At the end of June, Christy reported to IRS headquarters, a huge building near the Mall with an entrance flanked by columns like graying incisors. She was seventeen and it was her first real job, except for babysitting. Her mother told her it would teach her about life.

They assigned her to the division that handled the tax returns of foreigners who earned income in the United States. On her application Christy had written that she planned to major in international relations when she started college in the fall, so she assumed they’d made a special effort to match her interests. The first day her supervisor, Doris, showed her where the IRS stationery was kept and set her up with a typewriter. All morning she typed labels for files. The keys of her typewriter stuck now and then, and she made a lot of mistakes, but no one noticed.

Two days later another summer intern arrived. Jason had dark, feathered-back hair down to his shoulders and an easy smile. Over the next few weeks, Doris sent them to the microfilm room together to make copies of back-returns for audits.

In the dark, Jason told her how he lost his virginity. His girlfriend was reluctant, so he gave her a Quaalude, then she just let him go ahead and do it. Christy forced her lips into a smile. She didn’t tell Jason he had done something slightly unethical. Or maybe very unethical. She wasn’t sure. But his story did make the time go faster.

The division had two auditors, Bob and Janice, and the big boss, Mr. D., who had wooly blond hair and a permanent flush on his cheeks. He wore stylish suits and fine-grained silk ties, luxurious things, not what you’d expect from a man on a civil servant’s salary. Whenever he looked at Christy, his eyes flickered. Doris once said, giggling girlishly, that Mr. D. was “a ladies’ man.”

One day, when Doris was away for staff training, Mr. D. asked Christy to come into his suite to type some letters. His office had a large window overlooking the Capitol, which seemed to float in the summer haze. She was assembling the letters for his signature when Mr. D. came up behind her. He leaned over her shoulder, so close she could smell him, aftershave with a hint of onions. He stayed like that for a long time. Then he leaned even closer and said in a low, soft voice, “Nice work, Christy.”

She held her breath.

But nothing happened. That summer, nothing much happened at all. At the beginning of August, Mr. D. handed her a list of foreign tax returns submitted in the last year. She was supposed to make sure no single name appeared more than once. She recognized rock stars, actors, writers. She tried to imagine from their taxes how rich they must be. At the end of the list were five names she knew from one of her favorite albums, Days of Future Passed: Graeme Edge, Justin Hayward, John Lodge, Michael Pinder, Raymond Thomas. The Moody Blues. Melancholy Tuesday afternoons. Nights wrapped up in white satin.

Mr. D. stopped at her desk. “This is strange. Five different ID numbers paying exactly the same amount. Very suspicious, indeed.” His voice rose in excitement. “Pete,” he called to the auditor, “we have something here that needs a closer look.”

“They’re the Moody Blues,” she blurted out.

“Who?”

“The Moody Blues. A rock group.”

“Oh,” Mr. D. replied, disappointed.

She waited until his back was turned to smile.

On her last day, everyone said goodbye very cordially. Doris gave her a bottle of Charlie cologne. Mr. D. shook her hand, for a long time, and told her he’d like to have her back next year.

As she walked through the lobby that final time, Christy decided she had learned some things about life—the allure of a story in the shadows, how bosses get their little thrills, how numbingly tedious it all is in between--but nothing she could tell her mother over dinner. Except of course, how she saved the Moody Blues.



About the author:
Donna George Storey is the author of Child of Darkness: Yôko and Other Stories by Furui Yoshikichi, a translation with critical commentaries. Her fiction has appeared in The Gettysburg Review, The Absinthe Literary Review, Carve Magazine, In Posse Review, Rain Crow, and Zoetrope: All-Story Extra. A story published in Prairie Schooner received special mention in Pushcart Prize Stories 2004. Many of these stories are accessible online.

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