Scissor Link Georgette Kaplan (best self help books to read .TXT) 📖

“Now, the leak has been found and it’s not you or anyone you know. But, in the course of investigating this security breach, I have seen your private files from the time of the incident. Do you recall sending an e-mail on the fifteenth of last month?”

Wendy rolled her eyes, a bit peeved at Janet for getting so heavy-handed with her just for entering a Fandango contest or whatever on company time. “Let me think—were there a lot of naked pictures of Jennifer Lawrence in it?”

Janet smirked—Wendy remembered how she had once thought of herself as a cinnamon roll, only now Janet was snitching some frosting off her.

Resetting her glasses on the bridge of her nose, she examined the document from the inbox once more. “From: WCedar@gmail.com. To: tinatee@gmail.com. Subject: Heatwave.” Janet cleared her throat. “‘Hey Tina, I took nutmeg before bed and it did nothing. I had insomnia all night, barely got four hours’ sleep, napped on the subway train like a tourist—horrible place to have the Dream. I’m not even sure I should tell you about it, you huge perv, after you promised me your dumb fad diet would have me dreaming about puppies and kittens and shit.’”

“Ummmmm,” said Wendy, who was now sure no, this was the worst possible combination of Janet and bondage, give her Gitmo any day. “That’s private and I don’t see what it has to do with the aerospace industry and you already said I wasn’t the mole, Jesus.”

Janet paused a moment, staring at Wendy as if trying to squeeze more words out of her suddenly parched throat, then continued. “‘Okay, so I’m dreaming that I’m working late in the office. Everything’s dark, it’s just me and Janet. I can see the lights of her office are on, but that’s the only light except for my computer. Suddenly, I get an e-mail from her.’”

“I remember it, okay!” Wendy cried, surprising herself at how strident she suddenly was. “And I’m absolutely sure I wrote that on my lunch break, so that’s not even a little bit company business!”

“Really?” Janet asked, setting the paper mercifully down. “Is this the kind of fixation you think one employee should have on another employee?”

“It wasn’t a—it was just a weird dream!”

“One of several.”

“They made a lot of Transformers movies too, so what!?”

“I’m going to have to make a record of this.”

That was like biting into an ice cube. Wendy’s co-workers didn’t even know she was gay. “Janet, please. C’mon. It was just a stupid dream I had that I told a friend about. It’s nothing, nothing—”

“I would like you to conclusively identify the contents of this electronic communication, and then go on record assuring this company that the events relayed were absolutely false and had no bearing on reality.”

And just like that, Wendy snapped back into peevishness. It figured. “This is all because you don’t want people to think you’re having an office romance? Fuck, why’d you hire Elizabeth then?”

She shouldn’t have said that. She should not have said that. But people tended to notice when someone as L Word as Janet hired a thirty-something Instagram model to be her secretary.

“Are you willing to refute these—” Janet held up the paper with a huff of disapproval “—allegations, or not?”

“I’ll do it.” Wendy laughed harshly, out of nowhere. “You want me to write ‘Janet Lace is straight’ fifty times on the blackboard, too?”

Janet stood up from her desk. “I’ll thank you not to presume my sexual orientation.”

“Oh, you mean you have one?” Despite her looks, or maybe a little bit because of them, Janet was just about the most dead-below-the-waist woman Wendy had ever met. For a woman so achingly lovely, she was as withholding and tightly wound as a submarine hatch.

Janet’s reply was to open another, bigger drawer in her desk. She took out a video camera, the kind that fit neatly on one hand. She opened up the little viewfinder window and aimed it at Wendy before setting it down on her desktop. “Identify yourself for the record.”

Wendy heaved a sigh. “Wendy Augustine Cedar.”

“Augustine,” Janet repeated ponderously.

“It means ‘beloved of God’.”

“No, it doesn’t. Read now.”

Wendy shied away from the sight of her reflection in the camera lens, picking up the document and making an effort not to crush it in her grip. “‘From: WCedar@gmail.com—’”

“Skip to where I left off,” Janet instructed. “You’d received an e-mail…”

And then she did a funny thing.

She unbuttoned the first button on her blouse.

For Janet, that was a lot of button.

It was a lot of button for Wendy, too.

“Read,” Janet said, and Wendy scanned the document to find her place, wondering how in the hell she was going to survive reading this out loud, with Janet watching her, with her button unbuttoned.

Wendy cleared her throat. She could feel Janet’s eyes on her—all over her, in fact—searching for the slightest hint of weakness, probably. Well, she wouldn’t be disappointed. Wendy could feel sweat like acupuncture needles, on her brow, the nape of her neck, under her arms, behind her knees. How could she suddenly be doing this at the end of the work-day, right when she should be wrapping up to go home? She should’ve been given advance notice, like for a meeting. A chance to freshen up. What she wouldn’t give for a hobo shower right about now.

“‘The e-mail tells me to go to Janet’s office,’” Wendy read, forcing her voice to be as strong and strident as it could be. She wouldn’t be intimidated. She’d read the goddamn e-mail like it was King Lear. “So I get up and I go. It feels like a mile, going through the dark office with all the darkened computer screens, the only light coming from Janet’s waiting office. Finally, I get there and I’m feeling this burning in my legs, like I’ve had a really good jog…yes, Tina, such a thing exists—’”

“Speak up, please,” Janet said.

Janet’s comment jerked Wendy back to reality. Not letting her lose herself in her recital, the bitch, her voice