knee crossed over the other, each with a fluttering foot. Neither Edwin nor Edward would dare glance at Margie. Instead, they glanced at each other, at their father, at their thumbs, at the big framed portrait of their mother on the wall. Margie knew exactly what their anxious actions meant: The Stallings knew. Somehow they knew.
Margie felt like a traitor -- a Judas, a Brutus, a Quisling.
"You had something you wanted to say?" asked the eldest Mr Stallings.
"Yes," Margie squirmed in her seat. "I'm very truly sorry, but--"
"No, Margie," Mr Stallings interrupted. "We're sorry." He cleared his throat and tugged on his ear. "It's just that, well, with the market in a crisis, with the economic slump, people have stopped splurging. They've given up on luxuries. They've stopped buying widgets."
Margie made a wry wrinkly face.
"Consequently," Mr Stallings scratched his sweaty nose. "We've decided to, well, make some minor changes, some cut backs, quite frankly. And, well, Margie -- we gotta letcha go."
Margie blinked.
"Excuse me?"
"You're fired," Stallings told her.
Fired?
Margie was shocked, stunned. Her jaw fell forward, her brow rolled up, her lips and her mouth formed a tight little o. Over on the couch, Edwin and Edward wriggled like weasels, their manicured fingertips pressed across their eyes.
Fired?
She couldn't believe it. She gripped her hands on the arms of the chair, her nails digging deep in the artificial hide, nearly drawing blood. "Well, of all the no good--" Margie mumbled breathlessly. She stood up slowly, rising from the chair, a strange alien rage bubbling up inside her. It began briefly as a hot, visceral spasm, quivering through her stomach, erupting up her esophagus -- burning her throat, her palate, her tongue. Then something rare and wondrous occurred, something odd and miraculous, something unimaginable.
Margie lost her temper.
"Me!" she barked, beating her breast with a tight closed fist. "You're firing me? I do everything around here! I make your coffee. I take out your trash. I calm your clients and lie to your wives. There's a girl out there who does nothing but her nails. She reads all day, talks on the phone. Why not fire her?"
"You've been with us, Margie, now nearly nine months--" Mr Stallings started to explain.
"--Candace," Edward interrupted, "has been here almost a year."
"Oh, really?" Margie snarled, baring her teeth, her lips curled back like a bulldog. "Have the two of you been fornicating all that time?"
"Margie!" Mr Stallings scoffed.
"Don't Margie me, Ed! It's Ms Shrock to you!"
With that, Margie spun around on her two-inch heels and stamped right out of the office. She stamped right past the copy machine, past the fax and the pot full of coffee. She stamped past Candace who was sitting at her desk, flipping through a copy of Glamour Girl magazine.
"God, what happened? Why all the screaming?"
"Oh, shut up," Margie growled. "You -- you strumpet!"
Then snatching her coat off the rack, plucking her purse from the lower desk drawer, flinging open the flimsy front door, Margie stormed out of the Stallings' stuffy office. As she did, she did something horrible, something evil, something she'd always dreamed of doing.
She slammed the door behind her.
Outside the office, the air was cool -- crisp as a Washington apple. As Margie stood in the autumn wind, her cheeks suddenly pink, she heard a low rumble, a muffled reverberation. She first heard a creak, then heard a crack, then snapping pipes and spurting streams of water. As she turned to face the office, the single-story building began to shake and shudder, to shimmy and shiver and shift. Then all at once, the building collapsed, its walls falling in like a house of cards, its roof crashing down with a hollow vacuumed whomp! A dusty cloud of coffee-scented smoke rose like a ghost from the sudden clump of rubble.
Unimpressed, Margie shrugged her shoulders, tugged the lapels of her coat tight together. She sucked in a breath of freedom. To Hell with the Stallings! she thought to herself. Let them clean it up.
She didn't need this job. She didn't need their grief.
Margie, as always, was first to arrive. 
