Pink Slip Party (24 page)

“Guys, we need to focus here,” I say.

“It was just a prank,” Steph says. “Who cares about a stupid little prank? Fergie says that they’re not even sure the payroll money has been stolen.”

“Did you just call Ferguson, ‘Fergie’?” I ask.

Ferguson sends Steph a flirty look, and I fear he might kiss her in my presence. He’s looking at her as if she’s a foot-long Subway club sandwich.

“Never mind,” I say. “I think it’s obvious that Missy stole the money. She’s probably in Tijuana by now. And when they find out the money is really gone, then it’s not going to be a dumb little prank anymore.”

“It’ll take them a while to sort out all the details,” Ferguson says.

“And even if they do, there’s nothing linking us to the scene,” Steph says. “Jane, just relax, OK? Don’t panic and everything will be fine.”

Not panicking has never been my strong suit. Everyone knows I can’t keep a secret, and that I crumble under even the hint of pressure.

In fact, I only last a few hours, until I have to tell Kyle.

We’re on his couch, watching a rental tape, or, not really watching it so much as making out in front of it, and I ask him what he thinks of attorney-client privilege.

“I mean, what would you say if I told you that I committed a crime? Would you have to report me to the authorities?”

Kyle, who is kissing my neck, mumbles something I can’t hear.

“Kyle, I’m serious. What if I told you I shoplifted something. Would you have to turn me in?”

“Technically — no,” Kyle says. “And I think the statute of limitations on shoplifting is like three years. So unless you’ve shoplifted at Saks Fifth Avenue recently, I’d say you’re probably fine.”

“So, if I told you something, you couldn’t repeat it because of attorney-client privilege.”

“Technically, I’m not your attorney, so that doesn’t apply,” Kyle says, burying his face in my neck.

“What if I gave you a dollar and hired you?” I ask him.

“What’s this all about?” Kyle asks me, sitting up.

“Here’s a dollar,” I say, pulling one from my pocket.

“That buys you about twenty seconds of consultation.”

“Even at a discounted rate?” I cry.

“Jane. What’s the problem?”

“I broke into Maximum Office.”

Kyle is completely silent for a moment.

“Say that again,” he says.

“I broke into Maximum Office. We suspended paychecks for upper management and messed with the email system. We sent out emails that told vice presidents they were fired. And that’s all we were going to do, except I think Missy stole some payroll money, maybe $55,000. I saw it on the news. It’s been in the newspaper and on TV.”

Kyle straightens and withdraws his arms from me. He sits on the couch and runs his hands through his hair.

“You committed a felony,” he says.

“Missy said it was a misdemeanor.”

“It’s a felony,” Kyle corrects. He lets out a long breath. “Do you have any idea — ANY idea — how completely and totally dumb that was?”

“I’m beginning to get an idea,” I say.

“Jane, you have to go to the police and tell them what happened.”

That’s not what I want to hear.

“I can’t do that. Then I’ll go to jail, and it was all Missy’s idea.”

“Listen to me very carefully, Jane,” Kyle says. “We need to get you an attorney — a criminal defense attorney — and then you need to go turn yourself in.”

“I’m not turning myself in,” I say.

“Jane.” Kyle’s face twists into an even more stern and disapproving look. “Jane, listen to me. Legally, you will be in much better shape if you give yourself up. And, morally speaking, it’s the right thing to do. I think you know that.”

“It was just a stupid prank,” I say.

“I think you’re old enough to have outgrown stupid pranks. You’ve got to start acting like a grown-up sometime. You can’t just think the things you do don’t have consequences. At some point, you’ve got to take some responsibility for who you are.”

I have nothing intelligent to say to that, so I snap, “I don’t have to sit here and listen to this.”

I stand.

“I’m just saying, Jane, that this is not like you,” he says. “You’re smarter than this. You’re not someone who’s easily taken in.”

I used to think I wasn’t a person so easily taken in. Then came Mike.

I feel like I might start crying, so I head for the door.

Kyle doesn’t make a move to stop me. I feel his disapproval and disappointment.

“I think I’m going to go home,” I say, but I want him to ask me to stay.

He doesn’t.

“Maybe that’s for the best,” he says instead.

The View
320 West 66
^th
Street
New York, NY 10020

Jane McGregor
3335 Kenmore Ave.
Chicago, IL 60657

May 7, 2002

Dear Job Applicant,

We regret to inform you that we are not hiring at this time.

Thanks for thinking of
The View!
For more information about this funny and lively daytime show, please visit our web site at abc.com/theview.

Sincerely,
Stacey Seiler

P.S. Star Jones is one of our most popular co-hosts, and to my knowledge does not plan to leave the show in the near future.

17

T
he muses are feng-shui-ing my apartment when I return. They tell me that part of my problem is that I have my kitchen trash can in my money sector, and a dead plant in my spiritual sector.

“What’s in my love corner?” I ask them.

“A pile of unpaid bills,” Ganesha says.

The next morning at work, I keep transferring people to the wrong extensions. I can’t think of anything except what Kyle said. He’s clearly right. He’s the most grown-up person in my life, next to my parents, and I don’t think they count, exactly. The fact that he thinks I’ve made a mess of things means something. I think about going to the police, but the minor detail that I am a coward gets in the way of me actually picking up the phone to call them.

And then there’s the file under my bed, which I still don’t know what I want to do with. Mail it to his fiancée? Mail it to CNBC? Mail it to him and demand money? Shred it? I haven’t decided.

At lunch, I meet Dad at the unemployment office, because Mom makes me promise to help him navigate the unemployment lines.

Dad, who doesn’t even get a driver’s license without complaining loudly and at length about the bloated nature of liberal government, gives a running narration of his experience of the unemployment office that would make John Stossel proud.

“Is this what my tax dollars are paying for?” Dad declares at a volume intended for everyone in a two-mile radius to hear. “We are CUSTOMERS. We are paying their salaries, and they’re sitting there doing their NAILS.”

Technically, the two women at the front desk are bickering because one claims the other intentionally left a paper clip askew, which caused her to break her nail. I try to tell Dad that hostility will only make them conveniently “lose” his unemployment check, but he doesn’t seem to care.

Dad bristles at filling out forms and demands to speak to the manager when the woman behind the glass partition tells him to step out of line.

“I’m paying your salary,” he says, and is surprised when she doesn’t immediately begin apologizing and asking him if he’d like a refreshing beverage while he waits.

“Unbelievable,” he says when they call security and tell us we have to come back at a later date. “And this is what Bill Clinton had us pay all those taxes for.”

“Dad, Bill Clinton isn’t president anymore,” I say. “It’s time to move on.”

“If you forget the past, you’re just going to repeat it,” Dad says.

I decide to ask Dad, in a veiled way, what he thinks about breaking and entering.

“Dad, if you did something illegal, and you were going to get away with it, but the right thing to do was turn yourself in, would you?”

Dad stares at me a moment.

“Is this about your rent money? Because I told you, you can’t afford that apartment.”

I sigh. Why does everything come back to my apartment?

“It isn’t about me. I’m just asking you a theoretical question.”

“You and your mother. Always with these theoretical questions. They’re a waste of time. Women want to know in theory and men want to know in fact. That’s why men and women don’t get along.”

“Never mind,” I say.

When I get home, Vishnu is doing naked yoga in my living room, contorted in a pose that really ought not to be attempted in the nude. I avert my eyes and go to the fridge only to find that even the ketchup has been consumed. There is nothing there but what looks like Ganesha’s bra and a Nerf football.

I don’t even want to know.

My buzzer rings and I go to answer it, hoping against hope it’s a lost pizza delivery guy.

Two fraternity boys with SAE caps are standing at my door.

“Is Ron here?” one of them asks.

“We’ve got the green,” the other says, waving a few $50 bills in front of my face.

“I’ll take that,” says Vishnu, who has wrapped herself in one of my Pottery Barn afghans. She hands the boys a paper sack filled with God knows what.

“Were those drugs?” I demand of Vishnu as she closes the door.

“I hope so,” she says.

“I really don’t want you or Ron dealing drugs from my apartment,” I say.

“Don’t be such a buzzkill,” she tells me.

My buzzer rings again.

I don’t answer it.

“Don’t,” I tell Vishnu, who’s headed to the door. She ignores me, and buzzes up the guests. Then, she quickly goes back to her yoga poses.

“Just give them one of the bags,” she says, pointing to a neat row of brown baggies sitting on my foyer table.

I swing open the door, ready to tell the fraternity boys to go somewhere else, when I see two men in sport coats and Dockers. I have a bad feeling almost immediately about them. For one thing, neither one of them smiles. For another, they don’t look like they’re in the market for E.

“Jane McGregor? I’m Detective Mason,” says the beefy one in the blue tie, “and this,” he indicates his partner, “is Detective Johns. Can we speak to you a minute?”

My mouth goes completely dry. I can’t speak. I can’t even move. I think my heart has stopped. I don’t actually feel it beating at all, and I think I am starting to feel light-headed. I slip out of my apartment and try to keep the door mostly closed behind me, although Detective Johns is trying to see inside. I try to close the door further so he can’t see the rows of brown baggies.

“We’re investigating a break-in at your former place of business,” says Detective Mason. He makes it sound like Maximum Office is a brothel or a drug den.

“Yes,” I squeak, and then swallow. “I mean, yes, I heard about that on the news.”

The detectives look at each other and one of them scribbles something in his notepad.

Suddenly, I think of Mike’s personnel folder sitting under my bed. With great force of will, I don’t turn my head to see if I can see it poking out from my bedroom door.

“I see,” Detective Mason says. “Well, we’re interviewing people who worked for Ed Ferguson, to see if they might be able to tell us if he was behaving suspiciously in any way the week leading up to the break-in.”

The folder is like Poe’s
Tell-Tale Heart.
It seems to be thumping in my ears, and I keep thinking I hear papers rustling in my apartment.

“Ferguson?” I say, trying to collect my thoughts and focus. “I worked for him once, but I was laid off more than three months ago,” I say.

“Oh,” Detective Mason sounds surprised as he looks down at his notepad.

I can’t believe Maximum Office gave him outdated information. It seems the human resources department is as inefficient as ever. I wish payroll would be as lazy in terms of updating their records.

“Have you spoken to Mr. Ferguson in the last couple of weeks?” Detective Johns asks.

The folder. They are definitely going to see the folder. Maybe Ganesha found it and put it on our coffee table. With great force of will, I do not turn around and look to see if she has.

Detective Johns doesn’t notice me pause before I answer because he seems to be transfixed by the sight of Vishnu contorting over my left shoulder. I suspect she is doing a handstand behind me.

“I think I did run into him maybe once,” I say, trying to be as vague as possible.

“Do you remember when?”

“Maybe a couple of weeks ago,” I say.

“Where?”

“Uh…on the sidewalk, actually.” This isn’t a lie. During Ferguson’s extended stay in my apartment I did see him once or twice on the sidewalk in front of my building.

Detective Mason scribbles something else in his notepad.

Why did I take the folder? I think. It’s the only real piece of evidence linking me to the crime.

“Did he seem strange?” he asks.

“No,” I say. “No more than usual.”

Neither detective laughs. I forget policemen aren’t supposed to have senses of humor.

“I was kidding,” I add for clarification.

“Oh — right,” Detective Johns says, without so much as upturning one side of his mouth.

Both detectives are now looking over my shoulder. I hate to think what they’re seeing.

“Is there something else?” I ask.

Both men have their mouths slightly agape.

“No, I don’t think so,” Detective Johns says, looking behind me.

“Thanks for coming by,” I say, as if they are party guests.

Once they’re gone, I run to my bedroom, nearly knocking over the naked Vishnu, and grab the folder from under my bed. It’s there, intact, without pages missing. I still don’t know what to do with it. I consider trashing it, but something stops me. Instead, I shove it between my mattress and box spring.

“Don’t panic,” Steph instructs me on the phone later that night. “They don’t have anything on us. They’re just trying to shake us down.”