30

Once upon a time I’d been a straight citizen; I had a regular job, went to the hairdresser every month, never back-talked nobody except boyfriends no matter how much I was provoked. I knew how to look and act like a lower-middle-class good girl who said yes to everything except sex and even then didn’t say no, just not now, who never wanted to be bad except in bed and then only with the right man, who never made trouble except when she drank a little too much at parties and who could always be counted on to do what was asked of her with pliant efficiency and without question. At JC Penny’s and Target Drugs I purchased a big-hair wig, lavender miniskirt, white silk blouse, pantyhose and white heels high enough to give me vertigo. I laid the outfit on the bed heels to hair like a scary Halloween costume. Then I took a bubble bath. Nothing like a bubble bath to make a woman feel more like a girl.

Soaked and scented, I wedged tissue paper between my toes and painted my toenails a colour the bottle said was misty pomegranate, then did my fingernails to match. As the polish dried I replaced the multiple hoops in my right ear and the dagger stud in my left with a single pair of silver hearts my mom had given me on my sixteenth birthday. An eye-lash curler, eye-liner and mascara transformed my stark blue eyes into a pair of peacocks. It took a couple of tries to pin my hair back and settle the wig securely on my head. It felt so heavy I was half-afraid the thing would break my neck in a high wind. The wig was made from somebody else’s hair blended with miracle synthetic and curled like a blonde waterfall down to my shoulders. In the product literature the manufacturer called this particular style the Dolly. In my skirt, blouse, earrings and wig I looked like one.

The only aspect of my appearance that seemed to throw the receptionist at Stone, Fell and Hughes was my hair, just about identical to hers in colour and cut, though I was pretty sure hers was not pre-owned. I asked, ‘Could I speak with your Employment Opportunities Director please? Mr Finley asked me to come by.’

She pressed a series of digits with her palm flat against the board to avoid damaging her ultra-length crimson nails, spoke softly into her headset, then glanced up at me with a winning smile. ‘If you’ll have a seat, Mr Fielding will be out in just a minute.’

One minute stretched to twenty before a plump-faced forty-year-old with a cowlick and striped red tie popped through the door. His gaze travelled from my ankles to my eyes, taking several rest stops between, as he circled the reception desk to greet me. ‘Miss?’

‘Dahl, Miss Dahl.’ I offered a limp-fingered grip and let my eyes go pleasantly blank when I smiled.

He wrapped my hand in a patronizing two-handed shake and sought to penetrate my character with a glance. ‘Fielding here. Call me Jerry. Why don’t we have a little talk in my office, hmmm?’ He led me through an open-ceiling work area broken into a maze of cubicles. The walls were partitioned just low enough for some boss to nose over the top and see if you were playing computer games or really working. The bosses themselves had floor to ceiling walls and doors that closed. Mr Fielding was a boss.

‘How do you know Mr Finley?’ He made himself at home while perusing my résumé, kicking his oxfords up to the corner of his desk to recline near horizontal.

‘Well, we met in the lobby and when I told him I was looking for employment he suggested I apply here.’

‘Did he get your phone number?’

At first I didn’t understand what he meant but then I did and knew just how to answer. I didn’t say anything. I blushed.

Fielding grinned with boys-will-be-boys admiration. ‘That’s Finny.’

‘That’s what?’

‘Finny. Mr Finley’s nickname.’ His eyes dropped back down to the résumé. He turned it over to confirm I’d written nothing on the back and tossed it on to his desk. ‘I must hand it to him though, he chose well this time. The training and work experience all look good, and eighty-five words per minute is impressive.’

I certainly hoped it was. I’d invented the résumé that afternoon at a local copy shop that rented computers and printers by the hour, asked three different people what secretarial skills I should claim. A cat hopping across the keyboard could type more accurately than I.

‘We don’t have any immediate openings, but positions do pop up from time to time. If something does, I’ll call and we’ll arrange a formal interview to discuss responsibilities, salary, benefits – that sort of thing. And of course we’d administer a test to verify your word-processing and typing skills.’

I folded my hands on my lap and puckered my mouth to angles of prim righteousness. ‘I expect to be tested. After all, if you don’t verify the information I could claim just about anything, couldn’t I?’

He made a sudden movement to place both feet on the floor and said, ‘I’m happy you understand,’ a signal the interview was over. He took my hand, prattled on about how grateful he was that I had chosen this company to apply to, and just as he released his grip said, as though forgetting something of small but still critical importance, ‘Oh – I didn’t see anything here about marital status?’

‘Single,’ I smiled. ‘But still hopeful.’

He plucked a pen from the inside pocket of his suit as though ready to note that on my résumé and joked, ‘Then so am I.’

Some joke.

As I stepped into the hall I asked with polite urgency, ‘The little girl’s room?’

He pointed to his right, no hesitation at all. ‘Just around that corner, second door to your left.’

A woman about my age stood at the sink washing her hands when I pushed through the door. She bent her hips away from the sink to keep dry her knee-length grey skirt and matching jacket. Her mouse-brown hair had been trimmed in no-nonsense style just above her shoulders. She couldn’t hide her smirk when I asked which office belonged to Mr Finley, but then, she didn’t try. I was getting a feel for his taste in women. I fitted right in. Her directions were as precise as a blueprint. I thanked her, backed into a stall, lowered the toilet lid and dialled Frank. The answering service picked up – he’d turned off his cell phone. For two hours I entertained myself by reading the graffiti and flushing the toilet. ‘The brighter the tie, the bigger the dick,’ one line went. I wasn’t sure what it meant but I agreed with at least one interpretation.

Out in the hall I heard the white noise of ventilation ducts, fluorescent tubes and electronic equipment but no voices and no footsteps other than my own. I passed the entrance, counted off the doors and stepped into an office twice the size of Fielding’s. The pictures on the desk were all of Finley doing manly things with his buddies. Fielding said people called him Finny. With his dark hair and Euro-style, he could pass for Italian. When he was introduced people probably heard Vinny. Somebody like Piña would naturally slide the F to a V, to something she’d heard before. I picked the cell phone from my purse and tried Frank again.

He answered with a brusque ‘Whaddyawant?’ In the background, I heard clattering plates and conversation.

‘Hey, you eating dinner? You alone?’

The line went dead. I touched redial, listened to the phone ring five or six times, hung up, touched redial again. This far into the evening, he needed to stay wired to any calls coming in. If he shut off his cell phone, he shut off his sources. When he finally picked up I said, ‘I don’t have a lot of time for phone games.’

‘What was that you were playing last night?’

‘Interviewing a witness.’

‘You always interview witnesses on your back?’

He didn’t mean it. He was angry. I let it go. ‘I wasn’t playing games. When I called you I didn’t expect her to show up.’

‘Her? I never figured you for a lesbian.’

‘Sure, Frank. That’s why I won’t sleep with you. Get it now?’

He hung up on me again. I hit redial one more time. After fifteen rings I gave it up. In a city of nine million strangers I had one less friend. I sat in Finley’s chair and looked around. It was a nice chair. With the controls to slide the seat, backrest and arms this way or that it had more moves than an amusement park ride. The bottom half of his computer screen looked like the best place to catch his eye. The envelope would be the first thing he saw when he entered the office. If he still worried about the photographs Gabe had taken, I’d leave him a colour photocopy of one and see what that stick did to his beehive.

His desk drawers looked like some manufacturer’s display model, organized into neat sections for writing tools in one drawer and company letterhead in the next. A beige four-drawer filing cabinet took up the space between desk and wall. The top drawer sprang open to a tab labelled Tinseltown Estates. The file behind it ran to the back and didn’t end until the middle of the third drawer down. I pulled out the first item behind the tab, a thick blue home-bound report titled Tinseltown Estates – Where the Stars Shine Night and Day.

A faint scratching of nails sounded at the door. I eased shut the drawer and sat, trying to look invited. The door slivered open to the startled face and doppelganger hair of the receptionist. Her first reaction was to back out of the office, forget she’d even seen me. She expected Finley and it didn’t bode well that she came face to face instead with a blonde who could have been split from her same egg. But before she closed the door suspicion subverted jealousy and she said, ‘You know you shouldn’t be in here.’

‘You’re absolutely right, I mean, Finny’s an hour late already and a girl’s gotta have some self-respect, ya know?’

‘I meant it’s after hours, against the rules.’

‘I didn’t mean to break any rules. He just told me to wait in his office.’

‘This isn’t the way to get a job here. Not through Finny. A lot of girls come up here but none of them ever gets hired.’

Women are always tougher on each other than on anyone else. I knew what she was getting at. She was calling me a slut. ‘I should be like you – get hired before I drop into his office late at night?’

‘I think you should leave. If Mr Finley returns, I’ll tell him you’re waiting in the downstairs lobby.’ She reached inside the office and shut off the lights.