The Lisp

“Mr. Torrence!” shouted the slightly inebriated secretary, “You’re leaving all these papers behind, in such a pickle? The cleaners here have a reputation of tossing things, you know!” Lisa continued, visibly trying to hide a tear in her shirt.

“Again, I see…”

Robert D. Torrence was not the most important man at LimeRick N Die Co. The heart-aching truth said he wasn’t even on the relevant floor, neither in his job nor at home. Rob liked to pretend he was not zombying in and out of each place every evening and morning, but at some point man begins to wonder. At least occasionally there are tears in shirts to glance at. But this is not that erotic of a story.

Trudie saw little satisfaction in being pregnant again, as mind tends to catch missed earnings expectations and the lack of a kingdom to rule over. That was the way, and whatever the hell else are you going to do nowadays? Well… Work. Although that can only get you so far in covering the most fundamental desires. It was not a one-side-work-one-side-play type of marriage. Some moments, together, sometimes, after a long day, make it all seem worth it regardless. And maybe that’s the best one can ask for, which sounds just like what you’re supposed to think. Rob’s fundamental desires had thought otherwise and already made other plans without giving him a notice. In his line of work that would certainly not be acceptable.

A cleaning product maker such as LimeRick, like every, requires to have its monetary matters in order and employs nine people to get it all counted. One of these people is Robert Torrence, a countant. With little room to grow in his career, Rob often looks inward, at least to see whether that room could be better exploited for storage space. It is hard to live this way, even more so when colleagues start calling you a hoarder behind your back. A limiting environment like this retards the human spirit, leaving people like Rob stuck. Rob, who ponders that in his situation, climbing up might just be as difficult as falling down.

“Partnership deal! Partnership deeal!” screamed the sales manager Derek from the rather nice seventh floor, on a Monday morning.

He must have been standing close to the exit because that vocal aneurysm traveled across the staircase and the elevator shaft, even reaching the low floors where Rob was residing. Loud noises or general excitement were not known traits of this building, so Rob could tell something was afoot.

In two hours or so, a notice was sent to select floors. A mandatory company meeting that Rob and Lisa’s floor was also invited to. So they took to the stairs.

Different groups of worker kept staring at each other like bewildered cattle, not knowing what to think. It used to be a stable enterprise! Some kept wondering how come Derek, a salesman, is in charge of this new thing called a partnership when there are ranked executives for criticals like this. Just months ago Derek was driving house to house in his crappy car packed with LimeRick 60% Rubbing Alcohol, LimeRick Cotton, and LimeBo the Borax. Nevertheless, he was the announcer, and that was that.

Excited, Derek explained to the wide-eyed guinea pigs that LimeRick had just gone through a merger with IOD, an up-and-coming chemical processing firm. A merger is what you call when companies get married, and Derek’s speech must have been part of the engagement party. Rob and Lisa didn’t manage to bag any drinks at the event, nor did they see a point in congratulating the hosts themselves. A curious fact was that “IOD” did not stand for anything – Lisa’s guts allowed her to ask and find out about that. It was clear that a major restructuring was about to take place. Derek explained that the lead chemists were going to be shared between the firms going forward, that there was another building that managers and cleaners must sometimes go to from now on, and that salesmen will have newer and funnier incentive structures. Derek was keeping it broad and left the specifics for the near future. Rob, being an accountant—even though time allows only for practice at work—would be experiencing some of the inter-building changes himself. At home, Gertrude Torrence was the accountant.

The next day, as he neglectfully entered his floor, Rob was surprised to see more than a dozen brown boxes sitting on desks and the floor, disorganized people making a fuss around them. He was surprised but not astonished. Those people were not invited into the marriage, only the ceremonies, as it turned out. There was not an indicator or a warning on Rob’s desk, nor was there one in the assistant’s area where Lisa lived. Both inmates assumed safety amidst the turbulence.

It didn’t take long for new faces to appear on the third floor where accountants were held. Faces lots more serious than the sideways laughing face from the IOD lettering. The sharply dressed balding men each had a thirty-something underling relentlessly writing in notebooks, and to an untrained eye it would’ve appeared a small yet self sustaining and highly important ecosystem of business corporates. It wasn’t, and Rob could tell. Maybe that’s why the penguin-adjacent group kept trying to impress Rob with their dim wits and fancy hats.

“Robert, right? LimeRick’s lead money guy?” one inquired, with unsolicited confidence, “You know, I used to manage accountants like you in my past life!”

It was clear for all but the speaker that it wasn’t the first time he was proudly uttering the phrase to someone slightly below him. A few tardy seconds stood and passed, which was enough for Rob to have a microtantrum in his squinting muscles. But Mr. Torrence did say hello back, as he did not want to intrude on his potentially updated and significantly more fragile accounting position. Meanwhile, the rest of the choir nodded in approval despite hearing the leader’s exact same greeting for the fourth time.

“I think it won’t take long for us to find some common ground,” the fellow continued whilst looking around preparedly. Whatever that meant. “Peter Yates, by the way,” he further implored, extending a freckled corporate hand for Rob to shake.

“We’re just scouting office space, and you could say we’re scouting people too!” dared another gentleman to distinguish himself by saying words.

“From the looks of it, I’d say you’re scouting people away!” Rob tested the waters.

“You can’t make an omelette… …but Rob, you seem like a sharp fella! You’re not being sent away after all, so there is good work to be done, together. I am sure we can find you a more pleasant home in this place from here on out. I’ve got your number,” threatened a guy named Jimmy Wyatt.

A new home would be nice, ‘cept that the one offered is in an office, Rob thought.

As the bizarre yet somehow normal conversation was dimming, the herd of suited men started moving toward the elevator. Lisa had been standing behind her untouched desk, curiously suspicious, observing the nuptials all throughout. Surprisingly, the day continued as usual, although Lisa and Rob’s chatter was becoming more frequent and nervous.

The next morning, Rob found he was right about the office-home when the phone rang before his daily alarm. It was Jimmy Wyatt, as the caller himself announced. The young home-offering conversationalist. Jimmy’s voice sounded even more excited than yesterday, inviting Rob to some kind of personal initiation ceremony at 15:35 PM. This time, perhaps in one of the nicer offices. The execs must have been firing so hard they stopped having anyone with the slightest idea of how the accounts work. Plus, Rob had shown he was not impressed with their status plays, which may have diminished their capacity to control the sycophancy. The tired accountant didn’t hesitate to agree to the time, having considered the possible consequences for not complying.

Rob and Trudie were starting to fidget mentally and verbally amidst all this, though they still could not imagine what was happening in the homes of other victims.

That day at work, the movement of people and office equipment was again increased; even the elevator was stinking more than usual, being a well in the center of the mess.

15:35 arrived, with Rob standing prepared in front of Mr. Wyatt’s door. It was curious for the accountant because Wyatt started with the personal questions almost immediately, and that is always annoying. Rob was interrogated on all matters family and financials-related, and there were also topics ranging from personal hygiene to social preferences, to Lisa. Jimmy seemed very happy, with himself and Rob alike. Rob’s careful answers held back just enough for him to appear entirely honest, and this political maneuvering may have already given or taken something away. It worked to charm the waiter. But if Mr. Jimmy did not have any actual pull within the newly birthed abomination, all this beak-wetting may have been a total waste. His thorough newfound happiness regarding Rob was setting the expectations high, and if it was all removed from the realms of reality—like most things in the office—what a bummer that would be! Rob was eager to find out if that’s the case, so he wanted to end the interaction with some clarity about his position.

From the sound coming from Jimmy’s alcohol-soaked daymouth, it appeared that Rob was not only about to take most of the accounts from his excused colleagues but also enter the mighty IOD money team, which meant an additional location. Walk daily to a glass tower around the block and back to the Irish hygiene product sweatshop building he will. Rob’s new home was turning out to be an office resort. With this and other great expectations concocted by Jimmy, the meeting was at completion.

That evening, while Rob was having Trudie’s home-edition brownies—the kind that melts on the tongue and flows down without effort—the phone rang again. On the line was work, again. Peter Yates it was, the man from before with the conversational strain of Alzheimer’s. Normally, this would have been a sky-falling sort of evening instance, but at that point in LimeRick’s lifetime all gloves were off, and expect the unexpected Rob did. Yates started by thanking Rob for the pleasant first interaction, and implied that Jimmy told him how unreasonably well the day’s interrogation went. And so, Peter was happy too. But if everyone is happy, is anyone?

This meant that they were on the same page regarding Rob’s deeper involvement with the ridiculous-logo firm, and that they were all about to be good friends. Peter then apologized that Rob was to start overlooking more accounts than ever before, but also said that Rob looked “the type to look for a challenge,” which was a thick and oily lie no matter the angle you choose to look at it from. Trudie was listening from behind the kitchen counter and she was not the least bit satisfied with the slick figure of speech that was used on Rob.

It was another pointless back-and-forth acceptance speech, except that Rob was the acceptant, of more, convoluted responsibilities, and there was no talk to be had about monetary prizes. On one hand, the prize was Rob’s allowance to stay for the next round. The other hand held the notion that just maybe, any other crevice to work in would do, any! That, however, would require an enormous taking of risk, which hardly is ever a pleasure. Failing upward requires luck, and it is hard to say how much of it Rob really had. The consensus was for Rob to hold his breath just enough to establish a presence at the updated firm, and, hopefully, smoother sailing from there.

Mr. Torrence had already an appointment set for Monday, in his new workhouse. But it was only mid-week, and Rob hadn’t thought to ask what he was supposed to do before the weekend. The rest of the remaining accounting team was going through their own great troubles. Tom Letcher, Tod Ellis, Rita Schwartz, Rick Schwartz, and Lisa Elliot. It reads like a memorial because it could very well have been. Lisa was safe, because Rob’s tasks require a kind of robot-lady to assist him. The cynics couldn’t call her a cat-lady because she had a dog who loved her very much. Tom looked like a veteran copper and was there just to collect weekly checks in the aftermath of failing to fail upward, having learned every accounting trick in the book. He had tried! It was not his weight that was the problem; certain people are not meant to live in certain cities, but Tom did. Rick and Rita were husband and wife with three children. A counting family, if you will. These two people had serious grievances about the companies merging, but the fear was keeping their mouths and minds shut. Most of what Rick and Rita did all week was stare into each other’s changing pupils, when they probably should have tried speaking with the migrating, invading bunch. Sometimes, shared panic can be calming. Rob, while a kind of unofficial lead of the department, or at least the accountant who was in his prime, had no dictatorial powers whatsoever and was a mascot at best. Even if he knew how to help, he couldn’t.

The rest of the week felt like a fog to all the remainders. It was mostly the same clients with the same financial ordeals to be handled. Things do not change as quickly or as slow as you might expect. Despite the unchanged nature of the daywork, voices were getting louder and patience with these unknowns – tested, in the household of every one from the accounting team of LimeRick N Die Co. With nothing to do but think of the possible implications of this new charade, people were starting to forget the regular tone they use on their husbands and wives. Some kitchenware was broken, some pots got dents. Yet still, weekends never stretch as far as they should, and the only reference for the quality of one is other weekends, all of which you can barely remember.

Come Monday, the accountants met each other having lined up for the central elevator, as if to check a score. The air inside felt thicker than usual, which could have been due to the new owners smoking cigars in their offices or an increase in the passing of gas from all the stress and commotion. Having collected the necessary office equipment, Rob, with Lisa by the side, started walking toward the IOD building situated just around the block. Tom and Tod were tracking the pair’s steps through the window, their despair gradually inflating.

The street was neither very walkable nor did it have a single store or business that regular people could go to. Upon entering the premises after a thoughtless walk, Rob and Lisa soon found that there was no need for a brick-and-mortar outside, as IOD employees could enjoy frequent coffees and meals inside the building. They seemed to have a sophisticated yet boring system for obtaining these goods that involved machines and vouchers. Unbeknownst to the freshman and freshwoman, some IOD workers were gaming this system successfully.

Sure enough, in the foyer near the coffee fountain stood Peter D. Yates, bragging to workmates about winning the latest golf tournament held at his own new place.

“Robert!” he spit, brightening his already bright self and letting moments pass while failing to recall Lisa’s name, “So good to see you here, where you belong!”

“Ah, Peter, that’s too generous!” Rob defensed, “It was not exactly the longest trip. Although Lisa here and her heels may disagree.”

“Ha! Well, you are right on time, come, come, pick yourself a doughnut and let’s get you both set up upstairs.”

There was going to be a meeting before the setup, which Peter had forgotten for a minute. The elevator shafted fast, and to Rob and Lisa’s shared gasps, the lights said it was floor eight. For the entirety of the vertical trip, Peter was murmuring something about how nice this whole place is, but the newcomers were preoccupied with their pushing and pulling thoughts.

“On the left.”

The trio walked up to the door marked 811, and in. There was but one man named Jeremy Fawkes in this spacious office filled with the most modern filing cabinets, cushion chairs, and several computers. It turned out that the seriousest of paper people were still downstairs, mingling about the transition process. Politely and formally, Jeremy stood up to introduce himself, but was cut off by Peter, who at that point had remembered about the on-boarding meeting and was eager to see Rob and Lisa set their things down and ready themselves for it. The elevator took them to floor eleven this time, to a lounge area by Peter’s room, 1105. Lisa was asked to stay there until he and Rob finished talking. There was no meeting for Lisa. The meeting for Rob was, and it went exactly like this:

“So, Rob! Pregnant wife, long—but not very strong—career in accounting, must have a great understanding of the chemicals industry, and, from what I have seen, a decent head of your shoulders. I would just love to see more hunger. Then, I suppose, that’s the best one could ask for after years of no one recognizing your work. Well, that is about to change. But in order for it to change, you will have to do some more work, maybe of a different kind than is usual. That’s not to say that your position has not already become more important, as it is you I have chosen after all. IOD is large and growing, and you must by now see that this is more of an acquisition than a merger. With size arrives complexity, which means there are riddles that will need solving in our more document-oriented departments. I trust that whatever is thrown at us, you will take it apart and put it back together, or whatever you usually do, and be able to lead our less-experienced to the excellence you have obtained. However, from what I myself can tell, those shouting about cooperation and collaboration are one pack of schmucks. In here, we value this individual excellence, trust and discretion also, and we just… get it done, without a nuisance. Your fellow people from LimeRick, and that includes the executives, may not get this in full, but you look to me like you do. But I will need you to really get it, as does everyone at this level here.”

It was a different kind of Peter speaking, one without that much congratulation of self. A serious-seeming bald man with forced honesty and the ability to casually monologue, taking the time between the lines to sip a whiskey, change his leg position, do a cartwheel, relight an old cigar. Rob listened, and only remarked that he understood. He didn’t really, but there was not a good question to ask at that moment and Peter was not the man with all the specifics. The speech was an invitation to a common understanding and not to inquiries into real things you can touch. With this, Rob was ping-ponging between absolute doubt and absolute excitement, not some kind of mutual understanding. It was slowly turning out that the boss’s name was Peter Yates and not Dick Edgar of LimeRick N Die Co., and the reference to an acquisition started to hold ground in Rob’s head. Almost predictably, Peter then noted that Rob will from now only have short trips back to the LimeRick offices to check up on the smaller clients whose papers were to stay there for the time being. From there, the two men made some small talk on their daily lives and the markets, with Peter attempting to turn it into bigger talk on counter culture, rioters, and penguin safety. Rob knows this game and did not engage, as he was neither a penguin nor a rioter as of yet. Leaving Peter’s place was a relief nonetheless, from not having to do that thing anymore.

A longing Lisa met Rob’s eyes again, showing slight unease and consolation, and they gestured to each other to “go”. Rob was hoping for a swift return to plain work from such secret meetings and nighttime phone calls. After all, Rob was neither a middle-aged men’s escort nor a phonesex operator. Upon returning to floor eight, the pair found itself surrounded by every accountant belonging to that floor. Not much unlike canines, all were hesitant to speak first and resorted to smells, either of each other or the atmosphere. Not all the countants had secretaries, which added to the intrigue. The introductions proceeded eventually, and there was little bad odor once the duo sat down. It was account review and transition day; the cooperation took place so effortlessly that there was quite a bit of time left after finishing the day’s work, and the group simply “hung out” until the final hour. No early walks was the policy, at least for the lessers there.

Back home, Trudie had been cooking meatloaf and was happy to hear about Rob’s finally positive day. One could even say she was on cloud number nine. And that was motivation enough for Rob to keep trying inside the new system. All things, barring the activities one might find in hell, must come to an end, and so did most of the built-up excitement when the secretary called that evening and pronounced three deadly developments.

On her way home, Lisa sprained her ankle while stepping off the bus, and was to become a house secretary by not coming in to work for the rest of the week. Rita Schwartz was demoted to Accountant’s Assistant, which meant that the team just got another secretary. The third deal was that this team, including the now-insiders Rob and Lisa, was having its wages reduced, but that they would be able to “earn even more” by working toward project-based and annual bonuses. The kind of managerial scheming no sane worker ever wants to hear. Meaning, one would have to be insane to want to hear those things.

Despite the unpleasant updates from Lisa, Rob wanted to get to his new office house earlier so he could look through some papers and meet his new colleagues to reminisce about yesterday, although he couldn’t admit to himself that he wanted that second thing.

The early morning’s empty lobby was magnanimous. Maybe the architect of this place was not expecting a Polo suit infestation soon after opening. After all, IOD had only bought the quadrat tower several months back, and Rob would wonder to whom it belonged before that. A family of oil tycoons, an Arab prince maybe. Having risen to room 811, the man started shuffling through the documents from inside the filing cabinets to get a better idea of the status and processes. Soon, Rob came across unmarked spreadsheets related to the merger, which thoroughly spiked his attention. That was seconds before Jeremy walked in and said his raspy upbeat morning hello, followed by Raymond Peters and Julian Appel, the latter being the undisputed senior. The reminiscing took off without a hitch, along with the making of new memories in conversation. It was most strange that some of these accountants talked and behaved like Wall Street scum, although that did not stop Rob from getting satisfaction from his new way of morning. It felt good to be near power, even if it was fake power, but LimeRick’s accountant did not have a care at that moment.

Different floors and departments were showing up to the accountants’ offices, and thus it was turning out to be quite an intense workday. Little did Rob notice as he jumped from one urgent task to another, his new peers were meanwhilst ignoring half the incoming requests; they were enjoying office life. As people came and went, Rob kept glancing at the cabinets holding the merger papers. Boiling with bodies and voices, his new floor was not making it easy to get downtime for various curiosities, though the offices were slowly starting to loosen up with more inquirers being told off in one way or another. It seemed like it was going to be a leave-together kind of day anyway, given Mr. Appel’s giddyness about some nearby bar that he was taking everybody to. Rob was no exception.

He did feel obliged to join what looked to be a common, periodic activity in the urban wild for the banker-likes, to continue breaking ice there. A nameless neon vapour flesh bar, it was home to blabber about deal structuring, repackagings, special purpose vehicles, and the venturing of one’s capital in all the possible ways. With bits about lives at home and references to a shared past in between, of course. It wasn’t that the language did not feel like home to Rob, but the way of saying these things did feel somewhat confidently forced; either way, none of the things boastedupon sounded very certain. It turned out that some members of the department did not belong to IOD alone but were closer to hired guns, consultants, critical for any merger and acquisition doings. Rob thought himself lucky to be intact there despite their seemingly more adventurous routines.

The night and the group’s patience with its booth was coming to an end fast, although while some took to the toilets and some to their ready final drinks, Appel turned to Rob with something to say. What started with some dirty joke, something about rugs and massages, quickly turned back to finance talk.

“…n’t, but she turned around and did it anyway!” Julian finished laughing to himself and expecting an equal reaction from Rob, which he received.

“You won’t get that in Boston… Ha!.. You know Robert, it’s been great to have you and your know-hows to help with this stuff. I myself and I bet the guys also would never have figured out how to track all those deduction documents.”

“Well, we wanted to make our own system for them at LimeRick, you know, to simplify for ourselves. That’s until filing though, which you’d convert back for. Anyway, I’m glad to be of service,” said Rob, navigating his replies like Columbus.

“So look, I sorta wanted to ask you something, it’s not in our plans yet but important enough that Rich from upper management or his friends wouldn’t mind having done ay-sap.”

“Okay, what is it?” Rob inquired

“There are a few of these remaining merger files we store that have some errors in them. Courtesy of the executives mixed with accountants doing a bit of a rushed job. I’d like you to get in there and fix these things.”

“But the merger is fully in force now, I understand whatever’s been filed with the agencies is all reviewed and proper?”

“Yes, yes, Robbie, of course all of it has been cleared. We just don’t want to be storing bad files in our own system. That’s the thing, our file standard needs to be updated based on the official filed documents, if you can imagine that.”

“Oh, I’ve had much weirder things to work on, even at LimeRick,” Rob spat without aim. Quickly and quietly he thought to himself those must be the merger papers he had discovered in the morning. His interest in them dropped then and there.

“Then it’s settled! I’ll give them to you myself in the morning, and Ray also has one or two papers to cough up for this, his are just procedure details. I gotta see for myself that he sends them to you – look at the condition he’s in now,” Julian pointed, completing his demands.

“It’s getting late,” Rob said to his watch and carefully stood up as if they’d been on a long flight. Two others, excluding Julian, joined in starting their departure.

What seemed to Rob’s lightly hungover mind like an eternal bus ride eventually led back to his own door. It had been a while since was away from home for so many hours. On his walk-in, Trudie stared him down with a new face combining constrained surprise, confusion, and angry love.

“Hi?” quietly she asked.

“Hi..”

“What the hell have you been doing, Rob?” followed Trudie after staring for many seconds.

“It’s the new guys, I just had to go to an after work thing with them. I wish I had a chance to call.”

“So now with this new big company you don’t have a family anymore? “An after work thing, Rob? It is 2 AM, Rob. What do I know, maybe you are porkin’ some secretary? With an infant at home? Me and Marie?”

“I needed to go. I’m sorry. We went to a bar and there I got something important assigned, could be something good and ease things down the line,” he said, attempting a tone of certainty.

That did calm Trudie down somewhat, with her language turning from one of desperation to managed annoyance. With the clock hitting three, following hugs and kisses and tending to Marie, both were soon in a hurry to sleep anyways. Just before that, Rob, still half-buzzed and feeling overly indebted, ran down to his desk and scribbled a letter to Lisa asking about her condition and lightly boasting about his day and things looking even more up for them both.

A new day came, and as much as Rob wanted to further make up with the girls, almost unnoticed he found himself back in the posh offices. What he also found was a newborn acceptance from the finance gang. Compared to that morning, they had been treating Rob as if he were some kind of hazard-deemed mixbreed dog, which is not a nice thing to find out in spite of the present comforts. And there was Julian Appel, standing in a glass doorway and seeming jumpy and laid back, overlooking his busy white bees. The beers from last night had no say on the matter of the lifeforce running through him that day. Others were still putting on faces to obscure the internal fight.

Julian waved at Rob and the underling indulged. Instinctively Rob joined him in a walkalong with a chit chat and pep smalltalk. It did not take long for them to find themselves in an elevator descending to a minus one floor.

“There,” Appel pointed, so they took to there.

The spacious and renovated file room had much more rigid and pleasant cabinets than those from their finance offices. Julian reached up for the sixth drawer from the left and, and, having estimated with a fingerwalk where the files of interest and recency might be, pulled out and down a set of papers. He then shuffled them a bit and handed two or three to Rob.

“These numbers in the column on the right, see? They’re based on old data—add also the klutzy handling of them by the guys. So just take the actual info from Ray and update based on this Teleform structure so that we have consistency. I didn’t want to take you out of your main activities and, I could ask someone on a lower level, but you know the criticality of storage. It’s our primary reference and has to be clean” explained the manager slash third or fourth director of corporate affairs.

“I have to head out for lunch with an exec, so I leave and trust you with this and hope you can clear it out today,” he finished.

Ron took back to the elevators carrying the flapping papers and returned to his floor. When he walked up to Ray’s office to ask for the nomenclature, there was no one there.

“Gentlemen, have you seen Ray?” Rob asked upon sticking his head into the conference room.

“He’s not in yet,” replied Jeremy.

“Maybe he’s taking a day off. You saw how he was last night,” George said with eyes smiling.

“Isn’t the team supposed to know if one of us is not coming in?”

“Well in here we are flexible this way. Balance sheet emergencies are rare and someone will always be able to jump on a case,” Jeremy continued.

“That’s the thing! I need some reference files for a correction with Teleform today, Julian said that Ray would have them for me.”

Silence.

“Either you’re gonna have to call him yourself or wait till tomorrow,” George postulated.

Rob speedwalked to his office, picked up the phone and dialed for Ray by the address book. No one bothered to pick up. And sitting was a task with an implicit deadline and a broken link from a high-up superior. Still some options did arrive in Rob’s disoriented mind. First was to walk around asking people about what those files may be, but whom if not his own team? A secretary or administrative person, probably. So he walked down to Rosie from two floors below.

“Excuse me, Rosie? I’m Rob Torrence from accounting. I’m looking for some papers that have been filed with the agency before the merger with LimeRick N Die Co., do you know any place where I may find some collection of them?” urgently he almost stuttered.

“Sure, mister! I’ll bring you the LimeRick box right away, you are welcome to wait here,” Rosie warmly indulged, picked up some keys and took off.

She returned in what felt like an instant even to a Rob under high pressure conditions.

“There you go, sir,” she handed a heavy plastic box half full of documents.

“Thank you,” Rob said, ignoring everything but its visible contents.

Having sat down there and then, taken out and flipped over the papers, he stuttered again:

“Rh-Rosie, none of these are financial documents, there are no numbers!” and wondered whether there was a communication or a competence issue on someone’s end.

“Sirrr, the documents from that storage room are kept up to date, and whatever numbers you are looking for should be inside your own department’s storage.”

So that was it. That’s why the task exists – because what should exist in the finance department doesn’t, without Ray at least.

“I see. Can we ask the FTC to send them to us?” Rob, ignorantly.

“Even if they could, in theory, send something to us, that would require a formal request, which may take weeks to process,” Rosie explained, understanding generalities better than she appeared to initially.

“I suppose.. Thanks again, Rosie,” and he walked off.

There was the option to wait for Julian to come back, but Rob knew exactly how that would look, awaiting and facing the boss with hands totally empty. Rob also knew that lunch often means out for the day when at that level. The sun was setting soon after all.

Then, once again Rob recalled the merger spreadsheets he’d seen the day before inside his own offices’ cabinets. With no other options visibly open, he decided to at least go look at them, without hesitation this time. Upon opening the bottom drawer there they were again, staring him in the face with numbers in them and everything. The sheets were dated months before the merger and encased IOD’s revenues and assets, as well as specific sale transactions. With nothing of the sort inside other drawers or storage rooms, Rob said to himself that those must be it. Calmed, he returned with the acquired files to his office and started to standardize them based on Teleform. It took two good hours to make them fit as replacements of the errored documents Julian had given him. Following such a sweaty afternoon, Rob brought them into Storage and rushed home to Trudie.

The home and the wife seemed more welcoming than those from last night, which had something to do with Rob’s early return.

Early next morning, Julian was one of the first people Rob ran into in the lobby. The man had already gone to Storage and checked whether the files are updated.

“Well lookie here – Mr. Torrence himself! I knew I could trust you with those papers, Robert.”

“I’m relieved as well, took me a bit of time to get things in order for the corrections.”

“And I kind of owe you for it. Martinis later?” inquired Julian.

“Possibly. I have to look at the schedule for the day but I expect there won’t be detours. “By the way, I have to mention something. Ray was not actually in yesterday, but I’d found the merger sheets with those numbers in our cabinets, I assume it’s all good.”

“Those should have been it then. Ray’s always keeping stuff in the shared cabinets, can’t be alone with himself in his office or something, I swear to god!” explained Julian.

It was a newly regular day that followed the extensive introductions and trust tests. Another week was coming to an end.

Come Monday, Rob was invited back to Peter Yates’ office. This time it felt less uncertain going in there, as some things have already been established and Rob was even noticing some excitement on his end.

“Hello, Peter” said Rob, looking at Peter who seemed immersed in some deep reading.

“Robert, hello, hello, it is good to see you. Please sit. “… “.. “Look, I am going to cut right to the chase. I am letting you go.”

“Wait, what? Why? I haven’t received any complaint or feedback or anything of the sort. What happened?” Rob was asking, shattered.

“Hm. Well? The simplest answer I can give you is that the boys feel you haven’t been able to keep up with their load. I am aware you have had some specific request or requests from Appel that were important, but I’m afraid that this can’t quite make up for issues with the rest of the integration. I suppose we were expecting you to integrate just a tad bit faster,” Yates invented.

“To be honest, what you’re describing differs from my experience here quite a bit. Is there nothing I can do now?”

“The decision has been made, I’m afraid. There is security at 811 to help you collect your things. You are a good man and a good accountant, Robert. I was hoping you would fit here excellently, but it looks to me like maybe you are just better used to working in smaller operations. And that’s commendable too,” continued Peter.

As he threw a goodbye to Peter and walked out, angry, Rob’s mind drifted to Torrence family savings and facing Gertrude. Thanks to the benefits he received from the new corporation and the IOD name on the resume, the landing was possibly not on that hard a floor. Still, he hadn’t been in such a rut in years. Maybe he shouldn’t have put so much confidence in the new job, but he did try his best with the “integration.”

On the schedule was reading the paper and skimming through job boards, with Trudie and Marie at the table and in the mix. In the following days, it was as good as he had pictured while leaving the IOD fort with security behind him.

On a Thursday morning, more than two weeks after the firing, Rob was starting another day with a paper at the breakfast table and no plans besides family. There were already accounting job leads he was chasing, even an interview scheduled, but nothing that seemed good and certain as of yet.

Flipping backward as he was now used to, he stopped at page two with a face frozen entirely. U.S. Probes Chemical Firm IOD in Fraud Case, headline read. The topmost paragraphs made it apparent that not only has the FTC been interested and looking into the firm for about a year, the numbers filed to the agency for the LimeRick merger were completely bogus. This is where Rob started putting it all together, including his own role in the mess.

Since IOD was inflating its sales, revenue, and other general turnaround figures, they were to keep a consistent record of the fictitious numbers for themselves. Someone must have made a mistake in that record, which needed corrections before Appel could send a response to one of FTC’s routine requests post-merger. To get Rob’s feet wet and possibly tighten the leash for things down the line, Julian asked him to do these corrections based on the correctly fake numbers Ray’d had. Not having found Ray, Rob had found something else – sheets with the actual figures still hanging in the drawers for some reason, which he used to replace those files.

Without even checking Rob’s work, they must have sent to the FTC their actual figures for the first time in a long time. Then, upon receiving another request, for clarification on the discrepancy with the official figures, IOD traced the update to Rob and fired him. They already had enough things to deal with, such as a response to the agency that did not sound like “we mistakenly sent you the right data this time.”

That, predictably, was to start spiraling quickly.

From a frozen to a pondering face, Rob was becoming seriously concerned with what all of this means for him personally. Without hesitation he told Trudie everything he had found and figured out.

“What it sounds like to me is that you didn’t do anything or know anything. They fired you too, remember? If they had a way to make you a fall guy, they probably would have already,” the wife narrated.

“Well I didn’t have to put my name on the edited files, and Appel did make that task more or less a secret. Regardless, I joined and left after the merger. So maybe you’re right. But if something does happen or if they point to me, I’ll have to be questioned, which may or may not go my way in the end. Lawyer up or something, I don’t know. There’s no one I can ask anything about this right now, from IOD or anywhere.”

“We’re just going to have to sit this one through. I will call and schedule some time with the lawyer, and that’s non-negotiable, Rob,” she said, strictly.

Readers of the paper had a front seat to the dismantling of everything the IOD founders had started fifteen years ago and the current executives reaped. Assets were being sold at big losses, a significant restructuring was taking place again. Peter Yates, the rest of the exec and most of the accountants, including Julian Appel, were going to jail. Under forced divestiture, LimeRick N Die Co. was being unmerged from IOD and becoming independent once again.

A month and some had passed after Rob’s work adventure, and the accountant was in the last stages of the interview process with a new consulting firm in town. In an early mid-week evening, the phone rang, behind which was Rick Schwartz, with Rita Schwartz singing warm hellos in the background. The couple was running the accounting department at LimeRick now, and practically begged Rob to return to his old second home. Rob thanked them, promising to consider it, and, after some nighttime busywork, went to bed. In the morning, staring at his schedule with the consulting firm’s final interview, he called the Schwartzes back and said “I’m in!”

The sun was blasting dusty laminate desks, combined with shadows it obscured every live and dead figure, though some faces managed to escape the active foam. Rob raised his head and saw Lisa walking toward him, carrying cups of coffee for the both of them. He was happy, maybe for the first time.