by Etta Faire
He put his lips over Agnes’s, and she pulled away. “Crisis averted. We kissed, so our luck is good for a whole year,” she said, slinking by him. “You know I’m crazy about you. But, you were supposed to be divorced by now, Hank.” She lowered her voice. “And I can’t have you all over me at the office. People already think I get sales awards because I’m sleeping with you.”
“Since when do you care what people think, Aggie?”
“Since now.”
He looked down at our cleavage. “Doesn’t look like it to me.” He stumbled off down the hall, purposely full-body bumping into a woman in a sleek mauve pantsuit on his way by. She turned to give whoever it was a stern look, but when she saw it was Hank, she smiled awkwardly, wagged her finger, and laughed a little. He put his hands up. “What?”
“You were in love with that guy?” I asked Agnes. “He seems like the sleaziest boss ever.”
“I don’t know. I was confused back then. He’s a little drunk right now so he’s not acting like himself.”
“Or maybe he’s acting like the real him. Being drunk doesn’t suddenly make you a creepy jackass, unless you already were a creepy jackass.”
Agnes took a sip of her drink, and grimaced. It was a very strong, bitter champagne. I made a mental note that she drank something questionable until a man in a way-too-big-for-him, bright green reindeer sweater and a pair of pleated khakis grabbed the cup from her, guzzled the drink, and burped out, “Merry Christmas” to Agnes.
“Please tell me that’s not Michael.”
“Hi Michael,” she said in a sing-song voice to the boyish looking, tall man in front of us.
“Neither,” I snapped. “Neither is your soul mate. You will haunt on your own for all of eternity, and be thankful for it.”
Chapter 5
A slaying song tonight
Michael was well over six feet with light brown, longish, Kurt-Cobain-like hair, a clean-shaven face, and crooked teeth.
“What’re we doing after the party?” he asked, kissing her lightly on the lips. “We could go by Blockbuster, see if they have a copy of Terminator Two. My roommates are probably going to be out with their girlfriends. So it could be just the two of us.”
“That sounds nice, but…”Agnes began, making me wonder if she was going to break up with him.
He didn’t let her finish. He put an awkward hand on her shoulder then took it off again when he spotted her cleavage and her fishnet stockings. “We’d have to hurry, though, because that is still a very popular movie even though it’s been out for a while. And, hell-o. It is a Friday.”
Agnes tilted her head to the side, studying his face, and I listened to the thoughts running through her mind from 1993.
He’s so cute and sweet. Look at his little dimple and his hazel eyes. But Blockbuster again? I am in my 30s. I need a man who isn’t just eking out a living in accounts receivable while he lives with two other people. Besides, he knows I want to see Fried Green Tomatoes.
“Got you something,” he said, shoving a small package into her hand. He ran a hand through his hair, watching with anticipation as she opened the present. “I wasn’t even your Secret Santa,” he said.
“I would hope not. You’d be terrible at keeping a secret,” she said, laughing as she tore open the bright red wrapping paper. It was a small, shiny key.
“The key to my heart… Not.” He laughed. “I mean it’s the key to my place. My roommates said it was cool if you wanted to, you know, leave a toothbrush there.”
She handed him back the box. “That’s so sweet. But I’m not sure I’m ready for that,” she said.
His face scrunched and his eyebrows shot into darts. “What do you mean you’re not ready? I wuv you.”
“I love you too, but moving in together is a big step.”
“Moving in? Is that what you thought?” His laugh was borderline maniacal. “Whoa. Slow down, woman. This is a toothbrush we’re talking about. One item. That’s it. You’re talking like I asked you to marry me.”
She looked down at her feet and I finally got to see her shoes. Black, clunky heels. The only thing uglier was the beige berber office carpet underneath them. “You share an apartment with two other people, Michael. You spend all your money on video games, CDs, and concerts. And I’m thirty-two years old.”
“So? I’ll be thirty in two years,” he said. “You’re not old if that’s what you’re saying.” He seemed to study her face, making her feel self-conscious all of the sudden.
Michael paused to look at the fluorescent lights overhead, taking a long, exasperated sigh. “I heard you might be breaking up with me. Is that why you don’t want to move in?”
“Who said that?” Agnes asked.
“Deirdre and Kelly from marketing.” He looked back at Agnes, searching her eyes. His were already red and bugging out.
Agnes felt the punch of betrayal in her gut. But she shook her head. “I never said that. I told them I needed to make a choice.”
“So this is about you and that other guy? Your sleazy boss,” he said, his voice rising in tone again. He looked around. “That’s right. I know about him.”
She didn’t answer and he went on. “Are you… I mean, I know it’s none of my business except that it is my business because AIDS is a real thing. But I heard you and your boss,” he paused to play with the red puffball on his sweater that was Rudolph’s nose. “Are you sleeping with him while we’re, uh, also dating?” His voice cracked at the end.
“Hank and I never slept together, no,” she said. “It’s just I like both of you…”
“Both of us?” He didn’t let her finish. His breathing quickened and his pale face grew sweaty. “You cannot be a decent person and like two people at once. Sorry, if it seems like I’m freaking out, but you need to make a choice.”
Agnes just nodded.
“That guy’s a pig. You know that, right?” He rocked back and forth in his knock-off Doc Martens. “I cannot believe you’d rather be with a pig.” Michael scrunched his face up and slipped the box into the pocket of his khakis. “You let me know if you want this back,” he said, walking away, head down, muttering something about a pig.
I completely agreed. Hank was a pig, and I also agreed Michael did seem a little unstable around the holidays.
“Honestly, from what I’ve seen tonight,” I said. “It’s a wonder you made it this far.”
Agnes moved onto the potluck foods where ten people also meandered around half-eaten casseroles and meat dishes. I could tell by the thoughts running through her head at the time, she was conflicted. She liked both men. Or, she liked being liked by both men.
She opened a crockpot and steam grazed over her arm as the smell of barbecue meatballs took over her senses. She plopped a spoonful onto her styrofoam plate, smiled to the man next to her, and moved onto the pot roast.
“It was fun being pursued by Michael and Hank,” she admitted to me in her head. “I’d never had that happen to me before. My first husband left me because he said I was fat and lazy. So, as soon as the divorce papers finalized, I joined a gym and went on Slimfast. Lost fifty pounds, bought myself a new set of boobs, and decided I was never going to need a man’s money again. And you know what? I got this job.”
“That’s great, Agnes.”
“I guess now it’s what killed me in the end. These men would never have been interested in the old Agnes.”
“You don’t know that,” I said. “But I do know changing the outside doesn’t necessarily change the inside of a person,” I said, gently.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. It means you were still making poor choices with your love life, that’s all. Your ex-husband was a jerk and you were still in love with jerks. But then, who am I to talk about that?”
Agnes put a slice of pot roast on her plate then opened the Tupperware that her boss told her about. She sniffed the sauce. The smell of mostly garlic made me gag, but she plopped some on her plate next to the ot
her stuff.
I listened to the conversations of the people around me. Two women around the fruit bowl were talking about last night’s episode of Seinfeld. The man in the argyle sweater wearing an antler headband gabbed with a woman in bright red lipstick about how his bonus check hadn’t exactly been “all that and a bag of chips,” and another person was wondering if Santa was coming to the party this year.
Pretty boring stuff.
A popping noise came from across the room followed by mild applause, and Agnes turned toward the sound.
“Gerald’s doing the most amazing magic trick. Kid’s got some mad skills,” the man in the argyle sweater said to the brunette who was standing over the pot roast, helping herself. “You have to see it.”
“P-lease. His magic tricks are lame and he’s annoying,” the woman replied, brushing her short, jet-black hair behind an ear. She put the glass lid back on the dish and looked up. Noticing Agnes, she smiled. “Hello Agnes,” she said in the kind of tone that made reindeer-headband guy move down to the other end of the food table.
She continued. “I just wanted you to know I went to the VPs about the bonuses.”
Agnes shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about how I was only a couple hundred dollars away from being the top sales rep this year, but my bonus check is half of what yours is. And that’s not fair.”
“I don’t like it either. If I could, I would get rid of those silly incentives. We should all get the same bonus. Tying it to sales makes us compete against each other when we ought to be a team. My mom used to say ‘a rising tide lifts up everybody in the water.’”
“How much of a bonus check does your mother get?” The woman asked sarcastically.
Agnes didn’t hear her. She was still talking about changes. “And I’d get rid of these awful cubicles. Make the office open and bright, so we could talk to each other, share ideas, and want to come to work. There’d be a lot I’d change around here if I could.”
The woman put her hands on her hips. “Aw, too bad you’re not exactly qualified to make changes. Did you even go to high school?”
“Excuse me,” Agnes asked, puffing out her cleavage.
The woman didn’t care. “Come on, Agnes. Everybody knows how you got this job. It followed your other big job. Your boob job.” She pointed to Agnes’s puffed-out chest.
“You do not know…”
She held her hand up to Agnes’s face. “Talk to the hand. And, don’t think for one second I didn’t tell the VPs about how you and Mr. Hanford carry on when you think no one is looking, the real reason you’re getting the big bucks. Dis-gust-ing. He’s a married man.”
While the coworker I was guessing was Nancy went on about morals, Agnes talked to me in her head. “Honest. When Hank and I started dating, I had no idea he was married. I wouldn’t have dated a married man.”
“So when you found out, you broke it off?” I asked.
“Yes, kind of. I went to break it off. But he told me they were separated and going through a divorce. And I thought, ‘Well, goodness. A separation’s about the same as a divorce in my book,’ so I didn’t think too much about it. I guess they must’ve reconciled. He never told me that part.” She looked at the brunette who was still going on about marriage. “This is Nancy,” she said like I hadn’t already known.
Nancy’s smug look took an almost sneer. “Wanna know what the VPs said about my complaint?” She didn’t wait for Agnes to answer. “They said they’d look into it. I certainly hope they do.”
Agnes went back to talking to me again. “I wasn’t too worried. Nancy flies off the handle when she’s been drinking, and I’d already heard the story from my friend Jennifer who also happens to be the head executive assistant in the VP department. She said Nancy never even made it in to see the VPs. Jennifer had her fill out a complaint card to shut her up then told her they’d look into it. As soon as she left, she ripped it up. Nobody at Dreamstreet liked Nancy.”
“Yet, you didn’t think she could’ve been the one to poison you?”
Michael hustled back over to Agnes, carrying a drink in one hand while tugging on the arm of a redhead with the other.
“Brought you something,” he said, handing Agnes the drink. “And while I was graciously pouring you champagne, look who I ran into. Kelly. Kelly, please tell Agnes what you just told me.”
Kelly twisted away from Michael’s grasp. “Michael, stop it,” she said. Turning to Agnes, she added, “Michael asked me if I knew whether you and Hank were sleeping together.”
Agnes’s face grew hot. She set her drink down at the potluck table and fanned her face with her hand. “And of course you said you had no idea, because I would never talk about that kind of stuff. And Hank and I are not.”
Nancy chortled.
Kelly smiled reassuringly. “I told him that. But I also told him that I saw Mr. Hanford’s present to you.”
“Do tell,” Nancy said, leaning against the pot roast, not even caring that it might’ve been ruining her green dress. She tugged on an earring.
Kelly lowered her voice. “Well, earlier today, I was passing Mr. Hanford’s office, and I smelled something awful, some sort of strong cleaner. So I peeked in. He told me he was cleaning his grandmother’s hundred-year-old earrings, so that he could give them to his sweetie. You.” She pointed to Agnes.
Michael crossed his arms. “Tell her what else you said.”
“I told Michael that those earrings were a better present than he was giving his wife. I know because I saw that one too. A toaster.”
A smile formed across Agnes’s face. I could tell she was already touched to get the earrings.
Kelly pointed to Michael on her way out, cupped a hand over her mouth so the man wouldn’t see her and mouthed. “Kick him to the curb already” to Agnes.
Michael glared at us with clenched fists like he wanted us to know he he was obviously holding in anger.
“So the man is giving me earrings? A nice gift doesn’t mean I’m sleeping with him.” Agnes quickly added.
“Sure,” he replied. “I went by his office myself. He wasn’t there but the jewelry box was. Of course, I opened it. And…” He paused to shake his head. “Let’s just say they’re not the kind of earrings you give a platonic buddy.”
I talked to Agnes. “I think I’ve narrowed it down. It’s either the woman who hates you, or the man who wuvs you enough to boil your pet rabbit.”
As Michael strutted away, Agnes went back to commenting to me in our head again. “I didn’t remember him being so…” She searched for a way to describe him. “Controlling and weird. At the time I thought it was cute how into me he was. But you’re right. He was pretty ‘Fatal Attraction’ strange.”
We both looked at the table where the cup of champagne Michael had just brought us sat. And I wondered if she was actually going to drink it.
But there was no changing what she’d done that night. We could only relive the memory, not alter it.
Chapter 6
Oh what fun it is to die
“Working hard or hardly working?” a blonde man with a mullet and dark blue coveralls said to Agnes. He was carrying a metal bucket in one hand and a drink in the other, but set both down at his feet, grabbed a styrofoam plate, and helped himself to some pot roast.
Nancy curled her lip at him.
“Did I show you my new magic trick?” he asked the group of about six people still at the potluck table.
Agnes shook her head and rubbed her hands together. “What have you got this time?”
He took a couple steps back, swirled his hands through the air and a flash of fire shot across his fingers. “It’s pretty magical.”
Agnes clapped.
“That wasn’t it,” he said.
The sound of ringing phones and faxes echoed in the background like a dull white noise.
She talked to me in our shared mind. “Gerald was always showing off his magic tricks to anyon
e who would give him the time,” she said. “He was a good kid. Real jokey.”
He did seem like a kid, probably in his mid twenties. His smile was large with a wide mouth like John Denver’s. He set the plate down at the edge of the potluck table then wiped his hands on his coveralls. He motioned for us to follow him away from the potluck table.
“We need space for this trick,” he said.
We all moved forward with the man, except for Nancy and a couple of other people who stayed at the serving table. I wanted to keep an eye on the people behind me, but Agnes’s gaze only went to the magic trick.
Picking up his bucket, Gerald showed us the inside and tapped on it. It sounded like hollow metal. “Nothing in it, huh? Just an ordinary bucket.”
He handed it to Agnes and she looked it over. “Looks like the same one you use all the time,” she said, giggling.
He turned around quickly and showed it to us again. Still empty. He raised it over his head. “Alacazazz,” he said while waving a hand over the opening.
A white puppy peeked out from an opening in the bottom of his coveralls, and he laughed. “Obviously, not what was supposed to happen,” he said, handing Agnes the bucket while pulling the maltese the rest of the way out.
“Amazing,” Nancy yelled sarcastically from the food table. “He’s an even worse magician than he is a janitor.” She picked up a couple of fallen plates and cups from around the potluck table and set them along the edges again.
“He’s usually better,” the man with the reindeer headband replied as he checked the beeper on his Dockers and quickly headed into the cubicle maze.
“It worked a minute ago,” the janitor said to Agnes as the rest of his audience also disbanded. He didn’t seem to care about anyone but Agnes.
“Keep working on it then show me later,” Agnes said. She handed him the bucket and took the puppy from him, snuggling it up to her face. “My goodness. Aren’t you the cutest? What’s your name?”
“Gerald. And you’re pretty cute yourself,” Gerald said, making Agnes blush. He pretended to be shocked. “Oh, you meant the dog. He hasn’t got a name yet. I was thinking Carbon.”
