Officer Jenny Quotes

There's no use in denying it: this has been a bad week. I've started drinking my own urine. I laugh spontaneously at nothing. Sometimes I sleep under my futon. I'm flossing my teeth constantly until my gums are aching and my mouth tastes like blood. Before dinner last night at 1500 with Reed Goodrich and Jason Rust I was almost caught at a Federal Express in Times Square trying to send the mother of one of the girls I killed last week what might be a dried-up, brown heart. And to Evelyn I successfully Federal Expressed, through the office, a small box of flies along with a note, typed by Jean, saying that I never, ever wanted to see her face again and, though she doesn't really need one, to go on a fucking diet. But there are also things that the average person would think are nice that I've done to celebrate the holiday, items I've bought Jean and had delivered to her apartment this morning: Castellini cotton napkins from Bendel's, a wicker chair from Jenny B. Goode, a taffeta table throw from Barney's, a vintage chain-mail-vent purse and a vintage sterling silver dresser set from Macy's, a white pine whatnot from Conran's, an Edwardian nine-carat-gold "gate" bracelet from Bergdorfs and hundreds upon hundreds of pink and white roses.

Back in the general office, she had to listen to Jenny and Annie banging on about how good-looking Matthew's son was and how he had obviously got all the good genes. "Matthew's first wife must have been very beautiful," Jenny was saying, looking over at Helen for a reaction. Helen had cleaned herself up in the ladies on the way up, and now she was mascara free but still red-eyed, so she kept her headdown and pretended she couldn't hear. No such luck she would get away with that though... "He was asking about you," Jenny shouted over. "Wanted to know which one was the slut that his dad had gone off with." "Of course he was," Helen said sarcastically, knowing that Leo would never stoop that low.

As specimens go, they always get excited about me. I'm a good one. A show-stopper. I'm the kind of kid they'll still enquire about ten years later. Fifty-one placements, drug problems, violence, dead adopted mum, no biological links, constant offending. Tick, tick, tick. I lure them in to being with. Cultivate my specimen face. They like that. Do-gooders are vomit-worthy. Damaged goods are dangerous. The ones that are in it cos the thought it would be a step up from an office job are tedious. The ones who've been in too long lose it. The ones who think they've got the Jesus touch are fucking insane. The I can save you brigade are particularly radioactive. They think if you just inhale some of their middle-classism, then you'll be saved.

Human resources is the place where people come to complain and/or shoot people when they just can’t take it anymore. Choosing to work in HR is like choosing to work in the complaint department of hell, except way more frustrating, because at least in hell you’d be able to agree that that Satan is a real dick-wagon without having to toe the company line. The HR department is the place where people stop by to say, “THIS IS TOTALLY FUCKED UP,” and the HR employees will nod thoughtfully and professionally as they think to themselves, “Wow. That is totally fucked up. I wish that this person would leave so I could tell everyone else in the office about it.

Jenny remembers what it was like, all those years ago. It was never dolls for her, nothing so tangible as that. It was more of a feeling. As if, for the first several years of her life, everything held over her a sort of knowledge and insistence. Fence posts, wallpaper, the lawn at certain hours of the day. These things glowered at her, or smiled. Even something as ordinary as the blue rolling chair in her father's office had some hold on her, some whisper of a new dimension in its puffs of dust sent upward by her fists against its cushions. There was an intensity inherent in everything until, one day, there wasn't. The blue chair rolled on its wheels to the window when she pushed it. The rising dust was rising dust. And when it was gone, there was only a knot of longing somewhere deep inside of her, a vacant ache: adolescence. Boredom. It's why we fall in love, Jenny will tell June. We fall in love to get back to that dimension, that wonder. She goes to the laundry room, where, from a pile of clean clothes, she picks out a few articles of June's, folds them, then goes upstairs to knock on her daughter's door and tell her that this, this lost doll world, is the reason there is love.

When I cooked it for myself, I made sure to sit at the table, light candles, and have a really good book to read while I dawdled over my meal, eventually polishing off every lentil, every speck of carrot. It was a perfect way to leave the office behind, to say to the world, I am a grown-up. I don’t have any papers due. I didn’t bring any work home tonight. My evening is mine.

I hadn’t gone to Andover, or Horace Mann or Eton. My high school had been the average kind, and I’d been the best student there. Such was not the case at Eli. Here, I was surrounded by geniuses. I’d figured out early in my college career that there were people like Jenny and Brandon and Lydia and Josh—truly brilliant, truly luminous, whose names would appear in history books that my children and grandchildren would read, and there were people like George and Odile—who through beauty and charm and personality would make the cult of celebrity their own. And then there were people like me. People who, through the arbitrary wisdom of the admissions office, might share space with the big shots for four years, might be their friends, their confidantes, their associates, their lovers—but would live a life well below the global radar. I knew it, and over the years, I’d come to accept it. And I understood that it didn’t make them any better than me.

When Victor was making Skype calls for work, I’d silently crawl up behind him and have Rory slowly and menacingly rise up over Victor’s shoulder until the person on the call froze because they noticed a mentally unbalanced raccoon was leaning in like a furry, eavesdropping serial killer. Then Victor would realize Rory was behind him and he’d sigh that sigh he does so well and remind himself to lock his office door. If anything, though, Victor should have thanked me, because the perfect test to see if your friends and coworkers really have your back is if they’re willing to say, “Hey, there’s a raccoon creeping on you.

I truly don’t mind staying in the guest room. I’d hate to make things awkward.” Daddy starts to answer him, but Margot gets there first. “No, it’s totally fine,” she assures Ravi. “Let’s go get the rest of our stuff out of the car.” The second they leave, Kitty and I turn to each other. At the same time we say, “Oh my God.” Kitty ponders, “Why do they need to stay in the same room together? Do they have to have sex that bad?” “Enough, Kitty,” Daddy says, his tone sharper than I’ve heard him use with her. He turns and leaves, and I hear the sound of his office door closing. His office is where he goes when he is really mad. Ms. Rothschild gives her a stern look and follows after him. Kitty and I look at each other again. “Yikes,” I say. “He didn’t have to snap,” Kitty says sullenly. “I’m not the one whose boyfriend is staying in my bed.” “He didn’t mean it.” I tuck her against me, wrapping my arms around her bony shoulders. “Gogo has a lot of nerve, huh?” She’s very impressive, my sister. I just feel sorry for Daddy. This isn’t a fight he’s used to having--or any kind of fight at all, really. Of course I text Peter right away and tell all. He sends back a lot of wide-eyed emojis. And: Do you think your dad would let us stay in the same room?? Which I ignore.

After school, I’m walking out of class when my phone buzzes in my purse. It’s Peter. I’m out on parole. Meet me at my car! I race to the parking lot, where Peter is in his car waiting for me with the heat on. Grinning at me, he says, “Aren’t you going to kiss your man? I just got released from prison.” “Peter! This isn’t a joke. Are you suspended?” He smirks. “Nah. I sweet-talked my way out of it. Principal Lochlan loves me. Still, I could’ve been. If it had been anybody else…” Oh, Peter. “Please don’t brag to me right now.” “When I came out of Lochlan’s office, there were a bunch of sophomore girls waiting for me to give me a standing O. They were like, ‘Kavinsky, you’re so romantic.’” He hoots, and I give him a look. He pulls me to his side. “Hey, they know I’m taken. There’s only one girl I want to see in an Amish bikini.” I laugh; I can’t help it. Peter loves attention, and I hate to be another girl who gives it to him, but he makes it really hard sometimes. Besides, it was kind of romantic. He plants a kiss on my cheek, nuzzles against my face. “Didn’t I tell you I would take care of it, Covey?” “You did,” I admit, patting his hair. “So did I do a good job?” “You did.” That’s all it takes for him to be happy, me telling him that he did a good job. He’s smiley all the way home.

Roderick Sutton, Earl of Westerham, owner of Farleigh Place, a stately home in Kent Lady Esme Sutton, Roderick’s wife Lady Olivia “Livvy” Sutton, twenty-six, the Suttons’ eldest daughter, married to Viscount Carrington, mother of Charles Lady Margaret “Margot” Sutton, twenty-three, the second daughter, now living in Paris Lady Pamela “Pamma” Sutton, twenty-one, the third daughter, currently working for a “government department” Lady Diana “Dido” Sutton, nineteen, the fourth daughter, a frustrated debutante Lady Phoebe “Feebs” Sutton, twelve, the fifth daughter, too smart and observant for her own good Servants at Farleigh (a skeleton staff) Soames, butler Mrs. Mortlock, cook Elsie, parlourmaid Jennie, housemaid Ruby, scullery maid Philpott, Lady Esme’s maid Nanny Miss Gumble, governess to Lady Phoebe Mr. Robbins, gamekeeper Mrs. Robbins, gamekeeper’s wife Alfie, a Cockney boy, now evacuated to the country Jackson, groom Farleigh Neighbours Rev. Cresswell, vicar of All Saints Church Ben Cresswell, the vicar’s son, now working for a “government department” At Nethercote Sir William Prescott, city financier Lady Prescott, Sir William’s wife Jeremy Prescott, Sir William and Lady Prescott’s son, RAF flying ace At Simla Colonel Huntley, formerly of the British Army Mrs. Huntley, the colonel’s wife Miss Hamilton, spinster Dr. Sinclair, doctor Sundry villagers, including an artist couple, a builder, and a questionable Austrian Officers of the Royal West Kent Regiment Colonel Pritchard, commanding officer Captain Hartley, adjutant Soldiers under command At Dolphin Square Maxwell Knight, spymaster Joan Miller, Knight’s secretary At Bletchley Park Commander Travis, deputy

Honestly, sir,” I said, “I don’t see why you’re making such a fuss.” We had excused ourselves to speak privately for a moment, leaving poor Charlie politely rocking on his heels in the foyer. The office was warm and smelled of sage and witch hazel, and the desk was littered with bits of twine and herbs where Jackaby had been preparing fresh wards. Douglas had burrowed into a nest of old receipts on the bookshelf behind us and was sound asleep with his bill tucked back into his wing. I had given up trying to get him to stop napping on the paperwork. “You’re the one who told me that I shouldn’t have to choose between profession and romance,” I said. “I’m not the one making a fuss. I don’t care the least bit about your little foray into . . . romance.” Jackaby pushed the word out of his mouth as though it had been reluctantly clinging to the back of his throat. “If anything, I am concerned that you are choosing to make precisely the choice that I told you you should not make!” “What? Wait a moment. Are you . . . jealous?” “Don’t be asinine! I am not jealous! I am merely . . . protective. And perhaps troubled by your lack of fidelity to your position.” “That is literally the definition of jealous, sir. Oh, for goodness’ sake. I’m not choosing Charlie over you! I’m not going to suddenly stop being your assistant just because I spend time working on another case!” “You might!” he blurted out. He sank down into the chair at his desk. “You just might.” “Why are you acting like this?” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Because things change. Because people change. Because . . . because Charlie Barker is going to propose,” he said. He let his hand drop and looked me in the eyes. “Marriage,” he added. “To you.” I blinked. “I miss a social cue or two from time to time, but even I’m not thick enough to believe all that was about analyzing bloodstains together. He has the ring. It’s in his breast pocket right now. He’s attached an absurd level of emotional investment to the thing—I’m surprised it hasn’t burned a hole right through the front of his jacket, the way its aura is glowing. He’s nervous about it. He’s going to propose. Soon, I would guess.” I blinked. The air in front of me wavered like a mirage, and in another moment Jenny had rematerialized. “And if he does,” she said softly, “it will be Abigail’s decision to face, not yours. There are worse fates than to receive a proposal from a handsome young suitor.” She added, turning to me with a grin, “Charlie is a good man.” “Yes, fine! But she has such prodigious potential!” Jackaby lamented. “Having feelings is one thing—I can grudgingly tolerate feelings—but actually getting married? The next thing you know they’ll be wanting to do something rash, like live together ! Miss Rook, you have started something here that I am loath to see you leave unfinished. You’ve started becoming someone here whom I truly want to meet when she is done. Choosing to leave everything you have here to go be a good man’s wife would be such a wretched waste of that promise.” He faltered, looking to Jenny, and then to the floorboards. “On the other hand, you should never have chosen to work for me in the first place. It remains one of your most ill-conceived and reckless decisions to date—and that is saying something, because you also chose to blow up a dragon once.” He sighed. “Jenny is right. You could make a real life with that young man, and you shouldn’t throw that away just to hang about with a fractious bastard and a belligerent duck.” He sagged until his forehead was resting on his desk.

feel even more full, almost excruciatingly

Classes are pretty lax; we mostly just walk around saying good-bye to teachers, the office staff, the cafeteria ladies, the school nurse. A lot of them we'll see at graduation, but not everyone.

A desire for a small government is nothing new, of course. At the end of the nineteenth century, a U.S. government official proposed closing the office of patents. Everything of importance had already been invented, he said.

The Death of Standards On his way to work, a council health and safety official deliberately knocks over a pedestrian and drives on. Bizarrely, upon arriving at his office he launches into a heartfelt tirade against hit and run drivers. Meanwhile, the department's team leader instigates a series of compulsory redundancies then appears on a local TV news programme to protest against the sackings in the strongest possible terms. Strangely, Jenny Carver – working as a temp in the office – seems to be the only one aware of her colleagues’ paradoxical behaviour. Finding herself trapped in a world where everybody really is their own worst enemy, she begins to suspect there may be some kind of supernatural intelligence at work.

Jenny would know, she mostly has banged her brains out that way. With him forcing it down inside of her, all these years! She has seen all the photos of the girl’s plastid on his office wall. Me being one of them. She is the week all of us girls are compared to his big flabby body flopping around on us. You can’t fit him off you when he grabs you. I would know… Nevertheless, these girls have to beat him off! He likes it more that way, if you scuffle with him, and slap him up a bit. He has an immense appetite… and for more than just food, as you can see… he eats a lot, like all the time.

Awkward- everyone looks at you when you do that. But only she can get away with that messy hair and what looks to be hairy legs, Maddie will do anything for a chortle. I mean come on shower girl at least. The teacher even asked, and she said: ‘Hitech- I was out all night banging my boy, and I have a raging hangover, so can we get this crap over.’ He said yes, take your test, and a smart mouth to the office. She shuffles her bunnies to his desk, rips the papers out of his hands, will give him the middle finger, and you know the one that you’re not supposed to use in public. As she trips out the door. We all clapped and wooed! That’s when I got it, she has a secret relationship too. Yet does Jenny know, and how is that okay when she just likes me? The point is we can do things we like to do because we're popular and have it all. Up till now… we can only have and like what Jenny says is okay, so really- I can’t do what I want. Mine popularly is not that strong even to this day it could change at any moment with her say. Maybe I had more before I was popular. Like- I have to only like what the popular girls like, and only do things that popular girls do. I had to leave my past self behind. I can try to sneak around with my unpopular dream boy, yet she will find out, and if she does, will I be out of the click? I don’t know, I love my girls, yet do I love him more to give that all up and go back to that girl that has nothing. Or would I have something with him… now that I didn’t before. Do I have to fall back or keep falling apart? I just don’t know! I can get away with just about anything, yet I feel like I have nothing. I have awesome girlfriends; however, I feel so empty. I don’t feel like Karly anymore, Karly, was gone the day I was forced out of my virginity by Jenny at a drunken party. Though she blames me, because I wanted to be popular, Jenny said that was the only way if I was going to be like her and her girls. So, I did it. Ugh- maybe Maddie is now out of the click, and not caring anymore maybe that's why she looks like that? What should I do, what can I do? (#- hashtag: kiss and tell, misperception misfits, and yacking trash talk)

My day just splits again, and I am at the table sitting with the girls, Jenny is hearing me say all this… I am saying at lunch to all of them not leaving out one gross detail- and Jenny said- ‘Damn I have loaded in my undies right now just leasing to this crap.’ Liv and Maddie are kissing like to ribbed- hot- b*tch dogs in heat over it, so yeah, it's hot. I said- ‘I am coming – OH-hh-Aaa- UM-mmm-COME-meeting!!!’ So loud that I know that the rooms in the apartments could hear me, one even said back to my god- yet Miss Wilddickersion is eighty-eight I know who you are… a girl over there, rolled my eyes feeling so award.’ I am so going to hell for this- I said out loud. Do you ever look back over the crap you say, and say what the freak was I thinking? I just had the thought of this crap I am saying. Jenny said- nope not really- my dad hears me coming all the time so- like last night he said- ‘Stop it! You’re going to go throw your bedroom floor girl, and it’s four in the morning! ‘Yet I hear their freaking headboard hitting my wall- but- but that’s okay?’ I said about to have the old b*tch over in the next apart room there getting off too- ‘We all do’ -said Maddie and Olivia. Have you ever had the cops come, over that crap? Jenny said- ‘Well- freak know- Maybe…? I’ve done an officer here at the school, said Jenny proudly, so the whole cafeteria could hear her. Hey- Jenny- no one cares to hear about you being a slutty ho,’ Said- Marcel, yelling it at a table or two away. Maddie- ‘So was it that good?’ ‘It’s good under the hood.’ Said Maddie, I said the same thing too, in a different way, I said- ‘If you know what you’re doing down there.’ Jenny- ‘I- am- the- one that showed you-you b*tch, and your sis too.’ It’s all good! I speak! Not sure if I am going to keep my nasty pizza down at this point really, I don’t want to have thoughts played around in my mind freaking and fingering my brain. I put my feet up all girly and per-die on the table, and he sits accused from me to check me out so why not give him what he wants, and I don’t give a crap if I am in a skirt, I spread them out sloughing like a dude, and Marcel turns bright red, I want him to see that, I was not wearing annoying underneath I know that someone took a picture of my p*ssy and all of his freaked-up face- yep jaw-dropping moments, good thing I shaved it! The teaching that was looking over us freaking fainted at the sight of my va-jay-jay, is that a good thing? Oliva was saying please don’t fart- please don’t fart- she had the set on the other side of me, yet she was all pressed up to Maddie, so I knew he could see all of this- YOU-NO! I said- ‘Dude shut up! You’re freaking me over, and I put my one hand down between my legs, and start to play with myself, caressing it all around, sometimes up and down or in a little circular pattern, making lots of sounds. I even put my long fingers down inside and feel all the wetness and wroth, and I hear voices coming out of me, so he could see the come on my fingers unstop of my dark purple nail polish, and I come right in front of everyone, but it was only for him to see.’ Jenny- ‘do I see a d*ick; you need one to freak that p*ssy? I said- ‘Nah- dude that’s just my heart throbbing clit, and I get written up by another old b*tch teach, that must have a hairy one, or something like that- she has always been up against my ass hole.’ ‘Sometimes you are as blunt as the butt end of a fork, freaking strapping you in the one boob!’ said- Oliva. I see Marcel in the lunch line making a cute almost kiss-ie face at me, and I rankle up my nose and turn my head off to the right side and shake it in a short fast yet deliberate quiver. I walk up to where more than friends and at this point, I hug him and the cafeteria gaps, he kisses me in front of everyone, and I look up before walking and saying with flirty eyes- (You’re such a weirdo!)

I was running after her yelling, 'Let me wipe you!" But she growled and hid under the table, and I was like, 'Your vagina is a group effort, dog!" And then she tried to bite me, and I was like, 'Look, I'm not trying to shame you! I assure you, this is all perfectly natural for a woman!' And then Victor came out of his office and yelled about how hard I make it to be professional on conference calls, and I was like, 'Don't blame me, blame your dog's vagina!

There are dicks stuck in my car holes, and everyone at the post office thinks I buy tiny dildos in bulk!' 'Right,' Victor said, 'because that's the real issue here.' 'Yeah, and now the people at the post office probably think I have, like, a tiny vagina. And now every time I see them, I'm gonna want to defend my vagina and be like, "I know you didn't ask out loud, but I can assure you that my vagina is much roomier than you'd think.

No.” Beckett shook his head. “The city, the front office, the management. You’re radio silent. And there are some PR concerns.” Oh. I chuckled and relaxed a bit. “You mean your wifey is giving you shit?” His tight expression turned almost murderous as his eyes turned to slits. “Don’t duck with my wife.

In her office, there was a picture of her, knee deep in water, dressed as a giant crane. The summer before, she had gone to Texas and worked for a program that bred captive whooping cranes. All the workers dressed as birds so that the cranes would know how to feed their own babies when they were set free. My mother took the costume with her when she left and sometimes she put on the feathered head and talked through the beak to me.

She looked up, hoping to see Hiram Caro. She was disappointed. Hiram didn’t walk through the door. Instead, his personal bodyguard stalked in. Joey Roman. CHAPTER 90 JOEY ROMAN closed the office door and locked it. Then he leaned against the door, folded his arms across his chest, and gazed down at Jenny. Roman’s attire distinguished him from the other security personnel. He was dressed in a slim-fit sport coat over a crisp white shirt paired with indigo jeans. Joey didn’t need to wear a security uniform or badge to give off a dangerous vibe. She knew he wanted to intimidate her. Locking her into a room with three men and blocking the door so she couldn’t get out—it was an act of aggression. Jenny was determined to send a message right back: I’m not scared of you. She gave Roman a side-eye before returning her attention to the advertising brochure. Reading aloud, she murmured, “‘Loosest slots and hottest table games in Biloxi.’ Wow. Impressive.” Silence in the room. She counted to ten before she spoke again. “Is Hiram on his way down?” Roman sounded almost friendly when he said, “Mr. Caro’s not available. What do you want? I can pass along the message.” Jenny’s impatience gave her voice a sharp edge. “I don’t want to go through the messenger boy, Joey.” The two young security guys tensed up and exchanged a look of surprise. Jenny noted their reaction. She figured it meant that Joey Roman was rarely disrespected on casino property. She would have to proceed more cautiously. She forced a smile. “Joey, you know I’m a private

Hullo, Aunt Jen!” “Bronwyn, hello. Please tell Scout not to knock anything over.” On the mantel, Timothy had come to attention, though he remained sitting. He hissed at the dog and added a low, menacing growl for good measure. “Scout, come.” The dog ignored his owner, another Windham grandchild, this one down from the North with St. Just and his countess. The scent of Elijah’s boots was apparently more compelling than the punishment for indifferent hearing. “Scout, come here this instant.” Bronwyn sounded like her papa, the former cavalry officer, but the dog had apparently never bought his colors. Elijah nudged the beast in the direction of the door with his knee. “Miss Winnie, was there something you were looking for? Something you wanted to tell us?” “Yes!” The dog walked over to the girl while Jenny steadied a jar of brushes his tail had nearly knocked to the floor. “I forget—oh, I remember. Aunt Eve is here. You have to come get kissed. She’s going to have a baby, and Papa says from the size of her he thinks it will be a baby horse.” Jenny hoped St. Just hadn’t said that within Eve’s hearing—though he probably had. “We’ll be along presently. You can tell everybody we’re coming.

The way it happens is a strange sort of serendipity. A slow-motion train wreck. For something to go this colossally wrong, everything must intersect and collide at the exact right, or in this case, wrong, moment. If the bus driver hadn’t had trouble backing out of the cul-de-sac, taking four extra minutes to get to school, I never would have run into Josh. If Josh’s car had started up and he hadn’t had to get a jump from his dad, he wouldn’t have been walking by my locker. And if Peter hadn’t had to meet Ms. Wooten in the guidance office, he would not have been walking down the hallway ten seconds later. And maybe this whole thing would not have happened. But it did.

In 2008, employees at an office for the accounting firm Deloitte were troubled by the behavior of a new recruit. In the midst of a bustling work environment, she didn’t seem to be doing anything except sitting at an empty desk and staring into space. Whenever someone would ask what she was doing, she would reply that she was “doing thought work” or “working on [her] thesis.” Then there was the day that she spent riding the elevators up and down repeatedly. When a coworker saw this and asked if she was “thinking again,” she replied: “It helps to see things from a different perspective.”2 The employees became uneasy. Urgent inter-office emails were sent. It turned out that the staff had unwittingly taken part in a performance piece called The Trainee. The silent employee was Pilvi Takala, a Finnish artist who is known for videos in which she quietly threatens social norms with simple actions. In a piece called Bag Lady, for instance, she spent days roaming a mall in Berlin while carrying a clear plastic bag full of euro bills. Christy Lange describes the piece in Frieze: “While this obvious display of wealth should have made her the ‘perfect customer,’ she only aroused suspicion from security guards and disdain from shopkeepers. Others urged her to accept a more discreet bag for her money.”3 The Trainee epitomized Takala’s method. As observed by a writer at Pumphouse Gallery, which showed her work in 2017, there is nothing inherently unusual about the notion of not working while at work; people commonly look at Facebook on their phones or seek other distractions during work hours. It was the image of utter inactivity that so galled Takala’s colleagues. “Appearing as if you’re doing nothing is seen as a threat to the general working order of the company, creating a sense of the unknown,” they wrote, adding solemnly, “The potential of nothing is everything.

Liam stared at the safe in the corner of his office. It had become a habit to fix his gaze on it while he evaluated unpalatable decisions.

Genevieve Windham was not pretty, she was exquisite. Pretty in present English parlance meant blond hair and blue eyes, regular features, and a willingness to spend significant sums at the modiste of the hour. Unless a woman was emaciated or obese, her figure mattered little, there being corsets, padding, and other devices available to augment the Creator’s handiwork. Failing those artifices, one resorted to the good offices of the portraitist, who could at least render a lady’s likeness pretty even if the lady herself were not. Lady Jenny left pretty sitting on its arse in the mud several leagues back. Her eyes were a luminous, emerald green, not blue. Her hair was gold, not blond. Her figure surpassed the willowy lines preferred by Polite Society and veered off into the realms of sirens, houris, and dreams a grown man didn’t admit aloud lest he imperil his dignity. The itching over Elijah’s body faded in the face of the itch he felt to sketch her. She

Try something for me, Genevieve.” “We need to find some toys,” she said as if she hadn’t heard him. “The boys will be here directly, and if we don’t entertain them, they’ll entertain themselves.” Dreadful thought. “This won’t take but a moment. I want you to curse.” Not only were her arms crossed, but she’d drawn herself up, aligned herself with some invisible, invincible posture board such as Helen of Troy might have relied upon to get all those ships launched in a single day. “I beg your pardon?” “Curse. Call him your blasted, damned cat.” Her brows knitted, making her look like one of Kesmore’s daughters. “I love Timothy.” “Of course you do.” Lucky cat. “But you do not love having to rely on his good offices for your candlelit sketches.” He prowled closer. “You do not love being shuffled about from family member to family member.” Another step, so he was almost nose to nose with her. “I daresay you do not love baking.” “I rather don’t.” He unwrapped her arms and kept her hands in his. “Genevieve.” “I do not enjoy baking in the least.” He waited, certain if he were patient, she’d rise to the challenge. The corners of her mouth quivered. “I perishing hate all the mess and heat.” “Of course you do.” “It’s a dashed nuisance, and one gets sticky.” A smile started, turning up her lips, lighting her eyes. “How sticky? “Blasted, damned sticky.” “Say it again.” She beamed at him. “Perishing, blasted, damned, damned sticky.” He wrapped his arms around her. “Well done. You must curse for me more often, Genevieve. It makes your eyes dance.” And her cursing made him happy too. As she hugged him back, it occurred to Elijah that Christmas was touted as the season for giving, though in recent years, the occasion hadn’t arisen for him to do much of that. He’d give to her. He’d give her a safe place to curse, a place to draw as she pleased, and some kisses. If he counted his approval of the mistletoe tradition, that was two holiday sentiments in one morning. Elijah

Though it finds its baldest expression in things like the Fiverr ads, this phenomenon—of work metastasizing throughout the rest of life—isn’t constrained to the gig economy. I learned this during the few years that I worked in the marketing department of a large clothing brand. The office had instituted something called the Results Only Work Environment, or ROWE, which meant to abolish the eight-hour workday by letting you work whenever from wherever, as long as you got your work done. It sounded noble enough, but there was something in the name that bothered me. After all, what is the E in ROWE? If you could be getting results at the office, in your car, at the store, at home after dinner—aren’t those all then “work environments”? At that time, in 2011, I’d managed not to get a phone with email yet, and with the introduction of this new workday, I put off getting one even longer. I knew exactly what would happen the minute I did: that every minute of every day I would in fact be answerable to someone, even if my leash was a lot longer.

L. Wilson, editor of the Chicago Evening Journal; and General Henry Eugene Davies, who wrote a pamphlet, Ten Days on the Plains, describing the hunt. Among the others rounding out the group were Leonard W. and Lawrence R. Jerome; General Anson Stager of the Western Union Telegraph Company; Colonel M. V. Sheridan, the general's brother; General Charles Fitzhugh; and Colonel Daniel H. Rucker, acting quartermaster general and soon to be Phil Sheridan's father-in-law. Leonard W. Jerome, a financier, later became the grandfather of Winston Churchill when his second daughter, jenny, married Lord Randolph Churchill. The party arrived at Fort McPherson on September 22, 1871. The New York Herald's first dispatch reported: "General Sheridan and party arrived at the North Platte River this morning, and were conducted to Fort McPherson by General Emery [sic], commanding. General Sheridan reviewed the troops, consisting of four companies of the Fifth Cavalry. The party start[s] across the country tomorrow, guided by the renowned Buffalo Bill and under the escort of Major Brown, Company F, Fifth Cavalry. The party expect[s] to reach Fort Hays in ten days." After Sheridan's review of the troops, the general introduced Buffalo Bill to the guests and assigned them to their quarters in large, comfortable tents just outside the post, a site christened Camp Rucker. The remainder of the day was spent entertaining the visitors at "dinner and supper parties, and music and dancing; at a late hour they retired to rest in their tents." The officers of the post and their ladies spared no expense in their effort to entertain their guests, to demonstrate, perhaps, that the West was not all that wild. The finest linens, glassware, and china the post afforded were brought out to grace the tables, and the ballroom glittered that night with gold braid, silks, velvets, and jewels. Buffalo Bill dressed for the hunt as he had never done before. Despite having retired late, "at five o'clock next morning . . . I rose fresh and eager for the trip, and as it was a nobby and high-toned outfit which I was to accompany, I determined to put on a little style myself. So I dressed in a new suit of buckskin, trimmed along the seams with fringes of the same material; and I put on a crimson shirt handsomely ornamented on the bosom, while on my head I wore a broad sombrero. Then mounting a snowy white horse-a gallant stepper, I rode down from the fort to the camp, rifle in hand. I felt first-rate that morning, and looked well." In all probability, Louisa Cody was responsible for the ornamentation on his shirt, for she was an expert with a needle. General Davies agreed with Will's estimation of his appearance that morning. "The most striking feature of the whole was ... our friend Buffalo Bill.... He realized to perfection the bold hunter and gallant sportsman of the plains." Here again Cody appeared as the

When William Harness, a regular soldier, was recruiting in Sheffield, he set off with three or four other officers, as he told his wife Bessy: Then follows a Cart with a Barrel of ale with fidlers and a Man with a Surloin of Roast Beef upon a pitch fork, then my Colours of yellow silk with a blue shield with a reath of oak leaves and trophies, and in Silver letters on one side ‘Capt. Harness’s Rangers’, on the other ‘Capt. Harness’s Saucy Sheffielders’.8 The sergeant, corps, drums and fifes followed. ‘You can conceive the stir in a prosperous place like this all this noise must make. I am become very popular.’ Harness was one of many officers recruiting their own companies. He had been in the army for thirteen years, saving money to marry his ‘adored Bessy’, Elizabeth Biggs, in 1791. During her long wait Bessy took up botany, tried to run a book club in her home town of Aylesbury, and loyally made him shirts.