Reed was on the phone when she tapped on his door, but motioned for her to come in. As he finished his conversation, she stared down at her hands. His heart went out to her. She couldn’t have looked wearier.
“Did you get them all done?” he asked, hanging up.
“This shift, yeah. I’ll have to catch the other receptionists later.”
“I started getting feedback about ten minutes ago. They uh…”
Lydia raised her hands. She didn’t need him to tell her what they were thinking. “Oh Jesus, Reed. Some of their expressions…”
Reed glanced down at the gentle rise and fall of her breasts as she drew a deep breath and sighed. As she stared off, he wanted to say something comforting, something to make her feel better. But all he could think about was how beautiful she was, how utterly beautiful.
“Well, moving right along,” she said, lighting a cigarette. “I’d like to meet with Tony and go over a few things.”
“Do you want to do that now?” Reed asked, wondering how she got her hair to turn under so subtly at her shoulders.
Lydia nodded. “I want to see if Jan has that bid typed up, then run down and get a sandwich from the cafeteria.”
“Haven’t you eaten yet?”
“No.” She snuffed her cigarette out. “So give me about ten minutes.”
“I’ll get Tony,” Reed said.
As Lydia stood up to leave, Jan came rushing through the doorway, looking frantic. “Betty’s on line two, Miss Merchant. She says it’s urgent! It’s your father!”
“Oh my God,” Lydia whispered, her heart stopping. She reached for Reed’s phone. “Betty, what is it?”
“It’s your daddy. He won’t eat!”
Lydia swallowed. “What do you mean he won’t eat?”
“No dinner last night. No breakfast. No lunch. I’ve never seen him’s this bad, Miss Lydia. I don’t know what to do.”
Lydia stared down at Reed’s desk. “Um…I…um….I’ll come for dinner tonight. Tell him for me, okay.”
“Praise the Lord, I’ll tell him. He’ll eat with you’s here. I know he was hurtin’ you’s don’t come by yesterday.”
Lydia cleared her throat and looking off, realized Reed and Jan were watching her every move. She rolled her eyes, hoping to lead them to think everything was okay. “I’ll see you later,” she told Betty, and hung up.
Reed started to ask something, but she shook her head. She didn’t want to talk about it. She turned to Jan. “Did you get that Mago bid typed yet?”
Jan nodded nervously. “Yes, early this morning. I put it on your desk.”
“My desk?” Lydia asked, eyes hardening.
“I’m sorry. Isn’t that where you wanted it?”
Lydia shook her head, about to explode, and Reed intervened. “Jan, I mentioned to you this morning that Lydia was going to be using the conference room as her office from here on out.”
“I’m sorry. I m-m-must’ve forgotten.”
Lydia raised her hands. “No…I’m sorry,” she said. What the hell was her father doing? Why wasn’t he eating? “I’m the one that’s sorry.” She walked out past Jan and Reed. Was he doing this because she didn’t come home?
Reed called after her. “Are you still wanting to meet with Tony?”
“Yeah, sure, whenever.” She stopped at her old office for the bid and took it with her to the conference room. When Reed and Tony came in, she laid it aside and got right down to business.
“I want to cut back to two shifts and eliminate the third one all together.”
Tony leaned forward as if he was going to say something, but hesitated.
“A problem already, Mr. Armato?”
“Yeah, there’s a problem. How did you come up with this decision?”
Lydia drew an inflamed breath. “First of all, I don’t owe you an explanation, so let me just say that I’ve looked at this from various angles and that it’s the conclusion I’ve come up with.”
Tony stared at her.
“Now, granted, I haven’t looked at it from your angle, and frankly I’m not sure I can do that…”
Tony was shaking his head now, just staring and shaking his head. Lydia stood up, trying to restrain herself as she walked over to the window, hoping when she turned back around that she’d be calm enough to continue. But he was still staring at her with that same critical look on his face.
“You know, you’re really starting to piss me off,” she said.
Reed jumped in quickly. “Come on, now. This isn’t going to get us anywhere. Let’s keep our heads.”
“Damn it, Reed, I didn’t start this,” Lydia said, pointing first to herself then Tony. “He did!”
Tony smiled sarcastically. “Five minutes in the door you start rubbing people the wrong way, and you say it’s me?”
Now it was Lydia shaking her head. “I don’t believe this.” He made it sound as if everything that had happened was her fault.
“Come on,” Reed said, getting between them again. “Calm down. All right? Let’s just calm down.”
Calm down. Lydia glared at him. “Oh sure. You know you didn’t exactly welcome me with open arms either. Don’t you two realize we’re on the same side? There’s a good one for you, Reed. Aren’t we supposed to be a goddamned team?”
“Yes, we are,” Reed said, looking incredibly hurt by the way she’d turned on him, when all he was trying to do was help.
Lydia found herself apologizing. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…” She sighed and looked out the window. “Why do I feel like all I’ve done the past few days is apologize?”
Tony stood up to leave with an answer for her. “Because you keep stepping on toes and it’s usually what follows.”
Lydia swung around. “Oh really? And just where in the hell do you think you’re going? We’re not done yet.”
“I am. I’m out of here.”
Reed sprang to his feet to stop him. “Come on, sit down and let’s talk about this. We need you, now come on…”
“Let him go,” Lydia said. “It makes my job easier that way.”
“Lydia,” Reed pleaded.
She shrugged. “Yeah, it makes it a lot easier. I’ll just eliminate his shift and more third up. I’ve got no loyalties to anyone out there.”
Tony shook his head in amazement, glaring at her. “You bitch! You’d do that?”
Lydia nodded, looking quite casual about it. “Care to stay?”
Reed glanced from one to the other, practically holding his breath. When Tony finally walked back over to sit down, he let out a sigh of relief and followed him.
Lydia sat down across from them. “All right, now tell me why you don’t think I should cut the third shift?”
Tony just stared at her for a moment. “Because I know for a fact that some of your best machinists work then, their percentages a good…”
Lydia had heard enough. “All right, so let’s move it up and eliminate the second shift like I suggested.”
“There you go again!” Tony said, throwing his hands up. “With no idea…”
Reed spread his arms between them, looking like a referee. This was starting out just like before. “Come on,” he said. “Please…”
Tony sat back. “You just don’t wipe out a whole shift.”
Lydia reached for a cigarette. “So what’s your suggestion then?”
“Doing it the right way,” he said.
“And how’s that?”
Tony stared at her again for a moment. “You keep the best, regardless of their shift, and go from there.”
Lydia lit her cigarette, studying him. “Okay, so how do you propose we do that?”
Reed made a suggestion. “Maybe we can swing-shift the line foremen and let them judge.”
Tony shook his head. “That’s not necessary. I can narrow it down. All I need to do is go over their production records.”
Lydia was doing the staring now and didn’t even realize it. “You’re saying I should let you decide?�
��
Tony cocked an eyebrow. “I suppose you’d like to do it?”
She shook her head. “Not really.” She’d had enough of this cutting-back stuff for one day and still had the second-shift receptionist to go. She edged the production forms toward him. “Disregard my notes if you like. If you need them, they’re there.”
When Tony nodded, she stood up reaching for her purse. “Well, now that that’s settled, I’m leaving. I’m starving.”
Reed stood up with her. “Do you want to go out for some dinner?”
“Thanks, but not tonight,” she said. “I’m going to my dad’s, remember?”
Reed smiled, nodding. He’d totally forgotten. As Lydia walked out, leaving him standing there swooning like a school boy with a crush, Tony looked at him and just shook his head.
* * *
“Praise the Lord! Now maybe you’s daddy eat!”
Lydia squeezed Betty’s hand assuredly and headed for the den. “All right, Dad. What’s this shit I hear about you not wanting to eat?”
John rose from his chair and hugged her gently. “I’m just not hungry. Besides, Betty worries too much.”
Betty heard this from the doorway. “Then you’s be eatin’ from now on?”
John nodded. “I’ll eat. Especially when Lydia’s here.”
Betty seemed satisfied with that, mumbling as she went back to the kitchen, and Lydia headed for the bar, doing some mumbling of her own about needing a drink. She poured a double threw down half in one swallow, then shivered. “Damn! The first one always tastes so bad.”
“Then why drink?” her father asked, in a typical fatherly tone.
Lydia didn’t answer that. She didn’t have an answer. She downed the rest and put on a smile. “So aside from not eating, Dad, how are you?”
“Fine…” Cussing, drinking, and independent, it was still good having her home. “I’m fine.”
Lydia wrapped her arm around his. “Good! Then let’s eat. I have a lot to talk to you about.”
John smiled faintly, but as they sat down in the dining room, Lydia couldn’t help thinking he didn’t look fine at all. He looked anything but fine.
“How are things at the plant, dear?”
“Fine,” she said, just like him. “Things are starting to fall into a pattern.” Actually more like a maze, she thought. “Why don’t you come in for a while tomorrow?”
John sighed. “Oh…I don’t know. I wouldn’t want to get in the way. Besides, I feel like such a stranger there.”
“Gee, whose fault is that?”
John lowered his eyes, instantly making her regret saying that. But before she could apologize, she noticed something; her mother’s place setting. She should have asked for it to be removed. It was covered with a linen napkin. It looked like a shroud.
She jumped up. “Excuse me, I have to go to the bathroom. I’ll be right back.” She went into the den for another double Scotch instead. When she returned, Betty was serving dinner, spaghetti and meatballs.
“Spicy and hot the way you’s like it, Miss Lydia.”
“It smells delicious.”
“Taste.”
Lydia twirled some, raising her fork ceremoniously and with a mouthful, sang her praises. “It’s the best batch ever! The absolute best!”
Betty laughed. “You’s say that ev’ry time, Miss Lydia. Ev’ry time.”
“Well, it’s true,” Lydia insisted, calling to her as she went back to the kitchen. “Each and every time. Honest!”
“Ummmmmm hmmmmm, Miss Lydia. Ummm hmmm.”
Still smiling, Lydia dove in eagerly. “So tell me, Dad. What do you think of Tony Armato?”
John was hesitant in answering. The name was familiar, but… “I’m sorry, dear. I can’t seem to place him.”
Lydia looked up from her plate. “Who?”
“This Tony Armato.”
Lydia stared. “Why on earth would you ask about him?”
John had to laugh. “Lydia, dear, you brought him up.”
“I did.” Lydia made a face. “Hmph…I’ll be damned.” She shrugged and reached for a piece of bread, missing it entirely the first time. “So what’d you think of him? Can he be trusted?”
John picked up his fork. “I don’t know him, so I have no idea.”
“Well, shit,” Lydia said. “And here I was hoping you could help me out.”
John smiled, in spite of her language. “All right,” he said, playing one of her games. “What’s he look like?”
Lydia pictured him. “Um…he’s tall, dark, incredibly good-looking, and in need of a shave.”
“I would know him anywhere,” John teased.
Lydia laughed, enjoying the sweetness of the moment, a rare moment. “Sharon was by the other day. She spent the night.”
John smiled. “Has she changed a lot too?”
The implication sailed right by her. “No, she hasn’t changed a bit. We’re never going to change.”
John’s smile faded, then disappeared entirely. “Things change, dear. Whether you want them to or not.”
“Speaking of change…” She wanted to change the subject. “Reed worked up a new bid for Mago. I thought maybe after dinner we’d go over it, so you better eat, or Betty’ll have us sitting in here all night.”
John moved his food around. “I still can’t believe we lost that contract.”
His expression upon saying this was one Lydia knew well. It was his polite anger. The slight flare of his nostrils always gave it away. “What do you make of it?”
“I’d say we were swindled.”
Strong word, Lydia thought. He never swore, so this too had a comfortable feel about it. “You were underbid, Dad.”
John shook his head. “No, we weren’t. We couldn’t have been. I had a low-bid option with Bob.”
“What?”
“I had the option to come back lower, as much as ten percent if need be. It had been that way for years. Bob and I shook on it right here in this room.”
Lydia damned the Scotch for making this so confusing. What was he saying? “Wait a minute. If that’s the case, then we shouldn’t have lost it. I don’t understand.”
John nodded slowly. “And neither did I.”
Chapter Eight
Lydia’s conversation with her father after dinner had an even more sobering effect. Not only had he agreed they should keep the missing accounting under wraps, he couldn’t have been more emphatic about it. There were fire copies, he told her, but he said he couldn’t think of where they would be. Before she left she came to realize just how much he’d removed himself from the company’s daily operation this past year.
It was after eleven when she got home, so when the phone rang a minute later, she answered it hesitantly. “Hello…”
“Well it’s about time! Where the hell have you been?”
Lydia laughed. It was Greg. “I was at my dad’s.”
“Weren’t you supposed to call me? I seem to remember you saying, ‘I’ll call as soon as I land,’ or something like that.”
Lydia took the phone over to the couch and sat down. “I’m sorry, but I came back to a disaster.”
“So fly up this weekend and tell me all about it.”
Lydia sighed. “I’d love to, but I don’t think I can. I need to get a handle on things first.”
“Come on. Haven’t you heard what they say about all work and no play?”
Lydia laughed. His work was play. He played tennis.
“I miss you cheering me on. You belong here with me.”
Lydia managed to chuckle at that, but it bothered her, because he meant it…pure and simple. “I can’t leave. I’m so sorry.”
Greg was quiet for a moment. “I love you, Lydia. I want you with me.”
Lydia stared out the window, wishing she knew if what she felt for him was love, wishing she could be sure. “Why don’t you come here?”
“I can’t. I have matches both days.”
“Then you really don’t nee
d me there anyway. I would just wear you out.”
“Oh no! No! It works the other way around. Time with you and I’m pumped. They don’t stand a chance.”
Lydia laughed. “What about next weekend?”
“I’m going upstate.”
“Well, maybe I can get away then,” she said, yawning. “We’ll see.”
“All right, but I want you to know I’m counting on it.”
Lydia yawned again.
“You sound tired, I’ll let you go. Just promise me you’ll dream about me tonight.”
“I interpret dreams, Greg, that’s all. Fabricating them is out of my realm.”
“Okay, then just think about me and I’ll have a doozy for both of us.”
Lydia hung up laughed, then went and took a hot shower, made a bed on the couch, and bundled up in a blanket with a drink. As if it could be willed, when she drifted off, she dreamt she was in Greg’s arms.
They were laying on a beach with waves washing over them, each one stronger than the last, and Greg was whispering her name. It was a nice dream, until a dark shadow hovered over them, blocking the sun. She turned to see where it was coming from, and there stood Tony and Reed, and Reed saying, “See, I told you she was a woman.”
She woke long enough to realize it was only a dream before drifting off again, and this time, she found herself in the middle of the shop, where everyone was throwing little pink slips of paper at her, each one drawing blood where it hit. She tried to dodge them, but fell to her knees. Grease oozed out of the cracks in the floor all around her. She wanted to cry out, but was afraid it would show how weak she was. She tried getting up, but kept falling. Then she heard someone call her name and looked up to see Tony and Reed watching her from the conference room window. They had their arms crossed and were shaking their heads. Bill stood behind them, juggling sanitary napkins.
She woke in a sweat with her heart pounding in her ears, and sat up, refusing to even think of interpreting either dream. Just so she wouldn’t be tempted, she took a fast shower, dressed quickly, and left.
The picketers were out even at this early hour, all gathered around a burn barrel as if it were the dead of winter. She wondered how long they’d be able to hold out. They looked like misplaced statues.
Call Me Lydia Page 10