mother.

My mother has always worked. Even before I was born, and while she carried me, she worked right up until her pregnancy. When I was seven years old she lost her job at a department store and went to work as a receptionist for an insurance company. Her boss's name was Phillip Lore and at 55 years of age he had survived two heart attacks and still ate like nobody's business. Three times a day my mother is sent to get him food. First, in the morning, she goes to Dover's and orders him three bow tie glazed donuts and a large coffee with extra cream and sugar. At noon, he takes two cheeseburgers with maple glazed bacon and a large basket of french fries from the pub, which is two city blocks away and finally for dinner he orders a steak, black and blue, from the diner which is located conveniently across the street and slathers it in ketchup.

It wasn't until his second heart attack that he stopped ordering french friends with his cheeseburgers, but I guess that is the only thing that has changed. Or so mother tells me.

Yesterday, at 6 pm sharp, when mother usually arrives home, she told me that Mr. Lore had a special visitor around 2 pm and they had her go out to get a bottle of scotch and some cigars from Saul's Liquor. When she arrived back Mr. Lore was standing in the door of his office red faced and screaming at the visitor, a bald thin man, and telling him that he ought to take his lies and deviance elsewhere! This she found was rather shocking, because usually Mr. Lore never takes that tone of voice with anyone but her or his secretary, May Finn.

May is a young blonde girl who constantly passes off her file duties to my mother, which is illegal, or so mother says. She says that May spends most of her days pretending to organize the supply cabinet and making phone calls to strange men and various girlfriends. When Mr. Lore comes out of the office she resumes fumbling with things on her desk or flipping through files and Mr. Lore pats her on the head or shoulders and tells her how wonderful the files look and what a darling girl she is. Sometimes he even compliments her dress and has her stand up and spin around, just so he can see every inch of her.

Of course he never asks mother to do this, only May. Mother is much too old, or so she says, but that doesn't stop him from making the occasional pass no way! One day while mother was returning files to his office while he wasn't there, he entered behind her and placed a hand right there on her behind. She jerked up and sent the papers in files flying all over the room! Mr. Lore started screaming immediately and his large red face grew redder and his double chin started to quiver as he bellowed out how nervous and scatter brained mother is!

What a terrible man he can be, sometimes, that Mr. Lore. Always getting so mad at mother and sending her to the back room. The back room is an old file room that escapes the heat and air conditioning, and he especially likes sending mother back there during the summer. The file room has all the old insurance claims in it, and there isn't anything that needs to be done back there ever, it is just used as a sort of punishment. Mr. Lore says it is to remind mother of how lucky she is to have a nice big desk with plenty of room to breathe. So every time she drops a file in front of him, or messes up his lunch order she has to go clean back there. Sometimes it takes hours, other times Mr. Lore will call her back up to the desk sooner but usually he just waits until she has finished dusting and organizing.

The first time mother was sent to the back file room she came home crying. Her pin curls had gone limp and she wasn't wearing any lipstick. The hem of her skirt was trimmed in soot and dust and her face was flushed, but you could tell that beneath all the red she was pale as the belly of a fish and feeling quit ill. Startled, I asked her what was wrong, and then when I heard how he sent her back there to that wretched room well I almost had a heart attack myself! I told mother that she needed to quit and find a different job but she only wept and told me if only I knew it wasn't that easy.