“Cops? There are cops?”
“They gave us a ticket. The fine’s eight hundred bones, but at least the crowd’s under control now.”
“I don’t understand why this is happening….”
“Some guy told me they’re broadcasting the locations—all the channels. They’re telling people to grab a friend so they have a carpool and head on down to get in line for their free gas. I’ve got entire fucking families here. A guy drove over from El Monte—that’s twenty miles for a damn tank of gas.”
“They were supposed to keep it a secret!”
“It ain’t a secret no more, babe.”
As I neared the gas station, cars were lined up so deep that they were nearly stacked on top of one another, and each had more than one person in it. The honking was deafening. The gas station had two islands with four pumps per island—all were busy. News trucks for Channels 2 and 4 and Fox News were parked at odd angles at the periphery of the property and were filming the mayhem. Armando furiously directed traffic in and out of the station.
“Hey, lady,” a man yelled, leaning out of a pickup, “I been waiting for forty-five minutes. Can’t they pump faster? I’m late for work!”
Brie sidled up to me. “We don’t need balloons. Looks like everybody knows it’s a party.”
“This is a disaster,” I moaned.
“Not yet, ’cause Lizbeth’s not here. Then it’ll be a disaster. But hey,” she said, “plenty of TV coverage!” A TV camera pointed at irate customers while a reporter held a microphone to interview them.
“How much money do we have left?”
“Beats me. Greg took a bunch of candy bars and gum from the snack stand—he’s handing them out and begging people to go away. I saw him crying at one point. Them artist types are pretty delicate.”
I understood how he felt.
“Thanks for handling this, Brie. These people are insane. It’s only free gas! You’d figure we were handing out diamonds!”
“Folks like to get something for nothing. And don’t you worry. I’ve been doing Tae Bo, so nobody better mess with me. But you need to handle it fast. When Greg runs out of candy bars, we could have a riot on our hands.”
“Tell you what,” I said. “Go find something that you can use to make a sign. Write ‘No Free Gas’ in big letters and then stick it by that tree. And here—” I handed her the balloons. “Start giving these out to the kids.”
“You got it.”
I grabbed my cell phone from my pocket and called Susan, who was still at home getting ready for work. “You need to help me,” I blurted when she answered. After explaining the situation, I told her to get on the horn—I actually used those words, “get on the horn,” that’s how crazed I was—and tell the TV stations to stop broadcasting the locations. The gas giveaway was over.
As was my career, probably, but first things first.
Then I marched over to where the news vans were parked. I was in charge here, and I needed to start acting like it. Crystal Davis, a reporter for Channel 5, stood patting her face with powder. She’d been with them for about a thousand years; her face was amazingly preserved, and I don’t think that hair would move in a monsoon. I introduced myself, then quickly said, “You need to tell people to stop coming down.”
“Are you the one in charge here?” she asked.
It wasn’t easy to admit. “Yes.”
“Good. We need an interview. Ready?”
“No…um…yes…um…Give me a second.” Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Lizbeth surveying the situation and appearing—grrr, not angry or panicked, which would have at least preserved my dignity—but utterly delighted. Her face said, Gee, all this fun and it’s not even my birthday! I hated her with a white hot heat, but only for a second. Then I remembered that as the senior staffer here, it was her job to do the interview. The thought of her having to clean up my mess cheered me immeasurably.
“Be right back,” I told Crystal, and trotted over to my boss. “Lizbeth!” I said breezily. “Channel Five wants to talk to you about—”
“Not a chance.”
“But as the—”
“I wouldn’t want to deprive you of your big moment. Lou Bigwood showed all that confidence in you—didn’t even feel the need to check with me before assigning you the project. Too bad it seems to have gone awry.”
If she wasn’t going to take the heat for me, I sure wasn’t going to put up with her insults. I spun on my heel and headed back to Crystal Davis. As I did, I passed Greg, who was working his way down a line of cars, pleading, “Free gas is over. Here’s a Butterfinger. Please go away.”
“I’m ready. Hit it,” I said to Crystal.
She faced the camera and said, “We’re here where a promotion from Los Angeles Rideshare to give away free gas has drawn hundreds of carpoolers eager to get a free tank of gas. With us we have June Parker. June…did you expect this sort of response?”
Every fiber in my being wanted to say, No, you twit…and if I ever get my hands on the moron who leaked the station locations…
Glancing over at Armando breaking up a fight between two motorists at the pumps, I said brightly, “We knew people were angry about high gas prices, but no, we had no idea how much.”
“Are these people going to get their free gas?”
I answered with an even brighter smile. I’m sure I looked like one of those awful clowns they hire to terrorize children at birthday parties. “We’re doing all we can…but the good news is that anyone who rideshares saves money on gas!”
Before the interview was over, I managed to squeeze in our 800 number, and I did my best to use my body to shield the view of Greg nearly sobbing against a pickup truck. Then I repeated the exercise with Channels 7 and 4, plus two radio news programs and the Los Angeles Times and Press Enterprise. As much as I attempted to put a positive spin on things, the fact that each one then went to talk to disgruntled carpoolers was a bad sign.
The police arrived at nine o’clock and shut down the station, slapping me with another fine.
Lizbeth had slithered away at some point. I attempted to make it up to Brie and Greg with promises of all the hotcakes and sausages they could possibly consume…my treat, of course.
Armando stepped away from his negotiating with the police long enough to make it clear to me he intended to sue for lost revenue. His crimson bloated face told me that there was no shirt in the world tight enough to placate him this time around.
EVERYBODY KNOWS that the food at Max’s Grill is lousy and overpriced, which was the reason I chose to go there for lunch with Susan. The less chance I had to bump into someone I knew, the better.
“I wish I knew what happened,” I said, twirling overcooked spaghetti onto my fork. “I don’t think it was Phyllis. She swears she only had time to call one of her contacts before all hell broke loose.”
Susan sneered at her meal. “I don’t know why you made me eat here. I tried to order the safest thing. Who can mess up a burger and fries?” She lifted the top bun. “Ugh. Is that mayonnaise and Thousand Island dressing?”
I continued, “Besides, it wouldn’t make sense for her to sabotage the event. She was working at a gas station, too, so she’d be screwing herself. Whereas Lizbeth had nothing to lose and every reason to hope I’d fail. I’ll bet she did it.”
Susan held her plate toward me. “Take a look at this. I can’t tell if that’s the pickle or the meat. What do you think?”
“I made every one of those press calls myself. There’s no reason it should have gotten so out of hand.”
“I mean, it’s green like a pickle, but it’s awfully big.”
“For crying out loud,” I snapped, “can we focus here? My job hangs in the balance and you’re worried about a pickle.”
“Sorry.”
“And I believe that’s meat.”
“Oh, yech, I was afraid so.”
I’d spent most of the morning after returning from my apology breakfast with Greg and Brie ca
lling news desks, hoping I’d get a clue as to what went wrong. How did we go from “Maybe we’ll send a camera to film you” to “Hey, carpoolers, head on down for your free gas!” And for a bunch of people who ask questions for a living, reporters sure are evasive when the shoe’s on the other foot. The best I managed was a guy at Fox News who thought he remembered seeing a fax at one point—but he didn’t have it anymore, and he couldn’t say who made the decision to air the locations. But hey, there’s no such thing as bad publicity, eh?
“At least you handled the interviews well,” Susan said.
“Yeah?”
“Definitely. I flipped through the channels, and it was impressive how you managed to put things in a positive light—even if they did make it seem like complete bullshit. I mean, Crystal Davis shows you saying, ‘We’re excited to see so many people carpooling,’ and then she switches to some lady in an SUV about to burst a kidney because she’s mad she has to wait for her free gas. As if she couldn’t afford to pay for it herself.”
I sighed, and as I watched Susan take a cautious bite of burger, I finally asked the question I didn’t want to ask. “How bad do you think it is?”
Susan chewed, and I wasn’t sure if her grimace was due to the food or my question. Being management, she has the inside scoop, and—even though we’ve always had a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy between us when it comes to work—I can trust her to be honest with me.
“First off, a little perspective: No one died,” she said finally. “You’re lucky that Bigwood wasn’t around—I hear he’s at a conference in Fresno. So he’s going to find out about it after the fact. It would have been worse if he’d seen it as it was happening. Now what’s done is done, and it’s a matter of cleaning up the mess. Also, for some reason Phyllis seems to like you.” And here she looked genuinely perplexed by that. “I overheard her talking to that new receptionist about what a great job you did. Anyway, Bigwood usually listens to her.”
“He does what his secretary tells him to?”
“For as long as I’ve known him. She must know where the bodies are buried. So that may help you. On the other hand, all those angry commuters—it didn’t bode well for the company. And this gas station manager threatening a lawsuit is a problem. I’m sure they can ward him off, but it could get pricey. What I worry about”—she paused to wipe her hands on a napkin—“is that if it starts to get expensive, they’ll panic. Then they’ll want a scapegoat.”
“Baa-aaah,” I said.
“I’m not saying they’ll come down on you—and you know I’ll do what I can to defend you if they do.”
“I appreciate that.”
“Still, not a bad idea to update your résumé.”
Chapter 13
When I got to work on Monday, Dr. Death was waiting for me at my cubicle entrance. I shouldn’t have been surprised.
Martucci had warned me on our morning run that his friend Armando wasn’t backing down. He was claiming he’d lost ten thousand dollars and that his gas station’s reputation had been irreparably besmirched. “I didn’t know he knew words that big,” I’d grumbled, to which Martucci had replied, “He’s full of shit—if anything, the guy stands to make money. All that publicity. But he’ll still try to squeeze what he can out of us.” Apparently, he’d been particularly offended that we’d wiped out his snack stand. So I’d spent most of the weekend fretting, although my fingernail biting wasn’t limited to the demise of my career. Deedee and I mowed our way through an ice cream the size of an army tank at Coldstones while discussing her options and, to my frustration, getting nowhere. She seemed resigned to giving up her future. By the time Monday rolled around, seeing Dr. Death first thing in the morning was par for the course.
He attempted a smile as I eased past him and asked him in. “I hear you had quite the brouhaha,” he said with a chuckle. When I looked at him uneasily in response, he cleared his throat and sat in my guest chair.
Too bad for you, I thought. If you’re going to be the man who fires people, you don’t get to make jokes. Dr. Death was in his late forties with a medium build, round, soulful eyes, and pancake ears. The overall effect was oddly gentle given his reputation; I hadn’t been this close to him since the directors’ meeting.
Every muscle in my body held its breath. I’d never been fired from a job before, but I’d seen and done enough in my tenure here that I knew it could be brutal. The higher-ups were almost always escorted out immediately—I assume so they couldn’t steal files or make disparaging phone calls. I hoped at least I’d be granted a few weeks to get my résumé out there and, more important, continue drawing a paycheck. At my level, what harm could I do? Write a bad brochure? Dangle a participle?
“You’re aware we’ve received a letter from a lawyer representing a Mr. Armando Bomaritto.”
“I heard a rumor to that effect.”
“Care to tell me what happened last Thursday?”
Hmm. So he intended to draw blood slowly from the victim. I updated him on everything—from how I’d planned the events, to the phone calls I’d made to reporters, to the events of the day itself. “It doesn’t make sense,” I admitted. “I made sure everyone I talked to knew not to broadcast the locations.”
“No one spoke to reporters but you?”
“Just me.”
“Did anyone else have access to the list of reporters?”
“Lizbeth…she had me turn over a list of who I called at the end of every day.” A thrill shot through me as soon as the words left my mouth. I’ve watched plenty of detective shows in my day, and you don’t have to be Perry Mason to figure out that what I said sounded incriminating. My mind whirled, trying to figure out a way to beef up Lizbeth’s role. Oh, to look at Dr. Death, doe-eyed and demure, and say, “I’m sure Lizbeth wouldn’t sabotage me, even though she was bitter and envious because Bigwood gave me the assignment, which, gosh, now that I say it out loud, sure sounds like quite the motive. But Dr. Death…may I call you Ivan?…do you really think she’d do such a thing? Do you really believe she’d call my reporter list and tell them to broadcast the secret locations?” Tempting as it was, I simply said, “She’s my supervisor.”
I was going to be classy and leave it at that, but he pushed. “Can you think of any reason your supervisor might follow up on your calls?”
There was no way to whine, “She’d do anything to screw me,” without sounding as if I were the sort of person who’d say such a thing. “She wasn’t happy with how things were going, if that’s what you mean.”
His face told me he meant nothing. Dr. Death was a blank slate. “Was there a contract with Mr. Bomaritto?”
“He and I had a verbal agreement. He’d let us use the site. I’d get him publicity.” I left out the part about my promising to wear the red shirt.
“Hmm,” he said.
“Is that bad?”
“Is what bad?”
“Not having a contract.”
“I’m merely collecting information at this point, and this has been helpful.” Dr. Death stood to leave. Relief rolled off me in waves. He hadn’t yet pointed at me à la Donald Trump and barked, “You’re fired.”
“What happens now?” I asked.
“We’re preparing a response to Mr. Bomaritto, and Phyllis is at Costco buying snacks to replenish the gas station’s supply.”
“Phyllis had to go—”
“We needed coffee,” he said, waving me off.
“Plus they have those good sticky buns,” I added, which I knew was stupid, but I was nervous. Exactly how close, I wanted to know, was the guillotine blade to my neck?
Although I couldn’t bring myself to ask the question, he must have seen it oozing from my pores. He said, not unkindly, “We intend to keep this out of the courts. I don’t know yet what that will require. You’ll hear from me.”
After he left, I checked my messages. There was one from Phyllis letting me know that she was headed to Costco and did I need anything?
Yes, I
thought, a giant tray of sticky buns, a fork, and everybody the hell out of my way.
The other message was from Troy Jones. “June,” he said, and the rest wasn’t easy to make out since he kept erupting into laughter. “I gave your gas giveaway a plug, but I see you didn’t need the extra help…hahahahaha…got the locations from dispatch and I flew overhead and…hahahahaha…it looked like you were starting a junkyard off the 101 freeway…hahahahaha…guess I was the only one who kept your location a secret…hahahahaha…”
Good thing he was enjoying himself, because I sure failed to see the humor.
TROY JONES AND I played phone tag all week. It’s not easy to get hold of a guy who works in the middle of the sky in the morning and doesn’t return calls all afternoon. And I forgave him for mocking me in his phone message because—as it would happen—I needed a favor. A big one. Troy Jones was now officially part of my plan to be the best gosh-darned employee L.A. Rideshare had ever seen. He was, in fact, my entire plan.
After daily messages back and forth, Troy finally reached me Thursday night at home. It was almost nine o’clock when my phone rang.
“Isn’t it past your bedtime?” I asked him. After all, I was about to crawl into bed, and I’m not the one who got up at three a.m.
“I catch up on my sleep in the afternoon.”
Mmm. I pictured him stretched out on his couch. Then I pictured him stretched out on his couch with his shirt off. Even better. I was about to insert myself into the scenario—deciding the on/off status of my own clothing—but I swatted down my hormones.
“Anyway,” I proceeded, all business, “you mentioned before that you’d be willing to take me along on a traffic report.”
“Any time. You name it.”
“Well, yes, thanks. But I’m wondering if I can ask a huge favor. You know how the gas giveaway kind of got out of hand—”
“There’s an understatement,” he interjected. “They’re still talking about it at work. A buddy of mine, Ryan, drove down…brought his daughter with him so he’d be a carpool. He said it took him three hours to get out of the traffic mess, and nobody was getting any gas. I heard there were fistfights.”
The Next Thing on My List Page 13