Cindy Metzger was in charge of public relations, or press relations, or whatever you want to call it that amounts to PR. She was friendly, attractive. A bit discombobulated. She always had a sleepy look, like she'd just spilled out of bed. The following morning, she sent me a draft of the name-change press release from her room at The Prison. She called me up a few minutes later. It was seven something, her time.
"Did you get it?" she asked.
"Looking at it now."
"Ugh. Ugh!"
"What's wrong?"
"Judy wants the final draft on her desk, first thing in the morning. I was up all night writing this."
"I think it looks pretty good. I–"
"God fucking dammit."
"What?"
"My hair. My fucking hair. There's no fucking hair dryer in this fucking place."
"I'm going to send you back a version."
"Does it look OK?"
"It looks good. There's just a couple of–"
"Can I just tell you what a cunt she is?"
"Sure."
"I got here late yesterday. I was supposed to meet her at the office. The plane was late. She acted like it was my fault."
"Damn."
"THE PLANE WAS LATE."
"I know."
"Do I fly the fucking plane? Am I the pilot of the plane?"
"Right."
"Am I the co-pilot? Am I that other fucking person in the cockpit?"
"Exactly."
"Am I the air fucking traffic controller?"
"Yeah! No."
"Do I look like the guy who waves the fucking little sticks around? Do I look like that guy?"
"You do not."
"The fucking little orange sticks?"
"Yeah, yeah."
"So HOW IS IT MY FAULT THAT THE PLANE WAS LATE?"
"I don't see a way how."
"So then she sends me all these fucking changes to the press release. Like she couldn't have sent them last week. For Christ's sake."
"Good Lord."
"And so here I am, at the fucking Prison, with my hair still fucking wet," she concluded in a weary singsong.
"Yeah. God."
She broke into soft sobs.
"Are you OK?" I asked.
"I don't know how much more of this I can take!"
"It'll be OK," I reassured. "I'm sure it'll be OK, I think."
"Thanks Paul," she said with a sniff and a halting sigh.
"I'm sending you the doc in five minutes."
"Thank you. Thank you."