Page 20 of My Boss

“I’m sorry, but I won’t be able to make it. I’m having lunch with my family.” My conscience won’t even twitch, I won’t even stammer.

Silence.

“Can you repeat that?”

“Sure. I’m having. Lunch. With the family.”

Silence. Silence. A long, scary silence. Did he hang up or what?

“Can you express yourself more clearly?” He finally speaks up.

“More clearly? Table, soup, chairs, father, mother, me, day off. What exactly do you not understand in the sentence, ‘I’m having lunch with my family’?” I stop. I can feel the rage boiling inside me.

“How you can be having lunch with your family and walking on the sidewalk while talking to me on the phone at the same time.”

The what? My heart leaps to my throat. Where did he…?

I direct my gaze toward my staircase and hold my breath.

Oh, fuck.

Fucktard Jan. In a suit and tie. He is leaning against his pimped-out black car, holding the receiver to his ear and looking straight at me. We’re about thirty meters apart, but even from that distance, his snow-white shirt and shined-up shoes hit my eyes like a bolt of lightning. And that look of his—poker-faced, expectant, impassive.

I swallow. Well, that’s what I’ve done, I’ve brought it upon myself to have a working Saturday. And on top of that, I came off as a perfidious liar before my boss.

For a split second, a slight panic grips me, but I immediately nip it in the bud. Relax, Maria. It’s your day off from work, and you can do and say whatever you want. You won’t have some stiff barging into your private time.

“What are you doing here?” I snap at the receiver. I walk toward him with a bold step and maintain eye contact.

“I am waiting for you.”

“You are parked in a no-parking zone.” We are now only a dozen meters apart, and with each step, my heart starts pumping blood faster, preparing my body for a fight. “I advise you to leave. I have nasty neighbors. The municipal police will probably show up soon.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

There you go, Jan-the-risk-taker. Ho, ho, ho, what bravado and courage.

“Since you want to get a ticket… ”

“I will include it in the business trip expenses.” He hangs up and puts the phone in his pants pocket.

Jan is leaving? Yoo-hoo! Well, this deserves a drink today. I throw my cell phone in my bag; I feel like clapping for excitement.

“Are you going on a business trip? For a long time?” I come closer. I try to hide a smile of satisfaction.

God, what great news. He won’t be in the office, no overtime. I’m so inhumanly excited that I’m about to sing something.

Please, Jan, pretty please, tell me you’ll be gone for a month or two, I beg you.

“We are. Together. For three days.”

I freeze. I think I heard that wrong.

“Excuse me?”

“Please pack the most necessary things and wear an evening gown.” He stops talking for a moment, but after that adds, “For tonight’s banquet at a customer’s house.”

An evening gown? A banquet? Well, he fell off his rocker, the old goat.

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