“Put your money away! My treat. See you in fifteen minutes,” she said and headed out the door.
Luc looked around at the piles again and wondered if this had been such a good idea. He really did need a new filing system, but now he wasn’t so sure. Maybe what he really needed was another filing cabinet. Heading out the door, he saw that Kevin’s office door was open.
“Hey Kevin,” Luc called from the doorway. “Do you have a spare file cabinet?”
“Hey Luc, good to see you at work. File cabinet? Um… No, but there might be one in the warehouse. I’ll call Peter,” he said and picked up the phone. “I’ll get back to you in a few minutes,” he said.
Luc nodded and headed back to his office. More space was always a good thing. When he got back to his office, he started tossing things like junk mail and catalogs that were over six months old. That quickly took care of three piles.
“Hey you, ” called Ginny from the door. In her hand was a Dr. Pepper and a bag of beef jerky nuggets.
“Ginny, you are a lifesaver,” said Luc as he took them from her.
“I’ll remember that,” she said as she headed off to drop other snacks to Meg and Kevin.
Luc sat down and opened the jerky. He had eaten half a dozen pieces before he realized just how hungry he was. Looking up at the clock, it was only 11:45am. “Damn! I’m starved,” he thought. Taking a swig of Dr. Pepper, he ate another piece of jerky and then went back to sorting papers.
“Luc, Kevin said you needed this,” said Peter.
Luc looked up to see Peter standing in the hall with a file cabinet on a dolly.
“I sure do. Put it over by the closet,” said Luc and moved to clear a path. Five minutes later and the file cabinet was in place and ready for use.
“Thanks Peter,” he said.
“No problem Luc. How’s Meg doing?” he asked.
“She’s doing okay. Work is keeping her busy,” said Luc.
“Good. I was hoping that everything this weekend didn’t weird her out,” Peter said. He’d had his fair share of human girlfriends, and some just didn’t cope as well as others.
“No, she is handling it pretty well. It feels good to get back into a normal routine too,” said Luc.
Peter nodded in understanding and headed out. He had new space in his warehouse and didn’t want it filled up with boxes by the time he got back. UPS was due in by 1pm.
Luc began to fill the file cabinet with all of last year’s files and tools only used for certain jobs went in the bottom. This gave him plenty of room in the file cabinets behind his desk for this years files and his various tool bags. He had one for networks, another for PC repair and a third for wiring. He almost had his desk clear when a scent caressed his nose. He looked up to see Meg standing there with a bag in her hand.
“Lunch time,” she said with a smile.
Luc sniffed again. “bacon, mushrooms, goat cheese, lamb,…” he thought. “Bingo Burgers?” he asked tentatively.
Meg nodded. “I figured that you’d forget lunch. Ginny’s snack an hour ago barely lasted for me, and you’re still healing,” she said as she put his lunch down on a clear space on his desk.
“You’re right. I think I inhaled the jerky, and I don’t even remember when I finished the drink,” he said as he grabbed a couple of fries and the spicy catsup.
Meg smiled and settled in one of his customer chairs. She had a lamb burger as well. The little burger place was fantastic. All organic, very clean and fast service. Plus, they served lamb. She held her burger over the container because it was so juicy it was dripping. She looked up to see that Luc was dripping all over the end of his desk, as he ate. She tried not to giggle, but couldn’t help it.
“Noht one johke abowt woofin’ my food,” he said trying to talk around a bite.
Meg just laughed. They finished their lunch and when the last bite of burger and sweet potato fries was gone, Meg grabbed the clean wipes from one of the tool kit bags and handed it to Luc. He took a few and started to clean up the drips on his desk.
“That was heavenly,” he said. “At least now I won’t try and eat the job interview candidates.”
“Ginny found some already? That was fast,” said Meg.
“I think she’s been thinking about this for a while and just waited until I came into work. Duke was useless for a long time before he attacked you. So, I don’t think it was so much a matter of finding them, as making them wait for a call,” he said.
Meg nodded. She suspected that Ginny sandbagged a lot of things and would dole them out to Luc as he could handle them until he was totally healed. “You want help?” she asked.
“No, I’ll… Wait, you were the HR officer,…” he started as the gray cells started firing in rapid succession. “Um… I’d really like you to be here, especially as I think one or two of the techs are human,” said Luc.
“No problem. I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t want to,” said Meg. With that, they headed to the conference room and set things up for the interview.
*
The last candidate walked out of the office at 5 pm. Meg was exhausted, and Luc was gray around the eyes. It had taken a lot more effort that either one of them expected.
“Can we wait to sort them out until tomorrow?” asked Luc. “I’m worn out.”
“Sure. I’ve kept notes. I can’t believe she found six people for us to interview. Did she prowl the universities?” Meg asked.
“I don’t know. However, we have some tough choices to make,” said Luc.
“Yeah, but the only choices I want right now are whether to eat in bed or not,” said Meg.
“How about take out and we eat as soon as we get home. Bed as soon as we throw out the trash?” suggested Luc.