6.

THE TRAFFIC TUESDAY MORNING WAS TERRIBLE with smelly garbage trucks making my usually zippy trip down to the waterfront from my house in Cabbagetown a stop-and-go trial. And I was in a rush. Shirley had left a grim message on my phone while I was in the shower: See me as soon as you get in. I’m here until ten. When the traffic was at a standstill I looked around for cops, and seeing none, dialed Cindy. Boy, did I have to talk to her! My name had to come off that article, and how. When she picked up I switched to speaker-phone just as I was passing the cop shop on Church. No hand-held device ticket for me! I could hear honks and the sound of traffic through the speakers. She was on her way to work.

She didn’t even say hello and launched immediately into one of her tirades. “Your chain-smoking, hard-drinking, newspaper editor of the Home and Garden section, has left a message on my cell phone. Don’t you think it’s odd that your editor is calling me?”

Odd, maybe it was odd, but why would that piss Cindy off so much? Sometimes she overreacted.

“Yeah, a bit, but she called me, too.” What was going on?

“Listen to this.”

Shirley’s thrumming diesel engine voice filled my car. I could hear that Cindy, for the first time in her life, was being summoned to Shirley’s legendary smoky office. Her disembodied gravelly voice commanded, “Come in and see me as soon as you get in. Right away.”

I had received almost the exact same message.

“Me too,” I said. “The same message. I wonder what’s up.”

“I’ve never been to her office. Is it as bad as they say?”

“What do you mean?”

“The smoking.”

Oh, that’s what had bugged her. “Take your oxygen mask,”

Even though there had been a workplace smoking ban for over a decade, Shirley persisted in dragging on butt after butt, imagining she was fooling everyone by blowing her smoke up into the air vent and periodically spraying her office with a deodorizer. Air fresheners were plugged in to every available socket, vying for space with the tangled cords of computers and landlines. Her office smelled like a second-hand clothing store.

Shirley Payne, my editor, was having an affair with Douglas Ascot, Cindy’s editor. So why did my boss want to see us both? There must be some connection.

I played the message for a third time as I wheeled into a parking spot in the underground lot below the Daily Express. Yes, I was to come immediately, as soon as I got in, Shirley had ruled. She would be in the office until late tonight.

Given it was not quite nine in the morning, that was a fairly large window of opportunity. No excuses. I sat in my car for a minute and sent a text to Cindy, telling her I had to have my name off the Everwave article. I quickly pressed send, took a deep breath, and braved the underground lot.

As I shut my car door I saw Cindy clattering on four-inch heels up the ramp from the next floor down. She was at least six feet tall in bare feet and now she looked like an enormous strawberry lollipop with her bright red hair on top of skinny legs. “Hi,” she shouted breathlessly. “Wait up!”

When she got closer to me she said, “Did you catch that story about the mayor? Holy shit. Is that going to be big or what?”

“You going to be covering it?” I couldn’t bring myself to mention the text. It was all too awful.

“Just the intro until the senior political people can clear their desks. What’s this sudden attention from Shirl-Pearl, the Pain? I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong. Maybe Doug whined to Shirley about something or another during pillow talk and she’s going to tell me what it was, sort of behind the scenes, so that I can correct the situation and save her bacon.”

But if that were the case, then why were we both being summoned? I doubted it had anything to do with pillow talk.

Cindy had doubts too, but for different reasons. She snorted, “That will never happen. Because then I will owe Shirley big time and of course, Shirley, in due course, will ask for a favour of some kind in return. I will have to hop to it and not tell her to fuck off, like I would anyone else. No, my hands will be tied and I won’t be able to speak my mind, because of Doug being my boss.”

“You’re really running with this, aren’t you? It’s probably nothing,” I lied. I knew it was something.

Cindy laughed, “Not really. I’m worried because we both have to go see her. Maybe I’ve committed a political sin by having your byline on the article about Everwave. Surely you are allowed to foray out of your regular section, if only briefly. I mean, are you forever doomed to Home and Garden?”

We had reached the elevator and she was still jabbering away. Once again Cindy was churned up. “Look, I will do anything to help you get beyond your belief that you are a failure. If Shirley blocks your attempt to feel good about yourself, after all you’ve been through, I will fight it. You’ve been a good friend through my divorce and dammit, your name is going to stay on that article.”

“Thanks for the support, Cindy. I do appreciate it.” Geezus. What was I going to do?

“You deserve it, after all; the main ideas are yours. Plus you researched and wrote it, for heaven’s sake. They will have to kill the article before I’ll agree to taking your name off it.”

I groaned inwardly. This was such a mess. When Cindy was in this hard-ass mood, I always backed down. I hated confrontation.

As we got closer to Shirley’s office, I watched Cindy clench her teeth and throw her purse in front of her body. She was girding her loins for a battle. I was grateful my friend was so protective of me, but something inside me was a little irritated. I could fight my own battles, couldn’t I? Yes, I was the new me.

By the time we had reached Shirley’s office, Cindy was ferocious and rapped on the door with harsh little taps. I could already smell the cigarette smoke and knew that would make Cindy even more livid. It was an abuse of power, and my political friend didn’t tolerate that. Deep from behind the steel and glass door came Shirley’s characteristic low throaty rumble, “Come in.”

I opened the door to a plume of smoke and Cindy made quite a dramatic show of coughing. She then waved the door back and forth several times, in a mocking effort to air the room out. Shirley fake-laughed ha, ha, ha and aimed the air deodorizer right in Cindy’s direction and sprayed, implying she was the source of the pollution. As if a squirt of freshener could possibly dispel Cindy’s fury, not to mention having absolutely no effect on the cloud of smoke that hung over Shirley’s files, her phone, her desk, her coat rack.

I was now seeing Shirley’s office through fresh eyes, as if for the first time. I saw the cluttered desk, burdened with tilting piles of files and scattered with empty packets of chewing gum, an effort of Shirley’s to control her habit. I noticed that the family photo was lying face down today, its gilt frame peeking out from under a buff-coloured file folder. This did not bode well for us. Everyone knew that if Shirl-Pearl had had a tussle with any member of her family, especially one of her teenage sons, down the photograph would be slammed, her mood crashing with it.

Cynthia placed her body directly in front of Shirley’s desk, arms rigidly crossed and head held in what I’m sure she’d hoped was a jaunty, confident angle. Her foot gave a few tentative taps, but I saw second thoughts ripple over her face and watched her decide that toe tapping was over the top. Too cartoonesque. She wanted to convey a “don’t fuck with this chick” stance. Toe tapping was out.

Me? I tried to shrink into the background. This was not going to be pretty. What was about to go down was one of the main reasons why I had stuck with flowers all my working life. They were conflict free.

Shirley briefly looked up from what she was writing by hand at her desk and, after slowly running her eyes first over me drooped in the corner against a wall, and then over Cindy’s stiff body, said, “At ease, Corpulant.” She then continued writing as if we weren’t there.

Cynthia caught my eye and sniffed.

I supposed it was funny. I supposed it could have been more degrading; Shirley could have called her “Corpuscle.” Maybe this attempt at humour meant we weren’t in that much trouble at all, maybe it was something else entirely, like wanting us to organize the office party, or bringing in a platter of my famous carrot muffins. Or, maybe Shirley needed to know where Cindy got her fabulous hair done. Without a doubt Shirley needed this information what with that bale of hay perched on top of her head, straw poking out everywhere.

We waited while Shirley kept her head down, focusing on her page. I hated it when people did that. Come in, sure, but don’t expect me to acknowledge your existence, not until I’m done. It was so controlling. As if in response to these thoughts, Shirley held her hand up with her thumb tucked in and her fingers spread, four more minutes was the message. She loved this game. I could see that Cindy was seething. Another abuse of power and frankly, downright rude.

“Bitch,” she mouthed at me.

Finally, with an exaggerated stroke of her pen, Shirley signed her name on whatever document was so important that it couldn’t be sent by email, and wheeled around to her computer screen, flicking it to life. She pointed her finger at it. “I have to talk to you both about this article on Everwave that Mr. Ascot kindly forwarded to me. Yes, here it says, ‘Written by Cynthia Dale, with files from Robin MacFarland.’”

I could see Cindy was shifting her weight from one foot to another. She seemed to have made the rapid decision not to reveal her cards and kept her mouth shut. To say anything at all would make her vulnerable. She stood up straight and maintained her head at that cheeky angle.

Shirley looked at her and shook her head in mock puzzlement, “Something wrong with your neck, Cynthia? I have a good chiropractor, if you need one.”

“No, I’m fine, thanks,” muttered Cindy and briefly put her chin down.

“There’s no headline for the piece yet, but I’m sure it will be snappy. I want to ask you a few questions.”

“Okay, shoot.” I was feeling brave.

“Sit down, will you. Both of you seem so uptight. And you Cynthia, take a chill pill. I’m not going to bite your head off.”

Cindy hee-hawed self-consciously and pleated her lanky limbs onto a wooden chair in the corner, after she had lifted off an organized pile of files and placed them neatly on the floor. “So,” she leaned forward in her chair as she crossed her exceedingly long legs, “what’s up?” She sounded relaxed, even cooperative, but I knew she was barely keeping her tone civil.

“It’s common practice, when there are two names on an article to be extra careful about the credits. So far they read, ‘Written by Cynthia Dale with files from Robin MacFarland.’ I guess you wrote that Cynthia, am I correct?”

Where was this going? “Well, yes, I guess.” Cindy’s anger was corralled behind a barbed wire fence.

“Did you or didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Okay, Robin?” Shirley turned her head towards me, “So where are your files? You always show me all your research and I don’t have any files on this. And I have files coming out of my ears, as you can see,” Shirley gestured expansively around the room and tapped the top of her computer. “But no files from Robin MacFarland. So, where are the files?” She turned back to Cindy. “Did she send them directly to you, Cynthia?”

“Ah, well, actually, no.”

“But it says ‘with files from.’ Are you telling me now that that’s inaccurate?”

Cynthia squirmed, “Yes, there were no files from Robin.”

“So, did she write this article with files from you? It’s important to be accurate, people around here work hard and they deserve credit where credit is due. So, were they your files?”

I felt like we were being interrogated by a prosecutor at the Supreme Court of Canada. What was the big deal?

“No, they weren’t my files.”

“Okay, so we can eliminate the word ‘files’ from this byline altogether, right?” Shirley looked at Cindy for confirmation. When there was a slight nod of a now not so jauntily held head, Shirley, her hands poised in a claw-like arch, deleted the words “with files from” with a series of staccato taps on her keyboard. I knew she had done that for effect. Most people would just hold the bloody key down.

“Now,” said Shirley, her eyebrows raised like two inch worms arching their backs in a geisha dance, “we are getting somewhere. Now it reads, ‘By Cynthia Dale and Robin MacFarland.’”

“I am very proud of Robin being on the front page,” Cindy gushed, a fountain of bonhomie.

“Are you then?” responded Shirley frostily. “Well, well. You are proud of her. I have a few more questions. You see, I know Robin’s work very well. Having been her editor for quite a few years. Am I right, Robin?”

“Yes,” I mumbled. I had a sense of impending doom.

“Several decades, in fact. Here in the Home and Garden section of the Toronto Daily Express. Yes, I know her work very well. Like you, Cynthia, I am proud of her, too. Finally Robin has taken a step to advance herself in the paper. I won’t stand in her way, not at all, but I want that way paved with the truth. The truth is the truth and I want the truth. Do you understand what I’m saying here?”

“Oh, don’t worry, everything in that article can be backed up. It is the truth.”

“I know the article is the truth, silly billy.” Shirley flashed some teeth at Cindy in what could pass as a smile, perhaps of a piranha. “Let’s try and get to my point another way. Whose idea was it to question the energy efficiency of the project?”

“Robin’s. She has quite a critical mind.”

Shirley looked at Cindy with false surprise curling the corner of her lip. “Oh, really? Do you think I don’t know that? My own reporter for over twenty years? And whose idea was it to mention the vulnerability of the pump in the middle of the lake?”

I had to speak up. “Begging your pardon, but it’s not in the middle, it’s only five kilometers out and the lake is—”

“I know it’s not the middle, Robin. That’s an idiom. A figure of speech. Besides, I am talking to Cynthia.” The lip curled even more and I was beginning to understand something very bad was actually happening here, but I wasn’t sure what. Shirley repeated, “Whose idea?”

“Robin’s. She’s very creative and—”

“Do I need to remind you again, Ms. Dale, that I am aware of Robin’s attributes as a reporter?”

So, now it was Ms. Dale. Things had gone from bad to dreadful.

Cindy didn’t know when to shut up. “She did such a good job on this article and I don’t understand why you—”

“Ah, now we are getting to the truth. ‘She did such a good job.’” Shirley parroted. “Not you, not Cynthia Dale, but Robin MacFarland. She. Her. Isn’t that right? Isn’t it the truth that Robin wrote this article? That the ideas behind this article were Robin’s? That there were no files from either you or her. That this, in fact, is her article?” Shirley’s voice was escalating, with every question blasting like a bullet from a rapid-fire machine gun, aimed right at Cindy’s integrity. Shirley was leaning forward, her face a bright red. I’d never seen her like this. She flicked a cigarette pack open and shut, open and shut, the soft snaps punctuating the silence.

Cindy sunk into the wooden chair, trying to disappear. It was true. We had believed that with my name linked to Cindy’s it would surely get on the front page. Cynthia had only wanted to help me, so that I wouldn’t feel like I was a failure. That I would move forward. She was being my friend. But of course Cindy couldn’t say any of this. And neither could I.

Instead it looked as if Cindy had tried to steal the article from under the feet of a susceptible underling, someone who’d had such a bad time for the past five years but had finally pulled up her socks and done great work. It looked as if Cindy was a thief.

Cindy said, “Well, we are such good friends and I was there, at the ceremony, and I thought—”

“Stop right there before you convince me to have you fired. What you’ve done is very, very serious. You are a cheat. A liar and a cheat. That’s called plagiarism. And we can’t have that at the paper. I don’t care what you thought,” Shirley barked, “whatever it was, whatever you were going to say, will only get you in more trouble. Just stop.”

“I’m sorry” Cindy moaned. “I won’t do it again.”

Oh my God, Cynthia could lose her job. There was a zero tolerance policy on plagiarism.

“Of course you won’t. You will lose your job and be black-balled from the Express. I believe that you were trying to steal her thunder, that you were trying to cover up your own laziness in not writing an article, but I’m not stupid. I know Robin’s work. She’s smart and talented. You understand? I know you’re friends. I’m letting you off scot-free because you’re her friend. Some friend.”

Even though this was so wrong, I squirmed with the unexpected praise. The whole situation was too much for me. I needed a drink and it was only nine fifteen.

“Yes, thank you. I am her friend. I was only trying to—”

“Stop. As I said, I don’t care what you were trying to do. Don’t EVER do that again. I’ll probably have to mention it to Doug.”

“Okay.” Cindy said worriedly.

“So, you know what’s going to happen now?”

“My name comes off?”

Shirley stared right at Cindy with a steely grin on her face as she vigorously and repeatedly struck the delete button with her manicured peter pointer.