Run Away Baby (3 page)

Abby was fairly certain Danielle hated her. Most recently, they’d had an argument about Abby’s inability to properly load the dishwasher in the break room. Flashbacks of the conversation played in Abby’s head like a movie:

Danielle: Abby, come in here. Did you do this?

Abby: Wash the dishes, you mean?

Danielle: Is that what you’re calling it?

Abby: Well, yeah. What would you call it?

Danielle: Why would you wash this plastic lid? Why wouldn’t you recycle it?

Abby: I don’t know.

Danielle: What about this thing? You melted it. You can’t put this kind of plastic in here. It gets too hot.

Abby: I don’t even know what that was.

Danielle: Exactly. Because you ruined it.

Abby: Sorry.

Danielle: And what’s with all this stuff still sitting in the sink? You could have fit it in. The whole top rack is empty.

Abby: I didn’t even realize that part came out.

Danielle: Is this your first time using a dishwasher?

Abby: My first time in a while.

Danielle: Did you even
use
detergent?

“So, yeah, I don’t know what her problem is,” Abby told Randall, simplifying matters down to a few evasive sentences that slanted in the direction of her not being incompetent.

“She’s jealous of you,” he said, not looking up from the wine list at Le Chardonnay. “They’ve got a new Cab on here. Let’s try it.”

“I doubt that she’s jealous of me. But seriously, isn’t my presence lightening her workload? I’m folding her papers and stuff.”

“That’s right, Sugartitties.”

“And since I’ve got my own office, I’m pretty much out of her hair the whole time I’m there.”

“She’s a jealous whore. Don’t let it get to you.”

“I won’t. I mean, it’s not. Not really. Clark hasn’t said anything about me to you, has he?”

“No.”

“Good,” said Abby.

“I’d say something to Clark, but he doesn’t have time for you’s girls’ problems.”

“I know. I wouldn’t want you to say anything to him.”

Randall flagged down their waitress and the conversation was over.

Still, Abby wasn’t used to such poor treatment.

One of the many advantages to being married to Randall (Obviously there were advantages; they just didn’t outweigh the disadvantages.) was that Randall commanded a huge amount of respect, and by association, so did Abby. She often sensed that she was not well-received, particularly by other wives, but Randall’s circle of friends’ slight hostility toward her was easy enough to ignore. Danielle, however, was arctically cold to Abby. In particular when it was just the two of them.

During Abby’s third week at work, Clark Lorbmeer came in to say hello, and Danielle made a point of sticking her head in Abby’s office and saying, “Abby! Good morning! Coffee for you, Hun? Oh, hi there Mr. Lorbmeer! I didn’t realize you were back in town!”

Abby fell for Danielle’s act and was friendly back to her later in the day, thinking maybe she and Danielle could become friends. She’d already worked up a scenario in her mind of the two of them shopping and going out for lunch. Maybe Papa Rottzy would be okay with it. It was a possibility.

But without Clark Lorbmeer around to impress, Danielle snapped back to her true, bitchy self.

“I have a doctor’s appointment and I need you to stay later today,” Danielle came in to tell Abby one day after Abby had been working there about a month.

“Today? I don’t know.”

“You can’t help me out?”

“I’m only supposed to work eight hours a week,” Abby said. She was unsure whether she might mess up whatever insurance savings Randall was finagling if she worked more than that.

“Do you have somewhere else you have to be?” Danielle asked her.

“Well, not exactly. But I think I need to call my husband and run it by him first.”

“It’s
one
hour.”

“Just… I need to ask him.”

Danielle glared. Her disgust was palpable. “Go ahead,” she said, staying put, watching.

“Fine. I’ll call him right now.”

Danielle made herself comfortable on a spare chair in Abby’s office, crossing her arms, waiting.

Abby picked up her office phone, looking at the keypad. She realized she wasn’t sure how to place an outgoing call.

“My. God,” said Danielle, instantly recognizing the problem. She leaned forward and pressed a button. “Now dial the number. If you can handle that.”

“I was about to press that button,” said Abby, punching in the number for Randall’s office. “Hello, Krissa. Could I please speak to Randall? …Could you ask him to step out for a minute to speak with me? …Fine. Then, I have a question for you. Oh, sure, I can hold for a second.” She could feel her face growing hotter and hotter.

“Is your hubby too busy to help you with your question?” asked Danielle in a patronizing tone.

“Shouldn’t someone be watching the front desk?” said Abby.

“I’ll hear if someone comes in,” Danielle said.

“I’m back. Sorry about that,” said Krissa.

“So,” said Abby, “would it affect anything if I worked more than eight hours a week? Do you know?”

“How much more?”

“Like, if I worked nine or so hours instead? Would that mess up Randall’s insurance thing?”

“No. That’s fine. I’ll let him know. Just don’t work less than eight hours.”

“Okay.”

“Is this happening today?”

“Yeah.”

“Will this be a permanent change in your schedule?” asked Krissa.

“I don’t think so.”

“Why the change? Randall will want to know.”

“I have to cover the front desk while our receptionist has an appointment.”

“Fine. Thanks for letting me know. Anything else to report?”

“Nope.”

“Okay. Have a nice day.”

“You too,” Abby said, hanging up.

Danielle stayed planted in the chair.

“As you heard, I’ll cover for your appointment. It’s fine.”

“Super,” said Danielle flatly, her head cocked to the side.

“What? Why are you looking at me like that?” Abby asked.

“What’s your deal?”

“Nothing.”

“Why do you need to get permission to work one extra hour?”

“I really think you should get back up there. What if one of the partners walks in and you’re not sitting up there?”

“People like you make me want to start smoking again,” Danielle said, getting up and leaving.

Abby got up and closed her office door after her. She sat back down at her desk, and then rummaged through her purse until she found a bottle of aspirin. She swallowed three tablets along with a couple of swigs of coffee. If she could follow her own natural instincts, instead of having to run everything through the Randall-filter, life wouldn’t be this complicated.

Danielle was back a few minutes later, knocking loudly. She opened the door and stuck her head in before Abby had a chance to get up. “I’ll be leaving soon,” she told Abby. “Debbie or Sharlene in accounting will answer the phones if they ring. No clients are scheduled to show up until two o’clock, so you shouldn’t have to worry about that. If someone comes in unexpectedly, give them a bottle of water or a cup of coffee and have them sit in one of the chairs by the table with the magazines on it. Okay?”

“I guess,” said Abby.

“The only thing I need you to do is be here when the mail comes because there’s a pile of stuff that has to go out today, and I don’t want the mailman to miss it.”

“So I’ll sit at your desk up front then?”

“Obviously. Sit there, you don’t even have to fold stuff, just sit there. So come up front now.”

“Fine,” said Abby. She took her time straightening up her already-neat office. When she finally made her way out to the reception area, Danielle was on her feet, waiting for her.

“I have to go now. In fact, I’m probably going to be late. When the mailman shows up please make sure he takes these with him,” she said, patting a stack of letters on her desk.

“I can handle that.”

“You sure?”

“Yes!”

“Maybe I’ll even be back before he shows up. Let’s hope for that, okay?”

“Please go to your appointment. I’ll be fine.”

Danielle grabbed her knockoff purse and sauntered away. Abby took the stack of must-go mail and set it in an isolated pile away from everything else, confident she would somehow mess this up.

She suspected that Danielle had complained about her to Clark Lorbmeer and the rest of the office staff. She imagined Clark telling his wife Danna-Dee how awful she was doing, and the news getting passed along to Danna-Dee’s tennis friends and bunco lady pals.

General worries about her own shortcomings consumed her as she settled in at the front desk, but after several quiet minutes alone, Abby began to calm down and enjoy herself. It wasn’t often that she had free time she didn’t need to fill with some reportable task. She practiced some yoga breathing, trying to be present, wanting to make something of this brief moment of camera-less privacy.

Just as she’d begun to transfer into that elusive zen-zone of peace, the front door opened and she snapped back to attention. The man coming through the door looked like he was about her age. In his arms he carried a big white plastic bin.

“Hi there,” she said. “Can I help you?”

“Hi. You’re new here?”

“Yeah, sort of. I’m not normally up here. My office is in the back. Would you like a water or some coffee?”

“No. That’s okay. Thanks for asking me that. I can assure you, no one ever has before.” He laughed.

“Really?” she asked.

“Yeah. Anyhow, nice to meet you. I’m Charles. You can call me Charlie.”

“Hi, Charlie. I’m Abby,” she said. He set the bin off to the side and shook her hand. He was tall and muscular with dark eyes and dark hair. The opposite of Randall.

“Are you a lawyer?” he asked her.

“No,” she said. Unsure what her title was, she shrugged and smiled.

“Do you have anything for me today?” he asked

She tapped her fingertips against her lips and looked around her. Finally she said, “I guess not.”

“Okay. Well then, nice meeting you, Abby.”

“Nice meeting you too, Charlie.”

He smiled and waved on his way out. A moment after he was gone it occurred to her that he was the mailman.

“Shit,” she said. She grabbed the pile of letters and ran out the door, down the few steps into the lobby that Lorbmeer, Messdiem & Miller shared with other companies, and out onto the hot street. Charlie was already halfway down the block, about to go into another building. One more second and she wouldn’t have seen where he’d gone.

“Wait! Charlie! Wait,” Abby yelled.

He turned around and smiled, clearly pleased to see her running after him.

“I forgot to give you these,” she yelled, waving the letters so he’d see them.

“They look important,” he said when she’d caught up to him. He raised one eyebrow. “Are they?”

“I guess so,” she said.

“I’ll take good care of them.”

“Thanks.”

“Wait,” said Charlie.

“What is it?” asked Abby.

“It was really nice to meet you.”

“Okay? You too,” she said. She turned then and headed back, not wanting to leave the front desk vacant any longer than she had to.

Abby never knew what was going to set off Randall. They’d have weeks or even months of even-keeled normalcy, and then something would happen and he’d turn into a monster. On the day she met Charlie, Randall came home from work earlier than normal, in a terrible mood.

“Nice to see you,” she said. She’d been swimming laps in their pool, but as soon as she saw that Randall was home she got out and toweled off. “Want something to drink?” she offered.

“Come on inside,” he said, holding the sliding door open. “Hurry up. I’m cooling off the whole neighborhood.”

She passed by him and went over to the refrigerator to get both of them some cold juice. He followed right behind her. Without speaking he pulled down her bikini bottoms and started fumbling with his belt and zipper. She did her best not to look as clenched up as she felt; what she was dreading most was that it wouldn’t work and he would then go ballistic.

“Suck it,” he told her.

“Could we go in the bedroom?” she asked. All the blinds were open; if anyone walked up to their house they’d see everything.

“Suck it,” he repeated, gritting his teeth. It started to firm up a little. She took her top off to try to help things along. Randall slapped at her breasts a little, glancing down at them and then squinting his eyes shut, clearly trying to draw on some sexier-than-her image in his head.

“I’m ready,” he hollered, spinning her around and bending her over the kitchen counter. He tried to slide it in but it was already starting to flop. So he jammed his flaccid penis, or more accurately as the minutes went by, his pelvis, against her butt crack for a while. Bloop bloop bloop. It felt like she was being slapped with a water weenie toy. She looked out at the pool, growing bored, hoping he’d give up soon.

“Rosa will be back from the grocery store anytime now,” she said eventually.

“Huhhh,” he grunted, giving it another try.

“Randall…” she tried again, concerned their housekeeper would walk in on them.

“Quiet,” he hissed.

It wasn’t simply a matter of telling him that she wanted a divorce. Several years earlier she had gotten up the nerve to tell him she wanted to leave, and he’d made it very clear that she’d be dead if she tried. Randall Greer was not the kind of man whose trophy wife divorced him.

After taking the conversation there, Abby’s life got much worse. She saw no point in ever bringing a hint of her unhappiness to light again. It could only hurt her.

Now he was zipping up his pants, rebuckling his belt. He spun Abby around and looked at her with repulsion. That was the funny part about being raped: (She considered it rape, even if it didn’t really work, even if she didn’t call him out on it.) It made him hate her a little extra.

He put his hands on her neck and squeezed. She felt like her eyes were going to pop out of her head. His eyes bulged out at her. They stood there, bulgy eyes locked into bulgy eyes, until he loosened his grip and went outside. She watched him get in his car. She scrambled to put her bikini back on, just as Rosa’s rusty Toyota Corolla began coming up the driveway. Randall nodded cordially at Rosa as she pulled over to the shoulder of the driveway to let him by.

Abby checked herself in the mirror. There were giant handprints on her neck so she went into the bathroom to hide until either they or Rosa went away. Staring at herself in the bathroom mirror, all she could think, over and over, was that she had to get out of this.