Lost City
Sonny Rainbolt
On the particularly mild mid- December morning getting close to lunch, Ray Evans first spotted the girl who would change his life. He'd been trying to finish his quota of a hundred and forty insurance forms for the day and had stalled out on an error code that he'd never seen before.
After a while, he realized that he wasn't going to guess the solution to the problem, so he eventually leaned way back in his chair, stretched and looked beyond the flimsy walls of his cubicle.
A big world spread out before him, one which he’d rarely had a chance to be part of while working a day job that sometimes went for ten hours and longer. They'd hired him because of his ability to shut out distractions - no matter what - and focus on the routine. But what distracted him today was different.
On the other side of the room: the late afternoon sunlight called his attention to a face that was so unblemished by age, that a passing glimpse of her wasn't enough. She was silhouetted in front of the bright late afternoon sun and seemed to be looking his way.
While Ray was distracted, his boss came up from behind him.
"Evans!" Richie Loudner cried, like a full-grown bull. "Or should I call you slacker?"
Loudner was production manager for the office.
"No Sir," Ray breathed, always polite. His attention had been pulled immediately back to his computer screen, but not soon enough.
“Evans! I caught you daydreaming and you want to pretend it's business as usual?”
“I had an exception that I couldn't get an answer for,” Ray said, hoping that his boss would lean in for a moment and help.
“You didn’t go to our help desk? We’ve got a certain level of productivity to maintain!” his boss cried, scowling at him in the kind of way that gave him indigestion.
“I didn't know we had a help desk."
Loudner nodded to the girl.
"She is the help desk?” Ray asked, feeling like he'd just missed something fundamentally important. With Ray slightly stunned, Loudner let him have it with both barrels.
“Do I have to tell you what to do next?” he asked, and he made an overdue conclusion about Ray.
“No, sir,” Ray said. “What extension should I call for the help desk?”
Loudner shook his head and raised his right index finger in the air. That gesture caused the girl to head over but Loudner was gone by the time she made it to Ray.
Up close, where the sunlight wasn’t blinding anymore, the natural room lighting caught the pretty girl’s hair and framed a face that didn’t seem to belong in a normal work environment. Her's was the kind of beauty you’d see in a commercial that grabbed your attention. She wasn’t dressed any different than anyone else, either. She had the badge, the headset resting around her neck and a simple blouse, but there was something about her that made it important for him to do his best.
“You’ve got an error?” she asked, stepping just inside the edge of his cubicle.
Ray blinked twice.
“Yeah. I mean - yes. I do.” He turned his monitor slightly toward her. “It’s… uh… code 36-24-36X. I’ve never seen it before.”
She leaned in: not too close, but close enough that Ray became suddenly aware of how stale the air in his cubicle had been five seconds ago.
“Hmm,” she said, studying the screen.
Ray watched her instead. The way she focused. The way her eyes closed just slightly in concentration when she was thinking. The way she didn’t rush.
“That one’s not really an error,” she said finally.
Ray looked at the screen, then back at her. “It literally says error.”
She smiled quickly, like it wasn’t something she handed out freely.
“Yeah. That’s what they want you to see so that tech support has their day. But it's easy to fix yourself.”
She pointed to a line buried halfway down the form.
“You flagged this claim as ‘incomplete,’ but the system already auto-resolved it. When that happens, it throws this code because it thinks you’re trying to override something that’s already been decided by AI.”
He leaned forward, following her finger as she clicked through two menus he didn’t even know existed.
“See this?” she said. “You just acknowledge the automatic decision here… and then reprocess.”
She clicked once more and the error vanished just like that.
Ray stared for awhile, then tried to respond intelligently.
“I guess I should’ve come sooner for the help desk,” Ray said with a wry grin.
“I came to you,” she corrected him with another one of her endearing smiles.
"You did, didn't you?" Ray pointed out, hesitated, then extended his hand like he’d just remembered how introductions worked. “Ray Evans,” he said, and she'd looked at his hand for a second, undecided before grasping his hand like an afterthought.
“Maggie Jones.”
Her grip was warm and steady.
“Thanks,” he said. “I could have saved some time.”
“I’ve got a few more people who are... ‘stuck,’” she said, adjusting the headset around her neck before she turned, walking away through the maze of gray partitions, moving like she knew exactly where she was going.
Ray watched her for longer than he meant to. Then he turned back to his screen. The form was now ready to be processed. He did so in under ten seconds before he realized that his boss Richie Loudner had been standing behind him watching, and was now shaking his head.
"You're not working out here anymore" he spat angrily.
Without even the slightest hint that it would all come crashing down in a moment, Ray had to ask for clarification, just to make sure that he'd heard correctly.
“I said: you’re fired,” his boss said, louder this time. “Get your things and get the hell out!”
Ray accepted the bad news mutely and somberly. Because Ray was struggling with no love life and had an ingrained feeling that he was not the type women were attracted to, he wasn't sure if he could continue routine processing work.
There was nothing remarkable about Ray. His face is long and narrow, with thinning salt and pepper colored hair, droll close-set eyes and cheeks that tapered off to a chin that was too small and with a wart on his left side. Never one for exercise, last year the spare tire finally began to become more than just an unsightly bulge. Also by his fortieth birthday, which was rapidly approaching, he still had no plans to celebrate it with anyone.
Loudner returned as Ray was putting away a sign: “If it’s hard, I do it immediately. If it’s impossible, it takes a little longer.” He'd had it up beside his computer monitor.
"This decision has been a long time coming and it's final. You are not cut out for this kind of work,” Loudner stated, and then awaited Ray's reaction.
"I was only trying to solve an exception to a rule. Are you certain I’m fired?" Ray asked politely, and fighting back tears.
Loudner continued to look through a stack of papers in his right hand until he found what he was looking for and pulled it out.
"What's this? I found it posted in the employee break room," Loudner said, handing it to Ray.
Holding what Loudner handed him, was like handling a hot coal. In short, Ray had used sarcasm and humor to describe the futility of "being lost in a long, dull and repetitive day" and Loudner had it reprinted and posted by someone who clearly didn't like Ray.
"I had nothing to do with putting that up," Ray argued, defensively.
"I know you didn't. But several people in management have already seen it and they think you have potential, son," Loudner said, with a wink like a talent scout. In fact, he liked it so much that he'd already reread it five times. The turn around from being fired to being complimented, was too bizarre.
"You want me to stay? Or am I through here?" Ray asked, already having started to clear out his desk when Loudner's face visibly softened.
“No, sit down. We might be able to make a deal. Have you ever felt like you'd be better off doing something else?" Loudner asked.
"Yes," Ray whispered.
"What?"
"Writing," he answered quickly.
Loudner nodded as if he understood perfectly.
"Simmons liked what you wrote. Do you have anything else?”
There was a short delay where Ray blinked twice and seemed to understand that there was still hope.
"S-sure," he said, with a noticeable stutter and without delay went to the lower side drawer of his desk and pulled out a manuscript that he'd finished and had submitted but which had cost him three thousand dollars in editing fees, without getting what he expected in return for the payments. After that loss, he'd just returned it back to his drawer, and hadn't looked at it since.
"I've worked on this for a long time," Ray said, handing it over. With the manuscript in hand, Loudner grabbed a chair and pulled it up too close to Ray, with the weight of the nearly four hundred single sided pages that he held with both hands.
“What’s it about?”
“A high-pressure claims office where efficiency matters more than truth, and three employees become locked in a quiet war of sabotage and survival, with each convinced the others are the enemy, until they realize the system itself has been shaping their betrayals all along,” Ray said, and Loudner took a while to digest everything he just said, including reading the first page he was holding.
"I know that you are better at writing than processing forms," Loudner said in a low speaking tone, his breath smelling of kindness. "So how would you like to stay on and try to write for our newsletter?"
Ray barely knew how to respond. It was all happening so fast.
"I didn't know we had a newsletter," Ray said, stuttering at first, and very quietly.
“We don't. Not yet. But you'll be heading it up, to help to improve this company's image,” Loudner explained.
Ray was distracted again by activity from across the room. The beautiful animated girl with her long blonde hair and innocent twenty something appearance, appeared to have glanced in his direction but had averted her eyes when she became aware that he'd noticed her.
"If you stay, you can move into a corner office on the fifth floor and get a raise," Loudner said, proudly.
"The top floor?"
"A corner office."
Ray agreed to take the job and then almost in a daze, followed Loudner upstairs to his new office.
Two cardboard boxes held all his belongings. He carried them to his new office on the fifth floor and didn't even unpack but went right into his work. Using the large flat panel monitor that was already on his desk, he stayed up until late that evening, long after everyone else was gone and blazing through notes from years of Loudner's texts and journals. After two am Ray learned from his boss's notes that records were kept on anyone didn't step up to the production level they required.
Beyond Ray Evan’s fifth floor office window was a lost city. Once a great destination for seekers of truth and peace, with it's mild temperatures in the winter, those seekers had long ago worn out their welcome and so all that was left was the money. People followed the money here and they commuted, working in the city even if they couldn't afford the cost of living. You weren't supposed to question why someone slept on your doorstep, someone who smelled because he never bathed or changed. You had to step over the same man everyday when you entered the front door of work, so you got used to it. Ray even believed sometimes that the homeless had been left out as a reminder for those who had something or someone of their own.
Ray’s new office was on the far corner of the fifth floor. It was after midnight and the cleaning crew was long gone, after turning out most of the lights. With a long day before him and lots of worries, he fell asleep sitting in his chair. When his phone rang, he awoke and answered it, sadly aware of a painful stiff neck.
"What?" he bellowed, massaging the back of his neck with his right hand.
"You should really think about going home and getting some sleep in a bed," said the familiar voice on the other end. It took him a second to remember that he was in his new office and it was the boss who'd promoted him who was calling.
"How did you know I was here?"
"Maggie texted me."
"I'm going to stay up a little longer. I'm onto something good," Ray replied in a monotone, as if it were a joke partially remembered while pulling himself together.
"Seriously, sometimes I don't understand you. Get some sleep and be ready for the meeting at noon where you'll have a chance to prove yourself,” Loudner stated.
“Yes. That’s why I’m still here. The meeting is on short notice, though,” Ray noted, since he hadn't been aware that there would be a meeting at all.
"No excuses, Ray," Loudner said, sarcastically.
Ray knew he wouldn’t have a chance unless his ideas were just right. Once again the pressure was on him to do better than he was expected to. As long as he’d been with this company, Ray had competed with those who kept up an almost reckless level of production. If they were using some kind of performance enhancer, he wouldn't be surprised since he'd never been able to keep up with them otherwise.
Ray breathed more easily when Loudner hung up. Then he went back to his work, to the couch where he could catch a few good ideas or at least little sleep.
He awoke on the office couch early, before anyone else showed up, because of a knock on his door from Maggie in tech support.
“How are you adjusting?’ she asked
“Just fine. I'm thinking through the hurdles I need to do my presentation at noon,” he said, not quite awake yet.
"Could you share it with me?" she asked him, still outside his office.
"Yes," he answered dubiously.
"I did some reading last night and want to tell you what I think of your writing, Ray."
He nodded and invited her to come in and sit on the comfortable chair he’d slept on last night, and he pulled up a folding chair beside her.
She began with: "As the editor of your manuscript, I love your focus. You keep it on track."
He nodded appreciately but then asked: "Do you know what they're doing?"
"No. Should I worry?" Ray said, very close to her at that moment.
"Loudner, who I don’t like, is planning to publish your work as his own because he knows how exceptionally difficult it is to make a regular living at the lecture circuit without a book," she said.
"How can he justify that?" Ray asked.
"He doesn't think you'll fight back," she almost whispered.
Ray kind of looked like he was saying "what?" without actually saying it.
"Take away everything that makes a man happy at work, but give him at least a little real love and he'll find a way," she said. “I’ve been assigned as your editor.”
"So you're the real editor and I'm the real writer, so why is Loudner is getting credit for both?" he asked, shaking his head in amazement.
"I've pored over your manuscripts, amazed at the stories you had to tell. I'd leave the whole story intact," she said, sounding very convincing. "But Richie wants a simplified "in your face style." So I've started by cutting out a hundred pages. We'll see how that works."
"You can't do that!" Ray exclaimed.
"I just did. You signed a waiver when you took the job. Your writing can be edited any way he wants."
For years, Ray had hoped for this writing to be valued and when it finally was, it wasn't as he expected. He liked having Maggie on his side.
"I've never met anyone so pure of heart, beside poor Paul, the homeless guy on the street out front," she pointed out," she said.
"You know him?"
"Yes. I don't want that to happen to you."
"Thanks for what you've done. So what can I do?" Ray asked, because she seemed like an angel sent to Earth.
"I think you had that routine job processing forms for years so we could meet," she said. “In a world where the rich and powerful become the deciders of a poor artists fate, an editor can fix your writing. But only if you really need her to. The man who took your writing, did so because he is capable as a presenter.”
He took a moment to study her, as if trying to decide whether such a person could really exist in this world. The morning light was now reaching across the carpet in pale strips, touching the edge of the couch where she sat and making her hair seem even brighter. Ray had never had such a beautiful young woman speak to him in such a supportive way, with something rarer and stranger: belief.
“I don’t know how to go to bat for myself,” Ray admitted. “I never did.”
Maggie nodded as if that confirmed something she didn't have to talk about.
“That’s why men like Loudner get so far,” she said. “They know how to speak first and speak loudest, and their audience mistakes confidence for substance.”
Ray sat down beside her, not too close at first, but near enough that he could smell a trace of perfume. “If what you’re saying is true, then why tell me now?”
“There's going to be a showdown once your work starts being circulated under his name," Maggie said, strength in her voice. “You’re only finished if you give it up.”
Ray gave a faint, humorless laugh. “You make it sound easy.”
“I said that I work in tech support, resolving problems before they get out of hand,” she said. "Men like him think they just rescue neglected talent from obscurity and make it useful.”
“That sounds like something he’d say,” Ray murmured.
“It is something he said to poor homeless Paul on the street out front,” Maggie replied. “He said it to Paul before he fired him.”
Ray turned toward her fully. “Loudner did that to Paul?”
She gave a small shrug. “He thinks you can do a respectable job putting together a newsletter. Prove to him that you can do a great one and we'll take it from there."
Ray smiled in spite of himself. But it was a small smile, uncertain and quickly gone, since he'd written in secret for years. Nights, weekends, waiting rooms, all the leftover bits of time that life hadn’t yet consumed, he imagined ideal situations where people got a break.
But how was it really done? He’d spent money he couldn’t afford on editing, printing, postage, and hope. To hear her speak of it this way made this seem like his break.
He rose from the couch and walked to the window. Down below, tiny people moved along the sidewalks in brisk lines. A bus exhaled at the curb. A woman in a dark coat avoided looking at the man laying on the sidewalk near the entrance. Someone else stepped around him without breaking stride.
“Paul,” Ray said quietly.
Maggie stood to come beside him. “Yes. I’ve seen him every day for the last few years.”
Ray kept looking down. “You said you didn’t want that to happen to me.”
"It won't," she said, then was silent for just a moment too long.
"Why are you so sure?"
“I work for both of you now. So that can change,” she said, and she sat at the edge of the desk now, close enough that he had to look up at her. “I’m tired of watching the wrong men walk away with everything.”
At the door she paused and looked back at him. The look was appraising, as if she were trying to decide whether he would do what was necessary.
"At eleven-forty-five put all your pages into a plain folder, straightened your tie and remember that far below, the same homeless man is still near the entrance."
By the time she left, he understood something important, that room with a view could still be a trap.
By the time Ray reached the conference room, the meeting was already in progress and the door closed. He paused for just a second outside, folder in hand, listening to the confident and practiced Richie Loudner speaking and then at the laughter that followed. He never said anything funny but got polite agreeable laughter from people who already knew how things were going to go.
Ray stepped in. The room was larger than he expected. Glass walls on two sides, blinds half-drawn. A long polished table stretched through the center, already occupied. He blinked twice.
Five men. Two women. All seated. All turned just slightly, as he entered. And at the far end, standing, one hand resting casually on the back of a chair like he owned not just the room but those inside it, was Richie Loudner.
“There he is,” Loudner said, smiling too easily at Ray's arrival. “Our new voice.”
Ray nodded, unsure whether that was meant as praise or positioning.
“Sorry if I’m late.”
“You’re not,” Loudner interrupted. “We’re just getting started.”
Which, by the way he said it, meant they had already started.
Ray took the only empty seat left, halfway down the table, a placement that felt deliberate. He set his folder down carefully.
Across from him, a woman in a dark blazer glanced at him, then away again. A man beside her leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, already evaluating.
Ray recognized the type. They didn’t listen but just measured for their chance to chime in.
“Let’s begin,” Loudner said, moving to the head of the table.
“We’ve been talking about messaging,” Loudner continued. “About how this company is perceived versus what it actually is.”
Ray felt the attention drawn toward him and his fingers pressed lightly against the edge of his folder.
“The core idea is this: in a high-pressure claims environment, efficiency has to take priority but that creates a perception problem. People begin to think the system is indifferent for unusual challenges.”
A pause. Ray’s pulse quickened. Loudner went on.
“So what we’re proposing is a narrative shift. One that acknowledges the pressure while reinforcing trust in the system.”
Ray’s ears rang. He had written that. He'd just couldn't overcomplicate it like Loudner did.
Ray would have explained. Maggie’s voice echoed in his head:
We're in a lost city… just explain the issue simply and understandably.
Ray swallowed. His moment was already slipping.
Loudner turned slightly, gesturing toward Ray.
“Before presenting, I spoke to our wonderful tech support manager Maggie,” Ray said, loud enough to be noticed by every eye in the room.
“These ideas,” Ray said carefully, “are a basis of a simple system of giving good quick answers to our employees and replacing a code book with caring.”
There it was. Out. Loudner’s smile dimmed a bit, waiting for Ray to acknowledge the man who'd given him the opportunity.
“Ray here has been… exploring some of these themes. And we’ve been working together, to shape them into something useful,” Loudner said, afraid that Ray wasn't taking his cue.
Ray leaned forward slightly. Across the glass wall, there was movement: Maggie: standing just outside the room. Their eyes met for half a second. Then she looked away. Ray turned back to the waiting audience and Loudner.
“Hello everyone. For those who don't know me: I'm Ray Evans. Recently I was recognized by our esteemed boss Richie and I thank him for letting me stand before you and tell you how glad I am to be editing the newsletter.”
The room went still. That was the closest anyone had come to saying something real.
He had more. Every version of his life until now had led to this one response: "This is a lost city,” Ray began.“only when people linger on without the hope that someone will recognize and compliment those who strive to do their best here. I promise to do my writing in our newsletter.”
The man with his arms crossed leaned forward now, just slightly. The woman in the dark blazer didn’t look away this time.
Ray felt it. They had questions. So he called them out.
The man with his arms crossed, asked: "So our tech support will help our people stay on track instead of faulting them?"
Rickie Loudner took the question, thinking it was for himself.
“That’s an interesting way to frame it,” Loudner said. “But we have to be careful not to… overcomplicate a communication issue. Answers to questions should include a reference to the guide. That's exactly why we brought Ray in, to help us refine the message into something that supports this business.”
As he finished his introduction, he waved his arms toward Ray. When he started to speak, the man in the front uncrossed his arms completely. The shift wasn’t subtle anymore.
Loudner stepped aside, appearing somewhat embarressed.
The woman in the dark blazer had a question.
“So you’re saying the messaging should… validate our claims processors?” she asked.
Ray took this question.
“I’m saying,” he replied, “We need to reassure the people who do our work, that they are not lost when we care.”
Through the glass, Maggie hadn’t moved. She was smiling now, although no one else but Ray noticed her.
In simple terms, Ray was a success and there was no turning back from the goodwill he'd spread.
Richie Loudner closed the meeting with: “Alright. Good. This is good. This is exactly the kind of energy we want in these discussions.”
Maggie joined Ray right outside the meeting room. By that time everyone had gone their own way, after a sincere handshake from Loudner.
“Loudner is good at being seen, but today you did good and were seen.”
The hallway was nearly empty now, since everyone had returned to their regular routine.
Maggie turned slightly toward him, studying his face like she had studied his writing: carefully, without rushing.
“You did very well. You kept it simple and to the point,” she said. “You got their attention.”
Maggie tilted her head, as if weighing how honest to be. Then she moved to the next item on an agenda only she could see.
“I need to congratulate you,” she said. “But also to update you.”
“On what?”
“Your manuscript.”
That word manuscript hit him differently now. It was no longer just a distant hope but something already in motion.
“What about it?” he asked.
Maggie reached into her soft leather briefcase she carried and pulled out a thick stack of pages, neatly bound. Not the worn, uneven stack Ray had handed over. This one was clean and professional.
She held it out to him. “I just finished editing it.”
Ray hesitated before taking it. The weight was wrong. It was much lighter. He flipped it open and the first thing he saw wasn’t his words. It was a title page. Simple and confident.
Navigating for Success at the Workplace
By Richie Loudner
Ray didn’t turn the page right away. He just stared at the cover, which was filled with a smiling picture of Loudner.
“That’s not...” he started.
“No,” Maggie said calmly. “It’s not.”
He flipped further. The sharp edges of his satirical tone had been softened. And then there were illustrations that appeared to be stock images of other smiling employees. He didn't recognize any of them.
Ray let out a small, disbelieving sigh, before saying: “My book had a different name."
Maggie watched him closely.
“Yes,” she said. “It did. The Hate Triangle.”
He nodded once. “You said you loved it."
“I did.”
“Then why...” he stopped, searching for something that made sense. “Why would you do this to it?”
Maggie didn’t flinch.
“I adjusted it for the presenter,” she said. “They're still your words but we've also added illustrations.”
He laughed once. Not because it was funny.
“Illustrations?” he asked, almost to himself.
“Baby steps for the lost city,” Maggie said. “They make it acceptable.”
“To who?” he pressed.
“To the people who decide whether it gets seen at all.”
Ray closed the manuscript halfway, his thumb still marking a place that no longer existed.
“And Loudner?” he asked. “He’s what? The author now?”
"He bridges a gap by presenting effectively," Maggie said, her expression not changing. “We're taking it step by step and hoping to learn from it."
Ray repeated that, like he didn't quite get the most fundamentally important idea of it.
“And he needs something in his hands by this weekend,” she said.
Ray blinked. “This weekend?”
“He has a speaking engagement,” she said. “He expects this to be printed in-house immediately.”
Ray looked back down at the title page.
“It means,” she said carefully, “that this is where you do your job to support your book. It would be great if you could get up and keep an audience interested but we're working on that.”
“It needs to be sold?” he said, lifting the pages slightly.
“Yes,” she said. “I guess you didn't know that someone needs to get seen and heard.”
“Yes. He can do that, can't he?”
“Better than having it collect dust for now.”
They stood there, the space between them filled with something heavier than before.
“You took the edge off it,” Ray said.
“I made sure it wasn’t thrown away.”
“You took a hundred pages off it.”
“I removed what I had to. Your intent is there.”
“You changed the title: The Hate Triangle,” he said quietly. “That was the point.”
“I know. But he's doing the selling.”
“It wasn’t about success. It was about what people become to survive here.”
“I know,” she said again.
“Then why make it sound like a handbook for success?” he asked.
“Because Richie has stepped up and kept his audience interested,” Maggie replied.
Somewhere down the hall, a door closed. Voices passed. Life went on around them, unaware of what had just been decided.
“He’s going to stand up there,” Ray said slowly, “and talk about this like it’s his.”
“Yes.”
“And people will believe him.”
“Yes.”
“And I…” he hesitated, then finished it, “…I’ll be sitting somewhere listening to my own words come out of his mouth.”
Maggie watched him carefully now.
“You don’t have to sit,” she said.
Ray looked up.
“What does that mean?”
“It means,” she said, stepping just a little closer, “this is momentum. You heard the room today. They responded to your positive take on the newsletter.”
Ray shook his head slightly.
“If you think you can sell a book about hate, then prove it to me.”
That sat differently.
“And this…” she gestured to the manuscript in his hands, “…this puts your ideas into circulation. The trick is to turn hate around into a positive. Into love.”
He studied her again, trying to decide if she for or against him.
“I should hate you,” he said.
“You might,” she replied. "Give it some time."
When Richie Loudner left for a weekend speaking engagement, the whole office lightened up, as if the building itself had been given a holiday.
Ray noticed the change by nine-thirty, and so he came down from his fifth-floor office with a stack of newsletters edited the way he wanted them.
Maggie had been very clear when she'd instructed him: “I know you're particular in what you write in your newsletter, so hand it to them while making eye contact."
To reassure him, Maggie added that “I'll be right behind you."
“And what exactly do I say?” he asked, knowing with Maggie along, he might have a fighting chance.
She took a look at one of the newsletters from the stack and held it up between two fingers. The company logo looked clean in print than and below it was the lead article with the byline for Ray Evans.
“You smile,” Maggie said. "You show the love."
Ray wandered if she'd notice.
“You smile a lot,” she said. “You hand it to them like it’s full of good news for them. Which, for office people, means acting like this piece of paper may just improve their lives.”
When Ray gave her a doubtful look, she said: “I'm tech support. Trust me.
He held a stack of newsletters against his chest like fragile proof of his existence as a writer, then stepped out of his office to take the elevator down. When the elevator doors opened, he stepped back into the routine world of partitions, gray fabric walls, fluorescent light, the low restless murmur low light conversation.
Several people noticed him stepping gingerly through the room, perhaps remembering where he used to belong.
He was the man who had once been nearly fired at ground level and had somehow floated upward.
Those on the production floor looked at him with suspicion and the quiet disbelief they'd have for anyone who had gotten away with something.
Ray took a breath and approached someone who had worked three rows over from him for almost two years and had never once said more than good morning. He didn't remember her name but she looked familiar from the pictures of the smiling faces in his book. When he greeted her, she looked up with the careful, measured expression of someone expecting something they weren't ready for.
He handed her a newsletter, forced a smile and said: “I wanted to make sure you got the first issue.”
"Do you know my name, Mr. Evans?"
When he said no, she introduced herself. Ray asked her to use his first name. Sandra took the newsletter, surprised enough to smile before she could stop herself.
“Oh,” she said. “Good morning Ray.”
She glanced down at the front page of the newsletter as to compare the small picture of him there with the real him standing in front of her.
“Well,” she said, with uncertainty. “look at you.”
When she turned back to her computer screen, he asked for one more thing before he moved on. "Could you introduce me to someone?" She pointed out Bonnie, who was compact with short dark hair and not more than thirty.
By the third cubicle, he found that handing someone a newsletter required an exit line, and by the seventh, he started to hear himself sounding almost natural.
“Hi Bonnie,” he said. "How are you?"
“Will you feature exceptional employees, like me?” she asked.
“Yes. Let me get your name and extension. I'll be in touch,” Ray said, writing down the number of her cubicle.
He made his way through claims, support, intake, review, appeals. Some began flipping through the newsletter while he was still standing there.
One woman laughed at a line mild enough to survive editing but pointed enough to remind him of the sharper version he had intended.
“This is so nice,” said another woman he'd never met, but who was also shown smiling in a picture in his book. "To take the time to say hi." She introduced herself as Susan and handed Ray a business card.
A man from intake named Morales, adjusted his glasses and tapped the page with the back of one finger.
“You wrote this part about distributing a page of questions to get the answers you need. Why not take from the merit system?” Morales asked, making a good point.
By eleven, people had started greeting him before he reached their desks. By noon, some were how soon there would be another issue. By one, someone in appeals had passed his copy to three others, and Ray caught sight of two women near the copier discussing a sentence he remembered writing after one in the morning with a stiff neck and luke-warm coffee.
By two, he had done something that would have seemed impossible a week ago: he had become likable in the way that matters most in places with a big workload. People were happy for his attention.
He returned to the fifth floor with the last of the stack gone and Maggie got back to his office shortly afterwards and took a seat in front of his desk as if she'd always belonged there.
“You did well,” she said.
Ray shut the door behind him and leaned back against it.
He laughed despite himself and loosened his tie slightly.
“Some of them actually read it while I was standing there.”
Maggie watched him with open satisfaction, the kind that always made him feel he was one move behind her.
“You created a buzz,” she said. “People don’t reject things handed to them by somebody who looks like he means it.”
She gave him a look that suggested there was only one person in the world who could darken a room without entering it.
“Richie. I went to one of his speaking engagements. I wanted to see how he used your book,” she said.
That old frustration rose in him again. She stood and came around behind the desk, placing her large screen phone in front of him.
There were pictures Richie Loudner at a hotel conference room podium, teeth exposed in a broad confident smile, one hand lifted in an open gesture and behind him, projected on a screen, was the title:
Loudner's Navigating for Success at the Workplace
And in the next picture, Richie stood beside a small table stacked with copies of the book. In another, he was signing one for a woman in a bright scarf in a long line of fans who looked delighted to be meeting him.
There was a picture Richie, standing in a circle of attentive people, holding the book against his chest like it was something he had lived through.
“He smiles a lot,” Maggie pointed out.
Ray gave her a flat look. In every photo Richie seemed not merely confident but nourished by attention. He leaned into it. Drew life from it. The audience around him wore the receptive faces of people relieved to be instructed by a man who appeared never to doubt himself.
Richie’s message was brief, as if written between compliments.
Strong response tonight. Books moved well. Need a polished write-up on my appearance for internal circulation by Monday morning. Mention audience engagement, book table, key themes, and positive reaction. This is how momentum is built. - RL
Ray read it again and since Maggie saw a look of disbelief on his face, she said, “You should be grateful. Richie Loudner is an example of how a book should be promoted.”
He looked at the pictures again. Richie’s broad grin. Open palms. Relaxed shoulders. The posture of a man delighted by his own stage presence.
“He wants this by Monday morning,” Ray said.
"You’ll describe what worked. The crowd. The posture. The smiling,” she said. "You can't shy away from experience."