The phone awoke Katherine with the fear that something big was breaking. On top of the daily logistics of news gathering, there were labour issues at the paper. Scott MacDonald was probably the only staffer who had been given less work, the unsuspecting beneficiary of MacKenzie’s misguided interest in Sports.
A consultant had recommended surveillance cameras. Unbeknownst to workers, Gem was planning a “rationalization of staff,” and Katherine had been called as a witness in Glenda’s unfair-dismissal suit. During the day, moving from crisis to crisis, Katherine was tight, controlled, never stopping to reflect. At night, she felt adrift and in pain, fearful of what could happen.
Earlier that evening, Katherine had been standing outside the paper, waiting for a cab, when a black Camaro approached slowly, unsure of its surroundings. In the still night air, the gravel driveway crunched. The Camaro stopped and the driver wound down a window.
“Is this the newspaper?” asked a slight man with a diamond stud in one ear.
Before Katherine could reply, she smelled the heady scent of musk oil and felt a rotund woman with red hair and boy-senberry lips sashay past her. Swish swish swish, the woman headed for the car, swinging her hips with rhythm. Swish swish swish. She placed her pointy-toed boots with tantalizing precision.
“Helooo, sweetie,” she greeted the driver, breathy. The woman’s lips parted, forming a slight line in a face as pale as a porcelain doll. She patted her munificent chest, making her words vibrate.
Katherine recognized the temptress as Billy DeVan, a clerk from Accounting. She had heard (but had never truly believed) the stories about Billy, who reportedly thrived on sailors, raw, interchangeable, barely in their twenties, all named Pierre or Mario. Most were submariners, whose squadron had the motto WE COME UNSEEN. Their returns from sea, from a claustrophobic cell of oil and sweat, were celebrated with food, drink, and sex. One celebrant brought Billy a silver spur, it had been whispered, another a copper ring that she wore on a matching chain around her neck, bouncing off her ample buxom, and suggesting something daring and indecent.
Who, Katherine wondered, after seeing Billy’s seductive greeting, had given her a licence to be so free?
“Oh, hi,” Katherine answered her phone.
“I was thinking of you,” said the caller.
“Ummm,” Katherine muttered.
“It’s November 25, St. Catherine’s Day, patron saint of spinsters.”
Katherine laughed. “Thanks.”
“I’m looking at a picture of you from that bed and breakfast, and I am feeling the loneliness. Pack a bag; I’ll meet you in the morning.”
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Geneva, and the weather reminds me of you. The phones are shitty, but the weather is beautiful.”
“Geneva?”
“Yeah.”
“Not tonight.”
“C’mon, I’m celebrating. The Times has a new guy here, and he can’t get his pictures out. He thought he had the world by the nuts, but he can’t move a thing.”
“Isn’t he the guy who won a Pulitzer?”
“Yeah, but it was like Moses and the Ten Commandments. He has no idea how he did it or where it came from. For once in his life, he was shooting with the finger of God.”
“And you’re enjoying it?”
“Not really. I’m a comrade, so I said, ‘Dynamite stuff, Cal, maybe you can mail them home to your mother for a retrospective.’”
“I can’t come.”
“Remember how much fun we had in Amsterdam, hanging out in the brown cafés, sneaking into dirty shows. Remember that dancer, the Korean girl, who tried to get you on stage, and that little hotel in Leiden? Well, this is way better.”
“Give me your number and I’ll call you in the morning.”
“Okay, gorgeous, sleep on it.”