Goodnight, Gracie

It was the stiffest Thanksgiving dinner I ever had.

Grey showered, replaced both uniform and steel rod, and silently waved me into 1990’s most boring, practical sedan, but I was determined not to fall for the hardass act this time. Anyone who’d trolled me that successfully had earned my full attention, and I’d felt something in that break room.

The VIP

Grey really does try to make Bob hate her.

Before 9/11, she does well. A man as expressive and catty as him proves easy to irritate; all she has to do is make herself social dead weight, be the goylem he expects her to be, and watch him climb the walls. After he confuses South Fifth Street and Fifth Street South, she double-checks all his directions until he tells her to go to hell and hangs up on her. Larkin tells her, “don’t be petty, Grey,” but still, it’s very satisfying.

After 9/11, it stops being enjoyable. All the sniping in the world can’t hide the misery on Bob’s face after being denied his Diwali leave, and Grey relents. It’s not his fault that she’s attracted to him, and her personal issues take a back seat to his basic comfort at work.

The Un-American Festivities Committee

For a shady government agency dealing with interdimensional migration, the PIN buildings didn’t look special or important. They were just another cluster of boxy beige buildings in their own strip mall on the outskirts of town. Health and Medical on one side of the parking lot, Communications and Operations on the other. Comm-Ops wasn’t any more exciting on the inside, except for the gigantic painting on the wall.

25 Years of Service

Staying celibate isn’t a hard promise for Grey to keep, at first. She’s too busy trying not to wash out. Thanks to Vicky, she now knows that she can learn… but it still takes a while, and she can’t afford to lose this. Andersen is sponsoring her training; she can’t disappoint him.