The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady (21 page)

Gigi spread her hands to check out her pink fingernails. She had beautiful hands, but they looked pale and cold. Vic could take hold of her hands, warm them for her. “Actually, I’m broke,” she said. “I need this job.”

“Your idea of broke is different from mine,” Vic said.

She shrugged. “I’m going to teach more riding lessons, too. That ought to help.”

She’d insisted he not pay her for Ava’s lesson on Cisco Kid, so he’d offered to take her out to dinner sometime instead. It had been wonderful to watch Ava’s total absorption while she rode and her straight posture as she posted around the ring. And he’d enjoyed seeing another side of Gigi—the competent horsewoman, passing on her knowledge, neither one of them paying the least bit of attention to Vic. Despite the heat, it would have been a perfect afternoon except for three things: 1. Caroline had not wanted Ava to go because she was worried about her having another fall, so Vic and Ava had had to spend way too much time talking Caroline down; 2. During the lesson Travis, Gigi’s son, had plopped down in the lawn chair beside his and had talked unceasingly about horse manure while staring at Ava; and 3. A horse had smashed his toe.

Vic’s next paper was about the philosophy behind
The Little Engine That Could
and how it had helped the writer achieve her goal to become class president.

“Here’s a perfect three,” Gigi crowed, waving her paper at him. “A narrative that’s all dialogue. It’s a tree talking to a bird.”

“Funny.”

“Want to read it?”

“No.” He wanted to put his head down on the desk and sleep.

Gigi smacked her lips and picked up another essay. “Yeah. Okay. This one’s about
1984
. When are they going to put that book to rest? All it is, is an anticommunist manifesto.” She spoke in a Valley girl voice. “Like, it’s so cold war!”

Vic wasn’t looking at her. He was trying to make sense of the lines on the page in front of him. “Dear Sir,” the letter began. “I have some suggestions for alternative power sources that you may be interested in hearing about.” No, actually, I’m not, he silently answered the student, then told Gigi, “Let’s just read the fucking essays or we’ll be here all night.”

There was a few minutes of strained but blessed silence.

Gigi couldn’t keep quiet. “Vic,” she said, and waited until he finally glanced up at her. Her face was framed by the hood of her sweater, tendrils of blond hair wisping around her face. Little Green Riding Hood. “Is your toe bothering you?” She smiled at him, and he felt bad for being so cranky.

His toe, actually, was killing him. “Little Italy for lunch?” he asked her.

“You’re on. I’m gonna take me a bath in a hot bowl of pasta.”

The image of Gigi, naked, in a bowl of pasta, like a kind of old-timey black-and-white photo, filled his head and warmed him right up.

* * *

The following day they began training the newly hired temps who would score the sample portfolios. Gigi trained the Language Arts people, Ed did Science, Carol did Math, Sandra did Social Studies. Vic went from one conference room to the next, observing, answering questions when he needed to, making sure everything went well. The scorers were over-educated
and underemployed, some of them mentally unstable (those people usually left after a few days), some of them happy to be out of the house and eager to stay out (these people tried to impress him at every turn, thinking that they might get a real job at FTA), some of them angry about being smarter than the trainers but having to score portfolios in an assembly line at two dollars over minimum wage. These people often challenged the trainers and had to be dealt with.

When Vic walked into the conference room as Gigi was getting ready to start the training, he did a quick inventory of the scorers and noticed many familiar faces, old hands who helped out on every project, and there in the back row, Nancy Archer, her accoutrements spread out around her—coffee mug, pens, pencils, notepad. She looked like a regal but mischievous queen. She waved at Vic, claiming their special relationship in front of God and everyone. He nodded at Nance, thinking, Oh shit. He remembered telling her about the project, suggesting that she might want to score, but never thought she’d actually follow through.

He sat down in the back of the room to watch Gigi—wearing a low-cut, sleeveless dress, high heels, and big hoop earrings—explain the training packets to the scorers. As soon as she’d finished, three of the scorers—an African American ex-military fellow, a young greasy-haired Harley type, and Nancy Archer—banded together to challenge her.

“Why’s ‘My Big Fat Halloween Party’ a three and ‘Lost in Kentucky’ only a two?” Harley asked Gigi. “ ‘Lost in Kentucky’ at least has a voice.”

“I used to be an English teacher,” Nancy said, “for twenty-five years. And I
never
would’ve given ‘My Big Fat Halloween Party’ a C, which is what a three is—am I right?”

Military Man read Gigi’s rubric back to her in a sarcastic voice, and then waited for her to defend her scores.

Gigi kept glancing at Vic, her eyes panicky like a horse’s. He nodded encouragingly at her, but even though they’d discussed the reasons
they’d given the papers their scores, she didn’t seem to remember their rationale. She stammered and blushed and giggled. “Well, let me think. I
know
I had a good reason. Can anybody help me out here?”

The rebels saw they were getting to her and stepped up their attack. How had this woman ever taught when she was a graduate student? Was she falling apart because Vic was there, watching her? He finally stood up and sent everyone on break.

Vic planned to spend half an hour with the upstarts in his office, the three unhappy know-it-alls, letting them know, in the nicest way possible, that they were completely replaceable.

He spoke first to Military Man and then Harley, who both left his office in a huff and quit the project, and saved Nance for last. He was particularly angry at Nance, whom he felt was trying to take advantage of the fact that they had a personal connection.

“I’m sorry I upset Gigi,” Nance said, sitting across from him. She was wearing a pinstriped jacket with a white bow blouse underneath. “I truly didn’t mean to.”

Vic flipped the overhead lights on in his office so as to create an official atmosphere. As in, This is a corporation you’re dealing with, lady.

“Gigi’s a real nice girl,” Nance went on. “She’s Buff Coffey’s sister. I believe I saw you talking to Gigi at the roller rink. Is she a good friend of yours? Is that why she has this job?”

Vic said that Gigi was qualified to be doing what she was doing, having a Ph.D. in English.

“She might be smart,” Nance said, “and she’s real cute, but I could do a much better job training than she’s doing.”

Did she think Vic was going to let her take over Gigi’s job? The arrogance! And after he’d been so nice to her that evening she came over, defending her against Caroline’s sullen attacks.

“Gigi’s doing a fine job. You need to give her a break and not argue
with everything she says. We made up those training packets together. I stand by all those scores.”

Nance grimaced and raised a hand to her cheek. “I’m
so
sorry. Didn’t mean to step on your toes. I didn’t realize that you two were a
team
. I thought you were her supervisor.”

“I am her supervisor. And we’re working together. My toe’s already been stepped on.” He told her about Gigi’s horse stepping on his foot, realizing as he did so that he was only making things worse.

“Oh, I see. I had no idea you two were
together.
”

What the hell was wrong with this woman? “We’re not
together
. We
work
together.”

She swiveled around and gazed at some framed photos on the shelf behind her. “And,” she said cheerily, “you’re
good friends
!”

“We’re friends.”

“What a lovely picture of Caroline,” Nance said, pointing at one Vic had taken of Caroline, tan legs and big smile, in front of the Grand Canyon, right after they’d graduated from college. With virtually no money, they’d taken the whole summer off to drive out West to places neither of them had ever been before.

Nance persisted. “Is Caroline a friend of Gigi’s, too?”

“Mrs. Archer.”

“Nance.”

“Maybe working on this project isn’t the best thing for you. You seem to be very unhappy with it.”

“Oh no! I love it so far. I’m so sorry I’ve offended you. I won’t say another word. I’ll just score my papers and leave you and Gigi alone.”

Vic reluctantly agreed to let her stay on, and Nance returned to the training room with her tail between her legs. She was just desperate for attention, Vic decided. For people to acknowledge that she was smart and knew her stuff. That put her into a category of people that Vic and Gigi could deal with.

* * *

That evening, after checking on Suzi and explaining to Caroline that he was dining with “some FTA people” he took Gigi out for dinner.

At one point, at the cozy corner table in Cyprus, surrounded by the elegance, candlelight, and fine wine they felt they deserved after such a hard day; when they were toasting each other with their wineglasses and imitating Nancy Archer and Gigi was looking at him eagerly, as in, Now what? he finally realized where he was headed. He kept hearing Nancy Archer’s insinuating voice saying, “You’re a team. You’re
good
friends.”

Vic, like any man his age, had done a few rounds with this problem. He knew full well that you couldn’t help who you were attracted to. Forget about willing it away! He’d thought about this problem over the years and had come up with some theories and options and a solution that he thought would keep him on the straight and narrow. He called it Vic Witherspoon’s Guide to Doing It and Not Doing It at the Same Time: The All-and-Nothing Approach to Marital Fidelity.

To begin with, attraction just springs up, that dizzying electrical field, and there it is. Attractions are often inappropriate. Usually inappropriate. If you’re married, always inappropriate. In said inappropriate situations, he’d come to see, one had a number of choices. The smartest choice, and the one that was often the hardest to make and carry out, was to remove yourself from the company of the attractive person as quickly as you could and never go near her ever again. This was often not possible because of the circumstances that placed you in the path of this person to begin with, for instance, an attraction between coworkers like him and Gigi.

If you
can’t
flee the attractive person, you can choose to hang close but not too close to this person, indulging in the glimmering edges of the force field, convinced that nothing’s going to happen and that it’s perfectly okay because: 1. Nobody else notices, including the person you’re attracted to. (Everyone notices.); 2. The feeling is probably only
coming from you and so, since it isn’t reciprocated, you aren’t in any danger of actually acting on it. (If the other person allows you to hang around her, she is attracted to you, too.)

So scratch that option. Here’s the best solution he’d come up with, the one that seemed to make the most sense, the one he decided would work with Gigi: You hang around the attractive person
as much
as possible, bathing in the glow, waiting it out, telling yourself that even if the desire between the two of you is mutual and acknowledged, you’ll have the power to resist.

This, he thought, was the best solution for two reasons: 1. The more you’re around the object of such attraction, the more you’re forced to face the fact that she does have a few flaws, a few unappealing qualities, and before long she becomes as ordinary as an old shoe, or your spouse, and you’re breathing a sigh of relief that you didn’t say what the hell and give in. 2. He’d used this method once, successfully, with another coworker, Wendy, a few years back—ten years, to be exact. Actually, he didn’t breathe a sigh of relief until she moved away, but by the time she left most of the sparkle had worn off and she’d transitioned into being just a friend rather than a
friend
. Her pregnancy and the birth of her first child was undoubtedly a factor in the transition, but still.

Full disclosure—he knew the other methods didn’t work because of a few slipups, a very few, none of which Caroline knew about. When he turned thirty-five, he’d determined that all that was behind him. The older he got, the more he had to lose, the less compelling became the prospect of upheaval and drama; and even if Caroline never found out, the pining, scheming, euphoria, and the wallowing in guilt would’ve taken too much out of him. Add to that his intense desire to avoid dueling lawyers; acres of counseling appointments; and most of all, heartbroken children. He’d prefer to just stay home, eat popcorn, and watch all of the above on TV.

So Vic was counting on the all-and-nothing approach with Gigi,
because he had no desire to disturb his marriage any more than it was already disturbed—he didn’t want to add to the damage that had already been done by the everyday wear and tear of life with three kids, two of them with “disabilities,” and an old man with dementia. Also, he was already aware of some of Gigi’s flaws: She overdid it with the eyeliner and revealing outfits. Her laugh was too loud and her Southern accent exaggerated. She didn’t take the job seriously. She wasn’t very good at it. She drank too much.

He told himself that nothing had happened between himself and Gigi at the Cyprus—they ate dinner and drank a lot of wine, hugged good-bye a little too long in the parking lot and went their separate ways. But he never mentioned to Caroline that Gigi was the only other person at the dinner, which broke the cardinal rule of All-and-Nothing—if he couldn’t tell his wife about it, it was not nothing.

Later that night, his head heavy with pinot noir, instead of getting into bed where he belonged, he found himself in front of his laptop, checking the NHC Web site to see if there were any new developments, any new storms that might have potential.

There was nothing on his computer screen. Nothing.