“And when I was coming to work today I saw this little boy and he was all dirty and he was sitting on the curb and he had this scruffy little dog with him and he looked so unhappy and I started to cry. I started to cry all over the place.”
She bowed her head and clasped her hands tightly together in her lap. “It’s stupid, I know.”
“Christ, come on,” he rushed to say. “We’ll finish this and go for a drink. Okay? Two drinks, twelve drinks.” He patted her knee. “Okay?”
Jason was moved by the sound of tears in her voice. Until this moment he saw her as too cheery, too full of smiles. He had no problems working with women but he had never been entirely comfortable around any woman who matched him in height. This one was a big one, he smiled as he turned back to his machines, but there was definitely something about her.
“I’m sorry about breaking down,” she told him.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I cry all the time,” she said and laughed. “I do, really. I cry when I see some old lady using food stamps. I cry when I read the newspaper.”
“You are what is known as a blubbering fool,” he said.
“I guess so.”
“Hard to be a reporter crying over everything.”
“I do okay. Don’t I? Well, most of the time.”
“Yeah, you do.”
“Yes, well, I wish I could be more like Ellen. She wouldn’t get all weepy about anything.”
“She’s a pain in the ass,” he commented as he shuffled through the box of tapes.
“Not Ellen,” Debbie said firmly.
“Oh, yeah? Nobody likes working with her.”
“That’s not true,” she argued. “She’s great.”
“Okay,” Jason said, pulling a tape out of the box. “If you say so.”
He didn’t have much to say about Ellen Peters, not much at all. She was too much in charge, too much knowing what she wanted and how she wanted it. Christ, the thing she had about earphones.
“Don’t forget your earphones,” she said every time he started taking his equipment out of the van. Earphones? Who the hell wanted to carry those damn things around with everything else you had carry? So what if a couple of times you came back with some Mexican radio station jabbering all over your interview? It never happened on the big stories or the spot news.
No, he didn’t like Ellen. He heard her yelling at George one of those times when the audio wasn’t up to her standards. Who the hell knew why? Maybe it was his fault. Maybe not. Who knew?
“You tell that son of a bitch to use his earphones, George. He does this to me all the tine,” she was yelling.
It was easier working with the guys. You felt more like a team, the two of you against George. You could joke around, turn off the car radio. Harold Lewis was the funny one with those radios. He’d do the static bit.
“This is Unit Seven,” he’d start to answer one of George’s nagging calls. He’d roughen his voice and run his fingers across the microphone. At George’s end it sounded as though the connection was breaking up. Along with the scratching and some finger tapping, Harold would start dropping words.
“This is … to .. mayor’s …”
George would keep calling and demanding and Harold would say, “George? George?” while he scratched his nails across the mike.
“I don’t know what happened,” he’d tell George when they got back. “Something must be wrong with it. Better get it looked at.”
His eyes would be all innocent with that little boy face of his. What could George do? Harold was great and those art stories of his weren’t bad.
“Want to get something to eat?” he asked her.
She hesitated. “Why don’t we buy something and I’ll cook.”
“You don’t want to do that.”
“Sure I do. I love cooking and I don’t have anyone to cook for.”
“Okay,” he said. Why argue. He liked the idea. He liked her. She was a big ‘un but she was cute.
21
“How long has this been going on?” Ellen asked her.
“Oh,” Debbie started to blush, “a couple of weeks, but don’t say anything.” She glanced toward the other cubicles. “I don’t want it to get around.”
“It will. Everything does,” Ellen said.
“I don’t want people talking about it,” Debbie insisted. “I won’t say anything,” Ellen assured her.
Debbie nodded and smiled.
“He’s really nice, Ellen.”
“Not a doubt in my mind,” Ellen said.
Debbie hadn’t filled up with tears in the three weeks she and Jason had been together. She was too happy. Jason was happy as well, a contented laid-back happiness that would, at strange hours during the day, grow into a reaching, demanding passion. Jesus, why hadn’t he seen her before?
She was easy to be with and so relaxed about herself. Right after the first time, she was as comfortable as hell sitting cross-legged on the bed, naked. She walked around the room naked, the apartment. She didn’t grab for a towel or his shirt or the corner of the sheet to cover herself. She got up and paraded away. Boy, he liked that ass, that big apple butt. The breasts were small, yeah, and that made this strange for Jason. He was a breast man but with this girl it didn’t matter.
Sometimes she’d put on one of those nightgowns you could see through and he would watch her from the couch. She’d stand there, the curtain filtering the light from the window behind her and he would see her body beneath the gown. That would be enough to take him right off the couch.
The sex was good and he hadn’t been with anybody since Ashley and her big tits left for Washington. Damn her. He had planned on making the move too, but it didn’t work out. She was going to keep her eyes open and he was sending tapes, but nothing came through.
“What’s wrong with my stuff?” he shouted on
