by Heidi Lowe
The flames danced as Colin’s dad added another stick of kindling to the already raging fire in the fireplace.
I clutched my wine glass tighter, smiled nervously as he rejoined his wife on the couch parallel to me and Colin. Red wine; I’d lost count of how many times I’d told them I didn’t like it. Thus the contents remained untouched. I’d taken one small, regrettable sip out of politeness, once we’d moved from the dining table into the living room. I didn’t have the stomach for another.
I’d come to Sunday dinner at the Blanchards many times, and it was never not uncomfortable. Amiable, sure, that they had down pat. But they had the most bizarre little habits and quirks that, had they not been my future in-laws, would have sent me running for the hills. One example was their uncanny resemblance, like they were siblings. Very blonde, very pale. Their habit of wearing only white outfits did nothing for their already ghostly appearance. If I hadn’t seen them in the backyard at last year’s barbecue I would have thought they were vampires.
Then there were the birds they kept. Cockatiels. Five of them, but only one had been trained to talk... and, for a reason no one had been able to explain, spoke with a Russian accent. Their cages hung from different parts of the large living room, as they watched us with suspicious eyes.
Eccentric was the word most used to describe the Blanchards; the non-Christian in me could think of less diplomatic words to use...
“You’re not drinking your wine, dear. Is everything all right?” Colin’s mother said, concerned.
“Oh, yes, everything’s fine. I’m just a little lightheaded, that’s all.” I didn’t like lying, but June was about as sensitive a person as any I’d met. Telling her the wine sucked would have surely made her weep.
“You’re not pregnant, are you?” Colin’s father said, unmistakable hope in his voice. “Col, you filthy animal!” He guffawed, pointing a lecherous finger at his son.
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, no she’s not. How could she be?” It always amused me to see how flustered Colin became around his parents. They reduced him to a petulant child, caused his cheeks to light up. “Not everyone enjoys living in sin...”
Ouch! He was, of course, referring to his conception. He had a serious complex about being born out of wedlock. It didn’t matter that they’d done the right thing and wed when he was still a baby, as far as he was concerned there was a stain on his name he could never rectify. I think he still hadn’t forgiven them for it. It also didn’t help that June and Seth Blanchard were Buddhists. Yeah, that made for some very heated conversations around the dinner table.
June pouted. “Don’t you think it’s about time? My father had six children by the time he was your age, Col.”
“Yes, and he was also unmarried and unemployed most of his life. Hardly an example to follow.”
We were approaching the end of our visit, I could sense it. Colin’s quips were down to one every minute — that was always a sign. We only ever managed an hour and a half before he cracked.
Being an only child, and just three years shy of forty, he’d had to endure them piling on him to give them a brood of grandchildren. I, apparently, had no say in any of it.
“It’s only a matter of time before you tie the knot,” Seth said, then leaned in and added, “So get on with the hanky panky, son. Don’t worry, I won’t tell God.”
I stifled a laugh. Colin, contrarily, looked like he wanted to throttle his dad. I didn’t think that red sheen to his face would ever wane.
“I won’t tell God,” Chips squawked in his Russian brogue. It was like being in a madhouse!
Sensing that the subject needed changing before Colin exploded, I said, “I started my new job a month ago.”
“Oh, of course, love. I completely forgot to call and congratulate you when Colin mentioned it,” June said. “How are you finding it?”
Good question, and I still wasn’t sure of the answer. I’d had a win with my Rainbow Wares proposal. The company liked it enough to put us in the running to take on their account. Nothing had been decided yet, but I remained optimistic. A confidence boost was exactly what I needed.
Then there was Naomi Pierre. Her revelation to me a week prior had stunned me so much I’d just blinked at her for several moments, mouth agape. The memory made me cringe even now. Aside from that, she’d pretty much kept to herself. Hadn’t praised me for giving us a fighting chance of securing the account, not that I was expecting it. I’d crossed my fingers that this went a long way in proving my value to her team. I also prayed I hadn’t come off too bigoted.
“Good. Hard, but good,” I answered finally.
“She has the meanest boss in the entire company,” Colin added with a little laugh. “Isn’t that right, sweetheart?”
I gave them a tight-lipped smile. “She’s, she’s something...” In that moment it wasn’t the image of Naomi Pierre from the office that came to mind but the lady from Mario’s. That encounter had been so fleeting, but had made such an impression on me that I’d been unable to separate the two personas.
Colin drove in silence, still reeling from the visit. His grip on the steering wheel betrayed his rage even if his face hid it well. He’d been on edge all evening, but when his mom started asking me what I knew about the Kama Sutra, that was the final straw.
“We don’t ever have to go back there,” he said suddenly, without taking his eyes off the road. “There is that option.”
I laughed tiredly, rubbed his shoulder. It had been a long day — church in the morning, tennis with Brit, then dinner with the in-laws. “Yes, we do. And we will. You know why? Because they’re your parents.”
He groaned. “Don’t remind me. I’m sure they stole me from some nice, sane couple when I was born.”
He did have a point there. Although he favored them, blonde hair and ashen skin to boot, he couldn’t have been more different in personality. They were wild cards, while he was serious, the adult in the family.
“They’re not that bad.” One day, I vowed, I’d tell him why he had it easy with them, and what I would have given to swap with him.
We didn’t speak for another couple of minutes. And then I brought up something I’d been meaning to ask him since that fateful day a week ago.
“Hey, did you know that Naomi Pierre is gay?” Was that casual enough?
He risked a quick glance at me. “I heard something. So it’s true?” He sounded just as surprised as I was when I found out.
I nodded, started running a finger across the door handle. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Well that’s knocked me for six. I wouldn’t have guessed. She looks so... normal.” He shook his head in wonderment. “I know a lot of men who’ll be very upset by this news.”
“Really? Like who?”
He chuckled. “All the men in the company, probably. The ones that don’t already know. Even the ones who are married. She may be mean to everyone, but I actually think that makes her more attractive to them.”
I said nothing for a while, just stared out the window.
“You just have to do your job, ignore all the extraneous silliness outside of it, all right?” He pulled up to my apartment building. “Keep to yourself. These people, they...” He didn’t want to finish.
“What?”
He cleared his throat. “Just don’t spend too much time around unholy influences, that’s all.”
“So it doesn’t rub off on me, you mean?” I laughed as I opened the passenger door. “I don’t think it works like that, Colin.” I kissed him on the cheek. “Goodnight.”
He waited until I’d entered the building before he drove away.
It doesn’t work like that, I thought to myself. You either are or you’re not. So you have nothing to worry about.
The buzzing of our doorbell ripped me from my slumber. I sat, bolt upright, disoriented, staring into a pitch black room. Had it been a dream? I reached for my phone on the nightstand, checked the time. The bell went off again. Definitely not a dream. Three AM! What spawn of Sat
an had decided to show up at such an ungodly hour?
I stumbled out of bed, staggered barefoot from the room, groggy, too furious to be cautious. Sleep had become such a rare commodity lately. I would have to get ready for work in three hours, and who knew if I’d be able to get back to sleep.
Brit met me in the hallway. I could barely see her in the darkness.
“Is it someone for you?” I asked with disdain.
“I don’t think so,” she said, sleep in her voice.
Then suddenly, “Hey, sis, open up already!”
I sighed. “Oh my God!” I switched on the hall light, unlocked the door, then opened it to find a grinning, swaying guy with a mop of ginger hair, a half-empty bottle of whiskey in hand.
“I knew you’d be awake,” he said, pointing an unsteady finger at me.
“I wasn’t,” I shot back before dragging him inside. “What the hell are you... how did you get here?”
Brit crossed her arms, unimpressed. “Wagon not comfortable enough for you to stay on this time, huh?”
“Hey, Bitchney,” he hissed. “Did I pronounce it properly?”
She flipped the bird, rolled her eyes, then disappeared back to her bedroom.
“What are you doing here, Dove?” I asked again, leading my inebriated brother into the living room, but not before wrenching the bottle from his hands.
He collapsed backwards onto the couch, laughed drunkenly. “I was in the neighborhood.”
“Right, you were in my neighborhood three hours from your apartment?”
“Can’t I visit my little sis once in a while?”
I glowered at him. “Not like this. Did you drive here like this?”
“I plead the fifth.”
The growl that escaped my lips only made him chuckle. Eyes shut, he let his arm flail about as it hung off the couch.
“This is so not cool, Dove. I thought we were done with all of this. But here we are again, you rocking up to my place at stupid o’clock, reeking of cheap booze!” No one made me raise my voice like my big brother, something he’d become an expert at over the years. As children we hadn’t fought much — we were way too busy trying to hide from our dad to worry ourselves with petty sibling rivalry. But now that we were adults, he’d taken it upon himself to torment me whenever he could. Okay, so I knew he wasn’t doing it on purpose, or that he meant any harm, but it still infuriated me.
“It wasn’t cheap,” he said. “Wasn’t cheap. But then how would I know? I stole it.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and silently begged the Lord to handle this nonsense so I could salvage what was left of my sleep.
“Theft, that’s what we’re doing now? Tomorrow, you’re taking the money back to that store and apologizing.”
He waved dismissively. “Whatever.” Then, after a moment he added, “Kirsten broke it off.”
“Again?” I said, not at all alarmed by this revelation. “What else is new? When’s she coming back?” Because she inevitably would, with her tail between her legs, begging him to take her back. They did this every time. Kirsten, his more off than on girlfriend, who had almost as many demons as Dove did. They were a match made in Hell. Explosive, toxic, overly dependent on each other. Everything you wanted to avoid in a relationship.
“She’s not. And good fucking riddance.”
He hummed out of tune. I stood over him, watching him and resenting our parents all over again. Not him, never him. He was a product of his upbringing. We both were, he was just less adept at hiding his scars.
“You gotta stop doing this, Dove. I thought group was helping.”
“It was... and then it stopped. Just made me want to drink more.”
I was afraid to ask the next question. “And... and the other stuff?”
He was silent for a long time, and I thought he’d fallen asleep. But he sat up. “Thirteen months, not once. Came close but... I don’t ever wanna touch that stuff again.”
He started weeping, covered his face with his hand so I couldn’t see his pain. I never understood why he still did that. I’d seen all there was to see of his pain — we’d seen it together, lived it together. I was the last person he needed to shield himself from.
I wrapped my arms around him and let him cry into my shoulder. And when he was done, when he’d gotten it all out of his system, albeit momentarily, I told him to sleep it off on the couch.
He always thanked me, and he always meant it. I knew he was grateful. Because Kirsten wasn’t his crutch, nor the glue that held him together; I was.
“Come on, come on, come on,” I scolded under my breath, as I watched the elevator numbers creep at a snail’s pace, taking forever to reach the lobby floor.
I looked at my phone and wanted to hurl it against the wall, even though my tardiness had nothing at all to do with the device. No, I’d been so tired I’d slept right through my alarm. And then I’d seen Dove off before he drove back to Portland. Now here I was, almost an hour late, and waiting on the world’s slowest elevator.
I gave up after one minute, located the stairwell, something I’d never used since starting there, and charged up the six flights without stopping for air.
Everyone was there at the conference table when I burst through the doors. Everyone, including Naomi Pierre. Worst. Day. Ever!
Silence abounded as they all turned to look at me. The looks on my coworkers’ faces were unmistakable: they feared for my life!
Naomi stared at me from the head of the table, slowly removed her reading glasses, placed them on the table. She then glanced at her expensive watch.
“I—I’m s—sorry I’m late,” I said, out of breath. “I, I...”
“Well I hardly see the point in you coming in at all if you’re this late,” she said, calmly. “You should probably go back home.”
I frowned. “W—what?”
“Wasn’t that clear enough for you, Miss Adams? You can’t get yourself here on time, so you can leave.”
She put her glasses back on and continued addressing the table. I looked to my coworkers for help, for understanding, but they had none. They couldn’t help me, they were just as terrified of her as I was.
“Wait, are you firing me?” That question had become something of a platitude.
She ignored me, continued talking, like I wasn’t there.
“I, I don’t want to go home. I wanna work. I’ll make up the time after. I’ll work through lunch.”
Panic had fully taken possession of my body, so I wasn’t thinking clearly when I pulled up a seat at the table, a defiant seat, and acted like I hadn’t just been dismissed.
Gaynor shot me a look that said, “Oh, you’re gonna get it now.”
I knew Naomi could see me, even though she didn’t look in my direction.
I trembled my way through the whole briefing; I thought I would tremble right off the chair.
When it was over, everyone got up and went to their offices. I decided to do the same, and get as far away from Naomi as possible. But as I was fleeing, she said, “Miss Adams, my office, now.”
I gulped then gulped again, before following her into her office.
She took a seat behind her desk, looking more stern than I’d ever seen her. I knew I was toast.
For the longest time, two minutes at least, she said nothing. She did various things on her desk, sipped some colorful, sweet-smelling liquid from a glass bottle, fiddled with her computer. All while I stood there, feeling ridiculous. This was how power treated the underlings.
Finally, she leaned back in her seat, and focused her attention on me. The way her eyes locked on mine, like she was peering into my soul, unsettled me so much that I looked away instantly.
“I told you to leave.” There was no anger in her voice, not that I could tell.
“I don’t want to. I want to do my job.”
“The job that you were nearly an hour late for?”
“I’m sorry about that, I truly am. My...” I stopped, suddenly remembering her policy on ex
cuses.
“Well? I’m eager to know what was so important that you missed an hour of work.”
Oh, so now she wanted to know. Now when I desperately didn’t want to share it.
I started wringing my hands. “It was, an, er, family emergency.”
It was as if she were searching my eyes for any signs of dishonesty. After some time, satisfied with her findings, she said, “Miss Adams, this is a place of business. Now I don’t know how they did things in the Pharaoh building, but your private life, your chaos, stays outside.”
I nodded emphatically. “Yes, yes, I know. I’m sorry, it will never happen again.”
“I know.” She picked up a sheet of paper, extended it to me. “I believe this is yours.”
I took it, confused and intrigued. I scanned over the contents, and the biggest smile spread across my face. “We won the Rainbow Wares contract?”
“That’s what it says,” she said with no emotion.
“Oh my God, I can’t believe they went with my proposal. That’s the first time my idea’s come to fruition.” I wanted to hug her so hard in that moment, even if it meant I would turn to stone.
She watched me closely. “I hope this isn’t going to be too uncomfortable for you.”
Now that I knew about her, I thought it prudent to shed all traces of the bigot in me so as to stay on her good side. What did it even matter that she was gay? Five years ago it wouldn’t have made me bat an eyelid. I needed to find that person again, if only to make my life easier.
I smiled. “Are you kidding? I can’t wait.”
She didn’t buy any of it, but after a while returned to her work.
Just as I was leaving she said, “If you had gone home when I told you to, you would have been fired.”
Dakota Adams — 1; Glacier Queen — 1. This was going to be fun.
SIX
Saeed hovered outside my office, waiting until my client call ended before he rapped his knuckles on the door. I’d waved him in during the call, but he had a thing about not coming in when we were on calls. Although he hadn’t said as much, from his absolute refusal, something told me he’d been reprimanded in the past by Naomi.