Chapter 14 13

13 Marianne sat listlessly at her desk, scribbling on the pad where she recorded the phone calls.She drew an arrow with many intricate feathers, and then a whole row of crossing lines.Her task at hand was to prepare a questionnaire, which was about stainless steel razor blades.She had modified the question to ask the researcher to replace the old blades in the interviewee's razor with new ones.She stopped writing at this point, and she couldn't help thinking that this must be a well-designed conspiracy: that is, the chairman of a certain razor blade company has a magical blade passed down from his ancestors. After every thirteenth use, it can satisfy any desire of the user... But the chairman didn't carefully collect his treasure.After using it in the bathroom one day, he forgot to put it back in the velvet box.Unexpectedly, there was a maid who was too enthusiastic to help, and... (The story is not very clear at this point, but it is very complicated. Anyway, the blade went to a thrift store through some channels, and bought it for a customer who didn't know where it was. , and then...).

That day the chairman was in urgent need of money again. He shaved his face every three hours in order to reach thirteen times as soon as possible. As a result, his face was full of cuts, red and painful.The result took him by surprise, and he was so anxious to death... Anyway, he knew the truth, and he was so angry that someone threw the maid into the trash can full of useless blades, and immediately conducted a dragnet search all over the city, and let some A middle-aged female private detective disguised as a researcher of the Seymour Research Institute, and everyone with a beard shadow on their cheeks, regardless of gender, could not escape their well-trained sharp eyes.They clamored "Blade for new", desperate to get that priceless piece back... Marianne sighed, drew a little spider in the corner of the tangle of lines, and turned to fiddle with her typewriter. .She typed the following passage as it was written: "We'd like to check the condition of your blades. Give me the blade you're currently using in the knife block, will you? I'll exchange it for you with a new one." She said in "Bundle"

Putting the word "please" in front of the word, a question like this, even if the text is modified, it still makes people feel strange, but at least it can make it appear more polite. The office was noisy.That's the way it was, either loudly or in silence, and on the whole she preferred to be noisier.Because no one noticed her working hard, and everyone was running around and yelling, so there was no time to wander over and sneak a glance at her to see what she was doing for so long.She used to have a sense of participation in such scenes, and once or twice she even lost herself in the babbling of the others, and was surprised at how much fun it was.But since she got engaged, she knew she was going to leave sooner or later (she discussed this with Peter, who said that after the wedding, if she wanted to, she could of course continue to work, at least for a while, but it was financially difficult It's not necessary. He said it's not fair if you get married when you can't even support a wife, but she decided not to work after marriage), so she can lean back in her chair and watch with detachment Such a noisy scene.In fact, she found that now she couldn't participate even if she wanted to.Colleagues have been praising her lately for her ability to keep her composure no matter how urgent the situation is.People used to say at tea break after a fuss, "Well, thank God, look at Marianne, she never gets carried away, does she, dear?" Remove sweat from forehead.

Running around like this, she thought, they looked like a pack of armadillos in a zoo.Speaking of Qiuduo, she thought again of the man she had met in the laundry room. She had visited the laundry room several times afterward, secretly hoping to meet him there again, but he never showed up.However, there's nothing surprising about it, he's obviously not a normal person, and he probably disappeared into some gutter long ago... She saw Amy rushing towards the file cabinet, frantically looking for the files.What went wrong this time was the national survey of sanitary napkins, and there was a very embarrassing mistake on the west coast.According to the previous assumption, this should be the so-called "three-wave" survey. The first wave is to send a large number of letters by mail, and then determine the eligible and willing to cooperate with the interviewees from the replies. Then the second and third Bonnie can conduct more in-depth face-to-face interviews.Marian hopes that this research can be conducted in private conversations.The matter itself, especially the few questions that were going to be asked to the survey subjects, surprised her greatly, and she felt that it was not very appropriate.But Lucy once pointed out over coffee that these issues are hardly out of the ordinary in this day and age, because sanitary napkins are a perfectly legitimate commodity that you can buy in supermarkets.Wouldn't it be a good thing that some of the best magazines still run full-page advertisements for sanitary napkins, and that they can now be read in broad daylight without the Victorian custom of trying to suppress them?Mi Li said that this kind of view is naturally quite open-minded, but this kind of research is really troublesome. Not only are the people you visit at home not willing to cooperate, but the most difficult thing is that you can’t find someone to do this work. Investigators are more old-fashioned, especially in smaller cities.Some people would rather quit than do this kind of thing (the most troublesome thing about hiring housewives is this, they don't really need money urgently, often after a while they are bored, feel bored, or quit because they are pregnant. do it, you have to find new people and train them from scratch), the best way is to prepare a letter and send it to everyone, telling everyone in the letter that they must do their best to do this well, because it is important to improve the status of women Very helpful—Marianne thought to herself, this kind of practice is to find women's weaknesses and cater to them, because in the ordinary people's mind, every real woman has a kind of helpful instinct in her heart, They are agile in doing things, and they don't care about personal gains and losses.

This time something bad happened.The guy on the west coast who was in charge of picking women's names from phone books everywhere for the first mail offensive (who was it? Mrs. Leach from Formleaf or Mrs. Hatcher from Waterlooth No one remembers clearly, Amy said that the relevant files are not known where to put them) Not careful enough.It stands to reason that there should be a large number of replies, but there are very few who fill out the form and send it back.Millie and Lucy were sitting at the desk opposite Marianne, poring over the replies to see what was wrong. "Hmph, apparently some letters were sent to men," said Millie gruffly. "The name of this reply is Mr. Leslie Andrews, and the only word 'funny' is written on it."

"What I don't understand is that in some women's replies, all the boxes are ticked on the word 'no'. I really don't understand what kind of things they use?" Lucy said angrily. "Hey, this lady is in her eighties." "I have a letter here saying that she has been pregnant and giving birth for seven consecutive years." "Oh, it's terrible, it's so pitiful," Amy was dumbfounded, "isn't she joking with her body?" "I'm sure Mrs. Leech--or Mrs. Hatcher, whoever it is--that fool sent the letter back to the Indian Reservation. I told her specifically to stop sending it there. God knows what the women there use," she sneered.

"With moss," said Millie confidently.It is not the first time that such problems have appeared in the western area.She counted the stack of forms again. "We'll have to do it all over again, and the client will be pissed off. What we've done has been for nothing, and there's a deadline, I can't even think about it." Marianne looked at the clock. It was almost time for lunch.She drew a series of moons on the paper, first the first quarter moon, then the full moon, then the last quarter moon, and finally nothing, indicating that there was no moon.After that she added a star in the middle of a curved crescent.Then she adjusted her watch, which Peter had given her for her birthday, and it was two minutes off the clock in the office, and she wound it up, and typed another question.She felt a pang of hunger in her stomach, and wondered if it was because she looked at the time that she felt so hungry.

She stood up, turned the swivel chair up twice to raise the seat a little, sat down again and typed a question.She just felt tired, really tired, and she really didn't want to engage in such verbal stuff again.At last, she felt that she could no longer just sit in front of the typewriter, so she said, "Come on, let's eat." "Hmm..." Millie hesitated and looked at the clock.She also fancied that she might be able to sort things out. "Well, come on," said Lucy, "it's driving me crazy, I've got to stop." She started toward the coat-hanger, and Amy followed her.Seeing that everyone else had put on coats, Mi Li reluctantly put down the form in her hand.

The wind was very cold in the street. They all turned up the collars of their coats and held down the plackets below their necks with gloved hands. Two and two were sandwiched between other people rushing to lunch.It hadn't snowed yet, and the soles of my shoes rattled on the sidewalk.They walked a little farther than usual that day, so Luqian suggested to try a more expensive restaurant for a change.Everyone has been busy all morning about sanitary napkins, and their appetites have improved, so they agreed. "Sniff," Amy called, as the cold wind blew in with the gray sand. "The weather is very dry, and I really can't do anything about it. The skin is so dry that it's peeling off." When it rains, she yells that her feet hurt, and when the sun comes out, her eyes are sore, she has a headache, and freckles appear on her face. Also dizzy.When the weather was lukewarm and gray, she would cry out for hot flashes all over her body and cough.

"It works really well with cold cream," Millie says. "My grandma also has dry skin, so she uses cold cream." "But I've heard that cold cream can cause rashes," said Amy, dubiously. The restaurant was decorated in an English style, with all leather upholstered seats and Dufeng-style beams.It didn't take long for a waitress in black silk to lead them to their seats. They took off their coats and settled down.It was only then that Marianne noticed that Lucy was wearing a new dress, a handsome dark purple bodysuit with embossed designs and a silver brooch at the neck.No wonder she was here today, thought Marianne.

Lucy's long-lashed eyes looked around the restaurant. The other diners were mostly fat businessmen with stiff faces, who wolfed down their food and drank a glass or two. There is no time to taste the taste of the dishes, so I can go back and make money as soon as possible after finishing the work as soon as possible.In the office these people are also doing business as quickly as possible so that they can rush home to have dinner with their wives after get off work during rush hour traffic.Lucy also had purple eyeshadow to match her dress, and a tinge of purple lipstick, and she was always dressed in style. For nearly two months she frequented those expensive restaurants for lunch (Marian wondered a little where she got so much money), like a fishing bait with colored feathers, glass beads, spinning metal pieces, and many hooks, Used to walk around where the rich men hang out.Those luxury restaurants and cocktail bars with many potted green foliage plants are the places where she frequently appears. On such occasions, you can always meet some single men with suitable conditions, and there may be some who are eager to solve lifelong problems. Big deal.However, none of those men with the same conditions has taken the bait so far. Some may have gone to other occasions, and some may have fallen in love with some different objects--not the simple and plain, or even a little dull type of women. , is a woman who dresses up more luxuriously. With Lucy's income, she can't reach that level.This restaurant is similar to other similar places, and it is full of fat businessmen who don't have time to admire the purple dresses, and Lucy is dressed up in front of these people. Let her look around tenderly and affectionately, but the result is all in vain. The waitress came.Millie had the steak and kidney pie, which was delicious and filling.Amy ordered cottage cheese with lettuce and ate three of her pills, pink, white and orange, on the table next to her glass.As for Lucy, she fussed for a while, changed her mind several times, and finally ordered a poached egg.Marianne was astonished to herself that she had been so hungry and anxious for lunch that she hadn't felt any hunger at all, and she just wanted a cheese sandwich. "How is Peter?" asked Lucy, who had just been poking at her poached egg and complaining that it was hard and hard.She is very interested in Peter. Recently, Peter always calls when Marianne is at work, telling her about his daytime work and evening arrangements. When Marianne is not in the office, he asks Lu to leave a message, because the call is between Marianne and Lu Akane works together.Lucy thought that Peter spoke very politely and had a very pleasant voice. Marianne watched Millie eat the steak and kidney pie, and she ate it slowly, like stuffing a box. "Okay," she always said when she was done eating.Instead she should have said, "It's all packed." After that her mouth would have closed like a box lid. "Not bad," Marianne replied.She made a pact with Peter not to tell them about the engagement at work for the time being.So she kept silent all the time, but what Lucy had just asked caught her a little off guard, and she couldn't hold back any longer.She secretly explained to herself that they should also know that there are still some good things in the world that give people hope. "I have something to tell you," she said, "but don't pass it on after you hear it." She paused, and waited until the three heads that were buried in their meals lifted up, and everyone was staring at her intently Only then did she say, "We're engaged." She smiled at everyone radiantly, seeing a hint of disappointment in their expectant eyes. Lucy dropped the fork in her hand, said "No!" in astonishment, and then added "That's wonderful!" Millie said, "That's great," and Amy swallowed another pill hastily. Then everyone asked questions in a hurry, and Marianne answered in a calm and calm way, just like distributing candy to a group of children, one at a time, never talking too much, because talking too much It will make them unbearable.She had expected at least a euphoric sense of triumph to rise up in her after the announcement, but it was gone in an instant.After everyone's excitement settled down, the topics became as ordinary and irrelevant as a razor blade research form, such as inquiring about wedding preparations, future housing, what china and glassware to buy, what to buy What kind of clothes and so on. Lucy finally asked: "I always thought he was determined not to marry. I remember you told me about it. How did you get him?" The three faces turned suddenly towards her together, and waiting for her answer, their eagerness was sympathetic, and Marianne, avoiding their gaze, looked down at the fork and knife on the plate. "Honestly, I don't know," she said, with all the condescending gestures of a bride.In fact, she really didn't know.Now she regretted telling them this. It was tantamount to teasing them with her own success, and it could not teach them any experience. They had just returned to the office when Peter called.Lucy handed the microphone to Marianne, and said softly, "It's that person!" Since the man on the other end of the phone was a man who was about to be a groom soon, her tone was a little awed. As for Marianne, when she picked up the microphone to speak, she clearly felt three blond heads turn around and listen nervously with their ears pricked up. Peter sounded a little impatient. "Hey, honey, how are you? Look, I really can't go out tonight. I've got a case, a big deal, and I've got to make some preparations." From his tone, it seemed that he was blaming her for trying to disturb his work, and she was very angry about it.She didn't expect to meet him before the weekend. He called the day before yesterday and asked her to have dinner tonight.After that, she was only ready to go out.She replied very rudely: "That's all right, my dear. But it would be nice if this kind of thing was arranged earlier." "I tell you it came out of nowhere," he said angrily. "Hey, you don't have to be so aggressive." "I didn't," he said angrily, "you know, of course I'd love to see you, but you have to understand..." A burst of explanations and concessions ensued.Well, Marianne thought, we're going to have to learn to compromise anyway, and we might as well start now."So what about tomorrow?" she finally asked. "Well, my dear," he said, "I can't tell now. It depends on business, and you know that sort of thing quite well. I'll call you again, shall I?" For the sake of the few listeners at the side, Marianne said good-bye sweetly, and hung up the phone, feeling like she was going out of breath.She must pay attention to the tone of her words with Peter, she must be more careful with him, obviously he is also under a lot of pressure in the office... "It seems that I have anemia," she said to herself. The typewriter turned away. After she revised the questionnaire for razor blades, she set about revising instructions for testing a product, a new dehydrating dog food.Then the telephone rang. It was from Joe Bates, and she had a vague premonition that he would call.She greeted Jo with feigned enthusiasm, knowing that at this stage she had not fulfilled her duty as a friend, and even though Clara wanted to see her, she still refused to accept Jo's invitation to dinner. Clara's due date was already here, first a week later, then two weeks, and seeing her body growing like a pumpkin every day, Clara called her in a tone of distress. "I can't even stand up," she said through tears.But for Marianne to come and sit face to face with Clara and study her stomach and guess what was going on with the little thing inside, she found it impossible.The last time she called back she had to lighten the mood with a few jokes that weren't really funny, like "maybe he has three heads" And "Maybe it's not a fetus at all, but a parasite, like a wart on a tree; or elephantiasis in the navel, or a huge cyst..." and so on.After that night, she justified herself by saying that it would do her no good if she came to see Clara at this time, and it was better not to go.Feeling sorry for her conscience, she had an impulse to show concern for her friend. Before she left that day, she asked Jo to keep her informed if there was anything to do, and even boldly proposed that she would take care of the other two children if necessary.Now she heard Jo's voice say, "Thank God it's over. Another girl, ten pounds seven ounces, she came in at two o'clock last night, and we were a little worried about being born in a taxi." "Oh, that's very kind," exclaimed Marianne, and after a few words of congratulation she asked Jo of Clara's ward number and visiting hours, which she wrote down in her little book. "Tell Clara I'll see her tomorrow," she said.She thought that this way Clara would return to her normal posture like a deflated balloon, and she would be more comfortable talking to her, and she would no longer feel that she was dealing with a bloated body with a small head. Unbearable monster.That appearance reminded her of the queen ant, that huge body was the mother of the whole group, it was hardly a human being.Sometimes she felt as if there were several people hidden in her body that she knew nothing about. Impulsively, she decided to buy some roses for Clara, to welcome her back to her normal state, and now that her thin body was all her own, with no one to compete with her anymore. She put the microphone back in place and leaned back in her chair.The second hand of the clock went round and round, and all that was heard at the same time was the clicking of typing and the creaking of high heels on the hard floor.She could feel the passage of time, she seemed to see time wrapped around her feet, lifted her body from the chair, and carried her slowly and windingly towards a distant day, This is as inevitable as water flowing downhill.Do you say that day is far away?Not necessarily, they have already settled down, it will be in late March, that will mean that this period of life will come to an end, and a new life will begin again.As for her hometown, the preparations are already underway, and the relatives on both sides have already cheered up and made arrangements. Everything has been considered, and she has nothing to do.She just goes with the flow and lets it take her where it needs to go.Now, before the day is over, it waits for you to pass it like a signpost tree on the bank; this tree is no different from any other tree, and you cannot put it down To distinguish it from other villages, its function is to measure the distance traveled.She wished to put it behind her quickly.To speed up the time, she finished typing out the dog food questionnaire. Towards the end of the afternoon, Mrs. Pogue wandered out of her cubicle.Her eyebrows were raised high, obviously shocked, but her eyes were calm as usual. "It's been a terrible day," she began, opening up about management's petty troubles, which was one of her winning tricks, "not only about the West, but that damn man who snoops on women's underwear. Came out to make trouble again." "It's that smelly man again?" Lucy said, wrinkling her nose in disgust, and her nose was lightly dusted with a layer of milky white powder. "It's him," said Mrs. Pogue, "and it's so annoying." She wrung her hands, as women often do when they express hopelessness.But she was clearly not bothered at all. "This man appears to have moved on and moved his operations to the suburbs, in Etobicoke. I received a call from two ladies in Etobicoke this afternoon. Of course it might be a mild case. Polite normal guy with no malice, but it's really bad for the image of the company." "What did he do?" asked Marianne, who was the first she had heard of this man who specialized in sniffing women's underwear. "Oh," said Lucy, "that's a nasty man, the kind of man who calls up women and says nasty things. He did it last year." "Too bad," said Mrs. Pogue sadly, still clasping her arms, "he told the ladies that he was an employee of the company. He obviously learned the tone of his speech, and pretended to be doing business with a serious face. Routine. He said he was doing research on underwear, and I thought the first question he asked must sound serious, about brands, styles, sizes, etc. Then his questions became more and more involved Personal private affairs, which made the ladies unable to listen, so they had to hang up the phone. They would naturally call the company to complain. Sometimes they scolded the company and blamed us for being unruly. I didn't have time to explain to them that this person was not Not from our company, our company would never ask such a question. If only they could catch him and stop him from talking nonsense, this person is a shame, but it seems unlikely to find him .” "I don't know why he would do such a thing?" Marianne found it a little difficult to understand. "Oh, he probably belongs to that kind of pervert too," said Lucy, her purple body trembling slightly. Mrs. Pogue frowned again, and shook her head. "But the people who complained said that this person spoke very kindly. There was nothing unusual about it, and it could even be said that his speech was full of wisdom. It was not at all like the kind of rogue who made anonymous phone calls to harass you." "Perhaps all this proves that some satyrs are pretty good, perfectly normal people," said Marianne to Lucy, after Mrs. Pogue had gone back to her cubicle. She put on her coat, followed the flow of people out of the office, came to the hall, followed everyone into the elevator and went downstairs, all the way she was still thinking about the man who specialized in spying on women's underwear.She pictured in her mind his intelligent face, his courteous and intensely attentive demeanor, a bit like an insurance salesman, or a funeral director.She really wanted to know what questions he asked about personal matters, and wondered in her heart how she would answer if he called her (smell, you must be the man in underwear, I have heard of it a long time ago) Your business... I think I have some friends that you must know very well).She thought he must have a well-knit suit and an old-fashioned tie, the kind with dark brown diagonal stripes, and shiny shoes on his feet.Maybe he was all right, but those girdle ads on the bus drove him crazy, so he too was a victim of society. It was society that put those slim, smiling, rubber-covered female models in front of him and coaxed him, in fact, forced him to accept their soft temptations, but refused to give him a real one.When he went to the store counter to buy the clothes advertised, he got only an empty dress with no people inside.He was disappointed, but he didn't get angry, he didn't have time to get angry, but he endured it skillfully without making a sound. He was a man of brains, so he decided to conduct a systematic search for the image of a woman in underwear that he worshiped wholeheartedly. Naturally, it is most convenient to use the communication facilities extending in all directions in society to do this.It was a fair deal, and society owed him that. As she walked into the street, a new thought flashed through her mind that perhaps it was Peter who did it.Perhaps he slipped out of his office, slipped into a nearby phone booth, and called the Etobicoke housewife.This is his way of protest, right? What is the protest?Is it the research itself?Or The Housewives of Etobicoke?Vulcanize rubber?Or was it because there was nothing he could do but to retaliate in this way because the cruel world had crushed the cases so heavy on him that he couldn't go out to dinner with her?He knew the name of the company and the official procedures of the research, so he naturally heard it from her!Maybe this is his real person, the exposure of his inner world, and the original shape of Peter that has appeared more and more in her mind recently.Maybe this is his unknown self, which has been hiding under layers of surfaces, and although she tries to guess and sometimes thinks she has found it, she knows that she has not really found it: he is the one. A man who specializes in spying on women's underwear.