Ride a Cockhorse by Raymond Kennedy

Fitzgibbons as she descended the narrow marble staircase and glanced out over the great sprawling emporium of the bank. The symmetry of its tasteful yellow-shaded lamps glowing amid the double row of great, mottled marble pillars, the long rank of gleaming brass window grilles, the mahogany rails, and grand churchlike windows—all of it—summoned to her senses an impression of grandeur consonant with her bounding fortunes. The usual collection of early-morning customers was milling about in lines at the windows, under the watchful eye of the security guard standing casually before the ornate brass doors. As Mrs. Fitzgibbons made her way through the maze of desks and lamps, all eyes were upon her; but she noted with satisfaction that everyone looked down quickly as she came hurrying by. She had already decided not to wait for the chairman sitting upstairs to notify her predecessor of his demotion, but pushed open the door of Leonard Frye’s office and walked in.
    For a split second, Mr. Frye didn’t even recognize her. He had not yet seen her this morning and was as unprepared as Mr. Zabac had been for the dramatic transformation that Bruce had brought to pass. However, if the vision of Mrs. Fitzgibbons was a happy one for the loan officer in the blue suit, the pleasure was fleeting.
    While Mrs. Fitzgibbons was in an ebullient mood, with her color up and her physical movements charged with energy, she was not in a frame of mind to waste words with her fallen superior. Within ten minutes, Mr. Frye was sitting out in the loan department at Mrs. Fitzgibbons’s desk, looking shell-shocked, while his secretary, Anita Stebbins, went about the melancholy business of transferring the contents of both desks. The exchange of posts was meanwhile naturally invigorating to Mrs. Fitzgibbons. She was exultant. At the same time, though, her manic, rapid-fire behavior suggested forethought, as in the way she instantly called to her office Julie Marcotte, the department’s receptionist and telephone operator, and promoted her on the spot.
    Mrs. Fitzgibbons was sitting behind her new desk, opening and shutting drawers, when Julie entered. “You’re going to be my new secretary.”
    The girl in question had betrayed on occasion a sycophantic streak that appealed to Mrs. Fitzgibbons, a trait that Julie had unwittingly reinforced not an hour earlier when she had gasped with admiration at Mrs. Fitzgibbons’s new look. Mrs. Fitzgibbons didn’t need to ponder it. The telephone girl had just the sort of polite, smiling, deferential manner that the new head of the home loan department associated with streamlined efficiency on the job.
    â€œYou’ll be responsible to me.”
    Startled by her stroke of good fortune, Julie’s cheeks colored. She was thrilled.
    â€œMore responsibility,” said Mrs. Fitzgibbons, “more work, and more money.”
    Anita Stebbins was in Mrs. Fitzgibbons’s new office at the moment and couldn’t help blurting out, anxiously, “Where will I go?”
    â€œMr. Frye will not have a secretary of his own.” Reaching, Mrs. Fitzgibbons lifted an immense sheaf of papers from the bottom drawer of her desk and cast it into the wastebasket. She stood up. Anita Stebbins’s fate at the Parish Bank was a nettlesome point. “Go work for Mrs. Baskin with the part-time clerks. And clear out your desk. You have to make room for Julie,” she said. “Julie, take down that hideous calendar and throw it out, and throw out that plant, and get rid of those two chairs. And put a brighter bulb in my desk lamp.”
    â€œYes, Mrs. Fitzgibbons!”
    â€œAnd tell Jack Greaney I want to see him.”
    â€œI’ll send him right in, Mrs. Fitzgibbons.” Julie was breathless over her sudden promotion to private secretary and was exhibiting the contagious effects of her superior’s high-speed way of doing things. She started out the door at once