CHAPTER 7

"Carla, what are you doing here? Weren't you sick?" Bobby Clarence asked when he saw her enter the Protocol department.

The director of that area, a tall, thin man, with a lined face and black hair combed back with gel, wearing a lead-gray two-piece suit that seemed a little big for him, stood up from his seat behind the desk as a courtesy, surprised to see one of his four assistants on a day's leave.

"Bobby," she greeted, standing very close to the door, "can you explain to me what a girl from human resources is sitting in my cubicle? She tells me that the department has sent her to... to replace me."

"Sit down, please." Clarence pointed to one of the two chairs in front of the table.

Carla agreed, avoiding letting out a sigh.

"Replace is not the word. Supply. And only while you're on leave..." He interrupted his words abruptly. "You were on leave, weren't you?"

Carla, at times, had to deal with the strange decisions and attitudes of her most direct superior: the annoying Bobby, as so