It Could Have Been Worse

It could have been worse, but Nancy’s father seemed determined to explain all the ins and outs of his grey job. Bill’s grin remained frozen in-place but inwardly he felt more concerned about Mrs. Sangamon and that hard narrowed stare she held locked in his direction.
Seriously, if I was an incoming missile I’d have been shot down by now, thought Bill. The drone from Nancy’s father drew him back to the long conversation…oratory really, voice picking up a notch as he approached more details of work.
He rolled out the mundane steps of drawing up an order, checking each finance source and reconciling extra monies to be passed along to the slush fund his company neatly called the extra finance deposits. Weekly invoices and stacks upon stacks of paperwork, not to mention other small nuances that needed to be done.
Bill continued to pretend to be interested in the conversation. A quick cut of his eyes over to Nancy found her also looking over at him eyes wide in silent sympathy, sorry to have exposed Bill to this family version of torture.
It wasn’t as bad as the glare from her mother though and Bill thought he heard Nancy’s father draw in a breath, taking the opportunity to speak before the pain continued again.
“Uh, so Mrs. Sangamon,” he said just in time, “Nancy and I are thinking about moving out to Nebraska after the Honeymoon.”
The crease around Mrs.’s lips drew deeper into her jowls, and she made a low clearing of her throat. “Is that so?” she commented.
“Uh…yes,” replied Bill, fighting the urge to swallow the growing lump in his throat.
Mrs. Sangamon remained still only heightening the ire he felt being directed at him.
“Nebraska!” Mr. Sangamon suddenly exclaimed. “Why that’s great! Why I can get you hooked up with our branch out there, young man!”
“Oh, really,” replied Bill, sensing what was coming next.
“Sure! Now here’s how we can do it—”
The continued drone returned to Bills ears, and he could only plead to himself that a strong heart attack would mercifully take him now and spare him more from the deadly glare and the threat of becoming a clone under Mr. Sangamon’s dreary company…