The Vice-Boss Falters

The Contessa calls to ask if I want to hear the gossip. Am sorry to report that am so excited. Call comes as an interruptionto an extended trying conversation with Libby about office supplies--she wants me to give my Official Approval for her purchases and is not satisfied by my honest and heartfelt assertion that she can buy whatever she wants and that she can forge my name if she need to sign something--she maintains that this is Wrong and begin to feel that I am being accused of something--a feeling which do not care for and which will undoubtedly wake me up at three in the morning for furious brain activity--so call from the Contessa welcome indeed. Say, Yes I want to hear the gossip! and in excitement knock jade plant off desk. Tell self that will clean it up after hear news. The Contessa says that the vice-boss has been behaving so strangely (stealing the copy paper, also it has been warm outside, but--in the Contessa's words--there is no reason for a Woman Her Age to wear hot pants, even if they are made by Prada and the Contessa says that she's smelled cigarette smoke seeping out from under the door on more than one occasion)--beg the Contessa to please get to the dirt -- she says, Anyhoo, the reason she's been acting up is that her husband left her for his secretary -- how tired is that? The Contessa asks rhetorically. Without thinking ask, aren't you the secretary dating the boss? The Contessa replies in chilly tones, The two things have nothing to do with each other. Hurridly ask how she found out about the vice-boss. The Contessa sighs. Says, she called me into her office to ask if I thought she was pretty. And then she cried. Ask, Did you have to hug? No, the contessa says in a horrified voice, I kept the desk between us at all times. She adds, we did share a cigarette though. She asks, Do you think what I'm doing with the New Man is creepy? Ask her as gently as possible -- What are you doing? She replies, I think I'm falling in love with him. Isn't that weird?