‘How dare they?!’
I twisted around in the direction of the wail, mid-signing for a package.
‘Mother?’ I called up the staircase nervously.
She appeared at the elegant marble bannister, obviously ropable even from this distance.
‘Have you seen this?!’ she screeched at me, descending the staircase one dramatic step at a time.
I quickly turned back to the delivery driver and hurriedly scrawled my signature onto his clipboard. He nodded his appreciation and flew out of the lobby as fast as his boots could carry him. I jumped as I looked back, my mother somehow inches from me.
‘How the hell did you–’ I began.
‘Don’t interrupt me!’ she interrupted, slapping a wad of papers into my hand and storming three paces away, her back to me.
‘What are these?’
‘Those,’ she scowled, ‘are the plans for the new Melbourne office fitouts.’
I quickly skimmed them, but I couldn’t see anything immediately wrong with them. I sighed. That meant I had to ask her.
‘What’s the problem?’ I forced out of myself.
‘The problem,’ she continued with the annoying amount of emphasis, ‘is the angles!’
‘The angles?’
‘The desks!’ she cried.
‘Wait, is it the desks or the angles?’ I frowned.
‘The angles of the desks!’
‘Mother, I’m confused.’
‘Of course you are,’ she let out a deep sigh. ‘Poor, simple child. I so often forget.’
The papers crinkled in my grip.
I don’t know how to find a good office interior design company near Melbourne,’ the old woman sighed, ‘but clearly neither does my assistant.’
‘I still don’t see what’s wrong with these plans. Frankly, they look lovely.’
‘The desks are all pointed at me!’ she bellowed, rage fully restored.
‘So?!’ I countered, my own blood pressure rising.
‘So?!’ she looked shocked. ‘So?!’
‘Mother, I swear on your future grandchildren, if you don’t–’
‘I’m the boss!’ she relented. ‘I can’t abide being gawked at by my inferiors every moment of the day!’
‘That’s it?’ I frowned. ‘That’s your problem?’
‘Of course it is!’
I calmly walked over to the entryway table and placed the plans down. Unable to stifle her curiosity, she followed me. In an exaggerated motion, I crossed out her desk on the plans with the delivery man’s pen, and drew a rectangle at the other side of the room – behind the desks.
‘Oh,’ she murmured. ‘Oh yes, that could work, actually.’