CHAPTER 5

“The problem with posting your cooking on Instagram,” Wendy said as she swept through the door, “is that I know when you’ve made snickerdoodles. Fork ‘em over, sis.”

Regan sighed and plucked at her apron, as she led Wendy to a towel-covered plate in her kitchen. “You know, it would bother a lot of women that they have the same palate as my second-grader.”

In the kitchen, Wendy hopped up on the counter and graciously took a snickerdoodle from the plate, before Regan equally graciously moved it away from her.

“Are you shitting me? Kids know where it’s at. They eat Reese’s Puffs, we eat Oat Bran. No wonder they think they’re in charge.” Having said her piece, Wendy bit into the snickerdoodle. She moaned approvingly.

Regan leaned against the kitchen island across from her. “So?”

“So what?”

“How’s your workplace romance?” Regan demanded, arms crossed. “C’mon, Mac and Keith are at the movies, this is the perfect time to dish.”

“There’s nothing to dish.” Wendy spoke through an angry bite. “I ‘misinterpreted the relationship.’”

“Oh,” Regan said. She handed Wendy another snickerdoodle. “So, she’s straight?”

Wendy ate with small nibbles. “Married.”

“To a woman?”

“Like it matters,” Wendy growled.

“I’m just saying, you can’t give up that easily.”

“She’s married.”

“But not everyone is,” Regan insisted. “You just have to keep putting yourself out there. I’m really proud of you, trying to get something going there, and maybe it didn’t work this time, but next time—”

“Next time, I get to go to a sexual harassment seminar.” Wendy hopped down from the counter. “Let’s face it, Regan, you don’t have the most unbiased opinion of the dating game.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Regan, you have the perfect husband, okay? He looks like he’s captain of a starship. Crewed by a ragtag bunch of misfits, always trying to stay one step ahead of the oppressive Universal Imperium and their psychic enforcers—”

“Not that this doesn’t sound interesting, but what’s your point?”

Wendy threw her hands out. “There’s not someone like that out there for me! There’s no perfect girl that I’ll get if—” Wendy sardonically pumped her arm. “I just keep at it! You got lucky.”

“And you can’t?”

“Correction,” Wendy said, “you got lucky and you were born with the grace and charm of a Disney princess. I’m a hot mess with the social graces of a Michael Bay movie. So if there is some perfect person out there, they’re gonna have to really be into, like, sarcasm and bad dancing.”

“It’s not like Keith and I are made for each other, you know,” Regan countered. “There are plenty of things we don’t have in common.”

Wendy indulged in the kind of sour face she knew Regan hated. “Name one.”

“He likes his orange juice to have high pulp, and I of course prefer it pulp free…”

Wendy raised her hands to her face. “Oh my God, your marriage is doomed.”

“There’s no call to be snide. And my point is, maybe your person won’t seem right for you, but if you’re willing to work at it…”

Wendy hung her head. “Even my sister, who thinks I’m going to find my one true love on Tinder, says I’m going to have to work at it.”

“What do you expect?”

“I would settle for maybe a quarter of what you have,” Wendy said, bringing up her hand with the thumb and forefinger held an inch apart. “I’m not asking for, like… Okay, I assume you don’t want to know my idea of a fantasy girlfriend.”

“Would it cause me to lose respect for you?”

“You have respect for me?”

“Would this fantasy girlfriend own any particular kind of costume?”

“No, not exactly. See, she would actually work as—”

Regan held up a hand. “I’m good. I’m fine.”

“Right. So I’m not looking for a whole list of Wendy-candy. I would just like someone who would take care of me the same way Keith takes care of you.”

“I take care of him too, you know.”

“Yeah, yeah. Cookie me.”

Regan tossed her another snickerdoodle.

“Like I said, not going to happen, so I might as well plan on dying alone.” Wendy moved to take a bite, then paused with the snickerdoodle in her face. “Hey, are there any foods you should avoid so that if you die alone and your cats eat you, they won’t get sick? I would hate to poison orphaned cats with my bloated corpse.”

“Is this your subtle way of wanting to be hugged and having someone pet your hair?”

Wendy pouted. “Yeah. Ya mind?”

“No, not at all.” Regan went over to hug Wendy, who cuddled her right back. “Mac’s getting too big to lavish affection on. You’ll do until we get a dog.”

“You’re going to get a dog? Oh my God, can I move in?”

The sick thing is, Wendy thought, Regan would lurve if I put as much effort into my life as I do into my work. She’d just checked the clock and three hours had passed since she started on her e-mail of recommendations for Project Hawkowl Revision A114. No Facebook. No Twitter. Just cross-checking and correlation. If she could just get lesbians to send in notes on their aerodynamics, she would be married by now.

She was about to rectify the ‘not checking Twitter’ thing when Elizabeth Smile cleared her throat. Wendy hadn’t even noticed the secretary in her doorway, and that was saying something. Maybe she was turning straight and that’s why her dating life was going so bad. Now if she could just reverse-engineer the process and find a way to train it on Emily Blunt.

“Lace wants to see you,” Elizabeth said, without preamble, and turned on her heel without explanation. Her skirt was just long enough for the sway of her hips to be in perfect pendulum counterpoint to the fringe of her hem, her stockings hard-pressed to stretch all the way down her endless legs.

Not that Wendy was in any mood to notice, not after hearing those five words. The boss-lady wanted to see her. Her boss-lady? Was she getting fired? Promoted? Janet Lace was so saturnine it could go either way. She reminded Wendy of a cat. You never knew if you were going to get to pet the kitty or if you were going to get your hand bitten.

Pet the kitty, Jesus, Cedar! Wendy thought to herself as she rose, gathering a few of her things and doing a quick spot-check of her appearance. She dusted some crumbs from lunch at her desk away from her slacks, tucked in her blouse again, tightened her belt one notch over complaints from her spine. Her hair was still in the updo she’d put it in that morning, barely, and when she powered down her monitor screen, her reflection’s makeup looked presentable.

She started the long walk to her boss’s office, very much looking forward to seeing Janet, no matter how much it also worried her. Being in Janet’s commanding presence, she consistently felt like some moist, juicy cinnamon roll, fresh out of the oven, all warm and gooey on the inside.

So much for Emily Blunt.

Wendy tried her best to once again banish her gay thoughts as she came to Janet’s door.

Elizabeth had already sat back down at her desk outside, buzzing the intercom to inside: “Ms. Cedar to see you, Jan.”

The intercom clicked. Even through tinny speakers, Janet’s voice was cool and controlling, a firm finger rolling down Wendy’s earlobe… “Send her in.”

Elizabeth gave Wendy a look and, belatedly, Wendy realized she should open the door. And go through.

Janet’s office was chillingly precise. Paintings of nondescript things on the wall, unassuming furniture, a large desk whose surface held only a computer and an inbox and an outbox. The outbox’s stack of papers always outnumbered the inbox’s. And an altimeter wall clock, just to prove she had a personality.

Behind the desk, Janet sat flanked by the view out her floor-to-ceiling windows. Skyscrapers in the background on either side of her, like intimidating goons. Wendy gulped and heard her name in greeting. “Wendy.”

“Ms. Lace,” Wendy said, low-key enough. “How’s tricks?”

Janet got up. She always rose like a cobra coming up from its coils, hands planted firmly on her desk, then tapering away in a supple stroke of her fingertips as she came up to her full height. Wendy didn’t know if it was designed to, but it always had her staring at Janet’s fingers.

“Assuming ‘tricks’ is referring to the well-being of myself and the company that supports my livelihood…”

“Always.”

“Then very good.” Her hands braided together, Janet walked out from behind her desk and over to her liquor cabinet. Her office was much larger than Wendy’s. It had room for a liquor cabinet. It probably had room for a vineyard, if you didn’t care about feng shui. “I’m very pleased to say that, while the gears may turn slowly, they do turn. We retested the new prototype, found a design flaw, and we’re taking it back to the blueprint stage.”

“So.” Wendy paused. “The drawing board?”

“No, we already have drawings of it,” Janet said, perched somewhere between oblivious and simply careless as she browsed for one particular bottle like a general inspecting her troops. Her liquor cabinet curiously resembled an art deco hotel cleaning cart to Wendy’s eyes. “We’re just redesigning it.”

“But isn’t that…bad?” Wendy asked cautiously. “I mean, it’s a huge setback.”

Janet came up with a bottle of brandy. “It would be, but our distinguished competition—” here Janet toasted with the bottle, before endeavoring to open it “—had a test flight of their prototype. It crashed.”

“Oh my God. Is everyone all right?”

“Probably.” Janet shrugged. “I didn’t ask.” She held the bottle out to Wendy, unopened. “Do you mind?”

“Sure,” Wendy said, and worked on the cap. She wondered if Janet couldn’t open it, or just couldn’t open it without looking undignified.

Either way, Wendy could look undignified and open it.

“Thank you.” Janet took the bottle back. “Now, their design flaw was the exact same scissor link problem you identified and that we’ve been taking steps to correct. So you can imagine how pleased the Old Man was to tell Senator Marston all about how our prototype is already well on its way to having that very problem licked.”

“Yeah. Being licked. Cool.”

“And it’s all thanks to you.” Janet poured for both of them into two of those pebbly, crystal glasses that Wendy was sure you weren’t supposed to drink Dr Pepper out of. Of course, she tried not to drink Dr. Pepper out of anything. “You deserve a reward.”

“Oh, well, I…” Licked. Why the hell had Janet had to enunciate it that way? Licked. Like it was the name of a drug or something. Licked. Licked. It’d been three seconds and already that sounded like complete nonsense, like fizzypuff or President Trump. “I was just doing my job.”

“Ms. Cedar, there are two things you should learn from me. One, never let anyone pay you less than you’re worth. Two, always take credit when it’s well-deserved.” Janet handed one of the glasses—tumblers, Wendy thought, then wondered why the hell they were called that—to her. “I know a glass of fine Kentucky bourbon isn’t much, considering you may very well have saved lives by ‘doing your job,’ but it will have to do. Just know that your workmanship does not go unrecognized, or unappreciated. I’m very good at remembering employees as competent and trustworthy as you.”

“Thanks.” Wendy looked at the tumbler. Damn, it was dark. Like amber. “Should I drink this? I am on the clock.”

“Drink,” Janet said.

Wendy obeyed without thinking. It burned. Not as much as the lemonade Wendy had made as a kid without sugar, but more than Wendy thought a throat should, which was none. She coughed and sputtered, and Janet graciously took the tumbler from her.

“It’s an acquired taste,” she said. “Well, that’ll be all. Back to work. Next time I’ll see about getting you a Long Island Iced Tea—”

“Do you have a cold?” Wendy asked suddenly.

Janet froze, coiling inward into a defensive lack of affect in her speech. “Why do you ask?”

Wendy pointed to the wastebasket beside her desk. It was full of wadded-up tissues, so it was either a cold or Janet was jerking off a ton, as Wendy’s scumbag brain pointed out, despite the obvious logistical issues there.

“Oh, yes, just a sniffle,” Janet insisted, though she still seemed perturbed, unaccustomed to being second-guessed or however it was she’d taken Wendy’s question. She knocked back what was left in Wendy’s tumbler. Well, she’s good at swallowing, Wendy’s scumbag brain added, before Wendy managed to silence it for good with threats of watching Downton Abbey.

“Please go,” Janet continued. “I’d hate for you to catch anything.”

“Yeah. Sure,” Wendy agreed, pausing nonetheless. Eyes frantically darting around, seeing if she could get Janet anything. She seemed to have plenty of napkins; a lot of fluids, even if they were largely alcoholic.

“Go, go,” Janet insisted. “Make me more money. Shoo.”

Wendy hurried along, reminding herself that Janet was a grown-ass woman and could buy herself all the DayQuil she needed.

Wendy did not think of her apartment as small. She thought of it as efficient. She really didn’t need a couch to sit on, after all, when she had a bed, or a TV when she had a laptop, or an oven when she had a microwave, or a closet when she had a floor. Sure, it wasn’t like home, where you could take a bath in water, but it was on the first floor of her building and she didn’t have to work up a sweat walking her Triumph Bonneville inside and getting it up onto the kitchen table (eating would now be done on her lap, which was sadly only a single entendre).

With her Bluetooth calling Tina, she got to work on her bike as a mother would fawn over a sick child (although the Bonneville was far more expensive).

“Wendy, hey, what’s up? Bike again?”

“Bike again,” Wendy confirmed. “One of the cable stops disappeared, now the carbs are completely out of sync.”

“You’re never going to get that thing running right,” Tina said between crunches.

Wendy could imagine her lying on her couch, enjoying some pita chips, while they spoke. “We’re never going to get a Terminator movie better than T2 either, but it doesn’t mean we stop trying.”

“Heh. Yeah. So I’m guessing the stop fell out?”

“Yeah, but that’s impossible, there was always tension on the throttle cable.”

“Betcha the cable sheath is dropping. When you turn the bars it straightens out, that puts slack in the cable and the little bastard escapes. Fuck it, tape the damn thing.”

“What about a snap ring?” Wendy asked. “On the outside of the major OD?”

“As you like it. Although you’d think if your dad was going to get you a motorcycle, he’d get you one that worked. Or a penthouse apartment, for that matter.”

“The bike’s a birthday present,” Wendy replied.

“So’s being rich.”

“You’re talking yourself out of riding bitch this very moment.”

“Hey, I always ride bitch no matter where I sit. Now, tell me you didn’t call me just so I could tell you to tape a loose cable?”

Wendy cracked her neck as she went to her toolbox, situated on top of a kitchen chair, and dug out her safety glasses and needle-nose pliers. “You know any homeopathic cold remedies? You know, tea leaves or whatever?”

“You mean from Vietnam, where I was born, or from Cleveland, where I actually grew up?”

“Either’s fine,” Wendy said, pouring an añejo into a tequila glass. The most important safety equipment of all.

“Because if we can’t figure out how to win the World Series, we definitely can’t cure the common cold.”

Wendy got a sangrita from the freezer, carrying the shot glass in the same hand as the añejo. She was a professional. “Okay, but you guys have noodles, right? You eat noodles when you have a cold? That’s like a universal—universally acknowledged treatment for—”

“Don’t.”

“What?” Wendy asked, getting a snap ring out of the parts shelf on the wall.

“You’re planning something. Don’t do it.”

“I’m trying to do something nice for a friend who is down with the cold.”

“I’m your only friend, remember? Who’s this skanky other friend? Is she younger than me?”

Wendy paused, finding the new cable stop that she’d already put in. This one she wasn’t losing. “She…might be Janet Lace.”

“Don’t,” Tina said, one note higher than before.

“It’s not—”

“No.”

“I’m just—”

“Nooooo.”

Gritting her teeth, Wendy jammed the tips of the pliers into the holes at the end of the snap ring. It took her a moment to get them through. “It’s just a little care package to let her know I’m thinking of her. It’s barely even romantic.”

“It’s your boss! She can fire you!”

“I’ve thought of that.”

“And?”

Wendy opened the pliers, forcing the arms of the snap ring to open. “She’s not going to. Listen, men have been seducing women for hundreds of years at least. I think I can pull it off.”

“Remember the last time you tried to seduce someone?”

Her hands occupied with the pliers and snap ring, Wendy bit down on the rim of her tequila, eased the glass over, and sucked up what she could. “That lawsuit was dropped.”

Tina took a breath deep enough for a spiel as Wendy slipped the widened snap ring over the cable stop and the groove where she wanted it to stay. “Listen—if this Lace person is so nice, why don’t you just ask her out on a date? The worst thing she can do is say no, and then at least you can forget the whole thing like I’m telling you to do right now.”

“I would,” Wendy protested, closing the pliers gently. “I absolutely would, but, she might be, and this is just a possibility—she could be married.”

“Could be married? What, was he shot down over German lines or something?”

Wendy pulled the pliers away, letting the ring snap closed. “She wears a wedding ring… It could just be so that men don’t see her as an object of desire and sexually harass her.”

“Yes, that wedding ring is clearly discouraging people from obsessing over her.”

Wendy heard a crunch of pita chips over the line. She’d driven Tina to stress eating.

With a heaving sigh, Wendy tossed the pliers back into her toolbox. “Okay, you think I don’t know it’s not going to happen? I get it, it’s me, it’s not going to happen. But I can at least be nice to her! And she can smile at me! And I can have these really nice sex dreams where she asks me to work late and—sorry. Private thought.”

“No, keep going, this is like watching a true crime show for lesbians. My best friend is O.J. Simpson with a vagina.”

Wendy tapped at the snap ring with a thumb ring on her right hand, making sure it was properly seated. It didn’t budge. “Tina, my ovaries are begging me here. She has a cold and I can take care of her a little bit. This is the only workout my libido gets. At least you can watch Ryan Gosling movies.”

“God, I’m starting to see why my parents had an arranged marriage. Okay, go ahead and pick her up some tissues, in case she runs out. That won’t be too creepy. Just for God’s sake, be subtle about it. Try to conceal your raging les-boner?”

Wendy whipped her safety glasses off and snatched up her sangrita. “I will just ask how she’s doing on tissues because I happen to have some extras in my desk. She won’t even be able to tell I’m gay.”

“Oh, she’ll know, but maybe she’ll think you’re interested in an age-appropriate relationship.”

“Okay, yeah, I can totally get away with that one.” Wendy took a sip of sangrita, then immediately back to the good stuff. The tequila was tasting better already. “I should get her some DayQuil too, right? In case she had some at home but didn’t bring any to the office with her?”

“It’s like Hollywood made a prequel to Single White Female, I swear to God…”

She hung up.

Wendy went to stir the chicken broth she had going on her stove.

Janet tried to focus on Hunting Warbirds, let herself be pulled in by the first few pages until her imagination was well and truly fired, but her attention refused to be so easily assigned. She couldn’t relegate it away from the last words Roberta had spoken to her, or the dream of Wendy that stayed as stubbornly fresh as if she were waking up from it every second.

She closed the book on its first page as Elizabeth came in, bearing papers for her signature. Intuiting Janet’s mood, she left without a word, but with a consoling smile. Janet was signing them when her intercom buzzed—a smooth tone reminiscent of a Tibetan singing bowl. It only disturbed her in so much as she paused in the middle of a pen stroke, taking the time to use her free hand to toggle the intercom, then finishing her signature. “Yes, Elizabeth, what is it?”

“Wendy Cedar here to see you, boss.”

Janet quirked an eyebrow and lifted the contract to double-check if her signature was required on the next page. “Does she have an appointment?”

“Nope.”

“Oh well. Send her in.”

Wendy entered, dressed tolerably, carrying what looked to Janet like a quite undersized briefcase.

“Is that a lunchbox?” Janet asked.

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t know you were a parent.”

“Oh, I’m not.” Wendy pulled up a chair before Janet’s desk, set the lunchbox down on it, paused to get it just so for Janet’s benefit, then opened it up. The first thing she pulled out was a large Tupperware container. “Chicken noodle soup, old family recipe. Not my family, I found it on the internet, at the end of like a five-thousand-word short story on the emasculation of the American male after Vietnam, it was like out of a cookbook that Hemingway would write, but I tried the recipe and it was actually pretty good, and it is homemade, and it could be vegan, well, the noodles aren’t vegan, but I’m pretty sure the broth doesn’t have a face.”

Janet blinked. “Did I…ask you to bring me chicken soup? And forget about it?”

“No, it’s for your cold.” Wendy explained, sounding briskly sure of herself.

It was her confidence that Janet found most off-putting. She seemed a hundred percent convinced that Janet required chicken soup.

“And here’s a bottle of Sprite, diet, straight from the vending machine so it’s still cold. Although the prices are ridiculous. Like, a buck for this bottle. I could get at least a liter of this at any convenience store. It’d be warm, yeah, but are we really charging seventy-five cents for the equivalent of a couple ice cubes? What is this, Tito’s Yugoslavia?” She gleaned Janet’s bewilderment quickly. “Or a more relatable metaphor? Here’s a cookie.” Wendy brought out a cookie. It was the size of a piece of bread and emblazoned with chocolate chips. “Don’t worry, they’re not raisins.”

“And this is for my cold?”

“Yeah, I mean, I know how hard you work, you always take your lunch in here, send Lizzie—” Wendy jerked her thumb back to Elizabeth’s desk “—out to get you lunch, if you even have lunch, but c’mon, there’s Chinese food and then there’s food that’s good for fighting a cold.”

“This is a very considerate gesture.” This time, Janet didn’t blink, but fully closed her eyes for a few seconds before opening them again. “Would you like me to pay you back for the ingredients?”

“No, no no no, it’s just a friendly—an act of friendship. ’Cause we’re friends.” Wendy quickly amended her statement. “Or friendly. We’re friendly. Like a mentor or a…an employer.” Wendy cocked her head. “Kind of warm acquaintances, is how I would like to think of us.”

“Did you bring a spoon?”

“Yes!” Wendy said, managing to sound remarkably like she was agreeing to something. She pulled out an actual metal spoon, wrapped in a napkin, from the bottom of the lunchbox.

“Because I have some plastic utensils in my desk,” Janet finished. “Metal is nice, though. Very sturdy. Thank you for the gesture of…” Janet sought out a word. “Goodwill?”

Wendy made an elaborate gesture that amounted to ‘let’s call it that.’

Janet reached for the Sprite.

“Wait!”

“What? You already said it was diet.”

Wendy felt around in the lunchbox. “I got you some extra DayQuil too, in case you ran out. So you should probably take that before the Sprite, so you have something to wash it down—” Wendy then looked inside the lunchbox. “And I left it in my car. This is a very small lunchbox, there wasn’t a lot of room, and I was pretty worried about smashing the cookie.”

“Would you like to go and get it?” Janet asked solicitously.

“Yes I would,” Wendy agreed, as unfailingly conciliatory as before. “I will be right back—friend.”

Wendy came out of the subbasement parking lot humming to herself, DayQuil firmly gripped in hand. She got onto the elevator with two middle management types, sliding neatly out of their minds once they’d gotten her floor for her. Their conversation passed in front of her like the ball at a tennis match.

“So I checked the obituaries—no mention of a Lace.”

“Maybe he was living abroad. Maybe she didn’t take his name.”

“Face it, man, her husband didn’t die, he left her, that’s why she’s not wearing the ring anymore.”

“Who would leave that?”

“Like the man said, show me a beautiful woman and I’ll show you a man who’s tired of fucking her.”

“Yeah, no shit, but I mean leaving Janet Lace sounds like leaving the Mafia. Ya just don’t do it. Her husband died. That’s why she’s wearing black.”

“She always wears black.”

“Black and gray.”

“Yeah, very dark gray. Like Batman.”

“Batman sometimes does yellow, though.”

“Yeah, and blue.”

The elevator stopped. Wendy got off, feeling like her head was about to explode. She pitched the DayQuil into the nearest trash can.

“You know what?” Wendy said, taking advantage of Elizabeth’s lunch break to slide right into Janet’s office. Janet was already eating the soup. Shit. “It just occurs to me that you have a very strong constitution, you’re probably over your cold already, it was really overstepping my bounds to think you needed chicken soup or chicken noodle soup or any soup, really—”

She started lifting the Tupperware bowl away from Janet, Janet precariously lifting her spoon with the bowl.

“What are you doing?”

“I’ll just take this,” Wendy said. “Yeah, I’ll just get it out of your way, you probably already have lunch arrangements—”

“Set that back down. I was eating that.”

“Yeah, okay, yeah—”

Janet looked at the bowl as Wendy placed it back on her desk. “Is this poisoned?”

Wendy was now completely taken aback. “I don’t know, is it? I mean, why would it be poisoned?”

“A bit of laxative or something else slipped into it as some sort of prank,” Janet said, folding her hands together and staring at the soup as if she could intimidate it into giving up its secrets. “Well, that may seem like a harmless gag to you, but you should know it’s still a very serious crime.”

“No! No no no, no laxatives, no…” Wendy stooped to the bowl and began ladling soup into her mouth, swallowing as many mouthfuls as she could. “See? Harmless! Nothing in the soup—”

“Stop eating my soup.”

Wendy stood bolt upright. “Yeah, okay.”

“I was really enjoying that soup,” Janet said. She opened a drawer and got out a plastic spoon in a cellophane wrapper. “And now you’ve gotten your germs on the spoon.”

“Sorry.”

“Please take the spoon. I was going to have to give it back to you anyway.”

“Yeah.” Wendy snatched it up, putting it into her breast pocket, and was then quite aware of the moisture in it seeping into her shirt. “So this is maybe a little not my business, but I noticed you’re not wearing your wedding ring.”

“You did, did you?” Janet asked, stirring her new spoon into the soup.

Wendy put her hands on her hips. “Yeah, I’m perceptive like that.”

“I haven’t worn it for a week.”

Wendy paused. “I thought you might’ve lost it.”

“No, that would be my wife…in Cancun.”

Wendy tried very hard to, for once in her life, be straight. This was not the time to beg for Janet’s services as life coach, to ask for tales of nineties lesbian intrigue, to reminisce about Missy Peregrym’s abs in Stick It. Even if she could hear her mental-Regan telling her to throw some dumb nugget of her own gaydom out there—‘I’d have a wife too, if I were married, which I can do since the law changed, from not allowing lesbians to marry to allowing lesbians to marry, which you would know, since you are a previously married lesbian and could be a married lesbian again with my help’—as if Janet couldn’t tell. Hadn’t told, with that ‘I think you’ve misunderstood our relationship’ open-heart surgery.

Janet took a mouthful of soup. “This is very good, by the way. Thank you for making it.”

“Any time!” Wendy put her hands together. Took a deep breath. Say something supportive, say something supportive, you’re a supportive person, you just have to say something and it’ll be nice and she’ll feel better. “Ms. Lace…Janet…”

“Mm,” Janet replied. “You can go, if you want. I’ll get the accoutrements back to you.”

“Accoutre—oh, the Tupperware, no, you can keep it.” Wendy forced herself into motion, speech, reaching out and gripping Janet’s shoulder. She felt tensed muscle beneath the lining of her jacket, like bedrock under the smooth sand of the desert. Christ, have they invented Super-Pilates? “I just wanted to say that you’re a really good boss. You’re patient, understanding—maybe a little prickly, but you never seem to ask more of us than you do of yourself. And maybe we don’t say so, but we all appreciate working for someone who trusts us and respects us, like a family, you might say.”

“Are we having a moment?” Janet asked suddenly.

“N-no?” Wendy took her hand away.

“Are you trying to have a moment?”

“Nope!” Wendy sounded certain.

Janet stood up. She wasn’t taller than Wendy, but her high heels made Wendy’s heels their bitch. Wendy swallowed nothing, and a lot of it.

Standing across from Wendy, Janet reached out and placed her hand on Wendy’s cheek. Wendy could feel every downy little hair on her face touch the hand as it came in, feel the air give way, feel every softened molecule of Janet’s palm as it touched itself to Wendy’s face. Janet’s thumb swiped out, rolling with careful slowness over Wendy’s lip, and the tip of Janet’s forefinger tickled at the fringe of Wendy’s hair. Her face was burning. Janet’s hand was cool, and soft as velvet. Wendy wondered how long she should stand there, letting Janet touch her face like a very sensual blind person, and then locked her legs in place, determined to stand there as long as she could.

“Wendy,” Janet said quietly. “Does this strike you as an appropriate gesture for an office environment?”

“Yes. Absolutely. Fine by me.”

“It’s not,” Janet corrected ruthlessly. “While pleasant, perhaps even pleasurable—” (Wendy resisted the urge to squeak) “—within the workplace, it also distorts the boundaries of a supervisor-slash-subordinate relationship.”

Wendy tried to nod while not dislodging Janet’s hand. “I understand.”

A bead of sweat rolled down Wendy’s forehead, between Janet’s fingers. Janet moved one digit, spearing it on the end of a short fingernail, and watching curiously as the dollop of saltwater spread out to bridge Wendy’s skin to her enamel. Brusquely satisfied, Janet took her hand away. “I think you had best get back to work.”

“Yeah. Absolutely. Yes.” Wendy ran a hand through her hair. Walked backwards. “But, you know, if you ever want more chicken soup, I make a lot, so…I have lots of leftovers…or fresh soup, I could make you fresh soup, I have a lot of ingredients…wouldn’t want them to expire. Not that they’re going to expire anytime soon…” Wendy collided with the door to Janet’s office.

Through the window, Elizabeth looked at her.

Wendy gave her a quick, panicked look, then was back to Janet. Janet had sat back down.

“I buy very long-lasting ingredients,” Wendy said, and rushed out of the room.

“How do you accidentally hit on your boss?” Tina asked.

“Very badly,” Wendy replied, looking around the small outdoor café where she’d met her friend after work. The place was still largely undiscovered, if not uncharted, but the soup of the day was chicken noodle and that gave her flashbacks to wanting to spend the last week with her head in her hands. “I was just trying to do something nice for her while she was sick, but then she wasn’t sick, and it just got taken the wrong way.”

“Well, that’s what you get for being a kiss-ass.” Tina studied her menu. “You know, anyone allergic to kale would not have a good time here.”

“I was not being a kiss-ass,” Wendy insisted. “It’s not that she’s my boss, it’s that she’s kinda cool and withholding, but then also a little nice and gentle from time to time? And her hair is really nice and she wears glasses.”

“Ah yes, nothing sexier than not being able to watch movies in 3D.”

“I’ve had dreams about her nibbling on the earpiece. Every time she takes them off to clean them I have a little moment when I think she’s going to do the thing and—” Wendy paused. “It’s a good moment.”

“I’ve always wondered what lesbians fantasize about. I thought it was adopting cats.”

“Ha ha,” Wendy said sardonically. “I already have a cat.” She picked up her menu. Then set it back down. “So Janet has a puppy and it keeps running around Godzilla, trying to get him to play, and Godzilla is just like so annoyed, but in that cat way that cats do where it’s sorta cute, and eventually they start falling asleep on each other, and also they can talk…”

“I’m starting to see why the seduction didn’t go as planned.”

“I didn’t plan it!” Wendy protested. “I was just trying to do something nice for a friend. Acquaintance.”

“You’ve never brought me artisanal chicken soup when I was sick. Do I need to get a dog?”

Wendy fell back in her seat. “I’m going to die alone. I can’t crush on someone who lives across the hall, I can’t even crush on a celebrity, I have to crush on the most unobtainable person on the planet.”

“Oh, c’mon, I’m pretty sure Jennifer Lawrence is more unobtainable.”

“No, no, I haven’t met J-Law. If I met her, she might be into me. I’ve met Janet and she isn’t into me. Or a goodly portion of the emotional spectrum. So why am I having dreams about her?”

“What dreams?” Tina asked. “I still need to know what lesbian wet dreams are like.”

“I’m not telling you that.”

“I’ve gotta know.”

“I’ll send you an e-mail.”

“Subject: my big gay sex dream about my lesbian crush on my boss.”

“Any crush I have is a lesbian crush, so now you’re just being redundant.”

“I mean, haven’t you ever wondered what straight women fantasize about?”

“I saw Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey. I know way too much about what straight women fantasize about.”

“Also sometimes Kylo Ren.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Yeah, I know. Hey, look at it this way, even if you’re not getting laid, you’re still working at your dream job with a hot boss. I can’t even work in the aerospace industry, because I’m from fucking Vietnam and I can’t get a security clearance. Engineering degree, graduated with honors, and now I build model planes. You know who else builds model planes? Children. Children with pieces of paper.”

“It’s bullshit, yeah. But think of it this way. Can you put a G.I. Joe in the cockpit of one of the planes you design?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t do it. Might have a spy camera in it. So there you go.”

Elizabeth came over right on time, buzzing to be let in just as Janet was taking out the steak she’d cooked. As soon as her oven mitts were off, she rushed to buzz Elizabeth up before Elizabeth could try her cell phone.

“I come bearing gifts,” Elizabeth said, referring to the 2005 Bricco dell’Uccellone with a ribbon tied about it. She held it out to Janet, then snatched it back. “Wait, is this good for a cold?”

Janet gave her a dead-eyed look. “You’re very funny.”

“Should I even be here? I’d hate to catch what you’ve got.”

Janet snatched the wine from her. “You know, if some man came in and tried to coddle me the way she did—”

Elizabeth affected abject shock at Janet’s effrontery as she let herself in. “It’s cute! And she didn’t mean anything by it. And honestly, you’re not going to have twentysomething hotties fawning over you forever. Not unless you’re secretly Sean Connery.” She glanced at Janet suspiciously. “Say something with an ‘s’ in it—but not an ‘h’ after the ‘s’.”

“The food’s getting cold,” Janet advised her, politely ignoring that Elizabeth had slipped out of her heels.

 

The meal was filling. The taste decent.

“You’re holding up well,” Elizabeth said, stepping in just before the silence could get unbearable.

“I am?” Janet replied absently.

“Yeah. No empty beer cans strewn around or anything.”

Janet got into the spirit of things. “I swept them under the rug,” she said, smiling in dim thanks to Elizabeth for trying to cheer her up.

Elizabeth laughed suddenly. “I just pictured you dying of consumption and Wendy Cedar nursing you back to health.”

“Consumption is fatal half the time,” Janet said.

Her salad was dry, she realized. She reached for the dressing and noticed it was out of reach just before Elizabeth passed it to her.

 

They drank Elizabeth’s wine and listened to Janet’s records. Karen O, Janet thought. At least Elizabeth couldn’t complain about her musical tastes being out of date. Although perhaps listening to Ms. O sing torch songs to her loneliness wasn’t the best way to reassure Elizabeth about her state of mind.

“Elizabeth?”

“Yeah, Jan?”

“What was I like with Roberta?”

Janet hadn’t seen such a quizzical expression on Elizabeth’s face in a long time. “What do you mean?”

“How did I seem? Compared to how I am now?”

“What, you mean did she rip your heart out, are you a shadow of the woman you once were, was she your better half—no, bullshit, you’re fine. You’re great.”

Janet nodded. “Because if I was happy then, I should be sad now. That stands to reason.”

“Oh, we’re reasoning now,” Elizabeth said, holding out her glass to have it filled. Janet did so and she slumped back in her seat. “It’s okay, Jan. I get it, you’re hurting. It’s not some big mystery that has to be solved.”

“But I don’t feel any different.” Janet couldn’t take the sympathetic concern that Elizabeth sent her way, so she stared at her pristine wineglass. The blood-red Barbera overlaid her reflection. “I feel exactly the way I did when she was here.”

“So you feel numb. Big deal. There’s no right way to get divorced. As long as you’re not hiring a hitman, who cares if you’re not throwing glasses of whiskey into a blazing fireplace?” Elizabeth sipped her wine. “We can try that, though, if you want. I’m not a whiskey girl.”

Janet almost could’ve smiled. Almost. “Do you think someone can be sad without realizing it?”

“I think there are a lot of things people cannot realize. I also think the way you’re feeling now can color everything. If I took you back a year and showed you us laughing together, would you say you were crying on the inside?”

Janet drained her glass instead of answering. When she looked at it again, her reflection was waning. Barely there at all.

“Would you like me to spend the night?” Elizabeth asked. “It’ll be fun, we can braid each other’s hair and talk about boys.”

“I think I’ll pass. I’d hate for you to show up at work tomorrow in yesterday’s clothes.”

“Well, if you think I don’t know how to look good in yesterday’s clothes, you are delusional.” Elizabeth got up, wineglass hooked on her finger, and took the bottle to give Janet a refill. “I’ll go put the cork back in.”

Janet waved her wineglass slow-motion in the air, picturing herself flinging it into a roaring fireplace with a dramatic burst of answering flames, cathartic and cleansing. She preferred to drink it, though.

“It would be interesting, wouldn’t it?” she called.

Elizabeth was putting her shoes back on. “What?”

“Someone nursing you back to health. That never happens after you’re a child, with your parents all over you. You go to hospitals, but it isn’t the same.” She shrugged. “I suppose it’d probably get irritating, being hovered over like that.”

“You never got sick?” Elizabeth asked. “Roberta never made you Jello or anything?”

“I got sick. I just didn’t want to bother her.”

Janet stayed at work late the next night, waiting for a memo from Testing. It would need her notes as soon as possible. As she waited—the office closing down around her, windows going dark one by one—she started on her new book.

She wasn’t four pages in when she read it; if it was a snake, it would’ve bitten her. She was struck by the same image the author, Carl Hoffman, had been: the Kee Bird lying on the frozen lake where it had crashed, silver as a dollar coin lying on the sidewalk, a grand old dame who hadn’t aged a day save for her bent props and missing rudder. Its dodo bird-like mascot straddling the nose beside her title in crooked yellow letters. The panes of glass still intact. The tail a bright red, like a bloody hand reaching up for help.

 

We banked hard to the left, and swung around for another look in stunned silence. “You know,” said the pilot finally over the intercom, as he swept eighty-five feet above the Kee Bird, “I heard that some guys came to the plane last summer and actually got an engine started.”

“No way,” I said, mesmerized by the ghost of an airplane I had worshiped for years and which, as far as I could remember, I had never seen in real life.

The pilot circled for another low pass. “Apparently they changed the spark plugs in one of the engines, connected it to a battery, and it fired right up. And they’re coming back this summer to fly it out.”

The Kee Bird touched a powerful nerve, like hearing a song or smelling a scent that instantly returned me to the wonder of childhood. I couldn’t shake the image of it sitting there on the snow, a talisman from an age that seemed more exciting and romantic than my own. I wanted to see it fly, to hear its engines roar.

 

Janet had to put the book down just to think of it: to take a team out there, put up some tents, and start in on the old girl. After seventy years, it would need work. Some parts fixed, others replaced, but if she could hand-pick a few guys, a few good guys, and get herself an expense account—rig some ski-wheels on the landing gear…

It was impossible, she knew it was impossible, but she’d thought it, Hoffman had thought it; she couldn’t imagine anyone who’d so much as thrown a paper airplane could not think it. Clear a runway, tinker with the engine, gas her up, and just go. Fly the last of the Super fortresses.

Some unpoetic part of Janet’s soul pointed out how frustrating it would no doubt be, since she was used to the more precise, computerized airplane, some of which she had worked on. What kind of idiot would want to give that up for an oversized crop duster?

But there was something about that generation of planes: the P-38 Lightning, the P-51 Mustang, the F4U Corsair—all the hanging models of her childhood that she’d only seen fly in a stiff breeze. They had an elegance, an indomitable spirit, an endurance where the modern jet fighter so often seemed fragile and temperamental, fussy as hell when they weren’t ingratiatingly smooth and responsive and soulless.

But a bird like the B-29…that had hot blood in its veins. It was the difference between riding a horse and a motorcycle. The bike might not fight you, might not buck you, but it was a slave. A horse, you had to fight a bit, give a bit of slack to—you had to respect her and get her to respect you. And when you did? When you put yourself into the horse and let the horse into you?

Janet remembered visiting her uncle’s stable growing up, the first time he’d let her cut loose and bring Humphrey Bogart the Pony to a gallop. It’d felt like they were flying.

How could you only want to fly once?

Wendy finished late, stepping out of her partitioned office and into a half-lit world of janitors gossiping. She almost felt like apologizing to them as she stepped on the neat lines of the vacuumed carpet, into the elevator, and descended to the lobby, where the night watchman was waiting to monitor her journey down the walkway to the parking garage next door.

That actually required another elevator ride, as Wendy’s parking space was on the fifth floor, and she was just too damn tired to take the stairs like Michelle Obama would want her to. She could hear her bed calling to her, an exciting evening for the career woman on the go. First up, we actually get home, waking us up all over again since you can’t find a commute to go with your new posting. Then we wash up again so tomorrow morning you don’t look like something trying to kill Jamie Lee Curtis. Then we lie in bed and try to watch something boring enough to put us to sleep, but not so boring that we’ll turn it off and be alone with our thoughts. Thank God for network television.

Then Wendy froze, all of a sudden woken right the hell up, no shower or motorcycle ride required. Janet Lace was around the corner.

She looked absolutely stunning. A very dark blouse, slightly maroon, accentuated her figure, with the gray jacket of the day off to allow the lines of her body to become apparent in the loose fabric. Good. Hell with it. Wendy hated that jacket in retrospect for reducing Peak Janet Lace to Edited-for-TV Janet Lace.

But the skirt that went with it was nice—a crisply gray, woolen thing that straddled her knees, somehow thrilling in how it left the smooth motion of her thighs unobstructed but invisible as she walked virtually in place, pacing the length of her car doors. Her cell phone was in her hands. She looked at it once, like a bad hand of cards, then stopped and planted her fists on her hips and almost blurred with the energy inside her. Wendy had never seen someone that frustrated concealing it that hard.

She turned abruptly.

Wendy was a deer in the headlights. She was sure Janet had never seen someone this frustrated not concealing it at all.

“Ms. Cedar,” Janet greeted, forcing cordiality to a point where it was almost polite.

It was hot, even at night, the parking garage cut out the cooling breezes, letting the air stifle. You wouldn’t know it from looking at Janet, though. Her skin didn’t sweat, it glimmered, a dewy layer of perspiration that struggled to pull one hair out of place. If she strained her eyes, Wendy could see a droplet of sweat caressing the line of her jaw…

“Ms. Lace.” Wendy shoved her hands in her pockets. “What’s up?”

Great pick-up line, her inner Professor Snape said. And how will we seal the deal? Going for a high-five?

With her hands in her pockets, her backpack started sliding from her shoulders. Wendy moved hurriedly to steady it. Then—and even her inner Professor Snape sighed in disbelief—she gave an anxious smile.

Janet mirrored Wendy, shoving her phone into her pocket. Holy shit, her skirt even has pockets. “A flat tire. I must’ve punctured it on the way over and now it’s completely flat.”

Wendy automatically moved forward to look at it. “You call a tow truck?”

“I tried,” Janet said, putting an aggravated emphasis on the word. She clenched her fists so tightly for a beat that her black leather gloves squelched together.

Wendy looked at her, but her ire seemed entirely self-directed, not coming her way at all.

“I had researched a very highly reviewed towing service, one which operates at night, but in the four years since I saved their number to my phone, they have gone out of business. I can’t find another towing service that works at night, so it seems I’ll just have to call a taxi, leave my vehicle unattended all night long, and negotiate its rescue tomorrow morning, amidst all the other things I must attend to!” Janet followed all that with a deep breath, as if further frustrated by how she’d vented. She flashed Wendy a look that seemed both unintended and apologetic.

“I could wait with you, if you wanted. I mean, if you’re worried about leaving your car here.”

“Thank you, that won’t be necessary.” Janet’s lips pinched together slightly. Another bead of sweat touched the little bow of her lips, and she automatically licked it away.

Wendy felt as if she’d suddenly developed telescopic eyes just to see that.

“But if that’s what you want?”

“It is,” Wendy said. Sliding her backpack off and onto the ground, she regarded the car. Gave the flat tire a kick, just because how often did you literally get to kick a tire? She felt a slick of sweat between her shoulder blades, drawn by the lack of air conditioning. “Have you tried changing it?”

Janet scoffed, and again it seemed directly more inward than outward, as if she were more frustrated with herself than anything else. “Even if I knew how, this is a six thousand dollar ensemble and half my assets just ran off with a yoga instructor. I literally can’t afford to replace it.”

“Well, lucky for you, I dress like a hobo,” Wendy said, beaming a grin at her. “Pop the trunk.” Don’t smile! her inner Snape screamed. That wasn’t charming!

An eyebrow raised, Janet reached into her pocket and clicked a button on her key fob, resulting in her maimed car beeping and opening up its trunk. Trust Janet Lace to have everything she needed to change a tire, and in pristine condition. Hell, even as she tossed her jacket into the ample trunk space, it looked like Janet had enough to survive traveling back in time. A first-aid kit, road flares—was that a flare gun?

Don’t snoop, Cedar, she told herself, selecting the jack and a lug wrench that looked large enough to teach a Roman centurion a thing or two. “Hold this,” she said, handing the wrench to Janet, whose eyebrows oozed shock from halfway to her hairline. Oh yeah, and tell her what to do, she’ll love that. She laid the jack on the ground by the tire and went to get the spare tire next.

But first, Wendy shrugged off her jacket. It’d been casual Friday at Savin Aerospace, and she’d dressed like it, wearing a fleece jacket zipped up over a black tank top. It was really only after she felt the air on her breasts that Wendy realized how low-cut the tank was. And her jeans weren’t exactly baggy. Hell, you could see her belly button. And now she thinks I’m a hooker. Great.

Janet offered her hand, taking the jacket from Wendy, and with her sleeves metaphorically rolled up, Wendy got the tire. She lugged it out of the trunk with a grunt of effort—oh so feminine—and rolled it to a stop beside the jacket. Then she wiped at her forehead with the back of her hand, realizing she’d started to sweat. Now let’s see if there’s some mud we can roll around in to really complete the look, shall we?

Wendy took the wrench from Janet, who immediately crossed her arms over her chest in abject disapproval. Yeah, I know, I know. She removed the cover from the wheel rim, then loosened the lug nuts in a star motion. She left the wrench by the cover on the ground as she inserted the jack.

“So I heard about your divorce,” Wendy said, her voice strained as she pumped the lever with all her might, raising the car in smooth degrees.

“Oh?” Janet asked, her arms tightened around herself.

“Yeah. I was real sorry to hear about that.”

“Really?” Janet asked, sounding even more Janet. “You’re sorry to hear that I’m single? You’d prefer I be in a loveless marriage?”

Wendy took her wrench to the lugs again, grunting as she twisted them off one by one, feeling about as ladylike as Stone Cold Steve Austin. “I’m sorry—” she strained, working on a particularly stubborn one. “That you’re going through a—” Wendy was interrupted by a noise deep in her chest as the lug nut gave. “Tough time.” She set the lug nut down on the parking garage’s concrete with a clink and started on the next one.

“I appreciate that,” Janet said formally.

Move on, move on, abandon conversation! “So, how ‘bout dem Yankees?” Wendy asked as she began prying the flat tire out, her biceps swelling in a way that would look great on Instagram, not so great when her crush could actually smell her.

“I don’t watch baseball. I prefer hockey.”

“What? Shut up, me too!”

“So why do you want me to shut up?”

Wendy paused as she reached for the spare. “It’s a…it’s a figure of…”

“I know, Wendy. I’m just playing with you. I’m not that old.”

Tell me about it. Janet looked like at some point in her thirties, she’d told the aging process ‘let’s not have any of that.’

Wendy shoved the new tire into place, now feeling her tank top clinging to her, waterlogged with sweat. Shouldn’t have taken the jacket off. She twisted the lug nuts back into place with her hands. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Janet raise the jacket to her nostrils. Definitely shouldn’t have taken the jacket off. Shit, did I wear deodorant today? Perfume? Scented shampoo? Spill some tea on me that smelled nice?

Wendy stood, swiping her hands on her jeans, leaving most attractive swaths of damp sweat and grease on them. Her hair was probably a mess too. Dark with sweat, completely disheveled—some of it was already hanging in her eyes. She took her jacket back from Janet, throwing it on, noticing that Janet crossed her arms as soon as her hands were free.

“So, uh, that’s how you change a tire,” Wendy said. She went to get the flat tire, although her eyes kept darting back to Janet as if she’d stop crossing her arms in disapproval. She did not. “Now you know, in case you drive over any more pikes…maces…morning stars…” Stop naming medieval weaponry.

“I could just call you,” Janet said. Brutal, brutal sarcasm.

Wendy tossed the flat tire into the trunk along with the jack and lug wrench. She gave a friendly nod to Janet, who nodded back to her with great tolerance, and nearly ran to her motorcycle. It was parked in the same damn row, so Janet got to watch as she straddled it like a Level 9000 Gay. Wendy put on her helmet and instantly went blind. Backwards. She took it off, turned it around, put it on again. When she started the Triumph, the engine roared like it was the fucking Batmobile. Cool at any other time, not so much while Janet was still staring at her with her arms crossed.

Probably worried I’ll try to mug her, driving around like I’m in a biker gang. Wendy ripped the throttle, and even if the tires squealed as she took off, it was worth it to get out of there as soon as possible. It didn’t take her long to realize she could’ve offered Janet a ride. Janet Lace, pressed into her back, arms around her waist, the wind in their hair…might’ve been slightly more romantic than watching Mrs. Arnold Schwarzenegger butch up.

Wendy Cedar: Master of Seduction. Classes at 7 and 10. Learn how to utterly repulse women without saying more than six syllables! And she was pretty sure she had forgotten to wear deodorant, too.

Janet waited until the motorcycle had screamed off into the night, the echoing throb of its engine lost in the distance, before she uncrossed her arms. Even that simple motion made her nipples feel as if they were shredding through her bra. Christ, they could’ve been about to fucking explode.