Derek thought to himself that if he was going to transform the managers to represent the community better, it would be just as well to leave X, the bulling bigot of a head manager, as he was so he could see those of his managers who were not women would be non-white. There should be at least one Caucasian male, and it would be best that that should be a man who had never been sexist or racist, and who better than Pete?
As Pete bent over reading a document, Derek put the changes into operation. He could see the top of Pete’s head with its greasy, mousy hair and the shoulders of his cheap, shiny suit on his scrawny shoulders. Gradually there was a change, The shoulders and the arms bulked up inside a well cut Brooks Brothers suit in a light color. His hair quietly turned pale blond and grew out. Pete finished reading and looked up.
Beneath the floppy blond fringe, his face was square jawed and long, the skin nicely tanned and the features fine. Beneath straight light brown eyebrows were the two most brilliant light blue eyes Derek could remember ever seeing. He grinned revealing two rows of perfectly even white teeth. “That should be no problem, Derek” he said in a rich, nicely modulated voice.
“Thanks, Perry,” said Derek realising his friend’s new, no his true, name.
“If I can help you again, just let me know,” said Perry getting up, “but I’ll see you again at the meeting.” Derek and Perry exchanged a wry looks to recognise the unreasonableness of the timing but not whinge.
Perry, the Ivy League charmer got up to go, noticing Derek and thinking this was one place where the good looking guys were also the nice ones.
“See you there, Perry,” said Derek. Derek began to give his mind to his self appointed task; he would notice the different managers at this meeting, and then put his program of transformation into practice as soon as possible.
Just before 12.30 Derek took his seat in the meeting room, having thoroughly read all the papers. The other managers arrived in ones and twos and all of them recognised Derek. Derek began to take notice…