Herbert Can Be Ever Ready

There is this spectacular person I met through the bus driver who navigates me and ten other people 40th Street and Harlan Avenue on Mondays through Fridays at six o’clock. Of course, the bus driver didn’t introduce me to this person. It was his cousin who works in a firm that does collections who had orange hair from a bad dye job and a permanent smile with bubblegum in her teeth. But she was not the person who knew this person that I am writing about. The person who knew the spectacular person was her neighbor who had an opal pendant in the shape of an anatomical heart and was part of the executive training branch of another company. The spectacular person was her friend, Anne Bobby.

It would seem to me that a spectacular person would not have such a plain name that really belongs on a street sign in a little town. I did not know she would be spectacular until I saw her desk at work where she does professional development. Anne Bobby told me I could meet her at her work for coffee at three o’clock, which was when she got off. I could wait in her office until then because she would be in a long, long, long meeting, but it would not last until three, she assured me. Naturally, I did some superficial snooping while awaiting her to come to the office. It was strange that she had none of the usual photos and desk knickknacks that most people had in their offices or cubicles.

Anne Bobby had a photo of a blue balloon in a blue sky bleached of most its color. She had a photo of footprints in cement that were in front of a sign that said no loitering. In a miniature gumball jar near her computer were not gumballs, but old stamps that been used. At the edge of her desk and in the center was not her name–her plain name was not anywhere in sight–but a silhouetted bust collaged in photos of Tom Waits and headlines about his tours. I already knew her before she came in the door right at three o’clock.

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Filed by Herbert Jones at 3:08 pm under Business,People
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