by Linda Cajio
This wasn’t fun anymore, she thought. She didn’t even want to think of her financial state. One disaster at a time.
But the worst disaster was Jake. How could he do this to them? She felt betrayed that he hadn’t told her about the injunction and the strike breakers.
All weekend long she’d waited for a repeat of his late-night visit. With each hour of silence, pain cut through her heart. It had hurt so bad the night before, she’d been ill from the tears.
Monday night passed in similar solitude, but the next morning brought an unexpected development. Several of the men who worked in the warehouse joined the women at the line. Their expressions were sheepish.
“We … ah … we agree with you,” one began. “The company ought to give back the health benefits to everyone, not to just a few.”
Charity grinned with relief. The women had had a sense of defeat about them that morning, with the implications of the strike breakers having sunk in. “It’s about time.”
“Yeah … well …” None of the men looked happy. One said, “We haven’t felt right about getting our benefits and you didn’t. Besides, our wives got after us about crossing the line.”
They began walking with the women, who handed over some WAYANS UNFAIR signs. The women’s expressions were far too angelic. Charity knew they must be fit to burst out with laughter, just as she was.
The look on Jake’s face when he drove in later and saw the men on the line was priceless. But Charity saw the dark circles under his eyes, and his face had a drawn look. She had a feeling it matched her own. His gaze touched hers, holding anger and regret. She wanted to say something but knew she couldn’t. She realized that even if this got settled, he would still be the boss and she would still be the employee. Her valid reasons for never getting involved in the workplace had been driven home with a vengeance.
A numbness set in as two more days went by. She could look at Jake without feeling anything. He looked back at her the same way. Even the strike had stalemated into a bizarre routine. The strikers would arrive early, several more male employees would join them, the WNO people would show up whenever there was a photo opportunity, Jake would drive by the gauntlet, followed later by the strike-breakers’ bus. The strikers would continue in shifts, Wayans would close for the day, the gauntlet would get a second pass, and everyone would go home. The company didn’t back down despite the looming deadline for filing the contract, so the women didn’t back down despite the looming loss of jobs. Stalemate.
Friday morning brought a break in the stalemate.
Jake turned around in a circle in the main office area, furious with what he saw. A sea of paper was scattered everywhere. He couldn’t remember when he’d ever seen so much paper in one place. Several file drawers were pulled from their cabinets, while others hung limply on. Chairs were overturned, and some telephones had been thrown on the floor. Even a computer terminal was ripped out, the monitor broken and upended.
He whipped through the corridors, right out the doors, and to the picketers.
“Charity!” he roared.
“I can hear you,” she said mildly, raising her eyebrows at him.
“Then hear this. The office is vandalized, destroyed. All of you are fired!”
The silence was stunning, but it left Jake feeling only slightly satisfied. Charity breached the quiet with an unrepeatable string of words that Bruce Willis would have admired. She summed it up with, “Don’t be ridiculous, Jake. You can’t fire us on suspicion.”
“The hell I can’t!”
She threw her placard from around her neck and began trotting to the building. “Come on!”
He followed her inside. Once she’d surveyed the damage, she added a few more imaginative curses. “How could they? How could they!”
He gaped at her. “You know who it is?”
“No, of course I don’t!” she snapped. “I meant … hell, you know what I meant.”
He did. His anger was cooling.
“Firing us doesn’t solve anything, though,” she said. “Oh, Jake, I’m so sorry.”
“The police did a close check early this morning,” he said. “They noticed the door from the foyer area ajar and could see inside to the offices. They called me. We still can’t figure out how they got in without setting off the burglar alarms.”
“Why were the police doing a close check?” she asked.
His glare froze her. “They’ve been doing it since the strike began. With justification, it seems.”
She lifted her chin. “I asked only because police usually just drive by.”
“Your people have gone too far, Charity.”
“My people didn’t do it. We want the health benefits we’ve always had and are entitled to still have, but not by destroying the office. I can’t believe this, and I can’t believe any of them would be doing this.”
“Somebody is.”
She sighed in resignation. “I know. It makes me sick to look at it.”
He nodded.
She bent down and began to pick up the papers.
“Don’t bother with that,” he said.
“I have to.” She looked up at him. “I just can’t leave it, Jake.”
“Why didn’t you call about that press conference last week?” he asked. “Why didn’t you let me know it was coming?”
“Why didn’t you call about the injunction?”
“I didn’t know about it until the attorney hauled me into court that morning.”
She took a deep breath. “The WNO called the press conference on our behalf without asking us. We’ve had matters pretty much taken out of our hands there. What about the scabs?”
He closed his eyes, then opened them again. “We’re drowning here without any clerical help.”
She smiled bitterly. “That’s what I told the women.”
He looked around. “We didn’t even listen to what we said the other night, did we? About you and me keeping the level heads in this.”
“No, we didn’t.” She swallowed and added, “This isn’t what the women would condone.”
“Can we settle this?”
The papers in her hands seemed so useless. “I don’t know. Can we?”
He didn’t say anything.
He helped her to her feet. They stared at each other for one breathless moment, then he pulled her to him, his lips taking hers in a punishing kiss.
Jake’s senses had long spun out of control by the time he eased his mouth from hers. She sagged against him, pressed so thoroughly to him that he could feel every inch of her soft body against his aching flesh.
“Why didn’t you come to me that night?” he asked.
“How could I?” she whispered. “You could have come to me.”
“No.” He sighed. “No more than you could have.”
Charity wanted to say a lot of things, but she couldn’t find the words. Instead, she just held him, allowing herself the pleasure of him real in her arms.
Eventually, he said, “You better go. I’ve got a lot of work to do.”
She nodded. He wasn’t offering her platitudes this time. He must know there weren’t any more. “This won’t happen again, Jake. I promise.”
“I’ll keep the board calm.”
“If you don’t use the strike breakers and if you drop the injunction, we’ll get rid of the WNO,” she offered.
“I’ll talk to the board. That’s all I can do.”
She nodded.
“Well, well. Isn’t this cozy?”
At the snide words, Jake dropped his arms from around Charity. He cursed under his breath as Dave Ringman walked toward them, his expression about as pleasant as his voice.
“Wouldn’t your streetwalkers out there be surprised to know how you’re making a settlement, Charity?” Dave asked sarcastically. “What’s the matter? Tired of sabotaging the place?”
“Shut up, Dave,” Jake said, cold anger running through him. “You can be civil or quiet with Charity. Or you can do your work. Tha
t would be a change.”
Dave stiffened, his hands knotting into fists. Jake wondered if the man would have the audacity to hit him. But Dave wheeled and stomped away.
Charity sighed. “Why do I think that if I ever get back to my job, it’s going to be miserable?”
“He won’t be around,” Jake said. “He’s managed to show his complete incompetency this past week. How did he ever get to be a department head?”
“He slept with the boss?”
Jake laughed.
She turned around and around for one last horrifying look at the carnage. Jake stood next to her, silent. A movement caught her eye, and as she glanced over, she saw the strikers at the doorway. They slowly filed in, staring in disbelief.
She couldn’t believe one of her people was a nasty vandal, but who else would have done this? It was too much to believe that it was completely separate from the strike.
Such destruction would never happen again, though, she silently vowed. Never.
The strikers remained.
Jake stayed out of the way, but all day he watched the people straighten the offices and their desks. The temps, when they arrived, were a big help in clearing out the vandalized equipment, and by the time the day was over, Jake felt there was a ray of hope for Wayans’s survival.
Charity’s desk had looked like it had survived a cyclone, but Jake doubted it was all the vandal’s work. Somehow, the debris had a “Dave couldn’t find it even when it was in front of his nose” look to it. He just hoped the bid materials were still safely stored in her computer. Lord knows what Dave might have done to them if he managed to access them. Accidentally offer them to their biggest competitor, probably. With the women gone, Dave’s incompetence had become embarrassingly apparent, to the point that Jake realized Charity ran Dave’s department. Dave clearly didn’t know how. Hell, the man couldn’t find a file if his life depended on it. And Dave knew Jake knew it. The man’s days were numbered at Wayans.
As everyone left that evening, he thanked the women for helping clean up the wreckage. They were making a gesture of peace, and he would make sure the board of directors made one to match it.
He didn’t know how, but he would.
And then he and Charity could get on with their lives.
He had a proposal for a brand-new project, and he couldn’t wait to see the look on her face when he offered it to her.
The parking lot at Charity’s apartment complex seemed overly dark as she pulled into her slot later that night, after putting in a few hours of studying at the university library. She knew the lot was lit normally, but she had the oddest feeling in the pit of her stomach—like a premonition of danger. Pushing down her fear, she got out of her car, locked it, and walked toward her building. She realized she was holding her books against her chest, ready to fling them at a moment’s notice, while gripping her keys with the sharp points between the fingers of her hand, like a set of knuckle claws ready to strike.
The walk to her door seemed endless. The light bulb was out above the door. She berated herself for not replacing it and quickly inserted her key in the lock, the urgency to be inside and safe overwhelming.
Come on, she thought, annoyed with her unreasoning panic. She was a fully mature grown woman who had lived on her own for years—
“Charity.”
She shrieked and whipped around. She spotted a large shape from emerging behind a nearby evergreen at the same moment she realized her keys were in the door, not sticking through her fingers. She pivoted again, trying to yank her makeshift weapons free, while babbling, “Get back, get back, get back!”
“Charity, it’s me! Jake.”
She slumped against the door, the terror sucked out of her. Her body shook with relief, sweat ran down her temples, and bile soured her mouth. “You scared me!”
“I’m sorry.” He loomed up in the darkness. “But you should have this bulb replaced—”
“Can we go inside and you can yell at me there?”
Her fingers trembled as she tried to grasp the key and turn it in the lock. Jake took over and smoothly opened the door. Charity stepped inside and slumped into the first chair.
He shut the door. “I talked with the board tonight. They’re really angry about the vandalism.…”
“Are they blaming us?” she demanded. “Those people went back to work on their own today, cleaned up those offices—”
“I know. I told them so. And they are listening, except for Mitchelson. He’s the one ranting about catching the vandal—”
“Then let’s catch him or her,” Charity said, angry that some nut might hold up negotiations.
“No, you will not catch him or her,” Jake said.
She scowled up at him. “Chauvinist.”
“Charity!” He put his hands on his hips. “This is not a man/woman thing. I’m not capable of handling this kind of unbalanced person, and neither are you. Or, rather, you are as capable as I am to deal with a possibly dangerous lunatic, which means you aren’t. All I’m saying is I don’t want you hurt because I love you.”
“Oh, Jake,” she murmured, touched to know he cared that much.
“Now do you get it?” he asked, crouching down next to her chair.
She nodded.
“Good.” He kissed her mouth. Then again and again until she was pliant in his arms.
The knock on the door a short time later startled both of them.
Charity frowned even as she tried to catch her breath and calm her racing heart. Jake’s breath was whistling in and out of his lungs. With his body pressed to hers, she could tell his heart was beating just as rapidly from their escalating passion.
“Who could that be at this hour?” she muttered.
“Charity?” a familiar voice called through the door. “It’s me. Dave.”
She made a face to Jake. “It’s just Dave.”
Jake frowned in return. “It’s very late, isn’t it?”
“Well … yes, I suppose,” she said, then she shrugged. Louder, she said, “Just a minute!”
Jake snorted. “Too late now. I’ll go in the bedroom. He’s got a big mouth.”
“The bedroom’s not the place for you to be if you want him to keep it shut,” Charity whispered, but Jake just grinned and vanished into the other room. She and Jake had been talking in low voices, so she knew Dave couldn’t have heard them. She adjusted her bra and shirt, then smoothed down her hair before answering the door.
Dave walked inside without his usual swagger, but he didn’t looked subdued, either. “I know I’m calling very late, Charity. But I needed to talk with you.”
“What’s up?”
“It’s about you and the women. You wanted too much, you know. More than you deserved from the company. It wasn’t right for you to try to bleed it dry.”
Charity squinted at him, holding back an automatic jolt of temper. “We’re entitled to our health benefits, Dave. We had to fight to keep them.”
He shook his head. “No. You messed up the office—”
“No, I didn’t,” she broke in.
“Yes, you did!” he shouted. “I couldn’t find anything! I searched and searched. You made me look stupid, Charity. All the women did.”
“We didn’t mean to,” she said, a warning shiver crawling up her spine.
“Yes, you did!” He took a step toward her. “You don’t deserve your jobs back! Jake fired you, so you couldn’t come back. But you did anyway.”
Charity backed away. “He didn’t fire us—”
“He did so.” His eyes glinted strangely. “Everyone heard him. You shouldn’t have come back. Now you’ll make it look like I can’t do the job again—”
“Yes, you can, Dave,” she said soothingly. “You’re a good boss.”
“I am, but you women are always trying to make the men look stupid.”
“Did you vandalize the office?” she asked, trying to get a chair between him and her.
Dave easily stepped around it. “I did
what I had to do to teach you women a lesson. We’re tired of you trying to make us men look bad and we don’t want you back. But you came back anyway. You brought everyone back to work. They listen to you. They do what you say.” He walked toward her. “I can’t allow that, Charity. It’s time you learned your proper place in a man’s world.”
“Dave.” Jake’s voice was soft behind her. Charity let out a breath of relief.
“Jake!” Dave’s mouth dropped open. Then he snapped it shut. “I knew it! I knew you were sleeping with the bitch—”
Jake leapt past her and punched Dave squarely in the jaw. The man’s head snapped back. He stood motionless for a long moment, then collapsed in a heap on the rug.
“When you wake up, you can apologize to the lady,” Jake said, shaking his fingers. “Ouch!”
“I suppose that’s a prime example of the kinder, gentler men’s movement answer to solving problems,” Charity said in a shaky voice. She plopped down in the chair, her legs unsteady.
“It’s a prime example of a jerk who needs a punch in the mouth,” Jake said. “Good thing he’s got a glass jaw. I guess we have our vandal after all. I’ll call the police.”
She nodded.
Later, after the police had taken Dave away, Jake took Charity’s hands and gazed ruefully at her. “This was my fault.”
She gasped. “Yours?”
“I thought I knew what I was doing with the men’s movement. Obviously, I created Dave—”
She stopped him. “Dave created himself. He’s always been all nerves, but none of us saw this breakdown coming. It was a breakdown, I think. There’s no other explanation for what he did.”
A very innocent expression came over Jake’s face. “Well, at least he has the insurance to pay for it.”
Charity’s eyes widened, then she burst into laughter at the irony of it. “Stinker.”
“I’ll assume you mean Dave,” Jake said, grinning.