Kim Palmeri’s blond head poked around the partition of Ellen’s cubicle.
“I’ve got you on that new factory tomorrow, on the west side,” she told her.
Ellen looked up in frustration. Two hours until the six o’clock and she didn’t have her stories written.
“Fine.”
“You gotta be out of here by eight.”
“Yeah, I got that.”
Kim leaned close. “What’s going on with Debbie?”
Ellen looked over at Debbie who was flipping through her notebook.
“There is something wrong,” Kim decided. “I caught her crying in the ladies’ room.”
Ellen shrugged. She had been back a few days and hadn’t had a chance to talk with Debbie. She tried calling her but got no answer. And, Debbie hadn’t called her.
She watched as Kim stopped at Debbie’s cubicle, speaking softly to her. Debbie looked up with a smile. A few minutes later, Ellen watched as Harold Lewis stopped at the cubicle and gave Debbie a little pinch on her arm.
“Hey, hey, cutie,” he sang.
When he passed Ellen’s desk, he gave her a short nod.
She felt a strange twinge of anger and something else she couldn’t identify. She glanced over at Debbie who was putting paper in her typewriter.
Others in the newsroom made it a point to stop by Debbie’s cubicle or they watched her when they had the chance. Something had changed. The excitement and the joy that had been so much a part of her seemed to have disappeared overnight. They didn’t see any anger or frustration. That they could understand. They all had that. No, this was different, and they felt the danger of it.
They watched and waited. Eventually they would know what was going on. See someone else change like this and they would know why. Oh, yeah, everything was worth knowing.
Ellen saw them bending over Debbie, talking to her in the hall. She heard the concern in their voices, the joshing they did to make Debbie laugh. She found it increasingly annoying.
Both she and Debbie were in early the next morning.
“Did you have a good time in Albuquerque?” Debbie asked.
“Yeah, did. And your Christmas?”
“Oh, it was okay. I had to work,” Debbie said as she sat down at her desk. She pushed a strand of her hair behind her ear.
“I tried calling you, Debbie,” Ellen told her.
“I’ve been going to bed early.”
And apparently, Ellen thought, annoyed again, that was all she was going to say.
“I’ve got the house guest from hell,” Sandi from Accounting interrupted her thoughts. “You wouldn’t believe this woman.”
“How so?”
“She came with my mother. They’re staying a week and she is crazy. She’s on this special diet, has to eat six times a day. Drives me nuts. There’s nothing wrong with her, not really,” she explained. “I just hate it, that’s all.”
Ellen looked over at Debbie. She was reading an assignment sheet.
“She goes crazy if I even suggest a restaurant or going out for a drink. She does it in public too,” Sandi was saying. “It’s embarrassing. Everything has to stop for her.”
“Oh,” said Ellen as though she had just made a discovery. “It’s all about attention. She wants attention.” She looked over again. Debbie was still reading.
“Well, yes, I suppose so,” decided Sandi. “The worst thing is this panic she goes into for no reason. She screams, actually screams. I almost drove off the road.”
“I once gave a neighbor a ride to pick up her car,” Ellen told her. “One of her kids in the backseat starts screaming at the top of his lungs for no reason and she does nothing. I stopped the car and turned around and said, ‘Don’t you dare scream when I’m driving.’” She gave a loud imitation of the voice she used on the boy.
“Sure, with a child,” Sandi agreed.
“No, you can do it with adults too,” Ellen stated.
“Maybe you can. I feel terrible even talking about her. She isn’t so awful, not really.”
With a hooded glance at Debbie, Ellen got to her feet.
“Sometimes,” she said in a stage whisper, “Truth can be a great kindness.”
In the van, waiting for Steve, she put her head in her hands. Why had she done that? Why? What was she thinking? Debbie would know she was talking about her. Of course she would.
She hit at her chin with a closed fist. What possessed her? Debbie had only sat down, pushed that blond hair behind her ear. And this is how she reacts?
That vision of the blond hair and the creamy skin and the pretty profile was vividly clear. My God, was she jealous of her? Was that it? She had never been jealous of anyone in her life. She shook the thought off. No, it couldn’t be.
Besides—she took a deep breath—Debbie probably didn’t hear a thing and, if she did, she wouldn’t know she’d been talking about her looking for attention. No.
Still, she told herself, she had to fix this. She had to do something nice because what she had done in there made her feel lousy and stupid.