About Time Read Free

embarrassed as she furtively closes the fashion magazineshe’s been leafing through. I remember she was planning to start a diet, so I tell her she must have lost a few kilos because she’s looking really good. Predictably, she reacts with a big smile.
    The deliveryman has just brought in a package of disinfectant wipes for the director. I tell Paola to make sure it corresponds to the order. The director couldn’t live without his disinfectant wipes. He’s declared war on germs and bacteria, it’s a kind of obsession, an extreme form of hypochondria, even though he’s an intelligent, far-sighted man, a real bulldog. I’m due to speak to him later about those building permits.
    Now my secretary Elena comes up to me, two dark, sympathetic eyes beneath an impeccable bob. She looks much younger than she really is, which is about thirty. “Don’t forget your appointment at ten for the Righini business,” she tells me as we enter my office.
    My eye falls on her wristwatch, and I smile: she’s decided to adopt my trick of putting it forward by five minutes, just to keep us in sync. She’s already opened and closed the windows to let a bit of air into the fanatical tidiness of the office: a spacious mahogany desk, two elegant ostrich-leather armchairs. Her efficiency is a good match for my concern with perfection.
    “They’ve already called more than once, the names are on your desk. Oh, and Signora Campi was looking for you a few minutes ago…”
    She’s barely had time to mention her name when Barbara Campi, the marketing director, comes in.
    “Don’t bother to knock,” I say, greeting her with an ironic smile, then give Elena a little nod. She leaves us alone and I sit down behind my desk.
    Barbara is holding a newspaper, she looks impatient. “Have you read this?”
    “Yes, if you’re referring to the article about us in the Sole . Don’t tell me you’ve come just to ask me that.”
    “Oh, I’m sorry, Signor Romano, I thought you’d missed it,” she says, her lips curling in a grimace. “Silly of me to think a man of your calibre could miss an article at nine in the morning, wasn’t it?”
    “No need to be sarcastic. Just because I’m a man doesn’t mean I’m unprepared.”
    I’m teasing her as usual, I know she thinks of herself as a modern feminist and is convinced women are superior to men, and other bullshit like that.
    Continuing in the same vein, I look for a compliment I could give her. “You look different,” I say. “You must have had a good weekend.”
    “It’s the latest thing in cosmetics,” she says, stroking the outsides of her eyes with her fingers. “I didn’t think you’d notice.”
    “You don’t need it. I’ve told you a thousand times I should call the World Wildlife Fund, you’re almost an extinct species.”
    Actually, I doubt there’s any cream so advanced it could give her a charm she’s never possessed. It strikes me she’s been overdoing the nips and tucks lately: she’s starting to have the typical clownlike smile of women who’ve had facelifts.
    “Liar,” she retorts. “It’s men like you who could convince all the women in the world to move to Mars.”
    “You really know how to put the knife in. What kind of man am I?”
    “You should know, Svevo. You’re a flatterer, you’re vain, and you’re completely untrustworthy as a human being.”
    “In other words I’m a bastard. I can’t make up my mind if you’re trying to lose your job here or declaring your undying love for me.”
    She smiles. “Luckily Mars isn’t so far these days.”
    Barbara has been working in this company for much longer than I have, which has allowed her a certain familiarity from the start. She’s very good in her field and the director respects her for her commitment. Nothing seems to exist for her outside this office. And yet she’s married and has a ten-year-old son, although she’s certainly not one of those mothers you see running around in a car all day,