Page 18 of A Light in the Dark
EIGHTEEN
Two of them cried, Valerie.
On Tuesday, chaos struck work as people seemed to remember there were fiscal benefits to be had from hiring refugees. The flood of refugee paperwork went to my desk, as I refused to expose Madeline to the city’s greed.
She’d been traumatized enough.
As my boss wanted the same information as the Hunters, I took notes on a piece of paper, photographed it, emailed the picture to myself at work, and forwarded it to him. My ability to take photos was new, and he’d gotten a good laugh over my reluctance to join the modern world. He appreciated the digital records rather than me adding to the explosion of paperwork in his office and offered to have the company cover the cost of the phone.
I declined on grounds of planning to use it for primarily play and that the bonus more than covered the toy.
To keep Madeline uninvolved with the refugee documents, I sent her on a mission to introduce herself to the key accountants scattered throughout the building. As I wanted the accountants able and ready to work with just Madeline, I sent her alone with instructions to call me if she needed backup.
On my lunch break, I sent a copy of the photos to Roger and asked him to confirm that he’d received them. Once they were safely in his hands, I deleted everything from my message history.
Then, aware Madeline had a lot of adjusting to do, I waited for the woman to return from the wild goose chase I’d sent her on, hammering out other work to pass the time.
An hour before the end of the day, she returned, her eyes wide. “Two of them cried, Valerie.”
I could think of a few reasons why the accountants might start crying. “They’ll survive, probably, especially when they receive their next batch of organized files.”
Madeline pulled up her chair, sat, and stared at the mountain of papers taking over my desk, the floor, and the desk Mr. Accor had brought in for the woman. “I told them we will be organizing them by date and making sure any that are time sensitive are delivered first. That’s it. The one woman hugged me while literally sobbing.”
“They are still convinced that my ability to organize based on time sensitivity is a fluke. It probably sank in that they were actually going to be able to work efficiently and make their deadlines. That’s my job. I make their job easier. You’ll make their job even easier, and they aren’t ready to handle such good fortune. Give them a few weeks, and they’ll stop crying every time they see you. When the main tax season starts, they’ll start crying when they see you for completely different reasons. ”
“Nobody told me we were the harbingers of tears for accountants.”
I grinned at her. “You’ll get used to it. Now that you’ve met the people we will work with most often, you’ll have an easier time figuring out how to handle the paperwork.” I sighed over the explosion of papers in our area of the office. “When you think about it, we have the largest office in this place.” Technically, it was an open workspace, but due to the volume of paper that moved through the area, Madeline and I would enjoy having the room to ourselves.
It was near the reception, we could easily access all the offices on our floor, and if we needed to deliver paperwork to a different floor, we were close to the elevator.
“I hadn’t understood that last week, but seeing the mess that has arrived today, I think I get it. We don’t have to deal with this all before we go home, do we?”
“We don’t. We’ll lock the doors to the room and keep everything in here so nobody disturbs it once we leave.”
“Oh, good. It might take days to dig out from this!”
Aware Madeline would work extra hours if given the chance, I decided it was time to move forward with taking her on an outing. “Do you have any plans for tonight?”
“I don’t. They put me up in the hotel right down the street, but I haven’t had a chance to check out anything nearby. I’m worried about going out alone.”
I couldn’t blame her for that, especially if there were any rumors about missing refugees going around the refugee population still living in the city. “I need to go to the fabric store after work. Do you want to come with me?”
Madeline grinned at me. “Really? ”
“Really. We can get whatever you need to start sewing. Have you been paid yet?”
“I got paid my hiring bonus on Saturday. Mr. Accor said he wanted to make sure that was handled promptly so I can start getting settled while he has my new house situated. I thought the house was the hiring bonus.”
“It’s part of it. But you need money to pay your property taxes, groceries, and so on, and this company gives a welcome bonus to help their employees get settled before their first check.” I’d been shocked when I’d received a cash stipend for groceries and anything I needed before my first pay. I expected she’d been given extra.
I hadn’t needed any of the money, but I had appreciated it.
Madeline had lost everything but her life during Earth’s fall.
“It won’t be a problem for me to go to the store with you?”
“It’s not a problem at all. I recently acquired some silk I want to work with, so I need to get some basic sewing supplies, and I think it’s time to upgrade my sewing machine, so I’ll need to take a cab to my place anyway. The cab can swing by the hotel on the way to drop you off.” The sewing machine would be an impulse buy, but with the amount of silk I owned, I would need a good machine.
Mine was closer to the bottom of the barrel, and I would not dare risk silk on such a dastardly device.
With a better quality sewing machine, I’d indulge in some other craft projects, including a quilt made from rabbit wool to decorate my reading nook and torment my luna moth neighbor. I’d make it book and luna moth themed, and I’d display it in the window.
“Silk is such a fun fabric to work with. I’ve been afraid to check into the silk prices here.”
“They sell tolerably affordable silk at the store we’re going to,” I replied, offering the woman a smile. “By tolerable, I mean it’s wretchedly expensive per yard, but if you have a sewing machine and little respect for money, it’s affordable.”
She grinned at me. “I’ll have to see how much sewing machines cost here. If they’re reasonable, I can afford one, and my hotel room has a little desk I could use for sewing.”
“Then it’s a plan. We’ll glare at these papers, and as soon as we can escape, we will run away to the store of fabrics, sewing machines, and other goodies. Then we will retreat to our domiciles and make friends with the things we have purchased.”
“I see you are also an introvert.”
“I am extroverted with specific people. I don’t know how offices haven’t been registered as cruel and unusual punishment for introverts,” I complained, reaching across my desk to pick up the latest stack of documents destined to irritate me. Sure enough, Madeline’s former employer had decided to send over a bunch of things from the previous quarter. “Your old company loves paying Stonecreek penalties.” I waved the stack of papers in the air. “This is yet another stupid penalty!” As it wasn’t my problem if the accountants or my boss failed to close their office doors, I indulged in a frustrated scream.
Madeline’s eyes widened. “Are you okay?”
My boss kept his door open more frequently than I appreciated, and he strolled into our area. “What has you going this time, Valerie?”
“The idiots up the hill decided they didn’t get enough penalties last quarter, so they’re fishing for more this quarter.” I thought about throwing the papers on the floor and scattering them, but I behaved, set the pile on my lap, and began the process of sorting it. Every last sheet should have been calculated in last quarter’s earnings reports. Heaving a sigh, I handed the stack to Madeline. “Make a pile and label it as a way to make the accountants cry. Tomorrow, we’re going to go through the pile, and you’re going to learn why the accountants are going to cry before we go together and break their hearts. One day, I might send you alone to destroy their happiness, but I’ll ease you into it. Depending on how bad it is, I might leave you here and spare you from the trauma.”
“How much did they fail to report in just that pile?” my boss asked.
“Half a million minimum. And that was from one earnings slip.” I sifted through the papers, found the appropriate page, and held it out to him. “I don’t have enough time to properly dedicate to that today, so I’m going to just make piles until it’s time to go home, and tomorrow, I’ll figure out how much they should have paid Stonecreek but opted against doing.”
Mr. Accor glared at the sheet. “Or they’re trying to evade the tax payment until next quarter. All right. Teach Madeline how to identify all the files from this company. Tomorrow, I want you doing a full audit on them for the past five years.”
I allowed my shoulders to slump, and I regarded my boss with the saddest expression I could manage without actually crying. “Five years?”
“Five. Also, I have several university applications you need to review. Extortion, Valerie? Really?”
I gave up my act and burst into laughter. “Joel actually called?”
“He did, and he did so after talking to several prestigious universities in Mirage, all of which sent education proposals for you. He made some recommendations on the business side, and he asked the universities to pitch degrees you might like for your second. I’ve already gotten approval from my boss about it, and I’ve been asked to tell you to check your bank account. They’ve done the performance review for your first three years this morning, and the performance bonus was transferred this afternoon for delivery today, so it should already be in your account. They’ll be doing the rest of your years tomorrow, with your next payment coming in a few hours later. You bank at our bank, so it’s easy to get the payment to you. That is post taxes, and we’ll adjust the taxes if needed. If we miscalculated the taxes, let us know, and we’ll handle it. Your bonus is after taxes, and you are not to send a cent of it to Stonecreek. Madeline, there was an additional deposit added to your account as well to better reflect the importance of your role in the company and how you’ll inevitably help Valerie accomplish even more.”
“Oh.” Madeline swallowed. “Thank you, sir.”
“You should be moved into your home in two weeks. The shoring company is going to do some additional reinforcements and make certain there’s nothing amiss. We opted to enhance the contract per Joel’s recommendation. ”
I bet he’d give them the same work as my place at a discount. “Do you want me to try to rein Joel in?”
“You can try, but I doubt you’ll succeed. He had everything ready before he called me, and he’s dangling a potential contract with us to take some of the workload off his employees so he can expand his operations.”
Well, if Joel offloaded his accounting with us, he wouldn’t have anything to worry about; his work would be routed through me, and I’d be able to match him with our best accountants for the job. “If we’re onboarding Sampson Sigils, please let me directly handle the paperwork acquisitions. That will cut out two phases, a great deal of whining from the accountants, and control my general frustration levels.”
“If we end up acquiring the Sampson Sigils contract, we’re going to have to hire three new accountants just to handle their operations, especially with their expansion aspirations. And he didn’t even try to talk us down on the initial pitch.”
I raised a brow at that. “Well, that’s a good way to get our best work.”
“It really is. If we end up onboarding his company, he’s asked that we begin our full contract at the start of the next tax year but to let him borrow you to make sure his poor accountants don’t drown for the next few quarters. But seriously, extortion?”
“For the most part, I was joking around with him, but he decided to cooperate just in case I was serious.” I shook my head over the insanity of it all, giggling up a storm. “I’ll make sure he understands only consenting playful extortion is done on our street. ”
“That’s very similar to what he said when I asked him. Just try to keep your extortion of the man legal.”
“I can manage that much.” I handed over the pile to Madeline. “However tempting, we can’t burn the paperwork tomorrow.”
“That’s sad,” she said, creating a pile on her desk and using a new sheet to label it as a penalty box.
“Two minute, five minute minor, or are we moving straight to major?” my boss asked.
“I feel like this is a two minute for roughing and a ten minute misconduct. And I feel there are a few major fighting penalties thrown in for good measure.” Madeline added the list of penalties to her notepad and slapped it on top of the pile. “Do people play hockey here?”
Mr. Accor leaned against the edge of my desk, careful to keep from sending any of the piles tumbling to the floor. “We have a minor league and a professional league. Every city-state has a minimum of one professional league team. Our team is the Stonecreek Mudslide. We have a friendly rivalry with the Moonriver Wolf Pack. Pre-season will be starting in a few weeks; the league plans around our flooding to make sure there’s no risk to players coming into town or the tourists who want to see the games.”
“How much are tickets?”
I didn’t even need to look at the Mudslide’s website; there were a few hockey fanatics on my street, and they screamed at each other over who had gotten better season seats. The entire lot of them lived up in the nosebleeds for the games, which made the disputes entertaining. “Nosebleeds will ding you about forty a ticket, center ice is closer to five hundred a ticket. Season tickets start at six thousand a season per seat and go all the way up to a hundred thousand per seat.” I went through the next pile of papers and sighed at the invoices, most of which were for the current quarter but had stragglers from the previous quarter mixed in. I handed over the late invoices to Madeline. “Put those in the penalty box for a two minute high sticking. I feel like I just got hit in the head with their failure to promptly hand in paperwork.”
Madeline made a new penalty box on her desk, labeled it as for paperwork guilty of high sticking, and added the invoices to it. “I can seriously see a game for just forty?”
“Yep,” I confirmed. “The arena is near the menagerie. But you can buy tickets online. I think you can do it on a phone.”
“You can.” My boss pulled out his cell phone and showed it to Madeline. “Regular season tickets go on sale Wednesday.”
Oh, dear. The street fights would begin in earnest then, and I would make certain to work on my projects from the window with it cracked open so I could enjoy the show, which would inevitably take place right up the street, as the neighbors with the lift enjoyed getting involved from their doorway. “I recommend you go to the arena in person if you want season tickets. They have a special sale for those who bother to go in person. It opens a few hours before internet sales.”
Madeline, who owned a new phone similar to mine, dug hers out and began tapping at the screen. “And the cheap seats are really around six thousand each?”
“According to my neighbors, they are. There are a lot of fans on my street. I might be the only holdout.” I had no idea if Joel liked hockey, but I’d ask just to satisfy my curiosity. “Wednesday night, they’ll be out on the street arguing over who has the best season tickets.” Considering I’d cut their stair replacement costs significantly, I expected everyone would be getting season tickets except for me. “There is a ticket office near the craft store, so we can drop by for more information if you’d like.”
“Sometimes they have presales for season tickets,” my boss muttered, and he investigated the issue closer. “Ah, yes. There are some presale season tickets left for purchase. A cheap seat will ding you just under six thousand this year. The upper seats in the lower bowl will ding you nine thousand per seat. There are a few seats at the boards, and those cost ninety thousand each, up to one twenty for the best of the lot. Everything else between the upper seats in the lower bowl vary between ten thousand up to eighty thousand.”
“Why do people spend that much on hockey tickets?” I asked, shaking my head at the insanity of it. “I don’t get it.”
“Our arena has the Mudslide, a women’s league, and a mixed league, and the season passes let you see all games from the three leagues,” my boss informed me. “That makes six grand a bargain for the seats. That’s a lot of games.”
Madeline’s eyes widened. “Wait. The season tickets have three leagues bundled in?”
“They run the leagues back to back most nights, so you can go to the arena for up to three games in one night. There is a thirty minute intermission between the games, but most ticket sales are for all three games in the night.”
“I can pay forty dollars to see three games?” Madeline squealed.
“That’s correct. Or you can spend six thousand to see around a hundred and twenty games.”
“What’s the cost of living? How much can I spend on hockey tickets?” With a desperate look on her face, Madeline thrust her phone at me, showing me her bank account. “Please help me.”
According to the woman’s bank account, she had a healthy forty thousand, most of which had just been deposited. I raised a brow at my boss. “I assume she’s getting paid fairly?”
“She’s getting paid a little bit more than when you got your promotion into your position,” he informed me.
Ah. With the house free and clear, she’d be living a good life with plenty of opportunities to save. I handed Madeline her phone back. “Save a thousand or two for your crafting supplies and a thousand for groceries, food, and so on until your first paycheck. I’d also save three or four thousand for your savings, and two or three thousand for basic furniture. You’ll want two thousand for a good bed.” I did the mental math. “I’d keep twelve or thirteen thousand at a minimum, but you can safely spend the rest as long as you budget.”
My boss turned his phone to show Madeline one of the lower bowl seats. “This one is fifteen thousand, available now, and has access to the lounges in the lower bowl. They have lounge only restaurants, seating, and so on, so it’s quite pleasant. You also get early access to the garage and free parking for the season if you decide to get a car. You can park your car in the work garage if you get one and don’t have parking at home. If you want the seat, we’ll go to my office and make the purchase, and we’ll transfer the money from your account to the company card. We allow employees who are making large purchases to use the company card if they’re with our bank and we can instant transfer the funds. ”
I’d taken advantage of that a time or two in the past. “They do. If you want the seat, buy it. That’ll definitely keep the boredom at bay. There’s a bus that goes to the arena from where you will live.” Most places down the hill and far from the menagerie had such a bus, which would simplify her life. They ran early and often, and a monthly pass wouldn’t cost her much. “Go pick your ticket. I’ll put papers in the penalty boxes until you’re done, and then we’ll go to the craft store.”
With the energy of a child discovering Christmas for the first time, Madeline bounced off with our boss to start the next phase of her life.