Authors: Violet Walker
This seemed to unsettle Amanda for a moment. But the next second, she replied to Diana’s unspoken challenge with a closed lipped smile of her own.
“Do you have any other questions, Diana?” she asked.
“No,” Diana answered, “I think everything’s clear to me now.”
“Good,” Amanda said. She opened the door to the small break room and walked back down the hall. Diana followed in her wake.
“Sandra will fill you in on your duties,” she said, “it shouldn’t be too difficult. If you have any questions about the job, she can answer them for you.”
They reached the clear desk where Sandra was once again typing away on the large desktop computer. Amanda ushered Diana behind the desk to a second, larger computer and swivel chair.
“Sandra,” Amanda said causing the poor girl to jump. She turned to Amanda, her eyes wide.
“Yes, Amanda?” she asked in a relatively meek voice. Very different from the bright, happy tone that she had greeted Diana with.
“Once you’re done with...whatever it is you’re doing,” Amanda said throwing a glance over to Sandra’s computer with distaste, “you can catch Diana upon her duties.”
“Yes ma’am,” Sandra said.
Amanda nodded to both Sandra and Diana and turned to leave. Diana saw Sandra let out a small, relieved breath which she caught again when Amanda turned back to her.
“Oh Sandra, I almost forgot,” Amanda said, “Mr. Yazzie and I will be working through lunch, we’ll need our usual takeout orders from China Grove.”
“Sure,” Sandra said offering Amanda a shaky smile which was not returned. Amanda simply gave Sandra a sour look and nodded before turning on her heel and heading back down the hall to her office.
“Bitch,” Sandra muttered as soon as Amanda had closed the door.
“Is she always like that?” Diana inquired.
“Ever since I’ve been here,” Sandra answered with an eye roll, “it’s why we’ve had such high turnover. I’ve only been here a year and I’m the longest standing employee besides Mr. Yazzie, Amanda and Mr. Gomez.”
“It must be bad if people are leaving just because of one person,” Diana said.
“It is,” Sandra answered, “she made the last two real estate executives cry. They both quit the next day.”
“If it’s that bad,” Diana asked lowering her voice and moving her chair closer to Sandra’s computer, “why haven’t Mr. Yazzie and Mr. Gomez done something about it?”
“No one knows,” Sandra says, “I guess the company’s doing well regardless. And Mr. Gomez is hardly ever here so…”
“But, Mr. Yazzie must have noticed what’s going on,” Diana pressed. She didn’t know why, but she knew that she had to get at least a little bit of information on Catahassa Yazzie today. Otherwise, she would have agreed to spend six months reporting to a cold blooded bitch for nothing.
“We hardly ever see Mr. Yazzie,” Sandra said, now leaning towards Diana eagerly as though revealing a cherished secret to a sister, “When he does come out he just walks through the hall and out the door. I don’t think I’ve even heard him speak.”
“They do say he’s reclusive,” Diana said.
“That’s one word for it,” Sandra said with a small giggle. Then she stopped suddenly, her eyes grew wide like a deer who heard the crack of a hunter’s boot. She looked towards Amanda and Mr. Yazzie’s joint office and muttered, “Oh, shit. She’s coming.”
Diana did indeed see an ominous shadow move from behind the glass window in the office and towards the door.
Sandra looked panicked, but Diana knew exactly what to do. She reached over to Sandra’s mouse and brought up the Email Outlook tab on her computer screen.
“Tell me about the outlook,” Diana whispered just as the door opened and Amanda stepped out eyes fixed on them.
Sandra gave Diana a thankful look before beginning.
“Now, the emails you’ll be dealing with are mostly general inquiries, they’re in this file…”
“Sandra?” Amanda called. Even though Sandra now must have known that she had nothing to fear, she still jumped at the sound of Amanda’s voice.
“Yes?” Sandra asked, her timid voice returning.
“Mr. Yazzie has decided to go pick up lunch himself today. We won’t need you to put in the order,” Amanda said.
“Oh, Ok,” Sandra answered. This time Sandra put on a bright smile that seemed genuine. Again, Amanda did not reciprocate. She simply turned on her heel once more and went back into the office.
“Thanks for that,” Sandra said turning to Diana, once the door had closed behind Amanda. “I would have gotten such a lecture if she’d found us both talking in front of the computer.”
After that, Sandra showed Diana what her duties would include. Diana’s job, from the sound of it, was not too difficult. She was to keep the company facebook and twitter feeds up to date and answer general email inquiries. Sandra answered the phones unless she was on lunch or break.
“But very few people actually call,” Sandra said, “and when they do, they almost always ask for Amanda or Mr. Yazzie. On the off chance they call for Mr. Gomez, you'll take the call and email the message to him."
"Does Mr. Gomez ever come in?" Diana asked interested. Even in the article she had read about Mr. Yazzie, but a Charles Gomez had never been mentioned.
"I’ve only seen him a couple of times since I've been here," Sandra answered, "Amanda says he heads up the New York office. So I assume he spends most of his time there."
“But he has an office here too?” Diana asked. If he ran the branch in New York, she would assume he would use that as his main office and use a conference room in Albuquerque when he had to.
Sandra shrugged.
“No one tells me why they do things that way,” she said. “I’m just the girl who answers the phones.”
“And, I guess I’m just the one who updates the facebook page?” Diana asked coming to terms with what Sandra was telling her.
“You got it,” Sandra said. “Amanda doesn’t like too many questions. Especially not about Mr. Yazzie. It’s best to keep your head down and do your work.”
Diana nodded. That was fine with her. She didn’t like a lot of talk in general. She thrived in environments which required silence to work.
That was part of the reason she was busy trying to earn a master’s degree in anthropology. On sight, when you were digging up bones or ancient artifacts, there was no time for social gossip or chit chat.
Even in labs and in office spaces writing up research papers, which is where she knew most of her work would take place, she would be virtually on her own.
That was how she liked it.
Diana had always had a very low threshold of tolerance for small talk and meaningless conversation. She had been worried at first that Sandra would be one of those chatty girls who wanted to gossip the day away.
With Sandra making the suggestion that they keep their heads down, Diana was more than glad that didn’t seem to be the case.
D
iana worked happily in silence for all of five minutes before Sandra’s bright, high pitched voice sounded from behind her.
“So, do you have a boyfriend?” she asked eagerly. Diana swallowed to stop herself from cringing.
“No,” she answered simply hoping that would be the end of it.
“Oh, well, you’re lucky,” Sandra said quickly, “believe me they’re a lot more trouble than they’re worth. Last night, Ash-that’s my boyfriend-comes home at eleven o’clock and I’m all 'where were you?' and he’s all…”
Diana closed her eyes and tried to let the sound of Sandra’s high pitched voice just wash over her. She prayed that she would be able to get her work done while Sandra talked.
Luckily, Sandra didn't require much feedback for her chatter. As long as Diana said 'hmm' or 'yeah' at the right intervals, Sandra was pleased.
All the same, Diana was happy when the clock struck twelve and Sandra announced she was going to lunch.
"I'll be back to relieve you at twelve thirty," Sandra said hurrying down the hallway and through the employees only door.
Diana found herself at last alone in the office. Other than the occasional ringing of the phone (which she almost always transferred to Amanda), no other sound issued from the large office suite.
She went about tweeting and facebooking a series of articles on property value which had been suggested by Amanda and then she answered two general queries that had come in via the website.
By the time it neared twelve thirty, Diana could not help but think that she had gotten more done in the half hour of Sandra's absence than she had in two and a half with Sandra squeaking away in her ear.
She was very pleased with herself until she saw, out of the corner of her eye, a figure from the back office move towards the door. She felt her body tense before she realized what she was doing. Was Sandra’s fear of Amanda contagious?
She shook her head a bit and told herself firmly to get it together. There was no reason for her to be fearful of a bully. Especially when Diana was doing exactly as she had been told to do by both Amanda and Sandra.
Diana straightened her back and continued to compose her response to an inquiry about Mr. Yazzie’s availability to meet with potential clients (this was a form response. ‘To set an appointment with Mr. Yazzie please call the office’).
All the same, she looked out of the corner of her eye at the figure emerging from the office. Her heart beat quickened as she realized that it was not Amanda walking out of the clear office door and into the lobby.
Instead a tall masculine form came striding towards the desk. Though she could not see him clearly, Diana knew who it was.
She could make out his thick dark hair and the olive tint of his skin as he strode quickly towards her desk.
She didn’t dare look up at him as he passed. She didn’t want to look like some obsessed fan girl, after all. So, she tried as best as she could to keep her eyes locked on the email form in front of her.
All the same, she stopped typing when she heard him pause a moment as he passed her desk. Her fingers picked up at this when she saw him begin to move on.
Her heart beat thudded in her chest when he stopped before reaching the front door and turned to walk back to her desk.
He stopped in front of her and she looked up at him. Those dark eyes which had captivated her on the cover of the magazine were even more intriguing in person. Diana had to force herself not to stare into them too long.
“You’re new,” Catahassa Yazzie said unnecessarily.
“Yes,” Diana answered with a smile as void of nerves as she could make it. “I’m Diana Grant. Your new temp.”
She stood from her seat and held out her hand to him, he took it.
Diana assumed that he would simply shake it and let go but he didn’t. Instead, he held on to it in a firm, warm grasp for a moment. His dark eyes looked into her light green ones as though he had never seen anything quite like her.
“Do you have any Zuni blood in you?” he asked suddenly.
“No,” Diana answered honestly.
As far as she knew, most of her family was either German or Irish.
“You’re sure of that?” Mr. Yazzie asked, pressing her as though he thought she was trying to hide something from him.
“Pretty sure,” Diana answered taken aback, “I think I’m about as white as you can get.”
She attempted to chuckle at her own joke. Her smile faltered when Mr. Yazzie did not smile or chuckle in turn. He continued to gaze at her intensely.
“Hmmm,” he said still staring at her. Suddenly, he looked down at his hand, suddenly realizing it was still holding hers and dropped it quickly. Diana felt oddly disappointed at the loss of contact.
“Nice to meet you,” Mr. Yazzie muttered before turning quickly towards the door and heading out.
Not a second later, Sandra came in through the front door and rushed over to Diana.
“Did Mr. Yazzie actually just speak to you?” she asked Diana excitedly.
“Well...yeah,” Diana said. “He just introduced himself.”
Sandra’s jaw dropped. She looked positively shocked. Diana, for her part, could not understand why. Surely Mr. Yazzie introduced himself to his employees all the time.
“In all the time I’ve been here,” Sandra said, correctly interpreting Diana’s confused look, “he’s never said one word to me.”
“But, he’s…” Diana started, not quite believing that to be possible.
“The boss?” Sandra asked. “Well, I guess that’s why. When you’re that rich, you can afford to only talk to the people you want to talk to.”
“You mean he’s never talked to you?” Diana asked curiously. She knew from the article that Catahassa Yazzie was a very private man. But in her brief interaction with him, he had not seemed like the type of man who was ‘too good’ to talk to receptionists.
“I think he’s said ‘good morning’ a couple of times,” Sandra said thoughtfully, “but that’s it. To tell the truth, that’s the first time I’ve seen him leave his office in months.”
Diana simply nodded. After a moment of silence she realized that the clock above them had struck twelve thirty. Lunch time.
“I’m headed out for lunch,” she said to Sandra. “I’ll be back by one.”
“See you,” Sandra said as Diana walked out the front door.
She had been so nervous about getting to the job on time that she had not brought anything to eat. She decided to walk to the sub shop around the corner, glad at least for an excuse not to go into the tiny break room, which seemed very inhospitable for such a large and reputable company.
When she returned from lunch, Sandra caught her before Diana could sit down at her side of the desk.
“Amanda says she wants to see you in Mr. Yazzie’s office as soon as possible,” Sandra fearfully relayed.
Diana’s heart started beating in her chest. Amanda had told her that the odds were good that she would never see the inside of Mr. Yazzie’s office. She could not help but wonder if something had gone wrong.
“Did she say why?” Diana asked.
“No,” Sandra said, “she just said as soon as possible. So, I’d rush in there now if I were you because, when Amanda says ‘as soon as possible,’ she usually means yesterday.”
“Ok, thanks,” Diana said hurrying as quickly as her high heeled shoes could carry her to the glass office marked ‘Mr. Yazzie.’
She opened the door to find a large room with a window and a huge wooden desk that was unexpectedly empty.
She wondered at this for a second before she caught a glimpse of legs behind the open door just on the other side of Amanda’s desk.
“Diana,” Amanda poked her head around the open door, “we’ve been waiting for you. Come in and shut the door.”
Heart still thumping, Diana did as she was told. She came into Mr. Yazzie’s office shutting the door behind her.
In spite of her hesitation, Diana took a moment to look around the room. It was nothing like she’d expected the office of the CEO for a multibillion dollar property firm to look like.
The wall was lined with book shelves and these in turn were filled with brightly colored books of varying levels of thickness. The walls were cluttered with what looked like Native American artifacts, possibly Zuni, which Diana was anxious to get a closer look at, however she didn’t dare move from the spot.
“Is something wrong?” she asked turning her gaze to Mr. Yazzie who was seated behind a simple wooden desk that would have looked at home in a university professor’s office.
“I’m afraid, Mr. Yazzie is best equipped to answer that,” Amanda answered before Mr. Yazzie himself could so much as open his mouth to speak. Diana turned her gaze from Mr. Yazzie to Amanda who sat in a comfy looking armchair and looked at Diana as though she was a most unwelcome intruder.
“He just asked me to call you in. He hasn’t told me the reason yet,” Amanda said turning her sour glare to Mr. Yazzie, who looked at her in an exasperated manner before turning a softer gaze to Diana.
“Don’t worry, Diana,” he said, “you’re not in trouble. I just didn’t get a chance to look at your file before you were brought in and I wanted to know a little bit more about you.”
He gestured to another large, cozy arm chair on the other side of where Amanda sat. Amanda gave her a cold glare once more before reaching into a bag that sat at her feet. She took out a notepad and looked as though she was readying herself to take notes for an important meeting.
This, despite Mr. Yazzie’s assurances, made Diana even more nervous. The idea of this cold woman writing down and, certainly, judging every word she said made Diana’s pulse race in her chest and swallow a lump in her throat.
Apparently, Mr. Yazzie saw this. Diana saw him look at her briefly before turning his gaze to Amanda.
“Thank you, Amanda,” he said, “you can wait outside.”
Amanda blinked and her sour expression was replaced by wide eyed shock.
“Mr. Yazzie,” she said visibly trying to control herself, “I thought we agreed that…”
“Please, Amanda,” Mr. Yazzie said firmly cutting her off, “we’ll only be a few minutes.”
Amanda stared at Mr. Yazzie for a few minutes before turning to Diana. The cold, sour expression returned to her face in full force as she did. She eyed Diana with a gaze that could only be described as malevolent before she turned on her heel and walked to the door.
“Would you like the door closed, sir?” she asked Mr. Yazzie before she left the room.
“Yes, please,” he said to her.
With one last glare at Diana, she turned and moved out, shutting the door rather forcefully behind her.
Diana sat now in her cozy chair and felt, oddly, more nervous than she had before Amanda left.
Again, her fear must have showed on her face because Mr. Yazzie looked at her and gave her the first smile she had ever seen from him. Though, it wasn’t the warm, happy smile that Sandra greeted customers with, it was very friendly and seemed, somehow, more genuine. Diana gave him a smile of her own.
“No need to be nervous,” he said, “I really do just want to talk to you.”
Diana smiled at him once more and nodded. Though, her nerves had lessened, she was still unsure of what to say. She had never been very good at starting conversations. Luckily, the silence did not last long before Mr. Yazzie broke it.
“So, how long have you been working as an office temp?” he asked.
“A little less than a year,” Diana said, “I graduated from Santa Fe University about a year ago and I knew I had to work for a while before I saved up enough money for graduate school.”
“So, you’re going to get your masters?” he asked.
“I plan to,” Diana answered, “I’ve applied to several schools in New Mexico. Haven’t heard anything back yet.”
“What are you going to study?” He asked.
Diana’s nerves were coming back. Even though Mr. Yazzie’s voice was calm and almost warm, he still looked at her intensely. Like she was a puzzle or a riddle he was trying to solve. Diana was starting to feel as though she was the subject of an interrogation.
“I’m um…” she stumbled to her dismay, “I’m hoping to study anthropology.”
His eyes widened and he looked taken aback for a moment. As though she had wrong-footed him without meaning to.
“You’re joking,” he said.
“No,” Diana answered, now confused, “I got my undergraduate in anthropology. So, I was hoping to keep going at graduate school.”
Mr. Yazzie stared at her a moment longer then shook his head as though to clear his mind.
“I’m sorry, it’s just...I’ve always loved anthropology,” he said, “I’m a bit of an amateur myself.”
“I can see that,” Diana said glancing around the room once more.
“Feel free to take a look at them if you like,” Mr. Yazzie said.
Diana readily stood up from her chair. An invitation to look at these artifacts, some of which looked to be very rare, was more than welcome.
Her eyes were immediately drawn to a chipped black vase encased in a plain glass box... On the vase was, what looked to be an albino mountain lion painted on the front.