Kill the Competition

by Stephanie Bond

  “One of the tickets will be canceled when you get your Georgia driver’s license,” Libby soothed.

  “And Gustav’s cousin has an auto body shop,” Carole said. “He’ll give you a discount on your car repairs.”

  In the rearview mirror, Belinda saw Libby elbow Rosemary.

  Rosemary sighed. “And no one is going to die if you miss one lousy meeting.”

  Belinda smiled at their attempt to cheer her up, but her appreciation was cut short by the sight of the officer striding back, wiping his hands on his handkerchief. She stuffed everything back into her bag, opened the door, and stepped outside.

  “All done,” he shouted. Black grease streaked his temple.

  “Thanks,” she said, but her voice was lost in the wake of a bellowing eighteen-wheeler flying by. The wind nearly knocked her out of her muddy shoes.

  The officer reached out to steady her. “Are you sure you’re okay? You don’t look well.”

  Nice. “I’m fine.”

  He cleared his throat. “Your headlight is broken, and you need to have the trunk latch looked at. And that spare tire isn’t meant for heavy-duty wear.”

  She nodded, then signaled the women. They climbed out of the cruiser and expressed their appreciation to the officer as they filed by.

  “Yes, thank you,” Belinda said, and extended her hand. “Again, I’m sorry to have made you late, too.”

  He hesitated, then gave her hand one quick pump. “You’d better get on the road.”

  “Yes.” She turned and walked toward her car.

  “Ma’am?”

  She turned back, then touched her neck where it twinged.

  “This is Coca-Cola territory,” he shouted.

  “Excuse me?”

  He nodded toward her car. “The Diet Pepsi will have to go. It’s all Coke around here.”

  She brushed her hair out of her eyes and squinted into the morning sun. “I’ve never acquired a taste for Coke.”

  He gave her the first semblance of a smile. “You will.”

  It was a small gesture, an offhand remark from a virtual stranger. But spoken with the certainty that she’d be staying long enough to absorb the local culture. He couldn’t have known how much it meant to her to know that despite being obviously ill-suited for this dynamic city, she was still welcome to try to fit in.

  She climbed behind the wheel, ridiculously cheered. The officer turned on his lights and edged out into the traffic, waiting until she nosed in behind him before pulling ahead. A few seconds later, his siren sounded, and traffic parted like the Red Sea to allow him by. He weaved through the maze of taillights and soon disappeared from her vision.

  “You gotta love a man with a siren,” Carole said.

  Libby hummed her agreement.

  Belinda mulled over his casual words, then was drawn back into the honking, irritated soup around her. While the officer had leapfrogged through the jam-packed lanes, she and the cars around her had progressed all of twenty feet. The two lanes of traffic merging onto I-85 southbound were at a complete standstill. She turned up the radio volume, hoping for a spot of good news. A few commercials later, her favorite traffic reporter came on.

  “Well, folks, it’s officially rush hour! I-85 southbound is a parkin’ lot all the way down to the I-75 connector. We’re talkin’ fifty minutes, at least, to make your way through that mess. I hope the driver who rammed the police car got a note for his or her boss, because they’re gonna be L-A-T-E.”

  Belinda squeezed her eyes shut. The day had to get better…didn’t it?

  Chapter 4

  Despite their protests, Belinda stopped to let the women disembark before looking for a parking place. “I’m sorry I made everyone so late.”

  Libby dismissed her concern with a wave. “We could be late every morning for a month and Archer Freaking Furniture would still owe us hours.”

  “Those chumps in the mailroom probably haven’t even missed me,” Carole said.

  Rosemary flashed a sympathetic look in the rearview mirror. “If I see Margo, I’ll try to run interference for you.”

  “Thanks,” Belinda murmured, experiencing a surge of warmth toward the aloof older woman. She wasn’t used to accepting help from others—it never occurred to her to ask. In the aftermath of their non-wedding, Vince had remarked that she was “arrogantly independent,” that she made people, including him, feel unnecessary. She had dismissed his words as those of a man looking for a way to blame her for his change of heart. But was a woman in need simply more attractive to others?

  The last door slammed, and her new comrades moved toward the elevators, Libby and Carole chatting, Rosemary lagging behind. Belinda pressed the gas pedal, her heart suddenly racing at the prospect of facing her unpredictable boss. The numbers from the spreadsheets she’d built ran through her head—if she was late, at least she could be prepared. She still didn’t know, though, what she could say about Payton Manufacturing that would satisfy Margo and her own conscience.

  By the time she found a parking place at the tip-top of the garage, which had been erected for all the employees located in the twenty-story Stratford Plaza building on Peachtree Street, her bladder nagged and her watch read 9:25. She hefted her briefcase and purse, then scrambled to the bay of elevators and stabbed all five buttons. The Out of Service sign on the sixth one gave her pause—and the willies. Poor Jeanie Lawford.

  Belinda shivered. If some horrible accident were to befall her, what would her epitaph read? Here lies Belinda Hennessey. She was lacking.

  Thankfully, her disheartening train of thought was derailed by the arrival of an elevator. After a glance to ensure the floor of the car was intact, she rushed forward, only to collide with a tall blond man exiting with equal momentum. She ricocheted off his leather bomber jacket but, with improvised acrobatics, managed to stay on her feet.

  The man reached forward to clasp her arm in an iron grip. She shrank back, overcome by the sensation of the stranger invading her personal space in such an isolated spot. At the sight of his large hand clamped around her forearm, panic blipped in her chest.

  “Ma’am?” He relaxed his hold on her, and his voice sounded as if he were speaking to a child. “I said are you all right?”

  She gave herself a mental shake at her paranoia, uncharacteristically close to tears at the sum of everything that had happened this morning. “I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure?” He smiled, producing one deep dimple and a flicker of gold in his green, green eyes. A strange sense of déjà vu hit her, yet she’d bet her life that she’d never met the man.

  “Yes, I’m fine.”

  “Okay.” He flashed another smile. “Have a great day.”

  She’d probably passed him in the halls of the building, she concluded as she watched him walk away. The sound of the elevator door closing brought her back to the matter at hand—she was so late. The elevator car went on its merry way before the call button could retrieve it. She inhaled, fighting for control, then eyed the door to the stairs. She could probably jog down to the eighth floor just as quickly as taking the elevator, and heaven knew she could use the exercise.

  Besides, there was less chance of stairs falling out from under a person, plunging that person to her death before she had time to prove to the world and to herself that she had made the right choice in leaving behind everything she knew and starting over.

  She arrived at the eighth floor winded, and she race-walked through the lobby of Archer Furniture, nodding to a secretary who gave her a sympathetic stare. By the time she wound through the maze of cubicles to the boardroom, her watch read 9:37.

  Belinda stood in front of the closed double doors and breathed deeply to calm her pounding heart. She smoothed her hair, hoping she looked more put together than she felt—doubtful, considering the fact that she’d managed to acquire a three-inch-wide run in her panty hose from ankle to knee and her best pumps were covered with mud and flecks of gravel. Turning the knob with an unsteady hand, she
pushed open the doors.

  Empty.

  Empty black swivel chairs around the table flanked by empty Payton Manufacturing couches sent over to foster the merger. Her stomach bottomed out.

  A noise caught her attention. Clancy Edmunds, Archer’s receptionist-slash-host-slash-hall monitor, was clearing paper cups and crumpled napkins. Belinda hadn’t been able to get a read on the meticulous, stocky man who had a penchant for bright-colored clothing, but he seemed nice enough. He glanced up and smiled, revealing square, wide-spaced teeth. “Hi, Belinda.”

  “Good morning, Clancy. Did the meeting end?”

  “About twenty minutes ago.” Then he winced apologetically. “Margo was a tad miffed you weren’t here.”

  She closed her eyes briefly. “I was in an accident on I-285.”

  “Everyone okay?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, traffic happens. Margo will have to understand that not everyone flies to work on their broomstick.”

  Another fan. “Do you know where I can find her?”

  “I saw her walk Mr. Archer to the lobby. Actually, she was trotting after him. Then she said, um…that she was looking for you.”

  Great.

  “Want a Krispy Kreme?” he asked, holding up a jelly-filled doughnut. “I picked them off the conveyer belt myself less than an hour ago.”

  Doughnuts were apparently a Southern panacea. She smiled at his attempt to cheer her, but shook her head. “I might as well face the firing squad.”

  “Literally—Margo lives to fire people, you know.”

  She swallowed. “Oh?”

  He leaned forward. “But you’re probably okay because”—he craned to look over her shoulder and seemed satisfied they were alone—“the last guy she fired, Jim Newberry, filed a big, whopping lawsuit against the company.”

  She wasn’t sure how to respond, so she didn’t.

  At her silence, Clancy looked nervous. “Of course, that’s not public knowledge, and I’m only telling you because it seems relevant and I know you won’t repeat it.”

  “Of course.” Belinda pointed with her thumb. “I’d better get going.” She backed out of the meeting room, pivoted, and practically ran to Margo’s spacious corner office.

  Empty.

  Margo’s executive assistant, Brita, a slender giant, glanced up from her computer keyboard, where she sat behind a half-wall. “She’s looking for you.”

  “Um…thank you.” With dread building in her chest and pressure building in her bladder, Belinda put one foot in front of the other and followed the path of teal indoor-outdoor carpet toward the five-feet-high, eight-feet-square cubicle where she spent the majority of her time these days. Along the way, she passed two dozen or so replica cubicles alive with music and chatter transcending the shared walls insulated with gray woven fabric that Downey would love to sharpen her claws on.

  The modular mini-offices were situated in clusters of four, and the foursomes populated the entire floor—only Juneau Archer and Margo merited true offices with real furniture. A third office sat empty. Jeanie Lawford’s? Jim Newberry’s? For everyone else, the pecking order seemed to be determined by one’s chairs, with top distinction going to those whose main chair and visitor chair matched and were upholstered in a desirable color (cobalt blue), all the way down to those whose two chairs didn’t match and were upholstered in undesirable colors (pea green and/or burnt orange).

  When Belinda rounded the corner, she passed Libby’s cube. Her carpooling mate made a face and a chopping motion with her hands. Belinda realized what her friend was trying to warn her of when she walked into her own cubicle to find Margo perched in the pea green visitor’s chair dressed in designer black, slim leg crossed over knee, pointy-toed shoe swinging. The woman’s foot stopped, and so did Belinda’s pulse.

  “Where have you been?”

  She had considered herself lucky that the opening to her cubicle faced a window—okay, a beam and a slice of window—and now she was especially grateful that no one sat opposite her to ogle this encounter. Still, all surrounding chatter stopped, and radio volumes were cut. Meanwhile, a hot flush consumed Belinda, and the smooth, professional apology she had memorized evaporated on her tongue. “I…”

  “Well?” Margo shot up, appearing taller than her four-foot-ten-inch stature. Her body was tanning-salon orange and compactly muscled. Her tight black French twist and emerald green eyes (a la tinted contact lenses, Belinda suspected) made her seem even more severe—and unstable. “Tell me—what was more important than this morning’s meeting? Did you oversleep? Have a fight with your boyfriend?”

  Belinda was struck dumb at the woman’s scathing tone. No one had ever talked to her like that. People in Ohio were passive (although Cleveland had a reputation).

  The woman crossed her arms. “Because you weren’t here with the numbers, I had to postpone the meeting with the board of directors. And Mr. Archer wasn’t too happy about coming in to the office for nothing.”

  The thought crossed Belinda’s mind that if the man was CEO, surely he could find something at the office that needed his attention, but she decided against voicing that observation, especially since everyone in the department was listening. “I’m sorry I’m late. I was in a car accident.”

  “Was anyone injured?”

  “No. But my car—”

  “You could have called.”

  “I didn’t have access to a cell phone…that worked.”

  “If you’re going to live OTP, you’re going to have to be more responsible.”

  Belinda sorted through the stored acronyms in her memory bank and came up empty. “OTP?”

  The woman’s mouth tightened. “Outside. The. Perimeter.”

  Translation: Uncool people who live in the boonies and schlep into the city daily to work for I TP people. Belinda’s body sang with humiliation. “Again, I apologize—”

  “I was planning to leave for Hawaii this evening.”

  “Yes, I remem—”

  “Was being the operative word.” Margo’s little foot tapped. “Mr. Archer isn’t available the rest of the day, so it looks like I’ll have to postpone my vacation to get this meeting taken care of.”

  Low groans sounded around them.

  “So. If I can reschedule the meeting for tomorrow morning, do you think you can manage to get here on time?”

  The quiet around them intensified. Belinda’s neck tickled with the promise of pain. Whiplash? Aneurysm? She bit down on the inside of her cheek. “Yes.”

  Margo pursed her mouth, a little knot of flesh covered with black cherry lipstick. “Good.” She turned to go. “But this had better not happen again.”

  And she sniffed.

  Later, when the girls would ask Belinda what exactly had made her snap, she would say it was that sniff. Dry. Disdainful. Deliberate.

  In the fraction of the split second it took for Belinda’s aching brain to process the sound and for her overworked sensibilities to perceive its meaning, she experienced her first true epiphany in thirty-one years:

  All her life she had followed the rules governing good behavior, and if she fell down an elevator shaft today, what did she have to show for her clean living? She was a jilted, broke, glorified calculator living in an alien city, driving a nightmare commute to a job for which she was overqualified, working for a short, unpleasant woman.

  A cool sensation enveloped her, akin to the thrilling numbness of standing next to the interstate with massive vehicles speeding by. A reckless person would step into the path of disaster for the sheer exhilaration of the rush before the splat. And right now, she felt reckless.

  Belinda wet her lips and tasted Aqua Net. “If you’re going to belittle me in front of my coworkers,” she said to Margo’s retreating back, “I’ll need a raise.”

  Margo stopped. Someone on the other side of the cubicle gasped—probably Libby. The air itself seemed to flee, leaving an ear-clogging vacuum in its wake. In slow motion, the diminutive woman turned and na
rrowed her eyes. “Excuse me?”

  Belinda dropped her briefcase on the tidy work surface of her cubicle and offered her boss the bland smile of a person whose morning—and life—had nowhere to go but up. “I said you don’t pay me enough to patronize me, Margo.”

  In her peripheral vision, Belinda saw the tops of heads pop up over cubicle walls all over the floor. Margo’s eyes went from slits to protruding organs. She took two slow steps back to the cubicle opening and swept her blazing gaze over Belinda. Belinda identified her need to exhale, but her lungs wouldn’t budge.

  “Unless you apologize for that remark,” Margo said through clenched teeth, “I can arrange for you to be paid nothing.”

  Fired? Belinda swallowed as she mulled whether her body could back up her newly liberated mouth. Breaking rules meant facing consequences. Could she draw unemployment if she was fired? She had enough Slim-Fast to last a week or so. Her childhood coin collection would yield about three hundred bucks—just enough to rent a U-Haul and hightail it back to Cincinnati. Downey would be overjoyed to return to the cooler climate and to the fish-scented air.

  “I’m waiting,” Margo said, foot still tapping.

  The woman’s shoes probably cost as much as a decent couch, Belinda thought wildly, light-headed now from lack of oxygen and a swimming bladder. “I…”

  “Yes?”

  Hoping the woman couldn’t see she was shaking in her muddy Aerosoles ($29.95, on clearance), Belinda exhaled. “I…I have apologized enough.” She punctuated the statement with a tight smile that belied her state of mind. “And now…I’m going to the ladies’ room.”

  Before exiting the cubicle, her feet driven by a rush of adrenaline, Belinda caught a glimpse of Margo’s shocked expression. She felt the eyes of her coworkers on her as she passed their cubes. Her skin tingled with the absurd expectation that Margo would chase her down and jump on her back, but when she closed the lounge door behind her, she was alone. Alone with her sudden, ballooning remorse.