by Laura Storme
thinking that as long as her possessions remained
she would return. But that hadn't
happened. She had finally come and claimed her
life, a life away from him.
He and Jean had been remodeling the first level of
the house and pieces of drywall and lumber laid
about haphazardly. He surveyed the house
remorsefully, wondering if he should finish it at
all. James walked down the hallway towards the
kitchen and retrieved a beer from the fridge then
went to the sliding glass door and let the dogs back
into the house. Jean didn't like Sheba and Sabi, so
had let them out into the yard to keep them from
under foot. James took a swig of his beer, lit a
cigarette and moved into the living room. The
kitchen and living room were the only finished rooms in the house. He had arranged it so that
the dining room would double as the living room
until the formal living room was finished. The
dogs followed him quietly and climbed onto the
couch with him when he sat down.
James closed his eyes briefly and a-flash-of Alex
came to his mind. She had evaporated from his
thoughts for a while, but returned when he calmed
down. He was still worried about what had
happened at the plant, but would be unable to talk
to her until morning.
"I hope she comes back," he said to the dogs,
"When I find out who it was, I'll have his ass in a
sling. "
James settled deeply into the couch, stretching out
and drinking more from his bottle. He dozed off finally, with the television off, still thinking about Alexandra Chambers.
Chapter 4
Alex moaned softly as the alarm went off. She
knew she had to get up if she wanted the noise to
stop. Alex had put the alarm clock on the dresser
across the room to force her to get up and shut it
off; if she had placed it on one of the night stands,
she would have just hit the snooze button and gone
back to sleep. Alex's night had been rough. She
had slept fitfully, but tossed and turned as her
memories created nightmares with endings of
James holding her in his arms. Angrily, she threw
the covers off and stalked to the
dresser. Slamming her hand down on the clock,
the irritating buzzer shut off and a flick of her wrist
turned on the radio. Alex chose a pair of gray
wool dress slacks from the closet and a black short-sleeved sweater from the drawer. She had
just picked up her brush to do her hair, when the
sight of faint bruises on her upper arms and her
right breast caught her eye.
"Damn," she said angrily stroking her long red
tresses. She switched her sweater to a mauve
longer sleeved one, brushed her teeth and got
dressed.
Alex was slamming out of her house, just as James
was entering the plant. He stalked past Francine's
desk and stopped in the center of the room. As
Jeff entered the office from the plant, he found
James stooping and fingering the carpet.
"Lose something," he asked walking around him. "Nope," James answered non-committedly and
continued into his office.
Jeff stared after him briefly, shrugged his shoulders
and went to his desk.
The floor employees were going full throttle when
Alex walked in through the receiving dock
door. She was avoiding Francine's office
purposefully and planned on going in through
James' office, if he was on the floor. She didn't
want to see him this morning, she wasn't prepared
for that. Her experience here last night was
nerve-wracking enough, but her dreams of James
put her on edge.
"Morning, Alex" came a voice from beside her. Alex stopped and turned to the voice but didn't
recognize the face. She tried to think of the name
that went with the face and glanced at the name
tag on his shirt.
"No peeking," he said mischievously, covering up
the name with his clipboard.
Alex looked over man in front of her. He towered
over her by a good foot or so and was pencil
thin. His brown eyes were kind, warm and old, but
his mustache and smile, gave way to the fact that
there was a little boy in there ready to play. He
held a pinch of Skoal in between his lower lip and
gum and wore a hat with the company logo
emblazoned upon it.
"You don't remember my name, I'm hurt," he said
in a childlike voice. "Not for lack of trying," she replied smiling.
"You should do that more often, Alex. You're
really quite beautiful when you smile, like a ray of
sunshine," he said before turning and walking into
Larry's office.
Alex stared after him briefly, got a coffee from the
machine in the break area and opened the door to
James' office carefully. The office was empty,
much to Alex's relief. As she passed the desk, she
noticed the absence of James' coffee mug and the
still burning cigarette in the ashtray. She was
about to snub it out, when she heard James talking
with Francine from the inner office.
"The work order book is on my desk Francine, just
grab it. I need to see Jeff. " Alex quickly abandoned the office and continued to
her desk. "Morning Francine," she said.
"Morning, Alex," said Francine passing her and
going into James' office.
Alex smiled to herself at the still cold reception
from Francine, as she laid her briefcase, purse and
keys on her desk. She was in the process of
hanging up her coat, when the man from the floor
came in.
"Have you remembered me yet?”
"I haven't had time, Sam," she said glancing at his
nametag before he could cover it up.
"You cheated," he said smiling. "I know," she said smiling back, taking a sip of
coffee and sitting down at her desk, "What can I do
you out of?"
"Do you remember the bill of materials you gave
me yesterday? It's wrong this morning.”
Alex shook her head at what was quickly becoming
a routine and reprinted him the document he
needed. She added that to her list of items she
wanted to talk to Allen about. Alex was about to
head into the plant when she remembered that she
forgot the paperwork she needed. Turning too
quickly, Alex caught her right arm on the filing
cabinet that stood inside the door behind her desk.
"Damn," she swore aloud as she bumped one of the
bruises from the night before. "You okay," asked Allen.
"Yeah, I just keep forgetting about this damn thing.
"Slow down, you don't have to accomplish
everything today," he said smiling, going back to his
calculator.
Alex grabbed the papers from her desk and headed
into the factory to see Doug Slade, the inventory
control clerk. As she approached him, she saw
several of the other men detach themselves from
his area and head back to their stations.
&
nbsp; "Must be my breath," she said jokingly as she
reached Doug.
"It's your hair," he said in reply, "They're afraid
they'll catch fire.” Alex unconsciously brushed a lock of it behind her
ear and smiled casually. She disliked her hair and
comments about it.
"Sorry," Doug said noticing her discomfort.
"It's okay, I learned long ago learned to live with it.
Alex plunged into the problem at hand, sat down
with him at his desk in the inventory area and
worked there for the next half hour. As Alex
worked, she noticed, quite often, that several of the
guys stopped and stared at her. She was still
nervous about the attack last night, but there were
so many people here now, that a sense of security
enveloped her like a warm blanket.
Doug had just finished entering the last part
number, when she heard a page for her to return to
the office. "Now what," she said with a smile, excusing herself she walked back to the
office. "Yeah, Francine," she said as she entered.
"Jeff wants you," she bit out.
Alex continued into Jeff’s office and found him with
James.
"Close the door Alex and have a seat," Jeff said with
concern in his voice and etched on his face.
Alex did as was requested and sat herself down in
the other armchair to James' left. "Alex, are you
all right," asked Jeff.
She looked hard at James, knowing what he
did. The color rose to her face as she blushed at
the scene that he must have painted for Jeff.
"I'm fine. I didn't want anything said," she said
pointedly at James. Jeff studied her for a few minutes. He saw the
dark circles under her eyes and the shyness in her
approach. She was slightly scared of being back
here, but refused to say anything. He had to
sympathize. She was alone, in a new town with
new people and nobody she really knew that she
could confide in. Jeff had not heard or discovered
a similar incident happening to Francine, and hoped
that this was an isolated incident. He hadn't
thought about how to find out who had attacked
her or how to reprimand him; he had, though,
decided that the office doors were to be locked if
one of the women stayed late to work. He knew
Francine would never stay late, but Alex would,
whenever she could and he wanted to prevent this
from happening again. "Alex, this has never happened before. Francine
has been here for two years and she has never had
any problems like this.”
"Jeff, I just want it forgotten. I already have and
I'm fine," she lied. Alex stood and getting no
argument from either of them, left the office.
Francine had noticed Alex's hasty departure from
Jeff’s office and heard the slamming of the
bathroom door. She smiled to herself, thinking
that maybe Jeff had smartened up and sent her on
her merry way; either way, Alex was not a happy
camper and that made Francine a very happy one.
Alex stayed in the bathroom for several minutes
before collecting herself and going back to her
desk. Just as she was sitting down, in the still uncomfortable chair, James was leaving Jeff’s office
and going into his own.
Instinctively, Alex got up from her desk and
followed James. He was sitting down at his desk,
lighting a cigarette, when she walked in and closed
the door.
"How dare you," she hissed, "You had no right to
tell Jeff anything.”
"Alex, he is your boss and this stuff needs to be
reported,” he said not believing his own
words. He had told Jeff so that he could conduct
an investigation without a lot of questions from
him. James leaned back and took a heavy drag on
the Marlboro while he studied the color that had
flared into Alex's cheeks from her anger. She was
furious with him and her attacker too. She had every reason to be. He had seen her run into the
filing cabinet and assumed that her arms were
bruised by the way she reacted to the bump.
"I don't care. It was my decision to tell him or not
and I thought no. I will not be coddled or treated
differently. Francine isn't, she is treated the same
as any man around here and I want the same
thing. Leave it go, James. I won't ask again," she
said finally and retreated from his office.
Alex returned to the inventory area to work with
Doug on the rest of the bills of materials and stayed
there until 3:30 working through lunch. She was
deliberately avoiding the office, Jeff and
James. She didn't know who they had told, if
anyone and didn't feel up to answering
questions. Alex and Doug had finished outlining the problems in inventory and now headed back
into the office to talk with Allen. Clutching her
tablet to her chest, Alex walked from inventory to
the break area to grab a Pepsi and a bag of chips.
"Hi, again," said Grayson.
Alex turned from the machines to find most of the
first shift machine shop behind her. Slightly
nervous about the numbers, but also realizing that
she was basically in public, Alex paused a few
moments to talk with the machine shop. Alex
noticed more employees gathering around and she
took the opportunity to study Grayson more closely.
It seemed that all of the machine shop employees
looked like heavy metal band rejects with their long
hair or unshaven faces; some of them had both and combined with their blood shot eyes, seemed
determined to live life now.
She studied his features more closely, his blue eyes,
behind wire rimmed glasses were alert, despite the
fact that he smelled like he had fallen into a beer
vat. His sandy blond hair hung loosely compiled
into a gum band and pulled through the opening in
the back of his hat, like Morgan's.
"Hi," she said finally, "What's up?"
Morgan stepped forward, took Alex by the hand
and led her to the picnic table. "We just wanted
to make nice, that's all," he said as she sat down at
the table.
"All of you," she asked, looking around at the
group. She saw that they were not all from the machine
shop, but in fact scattered all over the factory
itself. They were all shapes and sizes and each of
them seemed to contain the irrepressible desire to
smile mischievously. Alex found it contagious and
sat talking with them for several minutes before,
one by one, they began to disperse.
"There you are," said Allen approaching the table
and finding Alex engrossed in a conversation with
Morgan, Grayson and David Robbins, the machine
shop leader. "I'm sorry, am I late," she asked
glancing at her watch.
"No, it's just that I had a few minutes and thought
we'd start early, so you could get out of here on
time. " "No chance of that. Have you seen the filing that
needs done?"
"Yeah, I put it there," he replied laughing.
"I'm on my way in now," she remarked, grabbing
her notes and Pepsi.
Allen nodded his assent and walked to the machine
to retrieve a Mt. Dew and went back into the offices
through James' door.
"We'll we gotta run. I have a date with a cold
beer," stated Morgan standing up from the table.
Alex walked with them around the offices to the
front door, said good night and went into the office
through Francine's door to avoid James. Allen was standing at her desk when Alex came into
the office talking with James. She hesitated briefly
and strode to her desk cautiously.
"Allen tells me you're working late again tonight,"
said James as she put her stuff down and collapsed
into her chair.
"Yeah, so?"
"So?"
"James, don't say anything. It's not your place,"
Alex said icily and turned to Allen, "Shall we get
started?
Allen took in the exchange quietly, but felt the
tension. There was something here that he was
missing. James and Jeff had told Allen about the
attack. They had also told Francine, to keep her aware of her surroundings and to leave the lights on
in the front office.
James left the center office as Alex and Allen dug
into the pile she had accumulated in the past
month. Allen excused himself after an hour, to
pick up his boys from their day care. He had been
divorced once, obtained custody of his two sons
and was now making plans to marry again. Allen
and Samantha, his new fiancée, were taking the
boys to be fitted for their miniature tuxes tonight.
"I want to see a picture of those two in their suits,
Allen. They'll be so adorable," said Alex.
"You will. I'll be taking a million pictures between
now and the day they go to college," he smiled,
grabbed his briefcase and left. Alex had heard him pop the lock on the door from
the plant into the offices. She shook her head at
the new precautions that were being taken because
of her and felt slightly guilty. "Maybe Tad was
right. I should have stayed in Washington," she
said to herself, before moving to the table behind
her desk to start her filing.
"Alex, I'm leaving," hollered Jeff from his office.
Alex shook her head and hollered back, "It's a good
thing we have an intercom system.”
"I know," Jeff said smiling from behind her.
"Have a good night. "