Every job, you need a different thing, a different combination. Sometimes, you only need Ro Jin. Sometimes, you need The Nose and Jenny, or The Nose and Jenny and a Driver and a Navigator and maybe The Chicken Man just in case. Sometimes, it seems like a simple job and then it turns into a Broadway musical — children, livestock, your friend’s grandparents, everybody on the payroll including Diz.

Sometimes, you don’t know who you need.

“Shelley? Shelley? Shelley? Shelley, you there? Shelley? Shelley?”

How I let Diz talk me into getting an intercom, I still don’t know.

“Shelley? Shelley?”

“What.”

“Duff on line two, he says it’s urgent.”

“Handle it.”

“But he’s –”

“I don’t care, Marie, handle it.”

“But –”

“And tell Diz to get in here and help me deal with these files.”

“They’re stuck in a phone booth.”

“No, they’re — wait, what?”

“Duff’s team, I tried to tell you, they’re stuck in a phone booth and they need someone to come and get them out.”

Sometimes, you need Frat Boy Pranksters. You try not to need Frat Boy Pranksters, because you will get a call like this every damn time. Every time. “Now we can’t catch the pig,” “we ran out of bowling balls,” “can Diz bring us an extension cord and some Crisco,” it never stops. Unfortunately, when you need an entire living room out on a lawn in half an hour, you don’t have much choice.

“Shelley?”

“All right — all right, okay. Find out where Duff is, call Pat Moran and tell him where Duff is, tell Pat to go down there and get those jackasses out of there and Duff had better be in my office in one hour, get Diz, and get in here, and –”

“Diz went to lunch.”

“Oh, don’t tell me that, Marie. Do not tell me that.”

“Okay, Diz didn’t go to lunch. Also, Duff doesn’t know where he is, exactly. Duff, not Diz. Diz is at lunch. Unless he isn’t.”

Oh my God, HATE!

“Duff. It’s Shelley. Where are you?”

“Outside a phone booth.”

“Yes, Duff. Thank you. Outside a phone booth where?”

“Uh…it looks like Lodi? But it could be Scotch Plains.”

This is what I do all day. I sit on the phone with guys who name their beer funnels, and I try to figure out where they are by listening to the traffic. This is my job.

“Shelley.”

“What.”

“The Incredibly Cute Baby is here.”

I also spend a lot of time glaring at the intercom, telling mothers their infants aren’t cute enough to work for us, and banging my head on my desk, none of which I have time for today. Well, except that middle one, because we’re short an Incredibly Cute Baby and the Hannigan kid keeps showing up for work all sticky. And that last one, because where the hell is Diz, anyway?

“Thank you, Marie. Can you come in when you get a sec?”

I need coffee. And a gun.

“Duff. … Duff.”

“Yup.”

“Go…somewhere, and ask where you are. Then call Pat Moran and tell him the address and he’ll come get you out.”

“Pat Moran the sculptor guy? What do we need that guy for?”

“That guy has a blowtorch, is what for.”

“You’re sending a guy with a blowtorch? Cool! DUDES, LISTEN UP! SHE’S SENDING A GUY WITH A BLOWTORCH!”

“All right, pry your guys out and come back in to –”

“Blow-TORCH! Blow-TORCH! Blow-TORCH! Wooooo-OOOO!”

I’m Shelley Finch. I’m the boss at Subheroes, Inc. I’m planning the biggest caper of my career. But first, I’m going to Starbucks.

June 16, 2004

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