Fringe Benefits

by Christine Pope

  “Fine. So what’s your advice, Ann Landers?”

  “You go in tomorrow and you talk this thing out. But you have to stay calm. He’s got to feel something for you, or he wouldn’t have bolted. So you’ve already won half the battle. Whatever mental block he’s got, you knock it down.”

  Yeah, easy for her to say. But somehow Leslie’s no-nonsense words helped me to calm down a little. Okay, so Pieter had been hiding emotions he didn’t want to acknowledge. That was good, though—it meant I wasn’t just another body to him. Otherwise, I had a feeling I would have been invited up to see his etchings quite a while ago. All I had to do was take that foundation and try to build on it.

  Leslie made it all sound so rational, so easy. I wanted to believe her.

  I just didn’t know if I could.

  The butterflies in my stomach I might have experienced in the past when I had to sing in public had nothing on the ones fluttering in my gut when I pulled up to Pyramid Imports the next morning. I felt like I had Mothra flying around in there.

  Pieter’s Maserati gleamed dark blue in its usual parking space. I didn’t know if that was a good or bad sign. Had he come in a little early because he’d made his peace with what had happened between us the day before? Or did he simply think he’d be operating from a position of power if he got in to work first?

  Only one way to find out.

  I got out of the car and stood there for a moment, taking in deep breaths of cool air. A fog had come in off the ocean the night before, and the air was chilly and damp. I thought I could smell sea salt on the air. The sun had begun to break through, but the world around me still looked ghostly and pale, unreal somehow.

  If only I could pretend this was all a dream.

  Squaring my shoulders, I let myself in with the key, just as I had for the past few weeks. I went to my desk and secured my purse, just as I always did. And I turned on the Mac, the same way I’d done ever since I started at Pyramid Imports. The routine felt good. When I was following a routine, I didn’t have to think very much.

  There were no letters this morning, however. That threw me off a bit; I was used to having something to do in the morning, even if it was a task that would only keep me occupied for an hour or so. Fine. I’d just go to my favorite Photoshop tutorial website, the one that had shown me how to create interesting shadows and clouds and three-dimensional effects. If Pieter decided to man up eventually and give me something to do, great. If he wanted to avoid me all day, well, okay, that wasn’t so great, but I’d handle it somehow. The important thing was to be calm. Be cool. Don’t cause a scene.

  I’d only just clicked to the tutorial website when the intercom buzzed. “Katherine, a moment of your time.”

  So that was how he wanted to play this.

  I managed to get up from my desk and negotiate the few yards into Pieter’s office, although I felt as if I was walking to my own hanging. He sat behind his desk, impeccable as ever in a charcoal suit and ice-blue tie. A folder lay on the desktop in front of him.

  I know he hadn’t made his money from playing poker, but I thought he probably could have done damn well at it. He certainly had the expressionless face down pat. I couldn’t see any flicker of feeling in his eyes, or in the set of his mouth and jaw.

  A cold finger of unease moved down my spine. If he had wanted to talk about what happened the day before, what had passed between us, surely he’d be looking at me with just a little more warmth?

  I hesitated in the doorway. Remember. Calm. Cool. “Yes, Pieter?”

  His eyes wouldn’t precisely meet mine. I had the feeling he had focused somewhere around my chin. “I fear I no longer require your services.”

  An agonizing second crawled by, then another. I remained where I was, certain I hadn’t heard him correctly. There had to be some mistake.

  Had Pieter just fired me?

  “I—I don’t understand,” I stammered, hating the weakness in my voice.

  “The current situation, I am afraid, is not working out. In this folder here you will find a severance check, as well as the paperwork for your health insurance and the car and its insurance.” He pushed the folder toward me, still not looking at me directly.

  Maybe this was a dream. Maybe this was just a hideous nightmare born of the stress of the day before. If I thought of it that way, I had the strength to move forward, to pick up the folder from his desk.

  The cardstock cover felt rough and brittle against my hands. I opened it. Inside was a cashier’s check for fifty thousand dollars, a note from Blue Cross showing that my premiums had been paid for the remainder of the year, a pink carbon that I shakily realized was the deed to the Mercedes, paperwork for the auto insurance. Pieter was buying me off, and obviously he was willing to pay a very high price to do so.

  “I can’t take this,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “I haven’t earned it. This is six months’ pay, and the car—Pieter, I’ve only worked here a month.” A month in which I’d managed to fall in love with him, a month in which I’d hoped he might somehow feel the same way about me. A month where I’d thought things might have finally started to go right.

  I should have known better.

  “If I say you’ve earned it, you have.” Then his expression did shift, but not in the way I had hoped. His jaw hardened, and the thick fair lashes covered half his eyes as he glanced away from me. “Just take it and go.”

  What would he do, I wondered, if I broke down in front of him? Begged, wept for him to keep me? Judging by the way he looked at the moment, his reaction would probably be anything but pleasant.

  Repeat Leslie’s mantra. Cool. Calm. There was no point in arguing right now. All right, he didn’t want me. But I was going to make damn sure he at least respected me.

  Hardening my voice, I said, “If that’s how you want it.” I shut the folder and tucked it under my arm. “Just give me a few minutes to clear out my desk, and I’m gone.”

  For an instant I thought I saw something change in his face. Maybe there was the slightest softening of the hard lines of his mouth. Or maybe I was just trying to see something that wasn’t really there. At any rate, he nodded and turned back to his computer without replying.

  There was nothing else to say. I went to my desk and got out my purse, then removed the few personal items I had from my desk drawer: a box of mints, a travel-size package of tissues, my emergency stash of tampons. Which reminded me that I was due for my monthly visitor right about now. Great. It seemed ironic that I should have to maintain my cool at a time when I was worst suited to it.

  Somehow I did stay calm, though. I shut down the Mac, glad that I’d never put any real personal files on it. Oh, I’d be losing all of my Photoshop experiments, but they’d just been products of idleness, not something I cared all that much about. The one thing I cared about in this office was sitting down the hall, and I kind of doubted he was going to go home with me.

  The fog still hadn’t entirely lifted as I drove home. That was good, I supposed—it helped bolster that feeling of unreality, that all this had happened to someone else, to another girl named Katherine.

  It felt strange to be home in the middle of the day. The apartment complex was quiet and still. Most of the people who lived here were younger singles like me, and they were pretty much all at work.

  I opened the door and let myself in, then went over to the dining room table and set down the folder Pieter had given me. Taken by a sudden impulse, I opened it and stood there for a long moment, staring down at the cashier’s check and the pink slip for the Mercedes. He’d certainly done a good job of buying me off. A car free and clear. Full insurance. Enough money that I wouldn’t have to work for a whole year if I didn’t want to.

  Enough money to go home, I thought then. Was this a sign that I should just walk away, go back to where people acted more or less the way you expected them to, where I’d never have to worry about running into Pieter Van Rijn ever again?

  Tha
t was the coward’s way out, though. Despite everything, I realized I didn’t want to go back to Billings. And was I really going to give up that easily? All right, so Pieter had made it pretty clear he wanted me out of his life. But I sure as hell didn’t want him out of mine.

  I could feel the tears building, a slow, hard knot of misery somewhere in my midsection. Breathe, I told myself. It ain’t over ’til it’s over, as Uncle Bret used to say.

  But how did you really know it was over?

  For one thing, Pieter thought he’d made a clean break with me, but there was still the little matter of my Toyota, tucked away in a corner of the warehouse. I’d have to go back to retrieve it at some point. Not right now, of course not. Barging in on Pieter only an hour after he’d sacked me wouldn’t earn me any points in the respect department. But some time in the near future I’d have to take care of it.

  To distract myself, I booted up my computer. I figured I could check my mail, start looking at some job sites, even though I certainly didn’t need another position right away. Just something to get me back in the groove.

  Alex had sent me another email. Ostensibly to see if my knee was getting better, but I got the feeling that the earthquake had sort of shaken up some dormant big-brother protectiveness. That was all right. I could do with feeling as if another person actually cared how I was doing.

  I hit the reply button, then sat there with the blank email staring at me. What the hell was I supposed to say? Oh, my knee is doing much better, but hey, just thought I’d let you know I kissed my boss and he fired me the next day. Crazy old world, ain’t it?

  That probably wouldn’t go over real well. Just the fact that I’d lost my job would be bad enough, but a confession of intimacy with the boss? Not so great. Eventually the news of my change in circumstances would get around the family, but I didn’t want to do it in an email. I knew if I told Alex, at some point it would get back to my mother, and then I’d get a load of guilt about why I hadn’t told her first. Like I wasn’t already feeling crappy enough about life.

  I thought of Alex, busy with the start of a new semester. He’d been able to surround himself with people who cared about the same things he did, immerse himself in a world I didn’t quite understand but at the moment sounded very appealing.

  Maybe Pieter had done me a favor. Maybe I could take the money he’d given me and use it as a way to better myself. I’d thought about going to graduate school, but the logistics had seemed so difficult that I’d decided it wasn’t really worth the effort, especially with my parents pointing out that it would be almost impossible for me to get into an art history program since my undergraduate degree was in English. And what on earth would I do with a masters in art history anyway? They managed to wear me down to the point that I said the hell with it and took the first admin position I could find after I graduated. I’d tried to tell myself that it was time to get out into the real world.

  Now the world was feeling a little too real to me. I wanted nothing more than to escape it for a while.

  Alex had a fairly big house in Berkeley. I’d never been there, but of course I’d seen pictures. I still wasn’t sure exactly how he’d afforded it, prices in the Bay Area being what they were. However, I did know that it had several extra bedrooms. He’d hardly notice I was there.

  Feeling suddenly resolute, I began to type.

  Hey, Alex. Would you mind a houseguest for a few days…?

  Seventeen

  To say Leslie was dubious would be an understatement. She looked from the bags on my bed to me and back again. Finally she crossed her arms and said, “Running away isn’t going to fix anything, you know.”

  “I’m not running away.” All right, maybe I was. But putting yourself in new surroundings so you could take the time to get your head screwed on straight was a time-honored tradition, wasn’t it? Not to mention a hell of a lot less self-destructive than going on a bender. I wasn’t sure I could articulate what I was feeling to Leslie, so instead I just picked up another T-shirt, folded it, and stuffed it in a suitcase.

  “Mm-hmm.” She shook her head. “I don’t think you should just take off without even putting up a fight.”

  “What exactly am I supposed to fight?” I asked. In the time since I’d gotten Alex’s half-hearted but accepting reply to my request that I stay with him a few days, I’d managed to regain a shaky sort of equilibrium. I really didn’t want Leslie upsetting it now. “He fired me, Leslie. Gave me no reason to ever see him again. So either you totally misread the situation, or in the end whatever feelings he might have had weren’t strong enough for him to keep me around.”

  “Yeah, I just don’t get that.” She frowned and uncrossed her arms. “If that’s true, then you’re probably better off anyway. You don’t need a guy with those kinds of issues.”

  She was probably right, but that didn’t make me feel any better. So maybe Pieter was emotionally stunted, damaged goods because of some heartbreak in his past. Just because one woman had treated him terribly didn’t mean we were all like that. By getting rid of me, though, Pieter had closed off any chance for me to prove myself, and that made me angriest of all. Maybe that was a good thing; if I were severely pissed off at him, I was less likely to collapse into a blubbering ball of uselessness.

  Clearing out for a few days to get some distance sounded like a good plan to me. Never mind that Alex didn’t seem overly thrilled about having me descend on him. He hadn’t said no, and that was the important thing.

  “It’s not like I’m permanently relocating,” I said, even though I didn’t know whether that was the complete truth or not. If I liked Berkeley enough, maybe I’d consider an extended stay. Maybe even graduate school, if they would accept me. Or maybe I could take enough extra art history classes to make them seriously consider me as an MFA candidate farther down the road. At least I already had some experience with starting over in a new town.

  Honestly, I felt as if I were hovering in some sort of strange limbo. I hadn’t cashed the enormous check Pieter had given me—that would have seemed too final. Instead, I had put it and the pink slip for the Mercedes in a safety deposit box I opened at my bank. That way I knew the money was secure, but I also thought it might send a clear signal to him if he attempted to discover whether I’d ever deposited the money.

  I picked up my cosmetic case and tossed it into the oversized tote I used for a second piece of luggage to complement the hard-shell suitcase my mother had bequeathed me. That was the last of it. All that remained was to haul the bags down to my car and get the hell outta Dodge.

  “I’m really sorry,” Leslie said. Her voice was probably gentler than I had ever heard it. Was it just me, or did her brown eyes suddenly look a little blurry? “This just sucks. I thought—I guess I hoped he might be different. I guess all guys are just assholes.”

  “Even your brothers?” I asked lightly, although her show of emotion had made my own throat feel a little tight.

  “Especially my brothers.”

  “Well, I think mine is pretty decent.” I added, “Although that might just be because he’s gay.”

  She managed a small chuckle. “For real?”

  “No, just speculation.”

  “Well, he did move to the Bay Area.”

  I didn’t know if she’d intended her comment to be humorous or not, but I laughed. Talk about playing into your clichés.

  “Anyway,” she went on. “I guess you need to get going if you want to make it up there before dark.”

  She’d taken her lunch hour to come home and see me off. I appreciated the gesture, even though it suddenly felt harder to leave than I’d thought it would be. Did some part of me know this might be goodbye, that I might not come back to Los Angeles except to pack up the meager contents of my apartment so I could ship them northward?

  I didn’t want to think about that yet. Instead, I reached over and gave Leslie a brief, fierce hug that probably surprised the both of us.

  “Don’t,” she said,
and pushed herself away. “Because you’re going to turn me into a big old mess, and I have to get back to work after this.”

  I didn’t bother to argue. She coped by not letting things get too close. It wasn’t my way, but I sure as hell wouldn’t criticize her for it. After all, look where falling for Pieter Van Rijn had gotten me.

  Nowhere.

  Instead I asked, “Can you get the door for me?” and picked up my luggage.

  The look of relief on her face might have been funny under different circumstances. She hurried ahead and opened the front door.

  I paused briefly to gather up my purse from the dining room table. There wasn’t really anything else I needed to do; it wasn’t as if I had a newspaper subscription to cancel. I didn’t get much mail. Leslie had already promised to keep an eye on the apartment for me. Why, then, did it feel as if I were dragging my feet through quicksand to cross the living room and go out the front door?

  Somehow I made it. Leslie closed the door behind me, and I locked the deadbolt. She had a spare key if some sort of emergency came up, although I couldn’t think what she’d need it for, barring earthquakes and other acts of God. Even then, there wasn’t anything in the apartment that couldn’t be replaced. Clothes? No big deal. I didn’t have any family heirlooms, except my grandmother’s lavaliere. I’d already packed that away in my suitcase, although I somehow doubted I’d have much occasion to wear it while I was visiting my brother. I just didn’t want to leave it behind.

  “You should probably get back to work,” I said. “It’s almost one.”

  “Yeah, well, let ’em dock me.” Suddenly she looked very serious. “Drive safe.”

  “I will.”

  “That’s not really what I meant.”

  I grinned. “I know.”

  A half-smile. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  Then she turned and hurried down the steps, her flip-flops slapping on the pressed-concrete stairway. She probably was going to be a little late getting back to work, but I didn’t think that was the real reason for her haste. Obviously Leslie Silverman had issues with outward shows of emotion.