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loudly that she wanted to go down, they pulled her in with them and took her back to the party.
    The first thing she saw was a waiter with a tray of glasses full of champagne, and Karen downed two of them immediately. Feeling much better, she was able to calm her frazzled nerves. So she was caught snooping in the boss’s office. Sowhat? Worse things have happened to a person. By her third glass of wine, she’d managed to convince herself that nothing at all had happened.
    Standing before her now was a woman with her arms full of a hefty little boy and juggling an enormous diaper bag while she frantically tried to open a stroller.
    â€œCould I help?” Karen asked.
    â€œOh, would you please?” the woman answered, stepping back from the stroller as she obviously thought Karen meant to help her with that.
    But instead, Karen took the child out of her arms and for a moment clasped him tightly to her.
    â€œHe doesn’t usually like strangers, but he likes you.” The woman smiled. “You wouldn’t mind watching him for a few moments, would you? I’d love to get something to eat.”
    Holding the boy close to her, while he snuggled his sweet-smelling head into her shoulder, Karen whispered, “I’ll keep him forever.”
    At that a look of fright crossed the woman’s face. Snatching her child away from Karen, she hurried down the hall.
    Moments ago Karen had thought she’d never before been so embarrassed, but this was worse than being caught snooping. “What is wrong with you?” she hissed to herself, then strode toward the elevators. She would go home now and never leave her house again in her life.
    As soon as she got into the elevator, she realized that she’d left her handbag and coat in her office on the ninth floor. If it weren’t zero degrees outside and her car keys weren’t in her purse, she’d have left things where they were, but she had to return. Leaning her head back against the wall, she knew she’d had too much wine, but she also knew without a doubt that after Christmas she’d no longer have a job. As soon as Taggert told his formidable secretary that he’d caught an unknown woman—for Karen was sure the great and very busy McAllister Taggert had never so much as looked at someone as lowly as her—in his office, Karen would be dismissed.
    On the wall of the elevator was a bronze plaque that listed all the Taggerts in the building, and toward the bottom it looked as though Loretta’s new recruit had been busy again,for a piece of paper had been glued over McAllister Taggert’s name that read, “Marvelous Jaguar.” Smiling, Karen took a pen out of her pocket and changed it to, “Macho Jackass.”
    When the elevator stopped, she didn’t know whether it was the wine or her defiance, but she felt better. However, she did not want another encounter with Taggert. While holding the door open, she carefully looked up and down both corridors to see if anyone was about. Clear. Tiptoeing, she went down the carpeted hall to the secretaries’ office and, as silently as possible, removed her coat from the back of the chair and her purse from the drawer. As she was on her way out, she stopped by Miss Johnson’s desk to get notes from her drawer. This way she’d have work to fill her time over Christmas.
    â€œSnooping again?”
    Karen paused with her hand on the drawer handle; she didn’t have to look up to know who it was. McAllister J. Taggert. Had she not had so much to drink, she would have politely excused herself, but since she was sure she was going to be fired anyway, what did it matter? “Sorry about your office. I was sure you’d be out proposing marriage to someone.”
    With all the haughtiness she could muster, she tried to march past him.
    â€œYou don’t like me much, do you?”
    Turning, she looked him in the eyes, those dark, heavily fringed eyes that