Unlike any captured on the day before, Stevie felt the photographs Ms Hawker had just taken, did not make her look a moron. She had been posed, with a minimum of touching, sitting on her desk with the flowers by her side. Especially good was that where she had one leg crossed over the other, and her hands folded on her knee; it would be her choice to appear on her blog, if choice she had.
Ms Hawker’s folder contained about twenty email message she had printed from Stevie’s account. Mostly from people within the company, they were a mix of apologies for being unkind and good luck wishes. She flicked through, scribbling replies for Ms Hawker to send for her later, and then returned to removing staples.

“White,” Miss Hanford tapped the slightly bemused Stevie on the shoulder, “you’re wearing white knickers dear.” Noting the confusion on the girl’s face, she added, “your desk doesn’t have a modesty panel, you’ll have to be very careful how you sit, or you’ll be flashing people all day.” Stevie blushed, for all the free peeks she must have given already. She had Stevie stand, and demonstrated how best to avoid embarrassment, and then out of the blue asked, “have you ever tried putting your hair up?”

“A few times,” Stevie answered, “but I could never quite get it right.”

“Let me show you,” Miss Hanford undid Stevie’s ponytail, and in no time at all, was waving a mirror before the beaming office junior. “I’m surprised these aren’t pierced,” she lightly touched Stevie’s earlobe.

“Steve was always afraid people would make a big thing of it.”

“Steve eh?” Belinda’s raised an eyebrow, but when she thought about it, Steve really did seem like another person, “well we don’t have to worry about that now; how about we go out lunchtime, and get you done?” Stevie nodded vigorously, and her enthusiasm lasted right up until they entered the lift at lunchtime.

“Sorry, Miss Hanford, I don’t think I can go through with this,” Stevie tried to slip her arm from the older woman’s, “there’ll be too many people looking at me.”

“There will,” Miss Hanford nodded sagely, “and all them thinking ‘why isn’t that lovely young woman wearing ear rings?’” Her grave expression so highly amused Stevie, she failed to notice the lift doors closing behind her. By the time the two of them reached reception, Miss Hanford had explained where they were going, to passengers from half a dozen floors. With their good wishes ringing in Stevie’s ears, she allowed herself to be swept along into the crowds of lunchtime shoppers.

“My toes have gone numb,” Stevie had started to limp slightly.

“You’ll get used to that,” Belinda smiled, everything was new to Stevie, “not far now, there’s the place on the right.”

“Ooh it’s you, isn’t it?” an assistant had pounced the instant they had walked in,”Stevie with the blog!” Within seconds all the staff members were buzzing around.

“Who does your hair Stevie?”

“I’d never have guessed.”

“Have you decided yet Stevie?”

“Who gave you the roses Stevie, is he handsome?”

“I told you she wasn’t photoshopped.’

“Stevie, do you like girls?”

“I bet Mrs Green has been here,” Belinda muttered for Stevie’s benefit, adding more loudly, “she wants her ears pierced, if you can fit us in.”

Appointments were not necessary for ‘celebrities’, and Stevie soon sported a gold stud in each ear, for the price of a photograph with the assistants clustered around her.

“This is my email address, forward a copy, and we’ll try to fit it in the blog,” Belinda organised senior management meetings, so gaggle or excitable young women presented no challenge, “let’s get back Stevie, his nibs will be wanting coffee.”

“Aw, doesn’t she look grown up Belinda?” Mrs Green had been waiting for them to return, and pointed out her niece in the photograph.

“She does Edna,” Belinda ran her tongue along an envelope, “but still hasn’t learned to hide her panties from the world.” Stevie pulled her skirt down hurriedly, cringing from the assault of alternating compliments and criticism. Edna Green was a lovely woman, but overpowering in even small doses. Stevie had already been chivvied into parading her outfit around the office, and slobbered over. She threw Uncle Bob’s PA a glance that clearly said ‘help’. Miss Hanford handed Stevie the envelope she had just sealed, “take this down to Mr Posnan, there’s a good girl.”

“Mr Posnan was my manager in Accounts,” Stevie held the envelope at arm’s length.

“Good, then you know where his office is,” she had been around Miss Hanford long enough to know when a subject was open for discussion, and this was not. To make matters even worse, she left just as Mrs Green was voicing her fears about the niece being a lesbian. It would have been nice to hear a really juicy piece of gossip, about someone else for a change.

Accounts’ cube farm stretched out before Stevie like a singularly unimaginative maze. Had her days in the rarefied atmosphere of the eighth floor granted her a new, Olympian perspective, or was she simply viewing her old office from four inches higher than usual? Her heels allowed Stevie to peer into cubicles, but also made her progress visible to all. Heads popped up from behind partitions as she passed, in a way that suggested the guillotine was back in operation.

Mr Posnan exuded a peculiar smell which discouraged long meetings. It was not a particularly unpleasant odour, merely unidentifiable, and had earned him his reputation for quickly getting to the point. Stevie’s delivery was accepted with a perfunctory ‘thank you’, and she was away with only a vague impression of cloves. However, a hundred faces barred her way to the exit.

Six months’ familiarity allowed her to plot the most direct route of return. A few ducked back into their cubicles as she approached, others muttered apologies, or wished her well, but one head loomed above all others - her former section leader in Bought Ledger. Tim Witlock had been wearing a sneer when the wind changed, and was incapable of any other expression, except in the presence of a superior. Such was his notoriety for brown nosing office legend held that he had once spent an entire hour, discussing the weather with Mr Posnan. Stevie braced herself for the inevitable taunt.

“Look everyone it’s the tea lady,” more heads ducked back to their workstations, “I see you’ve got two lumps for me, darling.” Stevie held her tongue until they were almost level, words ordering themselves in her mind.

“I may be a tea lady, Tim,” she paused as their eyes met, “but I’m tea lady on the eighth floor, and I haven’t seen you up there.” Other voices followed her to the door, loudest of all she knew from the cubicle next to Steve’s.

“You’re not bloody likely to either!” Good old Stacy.

“You made quite a splash in Accounts this afternoon,” Ms Hawker must have spies everywhere, “I’ve just finished your blog entry for the day.” Stevie sat down beside her, carefully holding her skirt as she had been told to, and beamed at the head of HR. “I put this up earlier,” unbelievable the photograph was the one Stevie would have chosen, and beneath it was another of her surrounded by manically waving young women, including Mrs Green’s lesbian niece.

“It looks wonderful,” Stevie scanned over the captions. Daniel’s name was not mentioned, as Ms Hawker believed it too might spark accusations of favouritism, but she had included some messages from the girls in the other photograph. “About my emails Ms Hawker,” Stevie laid the folder down on the desktop, “are you reading all my messages?” It had been worrying her for days, not that she had anything she especially wanted to hide, but the address was not specific to her blog.

“Don’t worry Stevie,” Ms Hawker patted her hand reassuringly, “I’ve only opened those I know have been sent from within the company.” She opened Stevie’s mail account in another browser, “I am curious about Alison though; old girlfriend?”

“Just a school friend,” Stevie looked through the list of unread messages, wondering if they were just that. Six were from Alison, “she’s the only person I told about ...” she waved her hand above her torso, “this. She’s backpacking through Australia right now.”

“Well it’s nice you keep in touch,” Ms Hawker rose from her seat, “I’ll let you have some privacy while you read them.” Stevie read through them quickly; the first five were simply descriptions of places she had visited, the sixth, however, was her reaction to Stevie’s new blog. Alison had rambled for pages, and Stevie knew she could not write a proper reply, so she printed off the message to read at home.

“I’ve finished,” Ms Hawker returned to her seat, looking more than a little vexed.

“Stevie, about this morning when I,” Penny paused, the next word hurt, “threatened to spank you...”

Stevie leapt to her feet, and turned to present her bottom as she was sure Ms Hawker wanted, “I’m ready Ms Hawker!”

Penny slipped her hand around Stevie’s wrist, gently turning the girl to face her. “Sit down Stevie, there’s something I have to tell you.” Penny took Stevie’s hand between hers, “you did that this morning too, can you tell me why? It’s not a test, honestly.” She tried to look reassuring, but was not sure it worked.

“Well Ms Hawker,” Stevie stammered, “I thought it was what you wanted me to do; it’s nothing really, just a smack on the bottom, and it seemed to make you happy.”

Allowing Stevie’s hand to fall from hers, Penny brought them together at the bridge of her nose - what had she become? “When I was young...” she waved away Stevie’s protestation, “I’m thirty two, that’s old enough to be your Mum in some parts of town. When I began work, after college, there were still men who thought it perfectly natural to ‘handle’ female staff. I played along for a long time, I thought it was the way of things, but I hated it.”

Stevie was still young enough to be amazed by the way adults sometimes behaved, but old enough to realise when someone was in pain, “Ms Hawker, it didn’t hurt that much, honest.”

Penny shook her head, how could someone remain so innocent. “I’m sorry Stevie, I really am. The moment I had the opportunity, I acted just as badly as they did.” Penny sniffed back a tear, she might have been rocked to her core, but she was not about to cry in public, “it’s gone five, be off with you, just don’t forget anything in the car tonight, I don’t want to have to put your Uncle Bob through counselling.”

“Yes Miss Hawker,” Stevie danced out of the way, just in case, but her hands remained where they were. Penny laughed out loud, as she watched Stevie almost skip through the door. For all her innocence, she had a talent which the professional people manipulator lacked, and ironically, it was the talent Penny most desperately wanted.