A Trashy Affair (9 page)

Jethro Robin hadn’t yet rolled his cart to the curb on its sturdy, inset, smooth-rolling wheels. Tall, dark, and alluring, it sat in the carport beckoning to Jane. Since no one appeared to be home, she drove up beside the perfect container and began to unload. The very bottom of the Robin’s bin held some aluminum cans and a few glass jars resting on a week’s worth of the
Chapelle Clarion
newspaper. A few flattened cardboard boxes graced its sides.

Jane added several pounds of newspapers, a medley of jars, cans, and plastic containers, all topped with a gleaming mound of aluminum that included Merlin’s crushed disks. She almost kept one for sentimental reasons, but believed there might be more in her future. The lid would not close. Using both her hands, she mashed the contents down as far as she could. Finally, the cover shut most of the way, leaving only a small slit showing a metallic grin like braces on a teenager. Totally satisfied, she returned home from her trashy rendezvous.

No lights shone in Merlin’s townhouse, and he did not sit on his front stoop this evening. Jane found she missed him just a little. She erred by mentioning that he did not seem to be around when she ate lunch in the break room the following day with May and several of her other coworkers.

May immediately pounced. “I knew y’all were more than friends and neighbors.”

“No, no. He is working this week. Only I expected him to be home in the evenings.”

“Most likely he’s staying out on the rigs and ferrying crews around,” Angela Savoy said. Nineteen, nubile, and a newlywed, she had long, dark lashes to die for over amber eyes and a stream of deep brown hair flowing to the middle of her back. She took a diet milkshake from her calico lunch bag and shook it vigorously.

“I can drink it better when it’s foamy and tastes more like a real shake. I lived on this before my wedding to be sure I could fit in my gown. Now I only drink it a few times a week. I can’t let myself go now I’m a married woman. May, this bag your sister-in-law made keeps it nice and cold. My Chad is offshore this week, too. He won’t even be home for Thanksgiving. I guess I’ll eat with my parents again.”

“Merlin said he’d be in for the holiday.” Quickly, Jane stuffed a corner of her tuna on whole wheat into her mouth before she revealed even more to the lunchroom gossips.

“My Chad says there are rigs he won’t sleep on because the men are G-A-Y and get after you.”

Jane doubted any man would try to creep into bed with Merlin or goose him in the shower. Remembering the threat made to Waldo Robin, she believed they would know enough to leave him alone.

Angela glanced over Jane’s shoulder and lowered her voice. “Speaking of G-A-Y, here comes Nadia.”

Not reacting to the entrance, Jane continued eating her half sandwich until Nadia’s large hands dumped a floral centerpiece directly in front of her and smashed the rest of her lunch. A large white mum augmented to resemble a turkey with goggle eyes nested amid smaller yellow and bronze flowers and artificial autumn leaves. A plastic insert declared, “Happy Thanksgiving” in gold lettering. Another pick held a small, white envelope.

“These are for you, Marshall. I had to sign for them since May is in here. The reception desk should never go unattended,” Nadia declared in gruff voice.

“I’m entitled to my lunch hour,” May protested.

“Then get one of these women to watch the desk for you. Stagger your lunch hours for Christ’s sake. If a citizen is showing their appreciation for parish services, the flowers must remain in the lounge for all to enjoy. Got that, Marshall? No plants or bouquets on the desks. That is unprofessional.”

“I believe these are personal flowers, Nadia, but I will leave them here until I go home.”

“See that you do.” With her stub of a blond ponytail bobbing aggressively, the president’s assistant stomped out of the room.

Angela leaned close to the other two women. “I asked her once if she was a real blonde because I sort of like that shade she’s got. I think Chad might go for me as a blonde, that’s all I meant. You know what she said to me? Get down on your knees under my desk and I’ll show you. I swear she did!”

Jane spoke up. “That’s sexual harassment. You should report it to Human Resources.”

“Sure, and get fired. The HR guy is just as afraid of Nadia as the rest of us.”

“I’m not afraid of her.”

“Then you are the only one.”

“The card,” May prompted. “Read the card.”

Jane removed it from the holder and read the message to herself. “Looking forward to free-range turkey, whatever that is. Merlin.” He made her smile in a way that caught May’s eye.

“From your honey?” she asked.

“Just a friend.” Jane removed the turkey centerpiece from her smashed lunch bag and stuck the card into its front pocket intended to hold change for a soft drink. Inside the sack, the other half of the smashed tuna sandwich oozed from its wrappings, but the organic baby carrots were still fine. She could use the tuna filling as a dip. Nadia would not spoil her moment.

“Sure, just a friend,” May murmured. “Merlin Tauzin didn’t dance with you like a friend. He held you like this.” May wrapped her thin, loose-skinned, age-spotted arms around her chest and massaged her back with her fingers. “That’s not how he danced with Spring.”

“No, but he held that tramp, Wanda, like this.” Jane plastered her own hands tight to her breasts. She made her voice low and seductive. “Oh, Merlin, why don’t you dry hump me right on this dance floor? Here’s my phone number. Let me stuff it in your crotch.”

The entire assemblage of women occupying the room burst into laughter and sure enough attracted Nadia back into their midst from wherever she lurked listening in the hall.

“Vulgarity is not permitted in the lounge,” she decreed.

“No, we should keep it in our offices under our desks,” Jane answered and watched her nemesis turn red in the face about the same shade as the felt wattles on the flower turkey.

“I’m writing you up for this.”

“Sure, you do that, Nadia.” Jane thought her file must be stuffed full by now, yet she’d never gotten a single written copy of any infraction to sign. Somehow, she looked forward to telling Merlin all about this and sussing out if he’d saved Wanda’s phone number. She thought she could make him laugh again.

Chapter Nine

At afternoon break on Wednesday, Nadia Nixon braced herself in the doorway of the staff lounge. Showing her large, square teeth, she smiled at the assemblage of coffee drinkers and snackers. Nadia’s grin implied she would not mercifully rip out someone’s throat with one quick bite but rather preferred to grind their bones bit by bit with her big molars. Usually, her smile appeared on Fridays at three-twenty, a time the staff had come to call “The Last Coffee Break,” sort of like the Last Supper without the holy overtone. Someone had been betrayed to the woman and would get the axe. With the parish offices near to closing for the Thanksgiving holiday until Monday, the president’s administrative officer moved the event forward accordingly.

The group fell silent. The decaf coffee carafe with its orange collar pinged against the mug held in Angela Savoy’s shaking hand. One woman brushed the powdered sugar from a pack of tiny donuts off her purple blouse. Another picked at a rough cuticle until it bled as if making eye contact with Nadia would doom her like looking at the snake-headed Medusa. Only Jane met that glittering, heavy-lidded stare. For a tenth of a second, she thought Nadia had come for her, and she would not go with head hanging because she’d done nothing wrong.

“May Robin, may I see you in my office?”

A collective gasp escaped from the spectators. May, the oldest among them, the MawMaw who listened to their personal problems, the most pleasant and sympathetic of human beings, rose from her seat. Her usually spry tread faltered. She paled so greatly the splotches of rouge she wore on her cheeks stood out like twin red lights at a crossing. Nadia waved her to go ahead as if being supremely polite to the septuagenarian. As they cleared the doorway and began the walk to Nadia’s office, one of office stoolies murmured
The Funeral March
and her closest crony pronounced, “Dead woman walking.”

“Not funny, Tonette and Didi.” Jane stood and confronted them.

“The old hag messed with Miss Nixon. At her age, May should know better. Besides, it’s time she goes and someone else gets that plum job of receptionist,” Tonnette, a squat brunette with a uni-brow, said. “All you have to do is sit on your behind and answer the phone, maybe give some directions. No big deal and much better pay.”

“Not that the position will go to you, Toni.” Didi, a very alluring, light-skinned African-American woman, tossed her red hair extensions as if she’d already gotten the job and had outgrown her association with Tonette. “The boss will want someone attractive up front.”

She cracked her gum to make her point. That gum would have to be disposed of at break’s end as Nadia did not approve, but then Didi, the mistress of one of the councilmen, frequently broke the rules without repercussions. Her lover made sure she got hired for an easy, low-level parish job and paid her rent on the side. Didi finished her diet orange soda and threw the can into the wastebasket next to Jane. She stretched showing off a sleek yet busty figure encased in a leopard print jumpsuit, and with a jangle of her large hoop earrings, went back to doing whatever she did in the office besides servicing her district representative.

Jane fished the can from the trash. “This can be recycled, you know. It should go in here.” She turned to put it in the plastic bin she’d placed in the break room, but the receptacle did not occupy its usual place.

“That’s gone, too, just like May,” Tonette told her with a thick-lipped smirk. “Nadia took it away when the old contract expired. Surprised you didn’t notice.”

“Then, I’ll take it home. May’s brother is letting me use his bin.”

Jane crumpled the can with the bronze lipstick smeared on its top around the opening and followed Didi from the room. They went in opposite directions, however. She ghosted toward Nadia’s large, corner office. Not long after the assistant’s arrival, all the blinds had been removed from the glass-walled cubicles in order to facilitate a good work ethic, Nadia claimed. Now, no one could pick a booger or scratch a personal itch in private. Those with strong stomachs might witness a firing if they so wished. Miss Nixon hoped they would—to increase the fear factor, Jane surmised. Still, she stayed close to the wall at its bend where she would be the least conspicuous.

Inside the glass fishbowl, May’s sagging face registered disbelief. Nadia handed her a message slip. She shook her head in vehement denial. Nadia expounded for a few minutes, then shoved a set of papers forward. It bristled with sticky notes where May should sign her name. May shook her head again, made the sign of the cross, and pleaded. A dumpy, bald old man Jane hadn’t noticed from her angle, came from the far corner of the room and put his arm around May’s shaking shoulders. Wofford “Woof” Langlois, himself, had come to witness the dismissal of a woman who had worked with him every single day of his extended time in office.

Nadia pulled a box of tissues from her drawer and plunked it down on the desk within easy reach. Woof offered one to May, who turned and cried on his white shirt instead. Nadia busied herself with the intercom. In a matter of seconds, two waiting security guards with the firm tread of storm troopers marched down the opposite hall and took up a place by the door. Woof gently turned May toward the desk again. With trembling hands, she signed the papers. Nadia handed her a cardboard box from a stack behind her desk. As May exited the office, the guards fell in by her side, each taking an elbow as they guided her back to the reception desk. They brushed by Jane, still clutching the orange drink can, without a glance, though May appealed to her with sodden eyes through running black makeup. Appearing a little teary-eyed himself, Woof scuttled back to his own corner office. Nadia hung in the doorway as if she wanted to do victory chin-ups.

“Enjoy the show, Marshall?”

“You cannot ever convince me May deserved to be fired.”

“We put the old gray mare out to pasture, that’s all. About time. She spent more time selling those lunch bags than doing any real work. You want to see what convinced her to take her retirement. Do step inside.” Nadia made a wide gesture of invitation.

Feeling like the proverbial fly, Jane stepped into her web. Nadia moved to her desk and handed over a message slip neatly typed. “Please call Miss Van Dyke regarding her bush immediately.” A phone number followed.

“So? We get lots of garden club ladies upset when the parish road crews maul their plantings.”

“The number is for that gay bar downtown. At best, May failed to screen my calls. At worst, she indulged in a tasteless, insulting joke.”

Jane shook her head. “May doesn’t type the messages. She writes them down. Granted, sometimes they are a little hard to read, but…”

“She types mine on that old IBM Selectric I requisitioned from storage since her computer skills are minimal. I told her I could no longer tolerate her shaky scrawl. Hey, she got a choice between a decent retirement or getting fired and made the wise decision. And that’s not the best news.” Nadia showed her big, square teeth again.

I’ll grind your bones to make my bread, Jane thought, staring at her. She placed her hands on her hips and leaned across the broad desk. “Off she goes without so much as a word of thanks for her years of service or a farewell party?”

“Have one for her on your own time, Marshall. What, don’t want to hear the good news?”

“I don’t imagine it concerns me.”

“But it does. Since the recycling program tanked, you have only half a job left.”

“That’s absurd. I’m working on a very important proposal that has to be finished by mid-December, and others will follow. I bring money to this parish for environmental projects.”

“Yeah, yeah, and you can do that while manning the reception desk. Use the computer out there. God knows May hardly touched it. It’s like brand new. Feel free to continue typing my messages on the Selectric, though.” Her smile grew broader. Crunch, crunch.