Her personal phone dinged with a text message, and she returned to her desk to check it. Christ. Cynthia. Robin hadn’t called her yet this week, and Cynthia’s husband had left town two days ago. Robin checked the text, just two words. “Call me.”
She did, thinking that maybe if she got laid, it would help with her screwed-up mood.
“Darling,” Cynthia said when she picked up. “You were supposed to call me this week.”
Robin frowned. Cynthia was used to getting what she wanted and normally, Robin liked that she took control. It was nice, sometimes, to let someone else do that, since she spent so much time being a control freak on her own. But right now, it kind of pissed her off. She decided she wasn’t in the mood to get laid. At least not by Cynthia. “Sorry. Busy.”
“Well,” Cynthia said with an extra layer of sensuous, “he’s out of town until Saturday, and I’m all alone tonight. I’ll be at the apartment at eight. Wear a tie. And don’t be late.” She hung up, which is what she always did when she gave an order like that. Robin knew that if she didn’t show, Cynthia might not call her again, but she’d make life pretty uncomfortable at social gatherings.
It had seemed like a good idea at the time, seducing the wife of another Frost executive. Hot as Cynthia was, Robin figured she’d be able to get something out of it, like a good word to the guy, maybe some help up the corporate ladder. But Cynthia had no interest in putting in a good word for anybody but herself. And here Robin thought she’d been the savvy one, finagling Cynthia to bed to further her own career, while Cynthia was actually the one who held all the cards. It occurred to Robin at that moment that Cynthia could, at any time, get her royally fired.
You mess with a snake, her mom had told her on a hike once, you get bit.
Robin texted Cynthia a lie. Dinner and drinks w/ clients tonight. Rain check?
She sat back down at her desk and checked her calendar on her computer. Cynthia would make her wait a while for a response, in keeping with her dominatrix personality. “Damn,” Robin said as she looked at the calendar. Meeting in twenty minutes. Good thing it didn’t have much to do with her directly. She didn’t need to prepare anything.
Her cell phone rang. She checked the ID. That was unusual. Cynthia, calling right back.
“Preston,” Robin answered. She always kept it formal on the phone with Cynthia.
“Darling, I’m rather disappointed.”
“Me, too,” Robin lied.
“I can’t tomorrow—let me check a few things. He’s out of town again next week, but I’m not sure for how long.” She tsk’ed. “I was so looking forward to fucking you senseless. Soon,” she teased and hung up.
Relieved, Robin turned her ringer off, picked up her tablet, and went to the meeting.
Robin finally left the office at eight, after she’d spent the last two hours working on her presentation. Or rather, trying to. She thought about calling Cynthia and saying that the “clients” had cancelled, but decided she’d rather not deal with her. Anybody else, and she might be into a night of sex and forgetting.
“Good night, Ms. Preston,” said the guard in the lobby.
She gave him a perfunctory wave. She could never remember his name, either, and she worked this late several times a month. Robin exited through the revolving door into the cold, which carried the promise of snow in its wet, heavy greeting. Cab or walk? She debated the merits of both and opted for the cab. Just as she stepped to the curb, a sleek white limousine pulled up in front of her.
“Thanks, asshole, for blocking me.” She turned to go around the back when the driver got out.
“Ms. Preston,” he said.
She looked at him. Basic limo driver, she categorized. Stocky, pleasant face. Classy livery.
He came around the car and opened the back passenger door for her. “Your car, ma’am.”
“I didn’t order a limo—” Had Cynthia been spying on her? Was this one of her scenarios?
“Not consciously, no.” He tipped his hat and motioned toward the car. “Lady Magnolia will see you now.”
Robin stared. What the hell was this?
“Come on, sugar,” said a voice from inside the limo. “Getting a cab in this city is impossible.”
Robin stooped slightly to see who was in the car. An absolutely stunning woman smiled at her. She carried the kind of glamor Hollywood had fifty years ago, and she wore a form-fitting red evening dress with matching gloves that made her look as if she was about to host the Oscars. The white stole around her neck added a nice touch.
The driver smiled, encouraging. “We’re here for Robin Anne Preston,” he said. “Date of birth June 15, 1978.”
Robin stared at him and her chest tightened. “Oh, no. Hell, no. This is the last thing I need tonight.”
“Which is why you need to sit your cute, little, lesbian ass in this car,” said Lady Magnolia. “Because Mama don’t take no shit. And girl, you better hope I don’t have to get out of this nice warm car to throw you in it.”
Fuck, Robin thought as realization dawned. Of course her second visitor had to be a drag queen. Nobody could out-snark a good queen.
“What’s it gonna be, sugar?” Magnolia asked.
The driver regarded Robin with polite interest.
Robin groaned, but she got in, and the driver closed the door behind her, leaving her in the company of a gorgeous RuPaul lookalike with a perfect Audrey Hepburn coif and a low Georgia drawl.
“That’s better, sweetie. Have a tonic.” She held up a silver flask and poured a bit into a shot glass, which she handed to Robin.
“So are you the good cop or the bad cop?” She sniffed the shot glass. Smelled like whisky. She sipped. Very smooth.
Magnolia screwed the top back on the flask and put it in a tasteful bejeweled clutch from which she now withdrew a compact. “Sweetie, I am either your worst fucking nightmare or the best bitch you’ve got.” She inspected her makeup and gave Robin a sideways glance. “Whichever of those you get is on you.”
“I’m already in a nightmare, so I’ll go for the latter.”
Magnolia tsked. “Sugar, this ain’t no damn nightmare. This—” she made an expansive gesture, “is a chance, and not everybody gets one. Or my fabulous company. So I expect to hear some counting tonight.”
“Of what?”
“Your lucky stars.” Magnolia pursed her lips at the compact’s mirror.
“So what’s tonight’s agenda?”
“Honey, all my agendas are gay. But in your case, I’ll go lesbian.” She made a soft kissing noise. “Now. Let me introduce myself. I am Lady Magnolia, your guide this evening.” She handed Robin a card that said, in flowing formal script, Christmas Present.
“Seriously?” Robin held the card up.
“Honey, you have just been properly served. And a night with me is always a present.” She flashed a wicked smile. “So you just settle your cute self and let’s see where we end up.” She tapped the glass between them and it slid open.
“Ma’am?” The driver asked.
“Ramón, do a lady a favor and give us some music.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The window slid closed and a club song Robin knew thumped softly from unseen speakers. She drained the rest of the shot glass and Magnolia took it from her.
“Much better, sugar. Because girl, bitch does not look good on you.”
Robin started to retort but thought better of it and instead looked out her window, watching the mist that completely surrounded her. For all she knew, the car was flying, so completely were they enveloped. “Where are we going?” she asked, more to hide her growing anxiety than to get an answer.
“Where the night takes us. You just sit back and relax,” she said with a little purr. “Magnolia’s got you, and there is nothing you need to worry about. Except maybe the truth.”
Robin closed her
eyes, the beat of the song reminding her of her club days during college after Jill left. She’d ended up in a lot of different beds, then, but never for long.
“Time to get out,” Magnolia said. The fog was already dissipating when Ramón opened the door.
Robin exited the car, knowing there was no point to trying to stay put. “Where are we?” She looked around at the buildings, shoved so close together that they probably held each other up. Many shared walls, while others were fortunate to have a walkway between them. Low income neighborhood, she automatically cataloged, in one of the boroughs, but she wasn’t sure which. Signs on local businesses advertised services in a variety of languages. Trash bags piled on the curb for pickup. Cars lined the street, but Ramón had double parked, leaving room for drivers to go around the limo. Maybe he’d get a ticket. Robin wondered how the Bureau handled that.
“All in good time. Let’s go, sugar.” Magnolia adjusted her stole and walked regally in her six-inch heels to a beat-up metal door that Robin knew would take them to upstairs apartments. Magnolia went first up the stairs, walking as if she owned the place, stepping gracefully over an empty beer can and a crushed paper bag with Deli printed on the front.
The dim lights flickered overhead, and Robin smelled something cooking that might’ve been meat. Magnolia continued to the next floor.
“Okay, seriously,” Robin said to Magnolia’s back. “I’ve never been here. What does this have to do with me?”
Magnolia stopped and turned slowly to look down at her, a gesture that incorporated more drama than if she had done a hair flip. “Christmas Present isn’t always about you.” She raised an eyebrow imperiously then continued up the stairs to the landing. Here, Magnolia left the stairs and went down a corridor that had only one working light overhead, but she clearly knew which apartment she wanted because she stopped at a door on the right without checking any of the numbers.
She waited for Robin and pointed at the door. “After you,” she said.
“Really?”
“Oh, girl. You do not want to go there with me.” She smiled and ran a gloved finger down Robin’s cheek. “Now get your sweet little ass in there.”
Robin took a couple of deep breaths, shut her eyes, and moved toward the door, waiting for the feel of wood against her forehead. But like last time, she moved through the door and opened her eyes onto a cluttered apartment that smelled of hamburgers. This was the living room. Shelves made of boards and cinderblocks held a small flat-screen TV and a couch that had seen better days sat across from it. An overstuffed chair that might’ve been new twenty years ago hunkered next to the couch. She heard voices coming from what was probably the kitchen, right off this front room. Magnolia pushed her forward, and Robin peered in. A man she didn’t know sat at a table, while a woman she also didn’t know stood at a stove overseeing a frying pan. The window above the kitchen sink was open a bit.
“I have no idea why the hell I’m here,” Robin said in a low voice, though she guessed the apartment’s occupants couldn’t hear or see them.
“That’s Joseph Spinelli,” Magnolia said. “Joe, as he prefers.” She made a little growling sound. “I’d call him whatever he wants.”
“Who?”
Magnolia placed her hand over her heart dramatically and gave her a withering look. “Girl, if he was a queen, his name would be Pink Slip. Courtesy of you.”
Robin winced and looked back at him. She’d signed his termination papers a week ago.
“I’ll see if I can get some more hours at the restaurant,” the woman was saying. “We’ll figure it out.”
“How?” he asked. “We could barely afford her medicine before I got cut.”
“I’ll check to see if there’s a program we can get on,” the woman said, but Robin heard the strain in her voice.
The front door opened and a teenage boy entered. He took his coat and shoes off and left both by the door.
“In here, Mark,” Joe called, and the boy went into the kitchen. He wore a shirt with a deli logo on it.
“Got paid,” Mark said. He put a check on the table next to Joe, but Joe didn’t look at it. The muscles in his jaw clenched. Mark squeezed his dad’s shoulder. “Dad, it’s okay. The college fund can wait.”
The woman gave the boy a hug and a kiss. “Are you hungry?”
“Nah. Had a sandwich at work. You and Dad go ahead.”
Another door in the apartment opened, and a girl about eight years old rushed down the hall. “Hi,” she said as she gave Mark a hug.
“Hey, careful. Don’t be running like that. It messes with your lungs,” he said, and Robin noted how pale the girl was, though she smiled up at her brother.
“I took my medicine already.”
“Okay, but don’t get wild. There’s only room for one of us to do that here.”
She giggled and sat down at the table.
“Now just you look at that. Cute as a l’il ol’ bug,” Magnolia said, crouching to smile at the little girl though she couldn’t be seen.
“What’s wrong with her?” Robin asked.
Magnolia straightened to her full six feet and some. “Debilitating asthma. And girl, this place doesn’t help.” Magnolia moved to the sink and frowned as she looked at it. “Only so much you can do,” she said, casting a critical gaze at the paint peeling on the ceiling.
“Look, sometimes people get laid off,” Robin said, and it sounded petulant in her ears.
Magnolia turned back toward her, injecting the motion with extra flair. “Yes. They do. But honey, you’d better have a damn good reason when you make such decisions, and you’d better damn sure make room when those chickens come home to roost.”
The girl started coughing, and both Joe and Mark scrutinized her. “I’ll get her inhaler,” Mark said as the girl wheezed. Joe moved over to her and Mark left the room. He went down the short hallway to what Robin guessed were the bedrooms.
“It’s okay, honey,” Joe said in a soothing voice. “Just relax, like the doctor showed you.”
Mark reappeared with an asthma inhaler. He shook it up and handed it to the girl. She took it and managed a puff between wheezes.
“That’s it. Sit still,” Joe said. Mark caught his mom’s eye and they exchanged a look. The girl’s breathing improved and Joe stroked her cheek. “Why don’t you go watch some TV?”
“Okay,” she said, and Robin moved aside for her, though she knew it wasn’t necessary.
“Mark, sit with me,” she called as she got on the couch and turned on the TV.
He did and pulled her against him. “You all right?”
“Yeah. Are we going to be okay?” she said softly. Robin barely caught her question.
“Sure,” he said, but he was lying, and Robin knew it. Her throat tightened, and she could feel Magnolia’s eyes lasering the back of her head.
“Will Daddy get a job?”
“Oh, yeah. He’ll find something soon,” Mark said as he stroked her head. “Don’t worry,” he lied again.
“Why didn’t his boss like him?”
Robin gritted her teeth.
“Sometimes companies are assholes, Annie, and sometimes bosses are, too.”
She stared at him. “You said a bad word.”
“I’m sorry.” He smiled down at her. “Don’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t.”
“Here’s Mr. Cuddles.” He handed her a stuffed elephant, and she held it tight, snuggled against him.
“I’m tired of being sick,” Annie said after a while.
“As soon as Dad gets a job, we can figure out how to make you feel better. Don’t worry, okay?”
“I’m trying, but it’s hard.”
He gave her a little squeeze. “I know. But you’ve got me and Mom and Dad and we’ll figure everything out.” He smiled, male bravado and assurance in his voice, but
Robin knew it was all for show. She clenched her teeth, realizing that it was a lot easier to lay people off when they were just names on a form. Here in Joe Spinelli’s shabby apartment, watching Mark with Annie reminded Robin of her own childhood. Her mom had always scrambled to keep things together, to make sure she and Frank were taken care of, but at the end of the day, it seemed there wasn’t much money to go around.
Mist started to gather in the room and this time, she was relieved and ready to go, ready to leave this indictment of who she was.
“This way, sugar,” Magnolia said, and she grabbed Robin’s wrist and they walked, but Robin didn’t know where. All she could see was Magnolia’s seemingly disembodied glove on her arm and then they were at the car. Ramón stood there, waiting with the passenger door open.
Magnolia got in first with a “thank you, sweetie” to him. Robin followed and settled back into the seat, glad to be out of that apartment and away from the evidence of how low she could go.
“Okay, sugar. Let’s continue on our journey.”
Robin decided she didn’t want to ask. She should have taken Cynthia up on her offer after all. She pushed herself against the seat, as if she could disappear in it. There were lots of jobs in the city. She thought about the other person she’d laid off with Joe. Linda? No, that wasn’t it. L-something. Lydia? That sounded right.
“Sometimes a company’s bottom line means you have to make hard choices,” Robin said, but she didn’t look at Magnolia.
“Honey, where I come from, the bottom line is the lowest mark on your pitcher of margaritas, and the only choice you make is who’s buying the next one.”
The car glided to a stop, and Robin’s door opened. She thought she saw some light through the mist, but she wasn’t sure.
“Go on, sweetie. Shake a tail feather.”
The Bureau of Holiday Affairs Page 4
