“Where’s Ferguson?” I ask Missy.
“Who cares?” she replies.
“We can’t leave him,” I say.
“I’m going. If you want to stay that’s your business,” Missy says.
Steph looks from me to Missy and back again.
“I’ll help you look for him,” Steph says.
Steph goes one way, and I go another, and we each whisper Ferguson’s name. Before we even cover half the floor, a blaring alarm sounds. Missy’s tripped up a fire alarm, either on purpose or by accident. Knowing Missy, she probably deliberately set it off to make us her patsies.
I run toward the kitchen, where I nearly collide with Ferguson, who is trying to eat someone’s week-old leftovers. I grab him by the hand and start running, and see across the row of cubes that Steph has the same idea. We’re both headed for the stairwell. We push open the door, fly down the stairs, and are suddenly out the door and into the underground parking lot — the executive parking lot. Ferguson’s shoes are making clacking sounds against the concrete enclosed garage.
Suddenly, there are bright white headlights in front of us. Steph grabs us and shoves us behind a car.
The headlights have to be the guard, or the police. We’re dead.
I heard once about a plane that lost part of its roof midflight, the force of lost air pressure sucking out several rows of seats.
I often wondered what you would do in a freefall. You have seven minutes or more before you hit the ground. You’d grow tired of screaming. You’d have to take several breaths to scream. And then, nothing to do but wait. You have an eternity to watch the ground come up to meet you. You see it coming the whole way. Faster and faster. A tiny road map growing bigger and bigger. Circles becoming trees, lines, roads — the Monet turning into a photograph, sharp and clear. Until you smash into a hundred blades of grass, and beneath, hard earth.
What Color Is Your Parachute? does not have a chapter on worst-case survival advice for plummeting 1,000 feet at terminal velocity.
I am bargaining with God.
Never again will I ever do anything illegal, I vow silently, as I watch the bright headlights stop in front of us as we crouch by the bumper of the Lincoln. I swear, from now on, if I am not caught, I will say hello to Mrs. Slatter every day — that is, if she ever gets back from Las Vegas. I will bring her cookies. I will ask if she has enough heat in her apartment. I will be nice to my brother Todd. I will make an effort to be nice to my dad. I will be more supportive of my Mom. I will stop feeling sorry for myself. I will stop blaming other people for my problems. I will get out of debt.
I will happily answer phones at any law office that will have me. I will return Kyle’s calls. I will be nicer to Ron. I will pay all the rent I owe Landlord Bob, even if he is a gambling addict and double-dealer. I will not press charges against Missy. I will be nicer to animals. I will be nicer to the homeless. I will do charity work. I will volunteer.
I will go to church. I will pray regularly. I will confess my sins. I will consider joining the Peace Corps.
The engine stops, and I hear the sound of a car door opening.
I will never again say anything bad about anyone with a “Jesus Saves” bumper sticker. I will faithfully pass along any chain email letters I get professing to be sent from angels. I will always let people over into my lane when they are trying to get on the expressway. I will never again shun people giving out fliers on the street. I will even be nice to Scientologists.
“Dudes, what are you doing?” I hear Ron’s voice. I open my eyes and see Ron standing in front of the headlights of his Impala. I have never been so glad to see him, ever.
Ron, however, doesn’t want to leave without Missy, and so we circle the parking lot until it’s obvious she’s already gone. He won’t even go when the fire truck arrives, and we wait, lights off, at the far end of the parking lot, while we watch the firefighters pile out of their truck and investigate the false alarm.
“Missy was just after my bod, I guess,” Ron says, sadly, as he starts up the Impala and takes us home.
Kinsella and Wood
Attorneys at Law
635 N. St. Clair Street
Chicago, IL 60611
Jane McGregor
3335 Kenmore Ave., #2-E
Chicago, IL 60657
April 10, 2002 Certified Letter
Dear Ms. McGregor,
We represent Robert Mercier, the owner of the property located at 3335 Kenmore Avenue, where you currently reside. According to our records, you owe Mr. Mercier two months’ rent ($3,300) along with additional late fees and penalties ($650), and the security deposit ($1,650), which Mr. Mercier says he has no records of you paying him.
We urge you or your representative to contact us immediately to work out a payment of this outstanding debt or face legal eviction. If we do not hear from you within three business days, we will petition the court to have you physically removed from the premises.
Sincerely,
David Wood
Attorney at Law
Kinsella and Wood
14
At my apartment, we find the muses painting one another’s toenails and watching reality TV. None of us says anything about the break-in. We are all too stunned to speak.
Missy doesn’t come home, which is good news as far as I’m concerned. In fact, it seems she’s already somehow planned her exit, by removing most of her stuff from my apartment. I wonder if she planned this escape from the beginning.
The muses use up the last of Steph’s Biolage shampoo, and so by the end of the weekend, she’s had enough and moves out to stay with her sister. Ferguson, after fending off a nasty bout of food poisoning from the bad leftovers he stole from Maximum Office, decides that he ought to go back to his own apartment. When he leaves, he gives me a tight hug and says that he owes me his life.
“I didn’t do anything,” I say.
“You saved me, and I won’t forget it,” he says. “You could’ve left me behind and you didn’t.”
“Really, it’s nothing.”
He gives me a mock salute and hugs me again.
Ron, who is taking Missy’s sudden departure hard, won’t even smoke pot when offered, and instead stares out the back window like a Lab waiting for his owner to get home. I put the copy of Mike’s file underneath my bed. I still don’t know what I’m going to do with it. I am tempted to mail it to his fiancée, but I don’t want to make any hasty decisions.
The muses stay, after offering to do some housework, and besides the fact that Vishnu likes to do yoga poses naked in my living room, things are almost normal.
Monday comes and, miraculously, I discover that I have not been fired from my temp job working for Jean Naté as the front office receptionist. It figures that the one job I want to be fired from I may keep forever.
After a long day of answering phones, I get a letter from Landlord Bob, threatening eviction. Immediately, I march up the stairs and start pounding on his door.
I know he’s there, because I can hear the television on inside, but he’s not answering his door.
After I start banging the tune of “Oops, I Did It Again” on the door, he finally shouts at me.
“TALK TO MY LAWYERS, YES?” he shouts through the door.
“Bob, it’s not my fault that you have a gambling problem,” I say. “You can’t do this to me. It’s extortion.”
“TALK TO MY LAWYERS!”
“Admit it Bob, I only owe you one month’s rent.”
“ZOO LATE ON RENTS, NOT MY PROBLEM,” Landlord Bob shouts through his door.
“One month, Bob. One.”
“LAWYERS!” Landlord Bob shouts.
Talking to Landlord Bob is like trying to get a Parisian to admit to speaking English; it’s a futile exercise.
At my temp job at the law firm the next day, I find myself so preoccupied with my current state, and with thinking about Mike’s folder, that I nervously tangle up the phone cords so that my headset is only a foot from the consol
e. I am trying to untangle a pretty serious knot when the elevator doors in front of me open and in walks Kyle Burton.
His eyes widen a bit in surprise, but he recovers quickly. I must look as shocked as I feel because Kyle says, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Hastily, I jump up from my seat — I don’t know why, but the force of my movement unplugs my headset, sending the endpoint of the cord straight into my eye. This is not the Ice Queen act that I so desperately wanted to play out the next time I saw him.
“Ow,” I say. I feel like I’m ten again and have a crush on Kyle, and he’s just caught me kissing his yearbook picture.
Kyle hides a smile.
“Same old Jane. How long have you been working here?”
My brain can’t seem to function. “A week,” I finally say. I want to shout at him, but I doubt that would win me points in the office.
“I tried to call you,” he says. “I left you messages.”
“I got them,” I say, curt. Here we go, I think. That’s the tone I’m looking for.
“Never mind,” Kyle says, waving a hand. My heart sinks. Never mind? Never mind what? Never mind he’s back with Caroline for good and I can shove off, never mind?
“How’s Caroline?” I ask, almost before I can help myself. “Fine, as far as I know,” he says.
They’re together then, I think.
“But I haven’t seen her lately,” he says.
Lately? What does this mean? He’s being infuriatingly vague.
“What have you been up to?” he asks me.
I think about the Maximum Office break-in, and me and Mike. “The usual, too. Except for the temp job.”
“That’s good,” Kyle says. He stares for a minute at his shoes. I’m so rattled, I can’t think of another thing to say. Is he with Caroline or isn’t he?
“I’m here to see Barbara Keinan,” he says before I can speak.
“We have a ten o’clock.”
“Er, right. Well, I’ll call her for you.” I can’t seem to get my fingers to work properly. They keep wanting to punch all the wrong numbers. Since when does Kyle have this effect on me? I’m so nervous, I can feel my heart pumping hard in my rib cage.
“Ms. Keinan, Kyle, er, Mr. Burton is here to see you,” I say, before I realize that my headset is still unplugged. Hastily, I plug it back in, only to hear Barbara Keinan shouting “Hello? Hello?”
“Ms. Keinan, Mr. Burton is here,” I say again.
“Show him into the conference room.”
“Right this way,” I say to Kyle. I go in front of him, acutely aware that he has a full view of my back as I walk, my slightly wrinkled gray wool pencil skirt and my not-so-small run in my pantyhose that’s creeping up the back of my knee as we speak. My heels, new ones, Mary Janes with nearly three inches of stiletto (I couldn’t let the Manolos I bought for Mike go to waste), teeter slightly on the thick office carpet.
I give Kyle a quick backward glance, but his expression gives nothing away. We meet Barbara Keinan halfway to the boardroom.
“Kyle,” she says, shaking his hand like they’ve known each other forever. “Good to see you. Can Jane get you some coffee? Tea?”
“Coffee would be great,” Kyle says.
I squint at Kyle. The last thing I want to do is get him coffee.
I’m so angry, I fill the mug too full and manage to splash some on my skirt and on the toe of my right shoe.
“Ow,” I say. The coffee is scalding hot — as usual. Jean Naté insists on it being practically boiling at all times.
Inside the boardroom door, I try to steady myself, walking carefully into the conference room, too-full coffee mug in hand. Just as I’m almost to Kyle, I hear Barbara ask, “I haven’t seen Caroline in ages. Not since our reunion. How is she?”
Almost at this exact moment, my heel catches on a snag in the carpet, and I feel myself teeter off balance. In my haste to right myself, I overcompensate and the jerking motion sends coffee out of the mug and over my hand, which causes me to yelp and drop the mug. I watch in horror as it shoots straight down like a missile onto Kyle’s knee, toppling over, and spraying scalding droplets of dark coffee over his gray wool pants, onto the top of his leather shoes, and sploshing the entire left leg of Barbara Keinan, who is wearing (until then) spotless Donna Karan cream-colored pants. The shocked look of anger upon Barbara’s face tells me that I probably won’t be serving coffee to anyone else anytime soon.
“I am so sorry,” I squeak, too late. The thunderous look Barbara sends me says it all.
I am positive I’m fired, but Jean Naté tells me otherwise later that afternoon. “You’re very lucky to still have this job,” Jean Naté tells me later when she finds me in the bathroom with my blistered hand under the tap. “You’re lucky that gentleman was so agreeable. Barbara was ready to fire you on the spot, but he convinced her that wasn’t a good idea.”
I’m beginning to wonder what it will take to get me fired around here.
“But, we had to put that incident in your employee file,” Jean Naté says. “One more screwup, and I’m afraid you’re gone.”
When I get home, I’m not sure who I should be mad at, exactly, but I’m mad. Even walking through my front door and seeing Vishnu clothed is not enough to brighten my mood, nor is seeing the huge bouquet of pink and yellow roses on display in my kitchen.
“They’re for you,” Ganesha tells me. “From some guy.”
The card says, “I hope my misplaced knee didn’t get you fired. Sorry. Kyle.”
He’s sorry?
He thinks one flower arrangement (even if it is an expensive and tasteful one) is going to make up for his behavior? Oh no. Not by a long shot.
While I’m considering whether or not I should dump out the flowers, my phone rings. I let the machine get it. It’s Kyle.
“Look, Jane, I am so sorry about today. I hope you didn’t get in trouble, and well, I just wanted to tell you that. OK? I’m sorry. Really. And I think we should talk, because there are some things we need to sort out. Please call me, OK?”
The sound of his voice, contrite, so perfectly nice, sends me off. Why should he sound so nice? Why? He’s not nice. Nice guys don’t make out with you one night and get together with their ex-girlfriends the next.
“You should really talk to him,” Ganesha advises me.
For once, I decide she’s right.
It’s pouring down rain outside, but I run out wearing only my work clothes and a raincoat, forgetting my umbrella and deciding I don’t want to go back for it. My hair is soaked almost instantly, but I don’t care.
I am going to tell Kyle how I really feel, Caroline be damned. I’m going to tell him that he can’t just go playing with a girl’s feelings this way. He can’t go kissing a girl, then getting back with his ex-girlfriend, then sending her a giant arrangement of roses. He is the king of mixed messages, and I plan to tell him so.
Outside Kyle’s apartment building, I lay on his buzzer hard.
“Jane!” he says, surprised to see me. I must look like a drowned rat, dripping water on his welcome mat.
“Surprised?” I ask him.
“Well, I was expecting the pizza guy,” he says.
“Is she here?” I ask him, pushing my way past him, and into his apartment, leaving wet footprints on his hardwood floors.
“Who?”
“You know who,” I say. “Caroline.”
“Right, about Caroline…uh, I think we should talk,” Kyle says. “I’m really glad you’re here.”
“I bet you are,” I snap. After doing a sweep of his apartment, I discover he’s in it alone.
“You have every right to be upset,” Kyle says. “I’d just like to explain.”
“I bet you would, but first, I have a few things I want to say to you.”
“OK,” he says. “Do you want a towel first?”
“No, I want you to shut up and listen,” I say. I push back my wet hair from my eyes and poke him once in the chest. “Si
t down,” I command. He sits.
“First of all, you can’t just send a girl roses and think everything’s going to be fine. I know your mother and I think she raised you better than to go around toying with one girl’s feelings while you plan to get back with an old girlfriend,” I say.
Kyle makes a movement to speak, but I shush him with a hand.
“I’m going to finish this, whether you like it or not,” I say.
“Two, you could have just told me you and Caroline were getting back together instead of bringing her over like some sort of sick surprise to my parents’ house,” I say. “Are you that insensitive or just that dumb?”
Kyle flushes red. “Right, you’re…”
“Nope, not finished,” I say.
Kyle turns a shade redder.
“And finally, I want to tell you that getting back with Caroline is a mistake, a big one, because she doesn’t appreciate you and takes advantage of you, and she’s self-absorbed, and, frankly, you can do a million times better. Despite the fact that you’re an insensitive jerk sometimes, I think you’re a good guy and you deserve better than a woman like Caroline.”
Kyle is looking at me with a half-smile on his face.
“What’s so funny?” I ask him. “Nothing about this should be funny.”
Kyle’s smile grows bigger. I’m perplexed, my anger fading away into puzzlement. “You better not think of laughing at me,” I say.
“Are you finished?” he asks me.
“Yes, I guess so,” I say.
“Good, because I have some things I want to tell you,” Kyle says, getting up and affectionately pushing a clump of wet hair off my forehead.
“One, I acted like a royal jerk, and I am very sorry,” he says. “Two, I didn’t mean to bring Caroline to your parents’ house.
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