Free Getting Rid of Matthew by Jane Fallon

there were only P.A.s and, when they reached stellar status, executive P.A.s.
    Jenny was poison. Only twenty-six, she considered herself the most senior among the P.A.s because she looked after Matthew. She spoke in a baby voice—a cartoon helium whine, with her r 's pronounced as soft w 's—which belied her fierce power-hungry streak. She fought tooth and nail to make sure that her name was the first on any general memo, that her chair cost five pounds more than Helen's or Jamie's, and that she had control of the stationery catalogue. Rumor had it that she had once been caught with a tape measure, measuring the length of the desks to make sure hers was the largest. She had a bully's mentality and, because Jamie was weak and Helen could not be bothered to fight, she was able to reign as the self-appointed queen of the office.
    The open-plan area led directly off the company's main foyer and, at around eleven o'clock, just as she was beginning to wonder how to fill the long hours before lunchtime, Helen's eye was drawn to the reception desk, where a woman was waiting for Annie, Global's podgy-faced receptionist, to get off the phone. She was holding something that looked like a computer bag. Helen let her gaze move up to the woman's face and her heart nearly stopped beating. It was Sophie.
    Helen ducked down behind her monitor, then peeped over the top of it again, like a private eye with a newspaper. What the fuck was she doing here? Panic made her thought processes cloudy, and she was convinced that Sophie was here for a showdown with her—husband-stealing, child-orphaning bitch that she was. It played out in her mind like a scene from Jerry Springer , the whole office looking on as the wronged wife shouted and cried, Helen having to defend herself, trying to put a spin on the situation that made taking a man away from his wife and young children seem like the acceptable thing to do. Her colleagues alternately openmouthed or smirking behind their hands. When she looked back again, she saw the bag over Sophie's shoulder. The computer, of course—she'd brought Matthew his computer. Calmer now, her brain allowed back in the memory of Matthew saying that he hadn't told Sophie the identity of the woman he was leaving her for. Helen breathed again. She was off the hook. For now.
    Having gotten fear out of her system, curiosity took over. Picking up a file from her desk, she walked over to a filing cabinet close to the reception area just as Annie put down the phone and greeted Sophie. Pretending to riffle through random papers, she listened as Annie said she'd let Matthew know that Sophie was there. Sophie jumped in.
    "No. I'm in a rush. I'll just leave the computer."
    She had a nice voice. Friendly. Helen snuck a surreptitious look. She waited for the long-held feelings of loathing to overwhelm her. Here she was in the flesh, the enemy, the focus of so much negative energy over the last four years that you could plug lightbulbs into her. It felt almost a letdown that Sophie was just a woman—a woman who was shaking slightly with the effort involved in trying to hold it together. It was obvious she'd made an effort today, in case she bumped into her husband, but no amount of makeup could disguise the dark circles around her eyes. Where was Matthew, by the way? Helen considered ringing him to warn him to steer clear of reception, but Sophie was turning to leave, exchanging banal pleasantries with Annie. She'd nearly made it through the door when Matthew strode out of the conference room opposite and all but collided with her. Helen took a step back and engrossed herself in her papers again.
    There was a toe-curling moment, which probably only lasted ten seconds but seemed like a minute, when neither one spoke, followed by an awkward stuttered hello. Though she tried to pretend it wasn't happening, a tear sprung out of the corner of Sophie's eye and trickled down her cheek. Annie, who had a preternatural sense for identifying a