“Would you still care about it if you didn’t find out about it from-?” Marshall stopped. “You didn’t tell me her name.”
“Kelly,” Dad said. “You know what? I would. I really would. I don’t see how you could not be interested once you knew what was-what is-going on there.” He sounded convinced. Just because he sounded that way, of course, didn’t mean he was. And even if he was, that didn’t mean he was right.
“Idiot!” Vanessa Ferguson said, her voce not nearly sotto enough. The idiot in question was her boss. Mr. Gorczany had written between you and I in a letter soliciting a bid on the widgets his firm produced. Vanessa wondered if she was the last person alive who could actually use English grammar these days. She changed the boner to between you and me, fixed a couple of other clumsy phrases, and printed the letter for his signature.
Even if he wrote like a baboon, he owned the company. He lived on an acre and a half in Palos Verdes, and he bought himself a new BMW every year. Vanessa’s job title was technical writer, which translated into hired keyboard. She had a cramped one-bedroom apartment and an eight-year-old Toyota Corolla with bad brakes. Where was the justice in that?
“Thanks, Vanessa.” Nick Gorczany looked over the letter before inscribing his John Hancock. He was very blond, about thirty-five, and putting on weight. Because he knew all about widgets, he thought he knew all about everything. He pointed to between you and me. “Are you sure that’s right?”
“Yes, Mr. Gorczany,” Vanessa said. Braining him with the softball trophy on his desk would only get her talked about. Besides, who said any brains lurked inside that skull?
“I dunno. It looks funny,” he said, frowning.
“The object of a preposition takes the accusative-the objective, if you like that better.” All she had to do was reach out, grab the ugly trophy, and… “If you don’t believe me, see what the Word grammar checker says.” She never bothered with the Word grammar checker, but it wasn’t-quite-dumb enough to make the moronic mistakes Mr. Gorczany did.
“Maybe you know that, but I bet Don Walsh over at Consolidated doesn’t,” he said. “Change it back to you and I. I don’t want him thinking we’re a bunch of yahoos.”
“But it’s wrong that way,” Vanessa said helplessly.
“If he doesn’t know it’s wrong, then it’s not wrong for him,” Nick Gorczany told her.
She rolled her eyes. “Good God in the foothills! Why do I bother?”
“That will be enough of that, Miss Ferguson.” Now Mr. Gorczany spoke with some snap: the snap of a boss putting a third-tier employee in her place. He sometimes looked at her in a way she found mildly annoying-not enough to call him on, even for her, but annoying even so. The way he eyed her now scared her, as it was meant to do. “I begin to see why you’ve worked at so many different places the past few years. If you can’t get along with people, you’re going to have problems. Now fix that letter, please.”
By get along with people, he meant do as you’re told. She almost choked on the injustice of it. She also almost told him to fold the letter till it was all corners and shove it up his wazoo. But the economy, not to put too fine a point on things, sucked. If she punted this job, how long till she snagged another one? Longer than her savings lasted? It might be close.
And so she contented herself with stalking out of his office, head high, back stiff. The look on her face made a software engineer who was coming in to show him some printouts flinch. It also made a couple of people talking by the coffee machine stare. That didn’t bother her; it wasn’t as if either one of them knew anything.
Changing between you and me back to between you and I took only a few seconds, printing out the letter only a few more. They would have gone even faster if she hadn’t done them through a red mist of fury. This was what the world was like? Too right it was! You got along better if you were one more smiling moron than if you gave a rat’s ass about doing things right.
The phone rang. As Vanessa reached for it, she thought how tempting it would be to scream Fuck you! and slam down the receiver. Or to imitate Marshall and answer with Yankee Stadium-second base, and let the jackass on the other end go from there.
Tempting? God, how tempting! But no. She’d just reminded herself she needed the paycheck. “Gorczany Industries, Vanessa Ferguson speaking.” If she sounded like a slightly constipated robot, well, Mr. Gorczany couldn’t can her for that.
“Hello, sweetheart.” Hagop Nersessyan had a voice like a lion’s rumbling purr. It was the first thing that attracted her to him. She’d rapidly found out there were others. He knew things in bed poor lame Bryce didn’t even suspect. She wondered how she’d got tangled up with a loser like Bryce to begin with. The same way she’d ended up working here, she supposed. It had looked like a good idea at the time.
“Hello,” she said, but even Hagop’s voice didn’t cheer her up as much as she thought it should have.
“I will see you tonight,” he said confidently. “I will close up shop early, and I will see you tonight.” He bought and sold fine Oriental carpets.
“I don’t know,” Vanessa said. “Work’s pretty crazy right now”-which was putting it mildly-“and I may not be fit company for anybody.”
“I will see you tonight,” Hagop repeated. She knew what that meant: he was horny. He had definite rhythms. Well he might-he was a year older than her father. Bryce seemed to be turned on all the damn time, and he’d expected Vanessa to feel the same way. She didn’t just want to screw; she wanted to be wanted, to be seduced. No wonder they hadn’t lasted, even though she’d thought about marrying him.
“Well… okay.” She wasn’t happy with herself for giving in. She never was. She’d find some way or another to get even. Now she hurried on: “Listen, I can’t talk. I’ve got to get this document to Mr. Gorczany.”
“Tonight, then,” Hagop said. He meant after dinner, of course. He wasn’t offering to take her out. He had a good deal of cash, but he was slow about parting with it. She’d wondered if he was married. That would explain why he didn’t want to be seen in public with her. She didn’t necessarily mind being a mistress, but she wanted to know if she was one. Some Internet work convinced her that wasn’t the issue. Hagop just didn’t like to spend money.
She waited outside Mr. Gorczany’s office till he stopped speaking in tongues with the software engineer. Then she brought in the letter and set it on his desk. “Here it is-the way you wanted it.” Her words might have been carved from ice.
He scanned it to make sure she wasn’t saying one thing and doing the other. She’d thought about that, but hadn’t figured she could get away with it-a good thing, too. Nodding, he scrawled his signature at the bottom. “Take it to the post office. I want to make sure it gets today’s postmark. We could have taken care of this sooner if you hadn’t gotten foolish about it.”
She got off at half past four. It was 4:27 now, by the digital clock on his desk. The trip and the wait in line would cost her anywhere between ten minutes and half an hour, depending on how retarded the Post Awful clerks were. And he was waiting for her to complain about it-she could see that. So she just said “Right” between clenched teeth and carried the letter out with her fingertips, as if it stank of manure. As far as she was concerned, it smelled worse than that.
The line at the post office was long, and moved slowly. As soon as Vanessa saw the plump blond woman at one of the two open stations, she knew it would be bad. That gal couldn’t count the fingers on one hand and get the same answer twice running. They talked about employees going postal-how about customers who gathered dust waiting their turn?
She collected a receipt when she handed off the letter. She wasn’t about to pay postage for Gorczany Industries. Then back to her car and back to her apartment. She picked up her mail-junk and a cable bill. The cat gave her a big hello when she came in. Pickles always did. A day in there with nothing but two fish tanks to watch wasn’t very exciting. Vanessa petted the fat-bottomed marmalade tabby and fluffed its fur. Then she fed it some kitty treats. After that, it stopped caring about her. She’d performed her functions, which made her superfluous till the next time the beast wanted something.
Cats were more honest than people.
Vanessa nuked a Jenny Craig frozen dinner. It was… better than going hungry, anyway. She ate a yogurt for dessert. Hagop would have liked her plumper than she was. Had she thought she’d stay with him… She wondered why she didn’t. Whatever the reason, she stuck with Jenny Craig.
She tossed her silverware into the sink. The apartment had no dishwasher. She did dishes when they
