The Shoes Are Fine

"She got the job because she's...you know...with the Town Manager."

Mellene Whump stopped dead. She knew that voice: Lottille Snick, someone who'd been a thorn in her side since...well, almost forever, it seemed.

A male voice answered Lottille: "Now, when you say, 'you know', I mean, that is to say, as it were, I don't." Short pause. "Know, that is."

"Ugh, Mittel, you're so dense. It means...you know." Lotti harumphed once or twice. "She's...you know...with him."

"Like in meetings?" Mell knew Mitt also; he seemed a harmless sort, sometimes kindly, but often hopelessly muddled. She felt for him; whatever Lotti's faults--and the list was long, Mell thought--she was sharp. Mell reckoned Mitt would stand no chance with her.

Mell had hoped she was through with Lotti once they finished 10th grade, the highest level of schooling most people completed. She had heard that Snotty Lotti--as Mell thought of her--went on to the Bluff-on-Sea Institute of Learning for the Learned, the premier college in the busy port town. Like other sensible Bluffers, Mell cringed at the ridiculous names given to many of the businesses, educational entities, and government departments in Bluff.

Lotti and Mell had competed heatedly for the few educational awards given by their school. Mell won most of them, including the Mathiest Math Student (four years running). Lotti had other things going for her: her family had money, she was popular with most other students, and boys (and, in truth, some girls) seemed to forget their own names if she spoke to them directly. It all rubbed Mell the wrong way.

There was never any real question of Mell attending the Institute, or any other college. Her family was comfortable, but not wealthy. And money got tighter when her mother lost her job in the rope factory: the rope factory owned by Lotti's father. Her mother never really gave a coherent account of what had happened; she was terribly distraught, and afterward decided she couldn't work again, not anywhere. Mell's enmity toward Lotti was hardened by the experience, to the point where Mell would have thought it unchangeable.

For her part, Lotti found it unsurprising that Mell seemed to have no friends; she could be stand-offish, to put it mildly. In truth, Lotti found Mell about as warm and friendly as a porcupine with stomach cramps. The few times she had tried to engage Mell in what she thought of as friendly small talk, Mell would usually snap back, often with a comment about it "being nice to have it all." From Lotti's perspective, she was just being who she was: she had nice clothes, so she wore them; making friends came easily, so she had many; she was smart, and she worked hard on doing well in school, so she competed for academic honors.

Lotti called Mell "Jealous Mellous" behind her back.

Mell finally realized she was still standing still as a statue outside the office where Lotti was bending Mitt's ear. She came back to herself and marched quickly and resolutely past the open door. She was going to see the Town Manager, a person she was not—and she was absolutely sure of this—with in any sense of the word Lotti might've thought, meant, implied, or otherwise intended.

She arrived at the desk of the TM's assistant. "Amster wanted to see me," she announced. The assistant--Mollop Dunch--turned the page of the book she was reading and waved Mell in.

"Ah, Mell. Yes, excellent, good, super. I've some exciting news." Amster Clag, Town Manager of Bluff-on-Sea, seemed even more chipper than usual. Mell was not a fan of chipper; she preferred businesslike and efficient. "There's a wonderful opportunity for you to liaise, as it were, with a brand-new department." He paused and smiled broadly.

"Okay," said Mell.

"Excellent, just super. I've created a new department, you see, and I think it'll really move us forward in our quest for Consistently Excellent Performance." He paused and beamed some more. "Consistently Excellent Performance, as you know, is one of our key values, supported by our Continuous Operational Improvement program and..."

Mell had more or less stopped listening. Businesslike and efficient were all Mell needed vis-à-vis building blocks, programs, Key Success Indicators, or whatever other jargon had been invented to describe...well, to describe businesslike and efficient.

A moment later, she regretted her decision to switch off Clag's drone: she realized she might have heard "Lottille Snick" somewhere in there.

"I'm sorry," she blurted, "Lottille Snick?"

"Yes, super, the very person. She's doing a, what did she call it, a study session, no, no, ah yes, a work-study semester with us. Just super." More beaming. "As part of her studies at the Institute of Learning for the Learned. You can see how excellent this is, really, of course."

In fact, Mell could not see any such thing. She took a deep breath and tried to gather herself. She said, "I'm sorry, the name of your new, super department, it went by rather quickly, can you let me have it again?" She tried to say the word "super" without gagging.

"Ah, yes, excellent question, just great. It's the Department for Creating Excellence in All Service Departments." He paused very, very briefly. "D-CEASD for short. Rather proud of that, I must say."

Mell's mind boggled that Clag apparently hadn't realized the foolish irony of the acronym.

There was a knock on the door, and Clag jumped to his feet. "Yes, super, great timing, just great, do come in."

Mell's heart sank; she knew who'd arrived even before she turned.

"Lottille Snick, this is Mellene Whump, our number one person in the Department for Getting Money for the Town."

"Oh, sure, super," said Lotti, extending her hand. "Mell and I go way back."

Mell forced a smile she hoped didn't look forced. "Good to see you, Lotti." She shook Lotti's hand with her firmest grip. Lotti did the same. The handshake—which was more of an immobile death-grip than a shake—went on several beats too long. When it finally ended, Mell and Lotti were both sure the other had released their grip first.

"Excellent, super," Clag prattled. "Now let's go over my vision for D-CEASD."

The gist of it was that Lotti would bring an outsider's perspective to the interactions between the Town departments that dealt most directly with The Public At Large (in her mind, Mell was sure Clag had capitalized each word). The goal would be to improve inter-department workings and identify duplicative efforts.

Mell's role was to provide background and introductions. She was in the Department for Getting Money for the Town at the time, and began her time working for the Town in the Department for Recording Things. Her diligence and rigor had caught the eye of a few higher-ups, including Clag; that same diligence and rigor drove her to fearlessly seek out staff in other departments when she was trying to solve a problem. As far as she was concerned, she'd already done most of what she and Lotti were supposed to accomplish with D-CEASD.

As they walked away from Clag's office, Lotti said, "Look, I hope we can work together. It'll really be best for both of us."

Mell had already decided that trying to work constructively with Lotti would be the best path. She had decided to bide her time on Lotti's disgraceful comment about her being "with" Clag; she'd pick an opportunity to squash that in the near future.

Mell said, "Tomorrow we'll start with the Department for Building, Fixing, and Anything Else to Do With Roads."

Lotti came to a halt. "You're kidding."

"Get used to it," said Mell.

"Good Gluff," said Lotti.

When they met outside the office of the Roads department, they eyed each other somewhat warily and said "Let me do the talking" in unison as if they'd rehearsed a chorus.

Mell decided not to push hard; in her mind, this was going to be a failed project anyway, and she wasn't interested in putting a lot of time and energy into it. "I'll introduce you, tell them why we're here, and you can go from there. But I DO have a couple of questions I'd like to ask." She thought about adding "and if you wander too far into the weeds I'm going to stop you," but decided against it.

After Mell's little speech, delivered to Jessin Binker, the Roads manager, Letti began her part. "I like your shoes!" she said enthusiastically.

Jess, who had been standing with folded arms and a frown, brightened. "Thanks! They're SO comfortable!"

Mell stopped herself in the act of putting her hands over her face.

There was a bit more small talk--Mell was on the verge of stepping in--when Letti finally seemed to get to something resembling a relevant point: "So, what other departments do you work with most?"

To Mell's utter amazement, the conversation seemed to move naturally from high-level talk about how the Roads department interacted with other areas, to some specifics about where the interactions were not, in Jess's opinion, as smooth as they could be. Mell realized Jess had never been this open with her; Mell usually got short, perfunctory answers. Businesslike answers, she thought. Just as surprising was that the issues Jess raised were legitimate concerns; there was clearly room for improvement.

By the end of their second stop, at the Department for Water Delivery and Removal of Used Water (yes, really), Mell was starting to form a grudging respect for Lotti. People liked talking to her, and her questions, after a lot of smiling and chipper small talk, were surprisingly savvy.

At the end of the day, as they walked back to Mell's Getting Money department, Lotti continued to ask probing questions, mostly about "who really ran things." To Mell, these seemed silly at first; there was a very thorough chart, maddeningly labeled "Organization of the Various Town Organizations", that spelled out who managed what. As she thought more about it, though, she realized Lotti might be onto something. The manager of the Roads department, for instance, would often acquiesce to requests from the leader of the Finding New Businesses for the Town department.

Mell was beginning to wonder if Lotti was really as completely unpleasant as she'd thought. When they reached Mell's department, Mell opened the door and stepped in. She turned to Lotti and to her own surprise said she was looking forward to more visits tomorrow.

"Yeah, me too, super," said Lotti. "And if you ever want to think about some clothes that don't look like..." She paused, trying vainly to find a polite way of finishing.

"Um, yeah, no."

Lotti was undeterred. "And those shoes! What were you thinking?"

"The shoes are fine," Mell growled, "and I am not, as you put it in your snotty way, 'with' Amster Clag."

Lotti smiled, much as she might have smiled at a child who'd just said "look at me, I can fly!"

"'Course not, sweetie," she said.

Mell slammed the door and muttered an impressively long string of words that might've melted the varnish off the door, if the door hadn't already shed its varnish years ago.

Lotti's side of the door was much quieter, just a single muttered word: "jealous."