Mr. Hoffman came out from his storeroom as I walked into his shop.
When he saw me, he stopped. Then he smiled. “You are happy.”
If only he knew. I blushed. Then tried to cover it up. “How could I not be happy? Walking into your store is like walking into a fairy tale.”
He returned to his storeroom to get Sam’s train. It was already boxed, bagged, and ready to go. “Little Bear is well?”
“I think things are going to work out for him.”
* * *
I went by Ted’s office on the way back to my own.
“Hey—Georgie. Thanks. I need to talk to you.” He took in a hiss of air through his teeth. “I hate to do this to you, but I just heard Congress is going to pass another continuing resolution today.”
A continuing resolution? “You mean an appropriations bill.” A resolution meant nothing. It wouldn’t release the funding for my contract. I couldn’t do anything, I couldn’t get paid unless they passed the actual bill.
“Nope. It’s going to be a CR.”
“Another one? For how long?”
“Four months.”
“Four—”
“I know. Sucks, right?”
That meant I wouldn’t be able to charge any money against the new contract until February. At the earliest. “Can you put me on someone else’s contract until then?”
“That’s the thing. We saw this coming and already did the old shell game, you know? Switching people to other contracts until they can get funded on their own.”
“And?”
“And thing is, we don’t have any moves left. Your contract was a sure thing and it seemed like they were going to pass the bill, so—”
“It is a sure thing. It’s already been awarded.”
“Point is, we didn’t come up with a plan B for you. I need you to go on PTO—”
He needed me to go on vacation? For four months? “But I don’t—”
“—and since you don’t have any left, I need you to go.”
“Go. Go where?”
“Go home.”
“Go home?” What was he trying to say? “Are you firing me?”
“Well, I’m . . .” He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. He tried again. “We’re letting you go. Because of the contract. Or lack thereof. If it comes through . . .” He shrugged.
“When. When it comes through. It’s coming through.” But not until the appropriations bill passed.
He shrugged. “When it comes through, we’ll have a welcome-back party.”
“So you’re—” I really was quite sure I hadn’t heard him correctly. “You’re letting me go. I’m fired.”
“Not for any bad reason. It’s not personal.” He sent me a thumbs-up. “I’ll give you a great recommendation if you feel like you have to find something else.”
“But the fiscal year just started. Can’t we run into the red a little bit and make it up—”
“Wish we could, but we’ve been told to clamp down on that sort of thing.”
One of the security guys stopped outside Ted’s door.
Ted gestured toward him. “He’ll escort you out. He can help you carry the heavy stuff.” Ted winked. “Okay?”
I simply stared at him. Not okay. Not okay at all.
* * *
There wasn’t much to pack. Just a few pictures. My framed diplomas. Some well-thumbed college books I used for reference. The pen I liked the most.
It all fit into two cardboard boxes.
After downloading my personal files and Outlook contacts, I tossed the thumb drive into one of them. “Guess that’s it.”
The security officer held out his hand. “Badge?”
Right. I slipped it off and gave it to him. We were halfway down the hall when I remembered Sean’s book. “Just— I forgot something. Be right back!” I sprinted down the hall before I remembered I didn’t have the badge to access my office anymore. I had to wait for the guard to catch up with me.
But my badge had already been deactivated and he had to get special permission to let me back in. Then he had to watch me.
Did I ever feel like an idiot on my hands and knees reaching back along the wall behind my filing cabinet.
Nothing.
I moved even closer, jamming my shoulder up against the metal.
Still nothing.
“What you got behind there? Stack of Playgirl centerfolds?”
“Just, um, my son. He visited. His ball. It rolled back there.”
He leaned against the cabinet and levered it away from the wall for me.
There it was!
“Huh. No ball, but at least I found this book I’d been missing.” I pulled it out and slid it down the side of the box.
* * *
I called the car mechanic from the lobby of my building, asking when the car might be finished. He said the parts they needed were on back order and since they’d torn the engine apart, they couldn’t guarantee when they’d have it all back together.
I asked if they’d found anything unusual.
“Like?”
“A bug.”
“A bug? What? You mean on the windshield or something?”
“A bug. An electronic bug. You know. For tracking someone?”
“Oh. Oh! Like in James Bond? That kind of thing?”
“Right.”
“Nope. I mean, I haven’t looked. But aren’t they supposed to have red blinking lights? I would have noticed something like that. Unless, wait. No. Red blinking lights are the car bombs, right? Not the trackers?”
I told him not to worry about it.
The security guard asked me to stand outside since I was no longer employed by the company and I wasn’t a visitor. I shivered in the wind while I waited for a taxi.
It’s not like Congress hadn’t punted on the budget before. And it wasn’t unusual to have contract funding delayed due to a continuing resolution, but for Ted not to even try to find interim funding for me? That was strange.
And wasn’t the timing just a little suspicious? The DoD or FBI had already tried to bug my computer and my phone. They’d already broken into the house. They’d beat up Sam to distract me. Why wouldn’t they take my job away too? Most of the company’s business came from government-funded contracts. How would Ted be able to say no if they asked him to fire me?
I texted Jim that I wouldn’t need a ride home.
Ms. Hernandez texted me, asking if I could meet with her again.
I texted her back, setting up a meeting. I hoped Sam wasn’t still drawing wormholes. I’d meant to sit down with him and try to talk things through again—without raising my voice—but then the house had been ransacked and Sean had come back from the dead and Sam had gotten beaten up by hockey hooligans. Maybe I really was a bad mom.
My mother called on the way home, as I sat in the back seat of the taxi clutching what remained of my professional life. Being fired from a job was definitely not Slater-condoned. Maybe my mother had been right about everything. Maybe I should have been following her advice. Maybe I should have studied business like she’d told me to. I sent her call to voice mail because she had an uncanny way of ferreting out the truth.
I walked into the house, dropped the boxes on the floor, and barely remembered to punch in the security code in time. Then I pulled Sean’s diary out and took it into the kitchen with me. Taking Sam’s box of Fruity-O’s from the cabinet, I removed the bag of cereal and dropped the diary inside the box and put it back in the cupboard.
After retracing my steps to the living room, I peeled off my coat and let myself sink into the couch. “I’m not that bad a mom, Alice, am I? I’ve never forgotten to feed you, have I?”
I hadn’t. Ever. At least not that I remembered.
“And you always get at least two walks a day.”
In fact, Alice got more planned, more regular exercise than I did.
“I don’t add sugar. To anything. I only serve real juice. And I have a CSA subscripti
on. I’ve tried.”
Really. I had.
“Isn’t the thought what really counts, Alice?”
Silence.
“Alice?” Normally Alice gave some sort of response when I came home. And when I talked to myself.
“Alice?” I pushed myself to sitting. Where was she? I’d assumed she was close because she usually shadowed me around the house.
But she wasn’t on her dog bed in the living room.
She wasn’t in the kitchen where she sometimes liked to cool her belly on the old linoleum floor.
“Alice?”
As I walked down the hall to my room, I heard panting. Then I saw the mess. “Oh, Alice!”
49
Jim drove us to the vet and helped me carry Alice into the exam room.
“Are you sure she hasn’t had any chocolate?” The vet gave me a searching look as I tried to keep Alice from pacing the length of the clinic’s exam room.
“I don’t know where she would have gotten it.” I kept all of ours in a cupboard.
“She’s been vomiting? Had diarrhea?”
I nodded.
“Tell me about her daily care. Have you changed anything? Food? Shampoo? Medications?”
“Nothing.” I was kneeling on the floor beside her, trying to stroke her head, but she kept shifting positions—sitting on her haunches, then pushing to her feet—as if she just couldn’t get comfortable.
“Has she been anyplace new? A dog park? Someone else’s house?”
“No. And we’ve been walking the same route for years.” I tried to embrace her, tried to ease some of her discomfort, the way I did with Sam, but it didn’t seem to help.
“She hasn’t spent longer than usual in one place on her walks? She couldn’t have discovered any old food containers on the street or anything?”
I had no answers.
“Something’s poisoning her system.”
Fear clutched me. Something or someone?
“Do you keep fertilizers or pesticides within reach?”
“No.”
Alice whimpered again, shifting her weight from foot to foot.
I stroked her head. Her ears.
She lay down and then immediately got back up.
The vet lifted Alice’s tail with one hand and wielded a thermometer with the other. But before she could insert it, Alice began to seize.
* * *
It took a while for the doctor to stabilize her, and there were some harrowing moments, but by the time I left the veterinarian’s office, I was told she would recover.
I got back in enough time that I was able to walk down to pick up Sam right when school ended that afternoon. There was no reason for him to stay for their extended day program since I was home. I had to figure out how to cancel him out of the program anyway. Even if I managed to bring Sean back to life soon, with security systems and car repairs and vet bills and the loss of my job, we were going to have to save every penny we could.
Sam and Alice had always had some sort of telepathic connection. First thing he asked when he got home after school? “Where’s Alice?”
I’d meant to ease into telling him. Could nothing go right? I shoved my keys into my front pocket and took off my coat, trying to buy myself some time. “She has to stay at the doctor’s overnight.”
Sam looked at me, concern coloring his eyes. “Why?”
“The doctor thinks she found chocolate somewhere and ate it.” No need to tell him of my own suspicions. “She can’t eat chocolate; it’s not good for dogs.” It wouldn’t hurt for Sam to know that. “If they have too much they can get super sick.”
His mouth dropped open. His eyes went wide. “Is Alice going to die?”
“The doctor says she’ll be fine. But she got really sick and she’ll need to stay there a few days.”
Tears were welling up in Sam’s eyes. “I’m sorry.”
I knelt and gave him a big hug. “I’m sorry too.”
“It’s my fault.” He wrestled himself out of my hug and took me by the hand and led me to his room. I had discovered Alice in the hallway, so I hadn’t seen Sam’s room until just then. The mattress of his bed had been pushed askew and the floor was littered with candy wrappers. “Sam?”
He was sobbing. “It’s all my fault. Alice is going to die and it’s all my fault.”
“Shh.” I tried to hug him again, but he wasn’t having it. He beat my arms back and sat on the floor, pulling at his hair.
“Sam. It’s okay. Alice is going to be okay.”
Gulping back his sobs, he looked at me. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” Pretty sure. I sat down next to him.
He scooted onto my lap.
I put my arms around him and rocked him back and forth.
He turned and snuggled into me.
“How come you had so much candy for Halloween in here? I thought I told you we were keeping it all in the kitchen.”
“I took it for Daddy. In case he was hungry after the firm hole.”
* * *
I cheered him up with his Super Sam cape, tying it under his chin. Then I made him half a peanut butter sandwich as a snack.
When tears threatened, I thought up another diversion. “Hey! Guess what—I have a surprise for you. Want to see it?” I slipped my old phone into my back pocket, in case the vet called, and the new one into my front pocket in case Sean texted. Then I grabbed the bag containing the new train from one of the boxes on the living room floor.
“What is it?”
“You’ll see.” I’d been meaning to keep it for Christmas, but he seemed to need it just then. And so did I.
We went downstairs into the basement where he could play with it.
The delight in his eyes when he pulled it out of the box was worth it. “Grandpa was telling me about these!” He offered the train and its crates to me. “You can use them with the crane.”
I handed them back. “Show me.”
Sam took them from me and pushed them along his intricate network of intersecting tracks. He made the crane take off the crates, ran it around again, and then made the crane put them all back on. Pretty soon he forgot about me, so I sat cross-legged on the floor and checked my email. Already word had gotten around that I’d been let go. I drafted an email to send to all of my business contacts.
Sunlight had retreated from the basement windows; it was getting dark. I got up and turned another light on.
Somewhere above us, a floorboard creaked.
“Can you do this for me, Mommy?” He held up two of the trains. He was trying to secure the connection between them.
I cocked an ear toward the ceiling. Old house. Just settling. “What?”
He dumped the trains into my lap. “Can you make them fit together?”
“Sure.” I picked them up.
But there it was again.
I put a hand to his arm. “Just a second, buddy.”
I held a finger to my lips as I glanced up at the exposed ceiling. He followed my gaze with his own.
Another creak.
I set the trains on the table. Put an arm to his shoulder and eased him away from it. I bent so I was looking directly at him and spoke quietly. “This is very important. When you and Dad played that game, the one about hiding?”
He nodded. “The Bad Guys.”
“Did you ever play it down here?”
He nodded again.
“I think we ought to play it, you and I. Can you show me how?”
“Not really, I mean—”
“This is a real game, Sam. Do you understand?” There was another creak upstairs. That time it sounded like it was coming from the dining room. “There’s someone up there. And Alice isn’t here to protect us.”
50
“But Daddy says—”
“Can you tell me some other time? Right now I need you to hide.”
“Welp, there isn’t any laundry piled up.” He glanced around behind him. “And you moved Daddy’s big backpack and h
is bike, so—”
“Sam!” I hissed his name. “What did Dad tell you to do?”
He took my hand and pulled me toward the back of the basement where the water heater and boiler sat. But Sean had always been compulsive about keeping the area around them clear. I yanked him back. “There’s no place to hide over there.”
“Mom!” He tugged back so hard that my shoulder felt it.
I put a finger to my lips. The creaks were moving toward the kitchen now. Whoever it was might soon notice the stairs.
He let my hand fall and ran over to the water heater. Then he pointed toward a metal flap set high in the cinder-block wall.
There was a ledge beneath it, but even if I hoisted Sam up there, he’d be in plain sight. “I don’t think that ledge is big enough for—”
“You’re supposed to open it.”
“What?” I spoke the word a bit louder than I meant to, but he was jumping at it, trying to reach it with his hand.
“Open it, Mom. Just push it open.”
“But even if it opens, I don’t think—” I gave it a push and it swung straight up into the outside air.
“Dad says it’s a coal chute.”
The door to the basement creaked open and a footstep fell on the stair. I boosted Sam up and he scrambled through. Then he lifted the door from the outside. “Come on, Mom!”
“Listen to me. I want you to run over to Mr. Jim and have him call the police. Tell him there’s someone in the house.”
“Mom! Come on!”
Now the footsteps were coming down the stairs. In just a few moments I would be seen. “I can’t make it. Just go!”
“Stand on the pipe. Climb up.”
I put my foot to the pipe. Two steps more and I was holding on to Sam’s hand. “I don’t think I can fit through here.” I might have, pre-Sam, but my hips were wider than they used to be.
“Dad fit. Just go like a snake.”
I wriggled a bit, testing the sides of the chute and the sides of my thighs. The chute wasn’t very forgiving. My thighs, on the other hand, compacted quite a bit.
The chute was masked by a tall, chubby euonymus bush that hid us from the driveway behind its green and yellow leaves. The deep shadows of dusk also helped.
State of Lies Page 18