Chương 3: Chapter 3

“Still. How healthy can it be to be dour all the time?”

“You’ll deal.”

She shooed me back to my office, and I went reluctantly to prepare for my once-a-week rendezvous with the taciturn finance chief, Bridges Barfield.

* * * *

“Have a seat, Mr. Bonhomie.”

I sat in a chair before his desk and waited.

Bridges refused to call anyone by their first names. The man defined stern. His haircut was military, his suits were conservatively cut, his ties were always gray or black, the shirt brilliant white, and his demeanor, no-nonsense. He was all business, all the time. I was the complete antithesis of that.

He adjusted the surprisingly trendy reading glasses on his nose as he reviewed a document in his hands. “It looks as though we’ll be able to increase salaries in the next fiscal cycle by about five percent across the board.”