Work Text:
When Donna received the call informing her she had been offered a position as a risk analyst in one of L.A.’s top-tier insurance companies, she was overwhelmed by a mix of emotions. While she had voluntarily applied for the position and had sincerely hoped for it to be successful, she knew that this was her last try at office jobs.
After leaving her first job for sexual harassment—and getting a conspicuous sum of money to encourage her not to file a lawsuit—and her second for the insufferable—innocuous, yes, but annoying nonetheless—colleagues, she swore to herself that, had the job at KRS’s turned out to be more than flawed, she would have left this career path altogether.
However, the more she worked at the office, the less she wanted to leave.
Sure, there were downsides. Every few weeks or so, passive-aggressive sticky notes would appear on the fridge about the state of the kitchen. Clara from accounting would talk too loudly about the details of her most recent Tinder dates. And Jim, whose desk was right in front of her, was desperately in love with the engaged receptionist.
(Whose names was not Pam, anyway. But, Donna thought, what kind of sick, twisted faith names you Jim and then makes you fall in love with an engaged receptionist whose desk is strategically positioned so that you can keep glancing looks at her while you should be working? For fuck’s sake)
But, Donna had to admit, the environment was nice. It was not toxic, her colleagues were not sexist (although Matt from IT once tried to explain why he thought women were not interested in the area he worked in) and she did not mind chatting with them during lunch break, in contrast with her last job.
And then there was Mr. Kaspbrak.
Had Mr. Kaspbrak been Donna’s type, her friends would have said she had a crush on him.
But he was not Donna’s type at all: she went for tall, muscular guys with beards and a rugged look, the one who always turns out being a fuckboy. Kaspbrak was, instead, a below average sized man (Donna had once entered a discussion with Clara and Paula from finance about the average height of men, which ended with a triumphant Paula pointing at the screen of her smartphone, a Google result page reading that the average height for men is 5 feet 9 inches, tall, thus confirming her assertion that Mr. Kaspbark, who they had guessed was around 5 feet 6, was below average).
Kaspbark was a popular topic among the office, where talk about his work attitude (“How the fuck can he expect me to have all these numbers ready by noon?”) and his personal life (“I heard he’s friends with famous people”) melded with each other.
Donna did not seen her boss that often: he usually was one of the first to arrive, and the last to leave. He would go out for lunch sometimes, and would come back, everytime, never missing a beat, a perfect 45 minutes later. His office was clean and bright, a monogamy desk in the center and a red-leather chair with armrest. He had two picture frames on the desk’s, whose content Donna did not know. In her thirteen months working under his supervision, Donna had entered twice, one when she had called after him to ask him something about a doubt her colleagues could not answer while he was passing by after lunch (and to which he responded to come talk about it in his office) and the second time for the annual staff review, which had gone surprisingly well and during which, Donna had thought later, he had been surprisingly likeable.
Donna did not know a lot about her boss, but during her thirteen months working for him, she had managed to collect three (3) pieces of information, which she collected in a small, mental drawer inside her brain:
- Mr. Kaspbrak name was Edward, which was often shortened in Eddie. The first thing had been easy, a quick LinkedIn search had instantly answered her question. The second one, instead, had just been a result of fortune. She had been talking inattentively to Katie–the receptionist Jim was in love with—about staples, when she had notices, at the corner of her eyes, a white envelope for a certain “Eddie”. Minutes later, back from his lunch, Eddie had accepted said letter from Katie’s hands, humming a mumbled ‘thank you’.
- Mr. Kaspbrak was friend with designer Beverly Marsh. This knowledge was thanks to Paula (who was by far the most fearless among her colleagues when it came to Mr. Kaspbrak. Donna did not know whether this was due to Paula’s bold attitude or to the fact that Paula was actually corporate’s staff and therefore did not actually respond directly to Mr. Kaspbrak like the rest of them. Donna suspected it was actually the former) who, right after the man had appeared from his office to communicate something to Katie, had exclaimed: “Nice suit, Mr. Kaspbrak!”. He had looked at Paula vaguely, had nodded at her and responded: “Thanks. It’s by my friend Beverly”. (If Mr. Kaspbrak had been someone else, Donna would have sword she had seen him lightly blush.) She had spent that same night on her laptop, finally finding the exact suit on Nordstrom, a dark blue ensemble by Beverly Marsh, two times winner of the CFDA Fashion Awards.
- Mr. Kaspbrak went to comedy shows—or, at least, had gone to one. This had been discovered on Monday during lunch. She had just entered the kitchen with Clara in tow, when Jim, who was sitting at the table next to Katie, had exclaimed “Donna, Clara, you have to hear what I was just telling Katie”. Donna nodded vaguely, getting her pomegranate and spinach salad out of the fridge. “So, my friend, Mark, he was supposed to go out with this girl he met on Tinder, and he had these tickets to Richie Tozier’s show, you guys know him right? So this girl stood him up, and he asked him to go with him, so I did” Jim carries on, while Katie sits down in front of Katie and starts munching at her salad, trying to catch as many pomegranate seeds as possible. “He had good-ass tickets, like third row or something. So we go there, and you can’t believe who was sitting in front row”. He takes a pause, waits for all eyes to be on him, expectedly. “Fucking Kaspbrak was there”. They all look around for a second, although their boss had gone out for lunch just minutes before. “How was he?” Donna asks, while Clara says “I can’t imagine Kaspbrak at a comedy show”. Jim grins, “I know, right? Me neither! But he was literally cracking up there, like he kept laughing at all of Tozier’s jokes”. “Did you talk to him?” Katie asks, munching at her sandwich absently. “I wanted to, looked for him outside and everything, but the moment the show finished he had disappeared”. That night, she had watched scraps of Richie Tozier’s comedy, a mix of jokes about his sexuality, his childhood, and his husband—who was always unnamed. She could not manage to imagine her boss liking this sort of stuff.
That’s everything Donna knew about her boss. Which was not a lot, but she couldn’t complain. The relationship with her boss remained formal and were limited to what was necessary. She couldn’t really be sure, but she thought she was doing a good job. So, she was pretty surprised when she entered the office one day and Katie told her she needed to go to Kaspbrak’s office.
“Did he tell you what this is about?” Donna asked Katie before the meeting.
“Not really” Katie replied. “But I bet it’s nothing bad, don’t worry”.
“Let’s hope so” Donna muttered, walking towards the office. She tried to calm herself down before knocking.
“Come in” a voice from the inside responded.
When she opened the door, Mr. Kaspbrak did not seem any different. He had the same, indefinite look on his face, a mixture of seriousness and indifference.
“Hi, Donna. Please, take a seat” he said, gesturing at the chair before him.
Donna sat carefully. “Did you want to talk to me, Mr. Kaspbrak?” she asked, suddenly going over everything she may had done wrong over the past few months.
“Yes, Donna” he responded, nodding. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing bad” and he smiled a little.
Donna loosened a little after that, relaxing her shoulders.
“So, you haven’t been working here as long as the others” he begins. “But I’m very satisfied with what you are doing”. Donna could’t help but smile at that. “Thank you, Mr. Kaspbrak. I try my best”.
“Over the last few months corporate has significantly increased my responsibilities”. She nodded vaguely. She had heard Katie telling Jim that the calls for Kaspbrak had significantly increased.
“So I was wondering whether you would like to assume the position of assistant manager”.
Donna had to take a moment to actually grasp what he was saying. “Me?” she asked in the end, sure that this was some sort of misunderstanding.
He seemed amused by her response. “Yes, Donna. I know you’ve been far less than the others, but you seem like a trustworthy person and you’re the one with the most experience”.
“Your salary would clearly increase” he continued, “and your responsibilities, too, but over than more meetings and some errands with me, your job here would not change a lot”.
Donna was still not able to say anything.
“You don’t have to accept immediately” he said, then, sensing the tension. “Just think about it, okay?”
The morning after, she accepted the job.
Things, Mr. Kaspbrak was right, did not change at all.
She still went to the office at 9 and left at 5. She ate a salad at lunch with Clara, Paula and the others. Jim was still in love with Katie. Clara, at least, had finally stopped going on disastrous Tinder dates and seemed to have found a good guy.
However, things were also different: Donna called Mr. Kaspbrak Eddie now. (“Eddie is okay” she had told him while they were going at their first meeting, after she had called him with his last name). They went to meetings together. (Which, Donna, found out, were extremely boring. Eddie felt the same. “Since Andy has been promoted, he’s been holding more of these terrible meetings” he had told her after her first one, while they were alone on the elevator. “I’m pretty sure he’s the only one who likes them”). And they rode to these meetings and ones with clients together, usually in her car, or a company-owned one, or a taxi. (“I suck at driving” Eddie had told her once, although she had never questioned anything about never seeing him drive. “Company spends less on these cars than on my fines”).
Eddie, Donna quickly noticed, was actually easy to talk to. He wasn’t really one to talk about himself. On their drives, they mostly carried on light talks, sometimes about work, sometimes about literally anything else (they liked to talk about books. They both read a lot, Donna found out. Eddie had read all of Bill Denbrough’s books, who Donna was a fan of. On her birthday, after a cheerful lunch with her colleagues to which Eddie had not participated, she found Denbrough’s latest book on her desk. When she opened it, she was surprised to see a sticky note inside “Happy Birthday! Eddie” it just said. Below the note, she saw “To Donna. I hope Eddie is not stressing you out. Bill Denbrough”. She tried to thank Eddie when she saw him again, but he just shook his head and told her it was nothing special).
Eddie liked, or at least so she thought, to ask her about herself. In the span of three months, she told him about her previous jobs (earning an equally sympathetic and frustrated look at the mention of the sexual harassment events), her feelings about Los Angeles (which Eddie mostly agreed with, especially about her low regard for celebrity culture and her enthusiasm for the myriad of healthy food choices), and her taste in TV (“Mh. I’m not much of a comedy guy” Eddie mumbled, after she had told him she had binged on the last season of Derry Girls).
However, Donna noticed, Eddie liked to remain a step away from her private life, avoiding more personal questions—which implicitly meant that Donna had not managed to collect any information about Eddie’ personal life, either.
Then, on a Wednesday, they found themselves coming back from a particularly stressful meeting with a client. It hadn’t gone bad, per se, but this was the sort of client who never gave straight information and yet wanted clear answers. Donna could sense Eddie’s frustration, the man looking out the windows silently while sitting on the passenger seat while she drove.
Donna was pondering on whether she should say something to loosen up the tension when a phone started vibrating. She briefly glanced at hers, which was nestled below the radio, when Eddie took his out of his pocket with a swift movement. He answered the call immediately.
“Hey” he said, in a tone which Donna had never really had the chance to feel. When he talked as a boss, he talked slow, modulated, lowering his tone a bit, as if to sound more mature. When he talked to her in private, he was still slow, but she could sense him relaxing, reflecting less about his words. But this time, it was something completely different: she could hear a softness added to it.
She could hear a voice at the other hand of the line, a loud tone, but she could not catch what it was saying. Besides, she decided, it would be rude and unprofessional to listen, so she tried to concentrate on the road and ignore what was going on.
She could not help, however, to overhear a little.
“No, I’m okay, you know how these things go”. The voice replied. “Mh. Mhhh. Yeah.” Another reply. “Yeah I know. No, that’s all good”. Another pause. “Bye. I love you, too”. And he hung up.
A tense silence fell over them. It was broken by Eddie saying “Sorry about that”. And then, after a pause: "That was my husband”.
And oh. Okay. “No problem”. Without really thinking about the consequence of her action, Donna carried on with “I didn’t know you were married”.
She instantly thought that was a bad decision. Eddie was silent for a moment, and she thought about apologising, when Eddie interjected. “I don’t really talk about my life like that. But we’ve been married for some time”.
Donna hummed in response, slowly hit the brakes to stop at a red light, and then Eddie asked: “Have you been reading any good book lately?”
That Friday was fucking boring. Eddie had not come to work, Katie informing he had caught something and would remain home for the day. (Donna had noticed, the day before, that Eddie was a little weak and kept sniffing. He told her he probably caught a cold something, but that he would just drink something warm and come to work the day after). Paula was at some meeting with corporate. Clara had a fuckload of work and was not in the mood to chat. Jim, too, seemed surprisingly quiet (Donna suspected it had something to do with Katie announcing she had finally chosen her wedding dress). Donna had some very basic, boring documents to fill.
It was with a mixture of surprise and relief that she answered the call from Eddie Kaspbrak (Boss) flashing on her phone.
“Hello?” She said timidly, wondering why Eddie would call her on her personal phone, which he had never done.
“Donna? It’s me, Eddie?” the voice at the other end of the line replied. It was clearly Richie. But, she realised, his voice was much more nasal than usual.
“Yeah, hi” she nodded, even though he obviously could not see her.
“Listen. I would not normally ask you this, but I don’t really want to come to the office and infect anyone and we have that meeting on Monday and I still have to be prepared” he explained quickly, “But you have to bring something to my house”.
“Okay” Donna replied with an immediate instinct.
It was just after Eddie had explained her what she had to bring and how to find his house and she was in her car and starting the engine that she realised that she was going to see Mr. Kaspbrak’s house, maybe even peek the interior through the entrance door.
She drove quickly, following the instructions of Maps, trying to calm herself down. She knew Eddie was a normal person with a normal house, with a normal husband and a normal life, but she could not actually imagine what this all meant.
When she arrived at the address Eddie had given her, she had to double check. Fuck, Eddie was rich. Or at least, from what she could gather by the outside, his house was that of a rich person. She wasn’t really sure neither what the salary of a manager of his league was, nor how much a house in a private street with a high, opaque glass gate could be worth, but she knew that the L.A.’s house market was not cheap.
She worried for a moment where she should have parked her car directly on the street or just outside it, when a short beep came from the ring bell’s speaker and the gate opened. He probably had a camera somewhere, she considered.
She drove alongside a narrow, gravel road, until she arrived at a yard where she could see a luxury car parked.
The house stood before her, a jewel of mid-century modern architecture, with a spacious ground floor, a smaller first floor, endowed with high windows and surrounded by green grass.
She followed up a path leading to the entrance door, which was open. When she was two metres from it, a figure appeared, someone who, Donna noticed immediately, was not Eddie.
“Hi!” the figure, a tall man wearing a mustard yellow shirt, exclaimed, a wide and seemingly excited grin on his face.
Getting closer, she could look at the stranger better. He was tall, taller than her, at least 6’2 feet. He had a wide forehead and a high hairline, dark, messy hair cut below the earlobes, broad shoulders and a robust frame. He was somehow familiar, but Donna could not remember where she had seen him.
“Hi” Donna said, approaching the door. “I have Eddie’s documents”.
The man smiled, genuinely. “You’re Donna, aren’t you?”.
She nodded, wondering what Eddie had told this man. Was this his husband? She thought. He probably was, although Donna had not imagined someone like this for Eddie. Not that she had spent too much time over it, but Eddie’s husband, in her mind, had presented himself as a muscular, average sized man with a short and tidy haircut, maybe mustaches, probably dressed neatly with a Ralph Lauren shirt and chinos. Not an awkwardly tall dude with a stubble and thick, black glasses dressed in bright colours.
“Please, enter our humble home” the main says, stepping into the entrance and spreading his arms towards it.
Donna did not even expect to enter Eddie’s house. She thought she would just give the documents to him and just get back to work.
Instead, the man—who, Donna was almost sure now, was a celebrity or something—kept walking, leading her to a large, modern kitchen.
“Eddie is napping on the couch” he told her, nodding towards a gateway which gave out on a room, the back of a white sofa and a muted tv broadcasting the news. “You can put the documents there” he said, pointing at the wood and glass table to its right. She did.
She was ready to be excused, thank the man and leave, when he started talking. “I told that little menace he should not think about work and of course he didn’t listen” he said, words severe, but a small smile on his mouth.
“At least he stayed home” Donna said. “He clearly did not feel well yesterday”.
He began to say, “You know, he—“, but he couldn’t finish his sentence, as a voice interrupted him, saying “Don’t listen to anything he tells you”.
Donna turned her head abruptly, and instantly recognized her boss. She fell silent at the view of him with his hair not combed, a slightly red nose, wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants.
The man laughed briefly, and got closer to Eddie, who was standing between the living room and the kitchen. He delicately touched his elbow, asked “How are you feeling?” in a soft tone.
Eddie rolled his eyes in response. “Rich, stop pretending you’re the worried one in the relationship”.
The man—Richie—snorted, looked at Donna and exclaimed “Do you see how he treats me? Is he like this with you, too?”.
Donna was taken aback a moment, but she saw Eddie smiling at her. “Again, don’t listen to him. Has he been good while I wasn’t there?”.
Donna smiled reassuringly. “He’s been welcoming. How do you feel?”.
Donna felt something shift in Eddie’s expression, his mind instantly going back to boss mode. “I feel better than yesterday, thanks. And thank you for the documents, I hope it was not of too disturbance”.
She was opening her mouth to dismiss the claim when Richie interrupted her. “Okay, stop, I don’t want to hear anything about Eds’ boring job in this house!” He looked at her. “No offence, Donna”.
“None taken” Donna grinned.
And then—“Do you want to stay for lunch? We’re making pasta”.
Donna looked at Richie, first, wondering whether this was a genuine invite or just politeness. Then she looked at Eddie, trying to communicate through eyes what she couldn’t say: that she was afraid of disturbing, of intruding Eddie’s life and bringing his work into home, not to let him be able to separate his work and personal life. “Richie does a mean cacio e pepe” Eddie said in response.
Richie’s pasta was, indeed, pretty good. She offered to help him and he gracefully accepted, arguing with Eddie for a solid three minutes and then convincing him to go lay down on the sofa again.
“I’m Richie, by the way” he said while filling the pot with water. “Richie Tozier. At your service”.
His last name rang a bell in Donna’s brain, and her mind raced back to Jim’s story about spotting Eddie at a comedy show. So, this was Eddie’s husband. A comedian who liked dick jokes and talked about his husband’s habits on the stage.
“You know” he said, bringing the pot on the stove, “You’re the first person from work I meet”. He switches it on. “You have to tell me everything”.
Donna wanted to reply that there was not much to say but, as she found out while speaking to Richie, she had a lot to say about Eddie, and Richie listened to every word with desire, longing for more. Donna quickly noticed that Richie knew quite a lot about them. “Jim is the guy who’s in love with the receptionist, right?” he asked after Donna had mentioned him. “From what Eddie tells me, Paula has no filter” he said after the suit anecdote.
And Eddie, Donna was pleased to see during lunch, was not as rigid as she saw him everyday. He was calmer and, at the same time, more talkative, sarcastic, when he talked with Richie. He did not seem to mind Richie telling her about how they met (“So I see this little kid sitting next to me, and I’m like, okay, what the fuck. He had this fanny pack and his clothes were squeaky clean, while I was covered in dirt, you know, from the playground, and he just stood before me and said: you’ll get a staph infection if you play here”), or about their wedding (Richie showed her the pictures on his phone, both neatly dressed, kissing each other with fireworks behind them).
It was one when she declared she should eventually get back to work.
“Don’t worry, Donna” Eddie said, standing up with Richie. “Take the afternoon off, I’ll tell Katie myself”.
He offered to accompany her towards the car. “Thanks for being a good fucking assistant to this demonic gremlin, Donna” Richie told her before saying goodbye. “And don’t be late, Eddie Spaghetti, or I’ll worry”.
They walked towards the car in silence. “I hope Richie did not scare you” Eddie said. “He can be overwhelming at times”.
Donna shook his head. “On the contrary, he was very charming” she responded. “Thanks again for the lunch”.
Eddie shrugged. “It was the least we could do”. She was going to say that bringing him the documents was not a lot, but he added “For everything, I mean. You’re a very good assistant”.
Donna blushed.
“And, um about the things Richie told you today…” he was starting to say, but she interrupted him. “Don’t worry about it. I’m a good assistant”.
Four months later, she would go to a Richie Tozier’s show with a date and find Eddie there, in the front row, smiling.