by Nicole
Glancing down at her desk, she stole a peek at her watch. It was ten of three. Her practiced secretary’s eye told her the report was at least a hundred typed pages. Even putting aside the four “rush” jobs already on her desk and suffering the wrath of the other engineers was not going to save her from overtime.
“I realize that, sir,” she answered carefully, raising her eyes to stare up at him. “and I’ll stay until five-fifteen. But I really do have to be somewhere at six.”
A touch of red appeared in that round, flat face and those full lips pulled tightly down. Sheridan felt like Oliver Twist standing with his empty bowl.
“That report,” he hissed, leaning down into her face, “has to be finished…tonight. I’m sure you can cancel or at least postpone whatever it is you have to do.” There was just the slightest pause. “No matter what it is, I’m sure it can’t be more important than your job.”
There it was. Her raises and even continued employment hinged on yearly reviews. And those yearly reviews depended solely on Jarvis Duncan. There was no recourse, no appeal. The Director, ensconced securely behind his closed door and faithful Administrative Assistant, was totally removed from the day-to-day operations of the office, relying absolutely on his supervisors’ judgments, no matter how biased, vindictive or just plain wrong. And her yearly review was due in less than six weeks.
“Yes, sir,” she sighed.
As he straightened up, she saw the merest hint of a satisfied smirk at the corners of his mouth.
For a second, Sheridan had a vision of running up and kicking him right in his wide ass, telling him to type his own fucking report and screaming “I quit!” at the top of her lungs. Wonderful as the mental picture was, it disappeared with Duncan’s body as it rounded the corner back toward his office.
Someday, she thought bitterly, you’re gonna get yours, you callous, tyrannical, blood-sucking, bastard! I’m going to write a book about this asylum and all the inmates. You and the rest of this crew of imbeciles and assholes’ll be the laughing stock of the world and I’ll be laughing the loudest. All the way to the bank!
Again her eyes fell on the pages, the print disfigured with scratch outs and scribbles. With a resigned sigh, she turned back to her computer.
*
“It’s after six,” Sheridan retorted, more than a small note of anger and frustration in her voice.
“I know what time it is,” he said almost cheerfully, “and you know how much we appreciate you staying late to finish this.”
He patted the sheaf of papers in front of him like a baby’s butt. And she knew exactly how much her work was appreciated.
“But this is desperately important. So much so that George has agreed to wait in his office for it. And since you practically go by his building on your way home, I didn’t think you’d mind dropping it off.”
Of course, Sheridan thought, you don’t give a shit whether I mind or not. Director John Curtin stood on the other side of the front counter, fake paternalistic concern on his face. Carefully casual, precisely cut and styled salt and pepper hair, name brand golf shirt covering his stocky chest, strong arms, his slight paunch bulging his designer slacks and belt. Only those impassive, disinterested dark brown eyes revealed his true nature. To him, she was no more than office equipment…the part of the computer that made the keys go up and down.
Nudging the papers toward her slightly, his voice took on the tone of an indulgent father trying to cajole a reluctant three-year-old to take her medicine. “I know that this is above and beyond, but you can add it to your overtime.” The pretend smile got fractionally larger. “In fact, since it’s dark and late and we know you want to get home, I’m giving you permission to take a taxi to the Cornwell Building and home and charge it to the firm.” He looked like he had just delivered a royal pardon.
Yippee!
Knowing the only way she was ever going to get home was to capitulate, Sheridan nodded.
Curtin beamed and she had a picture of Nick’s expression after he’d peed on her rejection letter. “Good. Good. Just make copies for Jarvis and me and you. Don’t worry about the rest of the copies until tomorrow. Well, I’ve got to get home to Jean. I promised her we’d go for Chinese tonight.”
“Sounds like a good idea,” Duncan agreed. Of course, she thought acidly, he’d agree if John said the President was a Martian. “I better be getting home too.”
“Well, good night, Sher.”
“Good night, sir,” she mumbled.
Turning back to his office, he took a step and then turned back to her, still wearing that ridiculous look of false concern. “And don’t forget to call and have one of the security guards walk you out when the taxi comes. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”
Sheridan didn’t know whether to laugh or puke.
*
“If you’ll wait a second,” Sheridan hurriedly told the cabbie, “I’m just going to run in, drop this package off and come right out.”
“Sure thing.”
“Great. I’ll be right back.”
Opening her umbrella with one hand, she clutched her briefcase and made a dash from the curb to the entrance of the high rise, about twenty feet away. Her boots made a crunching noise as they moved quickly through the ice crust that had formed on the few inches of snow on the ground. A brisk wind was blowing the lightly falling snow.
After she signed in at the security desk, she took a quick ride to the thirtieth floor where George Wilkerson of Wilkerson, Dunby, Carlyle and Fisk, Civil Engineers, waited to take the report she’d brought. He gave her another, equally bulky package to return to the Director “on the morrow.” In less than five minutes, she was back at her cab.
“Where to?”
“Six French Court,” Sheridan replied, anxious now to get home to Nick. By now, he must be getting frantic, wondering where she was.
“Fairview Heights?”
“Uh-huh. Why?”
“Just heard on the radio. Big accident, intersection of Rosewood and Fairview. At least six cars. Cops, fire trucks, ambulances. The whole nine yards. Streets are blocked off in both directions. Closest I can do is Rosewood and Maple. Sorry.”
Tears welled up and began silently spilling down her face. Sheridan was tired, angry, upset and just plain miserable. All she wanted was to go home to her warm apartment and curl up with the only being on the planet who cared whether she lived or died.
“Oh hey, lady,” the cabbie yelped, concerned that he was responsible for the sudden fountain of tears. “I’m real sorry. Maybe if I drive up and tell the cops it’s an emergency or something they’ll let us through.” He reached into the glove compartment and produced a tiny package of tissues, which he shoved in her direction. “You got kids or something?”
Shaking her head, she pulled out a tissue and wiped her eyes. The tissue immediately separated into soggy fuzz. “No, nothing like that. It’s just that I’ve had a long day and walking seven blocks through the wind and snow and dark is not what I had in mind to top it off.” She felt more tears.
“Maybe I could take you someplace else ‘til the accident clears. A friend, maybe.”
“No,” she sighed, resigned to the inevitable. “Just take me as far as you can.”
As it turned out, they didn’t even get as far as the intersection. Because of the need for emergency vehicles to come and go, the police were turning traffic around two blocks from the accident. Getting out, she gave the cabbie the corporate account number (and a fat tip) and began trudging the nine blocks home.
By the time she finally locked the door behind her, Sheridan could feel the beginnings of a tickle in her throat and building pressure in her ears. Tomorrow, she would no doubt be in the clutches of a full-blown cold.
Good, she thought acidly. First thing I’m going to do is go in and cough on Duncan and Curtin both.
Nick came through the window as soon as it was open enough for him to slither in. He peered up at her questioningly, wet, cold and cle
arly glad to finally be inside.
“I’m sorry, Nick,” she smiled, squatting down and taking him in her arms. “It wasn’t my fault, really.” She carried him into the bathroom, nuzzling him and stroking his wet fur. “Come on. Let’s get you dried out and then we’ll have some dinner.”
*
“So then I ended up having to walk the rest of the way home. And I don’t need to tell you how shitty it is outside. And on top of everything else, I think I’m coming down with a fucking cold.” She threw another log on the fire and pulled the screen closed.
After towel drying Nick, Sheridan had stripped out of her wet clothes, indulged in a hot shower and fixed them both cheeseburgers. Now they were relaxing on the sofa, a roaring fire crackling in the fireplace as she explained why she’d been so late. Strangely, even though he’d been wet and shaking, Nick hadn’t seemed the least bit upset. In fact, he’d seemed more concerned with whether or not she was all right.
Sheridan sat back down, Nick nudging his head against her hand, his signal that he wanted her to rub his head. Raising her hand, he laid his head on her thigh. Gently, she began to pet the top of his head with her fingertips.
“You know what?” she said, watching the flames.
Without moving his head, Nick looked up at her.
“I hate my fucking job. Typing those dry, boring, interminable reports. Babysitting those arrogant, conceited, moron engineers. Being at the mercy of stupid, lazy, vindictive bastards. Now, taking that crap on a daily basis, eight hours a day, five days a week, fifty weeks a year is bad enough. But, as an added bonus, I get to be under the thumb of King John and the Prince of Darkness.
“Sometimes I think they rub my nose in their perceived ‘superiority’ over me just because they can. Because it makes them feel ‘big’ and ‘important’. And more and more it seems like the kind of day I had today is becoming the norm, rather than the exception.
“There are days when the only thing that gets me out of bed and into that hell hole is the need to support my writing ‘til my writing can support me.”
An evil grin appeared on Sheridan’s face as she scratched his ear. “You know what I’d really like? I mean, besides becoming a best-selling author? I’d like to lose good ole Duncan. Not anything as permanent as being squashed by a falling piano, mind you. No, just something to get him out of my life for say, six months. I see him maybe being in a car accident and breaking a leg. Let him be laid up at home. Hire someone to replace him for a while. Maybe a decent human being. With a double digit IQ and a soul. What do you think, Nick? Is that wicked or what?”
He gazed at her thoughtfully, again seeming almost to be turning her words over in his mind. As if he understood her. For several moments he lay motionless, those dark eyes fixed on hers. Abruptly, he moved his head from under her fingers, stretched up, and that slender pink tongue found her cheek.
And even after all that had happened during the day, she felt calmer, more at peace. Like everything really was going to be all right.
Chapter Five
By morning, Sheridan was sick. But calling what she had a cold was like saying the North Pole gets chilly in December; it didn’t begin to cover the situation. Hers was, to put it plainly, the mother of all colds.
“Fine friend you are,” she grumbled hoarsely. “Leaving me on death’s doorstep, no doubt for your other mistress.”
Anxiously, Nick stretched up and patted the frosty window glass with his paw. Usually patient until they’d finished breakfast and she was ready to leave, this morning he’d seemed restless, eager to be out and away. Sheridan chalked it up to her cold. After all, what male would want to stay around a hacking, cranky female dragging around in her bathrobe and slippers, a comb having been run through her hair only sufficiently to make the bigger lumps lay down?
“You’re all alike,” she grumped as she fumbled for the latch. Her fingers felt like sausages, her brain seemed coated with peach fuzz. “Stick around for the steaks and strokes and then bail at the first sign of trouble.” The window slid up a little and Nick hopped up on the sill, scattering some of the freshly fallen snow on the carpet as he landed.
“Traitor,” she muttered as he jumped into the white blanket coating the fire escape, and landed up to his chest in the snow. He stood there a moment, an ebony blotch on a perfect white canvas. A huge sneeze rustled deep in her nose, giving her only enough time to grab a tissue from her robe pocket before it exploded, threatening to take the upper half of her face with it.
When she opened her eyes again, wiping her nose as quickly as possible, she glanced out to the fire escape. Nick had vanished.
*
Sheridan spent most of the day on the sofa, downing cold capsules, swilling orange juice, dozing and generally feeling shitty. The television was on, more for company than for entertainment. What with her stuffed head and not watching too much daytime television anyway, she had a lot of trouble following most of the shows, although she enjoyed the “Starsky and Hutch” rerun and the talk show where women were demanding their men take paternity and/or lie detector tests (most of them flunked). She also felt lonely and not a little pissed that Nick would leave her like this.
About six o’ clock, Sheridan heard him scratching on the glass. “Glad you could make it,” she commented as he scampered through the window. When he looked up at her, there was something…pleased, in the depths of those beautiful eyes. Immediately, he began to rub himself against her legs. It was not a grovel for attention; more like a celebration. Not knowing what was going on, but happy to see him, she bent down and picked him up.
After he licked her face, Nick settled into her arms and they went into the kitchen. For dinner, she heated him some leftover roast and had a cup of tea and some toast. The few dishes done, they curled up together on the sofa, Sheridan under the blanket, Nick on top, tucked snugly against her stomach, his head resting lightly on her arm.
As they lay together, it occurred to Sheridan that this was what she’d wanted in her marriage. The closeness of soul as well as body. Quiet calm. The certainty that at least one other being in the universe cared about you, wanted you to be happy. Someone, as the old saying went, who knew you for what you were and liked you anyway.
But there was more to this than mere companionship, she knew. Something that both excited and disturbed her. Her rational mind might try to dismiss it as the normal interactions of a pet with its owner, but her soul (and increasingly, her body) had begun to recognize the faint stirrings of longing. Something physical that seemed to respond to him almost in spite of herself. There was a faint stirring on the far horizon of her mind of something locked away and virtually forgotten.
It was as if Nick had suddenly reminded her how much she missed having someone special to share her life. And her bed. He’d made her remember the tingle a warm caress, or a fleeting kiss could bring. The wonder of two bodies joined in the physical expression of love.
Much as she was trying to deny it, it was as if Nick’s very presence had awakened her need, her desire, for a man in her life.
The stray thought suddenly transformed itself into a video in her mind. Soft, cool sheets. Moonlight through an open window. A man and a woman, naked, wrapped in each other, lips and hands on heated flesh, moving together toward the goal of their growing passion.
Sheridan’s eyes popped open and she realized that she was sweating, her heart racing, a strange feeling making her dizzy and lightheaded for a moment. Instantly, she felt a soft paw on her arm and two blue beacons of concern looked anxiously up at her.
“It’s all right,” she assured him with a grin and rub on the top of his head. “I was daydreaming. Probably had a fever spike.”
Nick continued to gaze at her, his velvet fur brushed gently on her skin.
“Well,” she yawned, “I don’t know about you, but I can’t keep my eyes open. I’m going to take some more cold medicine and call it a night.”
As if on cue, Nick yawned too, stood and stretched from
his front claws to the tip of his tail. Without another sound, he jumped off the sofa and began to stroll for the bedroom. When Sheridan came out of the bathroom, he was on his side of the bed, chin resting on his outstretched front legs, eyes half closed.
“Good night, Nick. I’ll try not keep you awake with my hacking all night.”
*
Sheridan took another two days off. Truth be told, she could have gone back to work after one more day, but what the hell? As she viewed things, it wasn’t like the office was going to come to a screeching halt without her. They could always find another warm body to keep the computer keys moving.
Once she started to feel human again, she didn’t even mind daytime television. Especially since the sun had come out and the temperature began to soar toward the middle teens. And most especially because Nick decided to stay home with her. She worked on a short story she’d been trying to finish, made a crock-pot of beef stew and watched a romantic video. Like most men she’d ever known, Nick had seconds of the beef and slept through the video.
Facing work the next morning, Sheridan and Nick decided to make it an early night. In the bathroom, she took two cold capsules so she could sleep and, shutting off the bathroom light, went into the bedroom. Nick was in his accustomed place, curled up, his eyes half closed.
Slipping between the sheets, she gave him a few last strokes on the top of his head.
He rubbed this head against her palm, licking the tips of her fingers.
“Good night, to you, too.”
*
At the time, Sheridan remembered thinking that the dream was a combination of the cold medicine and the sexy video. After all, just because she was divorced and alone didn’t mean that she’d forgotten completely about romance and sex. Later…well, later the dream was only one of many things she’d wonder about.
For one thing, she didn’t normally dream. At least not things she remembered afterwards. Sometimes bits and pieces, but never whole stories. And certainly not with the reality and depth of detail this one had.