The Water Fountain is the Backyard Fence of the modern-day office. Here rank, paycheck, even horrendous backlogs of work become ilrelivant. The only things that matter is..gossip. And the Men are worse than the women, talking about Gary Wilson's hole-in-one, Mark Potter's disaster of a date with a receptionist, the latest bit of drama about Floyde Harper and that Comp-Tel Receptionist, Elizabeth Lark--QUITE the scandle, as 'Lis was the Comp-Tel goody-two-shoes, and she was going on with...with Floyde--and even about the unmentionable things going on in the Manager's office with that silly little girl, Marianne Baker.
Marianne, as a matter of fact, had created more than her fair share of gossip. MUCH more. Her reputation said that she would have been better off--and made more money--on the street outside the office, than in the cubicle on the tenth floor, closest to the Manager. A good portion of the men she worked with--not most of the men in the office, but a good portion--could testify to how...skilled...she was, but they usually followed such comments up with verbal jems like "She's a damn BITCH, Harry", and wander away, remembering one blistful night that was still not worth the diresion afterwards.
As it happened, Mary's cubicle was also close to the water-fountain. Not a soul on the floor knew it, but she had heard every word of it, and had gloried in most of it.
On this floor, in fact, she had only two enemies, and she had revenge ear-marked for both. Issac Garcia, who was on the short list, titled "Men I Have Insulted, But Not Slept With" and Elizabeth Lark, the other receptionist, who did not sleep with her boss, yet did such a good job at sorting calls, mail and events for her boss that even the most chauvinistic of men would have had nothing to complain about. And sence no excuse in the world could have gotten Elizabeth to sleep with her boss, her ability ought to be conisdered a good thing.
Mary looked at them both...Issac had already steaked out the Water Fountain--no one on the floor had figured out what work Issac did, only that he hadn't been fired yet so he had to have been doing SOMETHING--and was trading gossip for gossip the way some men trade stock on the stock market. Though, given that it was one-fifteen now, he could have just gotten there. And Elizabeth...sweet, good natured, religious Elizabeth...was sitting down at her desk, taking calls, writing up meeting requests and feilding the thousands of unresponsable requests of her boss the way a good employee should.
Mary considered how she ought to act out her revenge on those two. While she was at it, she stopped by the water fountain--Issac never drank water from it, same as he never sat at his desk for longer than five minutes--and dripped half of the Mouse vial down the spicot while she faked a drink.
There. That ought to give her a few hours of amusement.