Unaccounted For

by Nan Willard Cappo

  His mother didn’t see it that way. Milo deliberately waited until his birthday, when the relatives would be there, to break the news. Uncle Paulie wasn’t the only one afraid of Gloria Shoemaker.

  “What do you mean, ‘taking a year off’? You’re going to college! You worked so hard, and we have the money. We can get more aid. Your dad meant you to go to college.”

  They were in the dining room, Milo helping his mother set out the company china. On the word “college,” she slid the rose-petal saltshaker down the table so hard Milo barely caught it before it flew off.

  “I will go, Mom. Just not this year. I got a job at Wolverine. Good pay.” He hoped it was good pay; he’d forgotten to ask.

  “Wolverine Motors! What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Wolverine Motors?” Uncle Paulie appeared in the doorway from the living room, brushing back a string of green paper shamrocks. Milo had been born on St. Patrick’s Day. He and Aunt Grace, who was stirring gravy at the stove, listened with Gloria as Milo explained that he’d gone to see Mr. Farnon. Had been offered a full-time job.

  Uncle Paulie thought Wolverine Motors was the greatest thing since beer in cans. “Glory, this kid’s making a lot of sense and I give him credit for it. Boy wants to step up to his responsibilities, help his family. Jesus H. Christ, what’s wrong with that?”

  “Paulie! Your language!” said Aunt Grace.

  “And Wolverine’s a helluva company. Alf Farnon himself offered you a job?” Milo nodded. His uncle turned back to Gloria. “You know how many grown men would kill for a chance like that? Tim would be proud of him. I know I am.” He had to reach up to give Milo a manly punch in the shoulder. Usually his uncle made him laugh, all bluster and noise and notoriously soft heart. But this punch made Milo’s throat tighten. Uncle Paulie didn’t know the real reasons, but he defended Milo’s decision. Treated him like a man.

  “I just don’t know about this,” Gloria said, but they could all hear that her earlier conviction was missing. “Grace, what do you think?”

  Milo knew he had won.

  He had won. So it was ridiculous to feel shocked, deep down, that no one was going to stop him throwing his future away.

  Zaffer’s reaction made Gloria’s seem like a blessing.

  “Bullshit! Are you serious? That is such bullshit, Shoe! What about rooming together? Football tickets? The Zaffer-Shoemaker Party Hotel?”

  “Shh!” Milo looked around. But no one could hear. A cold breeze whipped across the lawn between buildings at the community college, and their sidewalk ran straight through the wind tunnel. It was Saturday afternoon. He’d asked Zaffer to meet him after his accounting class, the one his father had suggested last year that he take. To Milo’s mild astonishment, he quite liked accounting. All those sales and profits and depreciable assets adding up in their own tidy columns satisfied some internal craving for order. Funny, his dad being right about that.

  “I’ll yell all I want! Why aren’t you going? You told them you were going! You told me you were going!”

  Zaffer’s outrage made it harder to lie. Milo repeated what he’d told his mother. He’d live at home, take some classes. “Right here,” he said, waving a hand around him. “I know, I’m sorry. I can transfer in a year or two.”

  Zaffer’s mulish look remained.

  Milo played his trump card. “It’s cheaper this way, okay? I have to think of the money now.”

  “Oh.” Mention of money robbed Zaffer of speech. While most families were tightening their belts in the hard times that gripped Michigan, the Zaffer pawn business was flourishing. In-state college tuition was no problem for Zaffer, even without his ROTC scholarship.

  Milo watched his friend wrestle with the guilt of not being broke. It wasn’t fair, of course—Zaffer had no need to apologize because his father was a good businessman. It just made it impossible for Milo to explain that his father had been anything but. Had, in fact, been a thief. It wasn’t that he despised his father. Yes, you do. But he knew what other people would think.

  They walked toward the parking lot in a silence brimming with things unsaid. Milo was picturing the Zaffer-Shoemaker Party Hotel when he saw his accounting teacher in the faculty lot. He waved. Professor Keyes waved back, balancing his briefcase on his car while he struggled with a balky driver’s door. The briefcase was held shut with a striped bungee cord, and the rusting brown Chevy had a broken taillight. The big money in accounting did not lie in being an adjunct instructor, apparently.

  “So you’re just going to take classes?” Zaffer was still mulling over Milo’s bombshell.

  “Alf Farnon’s going to find me something at Wolverine.”

  Zaffer walked backward to peer at him. “Ah-ha! You went! Did you ask him about your dad?”

  “I decided I don’t want to know after all.”

  “You’re not even going to look into the robbery?”

  “Nope. If it was gamblers, they must have got what they wanted because nothing else has happened. If it was some kind of funeral crime ring, ditto. Case closed.” Milo had learned his lesson; he wouldn’t be turning over any more rocks in a hurry.

  Zaffer grunted, signifying what, Milo couldn’t tell. Two girls in short jackets and tight jeans passed them, their hair whipping in the wind. Zaffer watched them out of sight. Finally he gave a gusty sigh and said that the best season was summer; girls wore fewer clothes. The subject of Milo’s college plans was officially over.

  Nor did it come up again. The whole matter seemed to vanish from Zaffer’s consciousness, as though the months of college applications and debating the pros and cons of various schools had never occurred. While Mrs. Zaffer made lists of campus necessities—a refrigerator, extra long sheets, meal plans—Milo Shoemaker drove the twins to birthday parties and allergist’s appointments and tried to recapture that ferocious sense of rightness he’d felt in Farnon’s office. That no one knew about.

  When Zaffer got his assigned roommate Milo had to hear about it from someone else. He told himself this was a good thing, that Zaffer had maturely accepted the inevitable. Maybe Zaffer even thought he was doing Milo a favor, not taunting him with the life he’d given up. Milo would have liked immature anger better—protest signs on his locker, maybe, a flaming SAT Prep Guide on the porch. It would have meant he wasn’t interchangeable with some rich jerk from Grosse Pointe with a futon and a big-screen TV.

  Two days before graduation he was paying his overdue library fines when Zaffer found him. They walked out of the high school into the warmth of late May. Zaffer asked if he wanted to have lunch the next Monday.

  “I start work that day,” Milo said. “And since when do we schedule lunch a week in advance?”

  “Thought you might like company, first day on the job. Since I’ll be working there.” Zaffer laughed out loud at Milo’s bewildered face.

  “You! You are not. What about the pawn shop?”

  “Too many night shifts—my dad’s cool with it. Turns out the head of security at Wolverine Motors is an ex-Marine. He says he can use a strong young guy around for the summer.” Zaffer flexed his biceps. “I start Monday, too.”

  “Guess we can eat together then.”

  Zaffer jabbed him in the arm and he jabbed back, and in a moment they were scuffling on the ground and Milo was begging for mercy as usual.

  He was delighted.

  ***

  Chapter 5

  June

  Standing in Wolverine’s vast marble lobby with Zaffer at 8:45 a.m. Monday, Milo wished he’d asked a few more questions of Alf Farnon. Such as, what would his job be? How much would it pay? People in business attire were coming through the big front doors and crossing to the elevators, but few of them glanced at two boys about to start their first day on the job. The white-haired receptionist at the front desk fiddled with the beaded chain to her glasses, ran approving glances over their neat shirts and slacks, and then directed Zaffer through a door marked “Security: Employees Only.” Zaffer beamed
at her, punched Milo in the arm, and strode off whistling.

  When she heard Milo’s story—“Mr. Farnon told me to start today”—the receptionist reexamined him over her glasses, clearly impressed. This bolstered his confidence. Until she told him Mr. Farnon was out of town, and he should report to Human Resources.

  Milo had the elevator to himself. It had mirrored walls, and as soon as the doors closed he peered at his teeth. They were fine. Military-short brownish hair, blue-gray eyes like his father’s, Mustang tie which actually was his father’s— all fine, if ordinary. Still, doubts seized him. Should he, like Zaffer, have brought old jeans in a gym bag? He’d assumed an office job, but for all he knew he might be the new janitor. Suddenly he missed the rototillers and stacked chairs of Bert’s Rentals and Party Supplies, his only previous workplace. The elevator slid open at the third floor. Too late.

  At Human Resources the waiting room was empty. Soft but rapidly escalating cursing came from behind a head-high partition near the door. Milo peered around this to find another receptionist. He could only see her back, but the shining coppery hair and tanned, slender arms in a sleeveless blouse indicated a different species from the grandmotherly woman downstairs.

  He cleared his throat.

  She whirled, eyes panicked. “Help! My computer’s erasing three days of work!”

  Milo walked around the far end of the counter to her desk. An ominous clicking noise accompanied the cursor’s relentless left-to-right eradication. “May I?”

  “Please!”

  He hit the backspace key several times. The cursor, and the clicking, stopped. “Stuck,” he said. “Scary, huh?”

  The girl gave a breathless laugh. “Wow. You saved my life! I’d hate to tell my boss I zapped the employee handbook.”

  She pushed her chair back; he was standing too close. He returned to the waiting room, but not before seeing that her legs were the same high caliber as the rest of her.

  Once he was on the proper side of the counter, the girl swiveled to face him. “How may I help you?” she asked. Very dignified. The jury will disregard what it just saw.

  Milo grinned. She couldn’t be much older than him. “I was told to report here for work. Alf Farnon hired me.”

  “Alf Farnon!” She, too, was impressed. Almost incredulous. “To do what?”

  His grin faltered. “You’d have to ask him,” he said, sounding pompous so she wouldn’t realize he had no idea. “His secretary—” Madge? Mary Ann? Margaret, that was it—“Margaret, she can tell you about it.”

  “Margaret knows? So much for the hiring freeze! You’d think they’d tell us down here, we’re only Human Resources….” She picked up her phone, still muttering.

  Who was this girl? A nameplate lay face down by her computer. Sloppy. Milo pursed his lips in disapproval, already possessive of Wolverine Motors. Good legs were no excuse for unprofessionalism.

  The girl hung up the phone. “I’ll have to hunt her down. Better fill this out.” She handed him a clipboard and pen. Then sighed as though he’d just tripled her workload. “I’ll be back.”

  She vanished through another door, so Milo’s plan to ignore her was wasted. He settled into a corner of a vinyl couch several price levels below the leather ones on the executive floor, and filled in blanks. Education: high school graduate of five days’ standing. Work Experience: Two summers at Bert’s Rentals. “Chief Tent Man,” he printed. Scratched out “Man,” printed “Engineer.” Some snooty girl better hope he didn’t end up an assistant manager in Human Resources. First thing he’d do would be to mandate courtesy training for the staff.

  He finished his form and waited. Waited some more. A murmur of voices sounded faintly from deep in the department. He’d failed one vocabulary quiz in an old Reader’s Digest and was cheating on a second when the girl finally returned.

  Wordlessly, he handed her the clipboard.

  “Sorry—took me ages to find Margaret. She does know about you. You’re supposed to look at the entry-level openings and pick one you like.”

  She fished in a file drawer and produced a sheaf of papers headed “Open Positions.” “Never heard of that before, but I’ve only been here a month. So what’ll it be, Mr.—” She glanced at his application. “Milo T. Shoemaker—oh!”

  “Something wrong?” he asked. Her hand had flown to her mouth.

  “There was another Shoemaker…last year….”

  “My father. He drowned.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. He worked in Payroll, didn’t he? I liked him.”

  “Thank you,” Milo said automatically. “But—I thought you’d only been here a month.”

  “I’ve only been in this department a month. I met your dad last summer when I was up in Marketing. It’s on the same floor as Payroll.” She was still staring at him. He resisted the temptation to check his fly.

  “And you are….” he prompted. No wonder she got shunted from department to department. Terrible manners.

  “Oh! Eleanor. But I go by Ellie.” She seemed to realize she was still holding the list of jobs, and handed it to him. “Sorry! We haven’t hired anyone since I started—a freeze, they said, but now you’re here, so I guess that’s over. Go on, take your pick.”

  He took the list back to the couch. It certainly looked as though they hadn’t hired in a while. Level 1 Floor Assembler. Operations Clerk. Production Clerk. Level 1 Painter. Marketing Assistant—too much writing. Vehicle Washer—he doubted executives started that low.

  “Er…Ellie?” he called. “Do these all pay the same?”

  She didn’t look up from her typing. “No.”

  Excuse me. Milo returned to the list. File Clerk. Mail Room Clerk. Courier/Messenger, now that had appeal, you’d get to go all over the…. Then he saw it.

  He returned to the counter. “How about this one?”

  “Payroll Data Entry Clerk.” She looked at him. “Like father, like son?”

  The clipboard with his application was next to her. He flicked a finger at the two accounting courses from the community college. “I’m good with numbers.” He glanced at her desk. “And computers.”

  She raised her eyebrows, an amused glint in the hazel eyes. His face grew hot. “Aren’t we the lucky ones. All right, I’ll take you up to meet your supervisor.” She stuck a sign on the counter that said, “Back in a Minute, Please Have a Seat,” then walked around to reach the waiting room.

  Milo reached over and righted the facedown name-plate. Much neater.

  “Ellie” was indeed short for Eleanor, as she’d said. Eleanor Farnon.

  Eleanor Farnon?

  Milo followed her out the doors. She bypassed the elevator and briskly led him into the stairwell, where one part of him watched her climb stairs in a tight denim skirt while another part tried to recall Alf Farnon’s family tree. He’d never thought about Farnon as a regular person with a wife and kids. Closely as he’d read that Time article, Milo didn’t remember any relatives besides Andrew, the dead founder.

  Ellie must be Alf’s daughter. But for some reason that didn’t seem right, and as they emerged onto the fifth floor, it hit him. Back in March Farnon had mentioned, no doubt to give Milo time to recover from his shock, that he’d have liked a son to go camping with. Milo had assumed that meant Farnon had no children. Because a daughter could camp, surely? So maybe this girl was a niece, or a cousin.

  Or maybe—he banged into a chair some idiot had placed against the wall—she was older than she looked. He stared at that tight skirt, those sparkling flip-flops. Was that normal business attire? He doubted it. Maybe this snippy girl was the company president’s trophy wife.

  “You’ll like Leslie, if she doesn’t talk your ears off,” Ellie was saying. She looked back and waited. “Should we have used the elevator? You seem a little out of breath.”

  “I run cross country.” He straightened the chair, trying not to limp. “Varsity.”

  “Varsity! Goodness.” At the door to Payroll she sang out, “Oh, Leslie!”
Three women looked up from their desks and suddenly Milo knew how a cell felt under a microscope. “I have that FTE you wanted. He knows all about accounting and he runs like the wind.”

  Mrs. Leslie Underhill could be anywhere between thirty and fifty, Milo guessed. She had upswept hair that could have withstood a hurricane, and a shiny motorized wheelchair. The news that she was getting an additional full-time employee delighted her, and brought loud, relieved sighs from her two coworkers. Ellie handed over a copy of Milo’s application. Then, with a “Now I really have to get back to work,” as though he’d been a fun but frivolous distraction from weightier assignments, she left him.

  Milo’s new boss’s delight threatened to overcome her when she heard his last name. She introduced him to the two accounting clerks, J’azzmin and Amber. “This is Tim Shoemaker’s son!” she told them, as though they hadn’t been listening the whole time. They both exclaimed and said they’d liked his father and he must be the champion cross country son. Milo smiled modestly. “Champion”—where’d that come from?

  Leslie led Milo to an empty desk and scrutinized him. “Well, all I can say is someone was using their head when they hired you, Milo, if you’re anywhere near as smart as your dad.” He was to learn that “all I can say” was a favorite expression of Leslie’s. It was never true. “Hiring freeze, my sweet petunia. The work doesn’t stop just because we’re shorthanded, which I’ve told Mr. Pearce more than once.” She gave a little sniff of disdain.

  Mr. Pearce. Gordon Pearce. The name jolted him.

  “I worked for your father the whole time he was here at Wolverine. I was just sick when I heard about his passing. They gave me his job but I’d have stayed a clerk for life if it could bring him back. I told your mother that at the funeral. He was as decent a man as I’ve ever met, even if he did like his little joke—oh, you should have been here the time we ransomed Ed Boyle’s coffee mug, I told my husband later, ‘Howard, that was a hoot and no mistake.’ Are you as hardworking as your dad?”