by Natasha Deen
Of course not. Her limited brain matter had fizzled and bubbled. In the ensuing grey smoke that emerged from her fried synapses was Plan B, the spectacularly stupid, “Call me Nessie.” The next year she found out she now shared a name with an elusive sea creature living in Loch Ness. Had Vanessa grown to the height of her family members and scaled the tape measure at a satisfying six feet—or even a satisfactory five foot, eight inches—she wouldn’t have minded. Instead, she barely reached five foot, one inch. And that one inch Nessie would defend with her life.
“Nessie!”
The insistent, exasperated tone in her older sister’s voice brought Nessie from her somnambulant trance. Against the cafeteria’s bubble-gum pink walls, standing among stark white Formica table tops and plastic plants assaulting her vision, she spied Nina. Her sister stood waving her arms in the air as though she were an air-traffic controller and Nessie a slow-witted jet. With each wave of her slim arm, her pert breasts bounced under her black lace top, as did the blood pressure of every male in the cafeteria. Her bangles chimed like a siren’s melody, and already men were rising from their chairs, eyes glazed as the urge to lie prostrate at Nina’s feet overwhelmed them. Nessie sped to the table before her sister caused a riot.
Nina wrenched the boxes from her hands and tossed them aside with a disdainful swing, nearly knocking three inches of cardboard into the blond head of the man seated at the table next to them. He flicked down the newspaper in his hands, looking over the top of the print to ensure boxes and feminine fists were nowhere close to his head. Then, with a casual nod in Nessie’s direction and an assessing glance in Nina’s, returned to his grapefruit and New York Times with a crinkled snap of paper.
“Nessie, what are the boxes for?”
“You’ve heard of the engineer’s raincoat, haven’t you? Cut holes in a garbage bag and wear it like a jacket? I thought I’d see if cardboard boxes would be as effective. If they are, I’ll call it the Shoe Designer’s Hoodie and market it to Gucci.” The cold metal chair met the back of her legs with an icy greeting that sent chills through her stirrup pants.
“It’ll never work.” Nina shoved a plate of pancakes—drowning in maple syrup, cream and strawberries—in her direction. “Plastic repels. Cardboard absorbs.”
Nessie pushed the chipped plate back in her sister’s direction, reached for a slice of toast and nibbled around the butter. “Maybe, but cardboard is much friendlier to the environment. It breaks down.”
Nina wolfed down half a pancake in one predatory inhalation and made it look feminine and dainty. “You’ve got a point,” she said, after she’d swallowed. “At least you’re not using them to pack up your office—”
“Cubicle.”
“Whatever.” Another pancake surrendered to the sweet annihilation of Nina’s mouth. Above a syrup-dripping slice of strawberries and cream, cobalt-blue eyes gazed into Nessie with the penetrating, soul-seeking stare only her older sibling could give. Overhead, Corey Hart sang his reasons for wearing his sunglasses at night, and the blond man rustled his papers.
Nessie’s silent determination faltered in the wake of the laser-blue stare and Corey’s soulful crooning. “The boxes really aren’t for an experiment on raincoats.”
The fork clattered onto the plate as Nina slid her elegant jaw into the cradle of her hand. “No kidding.”
“The boxes—” Nessie nodded towards her trusty cardboard sentries, “are Plan D.”
“Plan D? What happened to the first three letters of the alphabet?”
“Plan A was to hope that the company wasn’t bought out. That failed. Plan B was to talk to Grace and see what her plans were—are. They’re to fire and humiliate me. Plan C, well,” she tried to ignore the surge of embarrassment that made her ears turn hot. “That didn’t work. Plan D is to resign, while I still have dignity, and find another job.”
Nina pursed her mouth into a tight rosebud of anger but thankfully made no mention of Plan C. “You would run because Graceless is threatening you? She can’t fire you—you’re the only reason her department sees any success.” Nina’s lungs expanded and contracted, pushing fury into her words.
The thought of her supervisor turned the dry toast in Nessie’s mouth into ashes marinated in polluted rainwater. Rustle. Rustle. The man turned his pages, and Corey Hart gave way to Bruce Springsteen.
“She’s going to fire me—this takeover is just the excuse she’s been waiting for.” Unlike Nessie’s older sister, whose rapid breaths came from righteous indignation, Grace Hart’s huffing came from the same black source that prompted young, soulless boys to pull the wings off flies and magazine editors to put pictures of chocolate cakes right next to the articles about how to lose weight.
For the past three years, Grace had been blowing threats of firings and huffing about demotions. And now, with Leo Schumacher buying out Victor & Victoria, Nessie’s straw house was about to come crashing down. The wolf of unemployment would devour her, bit by plump bit.
“Nessie, this is 1984, not 1884. She can’t just fire you.”
“Yes, she can. If I fight or argue, she’ll ruin my chances of ever getting another job in the industry.” She’d meant the sentence to come out with the quiet dignity of a woman accepting her fate. Instead, it emerged with a steam engine’s wail, and loud enough to catch the attention of the blond man still seated beside them. His concerned gaze levelled her whining—though whether he was concerned over her loss of composure or his potential loss of hearing, she couldn’t tell.
“You’re her golden goose; everyone knows that.”
“Not the new owner, nor any of his people. According to the records of V & V, Grace is the one who designed the top five best-selling shoe styles, not me.”
“How do you know that?”
Nessie raised guilty eyes to the cracked ceiling. “I just do.”
Her sister said nothing, and Nessie managed a record five seconds of silence before her overactive conscience got the better of her. “The new owner is all about profit and productivity. I snuck into Grace’s office last week—”
“What? You did something underhanded?” Nina leaned in, her eyes sparkling with interest. “How did it—oh! Those bruises on your leg and the bump on your head—were they the result of your Mata Hari act?”
Nessie could only nod in miserable acknowledgment.
Nina’s laugh tinkled, silvery, delicate, and rippling with love. “Oh, darling. You’re much too honest to pull off anything deceitful. You know whenever you’re nervous or think you’re doing something wrong you always end up hurting yourself.” Nina grabbed Nessie’s hand and kissed her palm with sisterly affection. “You should have let me do it.”
“I can’t always have my big sister charging to my protection,” she grumbled.
“Of course you can. What’s the point in having an FBI badge if I can’t flash it and terrorize the witch who’s trying to bully my baby sister?” Nina turned and, with a glamorous smile, signalled to the waiter for a refill of her coffee. “Why did you sneak into her office?”
“She keeps the personnel files in there. I wanted to know what was in mine.”
“And?”
“She’s written me up as though I’m just a run-of-the-mill, average worker-bee with delusions of grandeur. Grace says I’m a troublemaker, and she’s twisted all of our meetings to make me look as though I’m a nut case. And she took credit for all of my designs! When the culling comes from the owner, he’s not going to want a deranged worker-bee who can’t design a shoe.”
“Technically, bees don’t make shoes. As for deranged bees, everyone knows they make the best honey.”
“I read up on our new owner.” Nessie plunged ahead, anxious for Nina to see her side and lend support. “He always brings in his own people for the management positions, and they bring in their own. Average people like me are going to be fired.”
“You’re not average.” Nina’s voice held the hard, disciplinarian edge of a schoolteacher who’d heard a st
udent utter a foul word.
“You’re right. I’m less than average.”
“Less than average?” Her sister’s voice had gone deadly quiet.
“Yes.” She spat out the word. “According to Grace I have no talent, and look at me—I don’t stand a chance of holding the job on the basis of eye candy.”
“That’s all right. You’ve always preferred salty snacks, anyway.”
“Don’t tease. Look at this hair.” Nessie jerked the chin-length strands towards Nina. “Deathly black, impossible to color, forget about trying to feather it like Heather Locklear’s. I’m plump, with this round, moon face, and I’ve got little tiny hands.” Her voice quavered under a week’s worth of trying to be brave when all she felt was small and hopeless. “The only thing I have to give me any dignity is that I’m five feet and one inch.”
“Technically darling, you’re only five feet and three-quarters of an inch.”
Nessie gasped. “That was told to you in the strictest confidence.” She stuffed the buttered section of toast into her mouth.
“I haven’t told anyone except you, and you already knew,” Nina responded with a callous shrug. “Here,” she pushed a cup of coffee towards Nessie. “Drink.”
But Nessie couldn’t get down a sip. The fear and uncertainty of her upcoming week clogged her throat and made it impossible to do anything other than hold the cup and sniff the fragrant scent of Columbian roast.
“You forget your decrepit fashion sense,” Nina said, almost as an afterthought. “The new owner won’t keep you on account of your terrible taste in clothing and inability to dress with today’s fashion. He’ll never believe you can design shoes that can catch the interest of today’s youthful generation.”
“Et tu, Brute?” Now, even the salty tang of butter on fresh bread had lost its taste.
“Of course not. I’m by your side till the bitter end.” Nina resumed her demolition of pancakes and strawberries. “Your tirade, however, is trademark Nessie. You rip yourself apart, call down all the curses from the gods, then pull yourself together and emerge victorious. It’s usually around Plan E—at the worst, Plan G.”
“I do?” Nessie’s brow wrinkled as she considered this possibility, then dismissed it. There was no way to emerge victorious when the company had been sold and the only woman who stood between her and unemployment had all the compassion of a vampire bat.
“Always. I’m simply pointing out that you missed the third point on your triangle of self-sabotage: your so-called terrible fashion sense.”
“I did have a hard time getting this belt to cinch properly,” Nessie pointed out.
“What a perfect reason to give up, paint a strip of yellow down your back and run.” Nina snorted.
“Not give up. Leave with dignity.” She reached across the scarred table to grasp her sister’s hand. “If I leave on my own accord, it’ll look better on my résumé. But if I were fired by—” Breath and courage failed Nessie. It was one thing to think of the name of the man about to ruin her life, a whole other thing to say it. “Do you know what they call Him?” The fear of Him made her voice drop into a hoarse hiss.
Nina’s blue-sky eyes opened heavenward. She leaned in and whispered back, “Sir?”
“No.” She ignored the deadpan tone that always indicated her sister wasn’t taking her seriously. Despite the fact she hadn’t a clue what Leo Schumacher looked like, she glanced around the cafeteria, checking for his presence. “The Lumberjack. Do you know why?”
“He likes to cut down trees, skip and jump, and press wild flowers. Then—let me guess—he puts on women’s clothing and hangs around in bars.” She paused and leaned in further, until she and Nessie were almost nose to nose. “Does he know that Monty Python based an entire song on his life?”
“I bet you whip suspects with rubber hoses,” Nessie said, tossing her sister a dirty look which slid off Nina’s pearl-white smile. “No, they call him the Lumberjack—”
“Because he wears plaid. Oh, God,” Nina released her hand and flopped back into her chair. “You’re going to be fired by a plaid-wearing, flower-picking, cross-dressing, woollen-socked multi-millionaire who cuts down two-hundred-year-old trees because he likes to make birds homeless and see chipmunks cry.”
“You’re being silly.”
“No sillier than you.”
Words and maturity failing her, Nessie hurled a piece of toast crust at her sister’s head. Since the bread’s trajectory was mapped by a plump and un-athletic shoe designer who couldn’t get her coal black hair to feather or layer, it completely bypassed Nina and, instead, bounced squarely off the left eyebrow of the blond man.
Once again his gaze impaled her.
“I’m so sorry,” she squeaked.
Instead of answering her, he turned to her sister. “Do you have the same athletic prowess as your sister?”
“No,” Nina answered. “I have much better aim.”
He rose from his seat.
Up to now, the only mark he’d made on Nessie’s consciousness was the rustling of his paper and the occasional clink of his cup meeting its saucer. But as he stood, packing up his papers and shifting the cutlery, he not only marked her consciousness, but tattooed it, as well. The width of his shoulders and his skyscraper height branded her awareness, while the style and grace of his movements—more suited to a dancer than the muscled, broad male specimen in front of her eyes—imprinted her senses and obliterated any thought of work.
The man went around his table and sat on the other side.
“Should you feel a further urge to hurl anything,” he said, for the first time addressing Nessie, “bear in mind that I’ve already had toast and grapefruit. Perhaps you can toss a few of your sister’s strawberries, or a slice of pancake.”
“I really am sorry.”
“Of course you are.” He unfolded his paper once again. “Don’t throw anything hot or scalding, as I’ve no desire to be burned—even if it’s an elf who sears me.”
Nessie gasped in horror, her fingers reaching to pull her hair from behind her pointed ear and shield the deformity from the stranger’s view. “That’s not funny. It was just the way I was born.”
“Who’s being funny?” His silver-blue gaze manacled her. “I happen to be very partial to elves.” Then, with a flick of his wrists, he disappeared behind his newspaper.
****
In the Women’s Casual Footwear Department, under fluorescent lighting which convulsed in a death throes worthy of a National Geographic special, Nessie twitched, waited, and counted off the seconds until the meeting with Grace would draw to a close.
“Now that Victor & Victoria is in the closet of a new owner, shoes will be moved and sorted.” Grace’s nasal pitch set Nessie’s teeth on edge. The euphemisms for firing were as excruciating as a root canal without medication. Put together with Grace’s insincere smile, they all left Nessie wishing for Novocain—or at the very least, a stiff double shot of whiskey—to dull the pain.
“Some of you,” Grace’s drill-bit whine tore into Nessie’s nerves, “are like old, comfortable slippers. Dependable. Reliable. You, of course, will be staying. Others...” Her gaze circled the room, then fixed on Nessie; the look in Grace’s eyes was that of a Dark Ages dentist trying to remember where she left her chisel. “Are more like a passing fad. Superficial. Trivial. And gone as quickly as you came.”
A murmur rippled through the employees, accompanied by furtive, sympathetic glances at Nessie.
“I am meeting with Mr. Schumacher for the next few days and will be unavailable to you. If you have any questions or concerns, I’m leaving Vanessa Helph in charge—”
For a brief, shining moment, it felt as though the dark, heavy fog which surrounded Nessie lifted, allowing her to glimpse a blue sky and yellow sun.
“After all, with the company shuffling, who will notice if she screws up?”
The black fog rolled in once more, and, with it, sharp flashes of lightning that illuminated the uncha
nging, flat wasteland she called a career.
“That’s not fair,” Nessie said, gripping her bucking courage with sweaty fingers. “I’m just as competent as the other people here, and I don’t appreciate your intimation that the department will go to pieces just because I’m in charge.”
Pencil-thin eyebrows rose in Grace’s lined forehead. Her eyelashes, looking like fat, black, stranded spiders, blinked in wide-eyed innocence. “Really, Nessie. Did I say that?”
“Yes, you—”
“I only said that with the reshuffling, your relative inexperience at running a department won’t be noticed.” Her voice was oiled precision, the insincerity and deception well coated by years of climbing the corporate ladder and stepping on any fingers and toes that got in her way. “This doesn’t bode well for you. I thought we’d resolved your mistrust of your superiors. As your manager, I have to document these instances, Nessie. I’m sorry to say that today’s outburst will go into your file, and it won’t look good for you.”
“What about my design for the jelly shoes? Is that in my file?”
Grace’s smile slipped from her bright pink lips. “We can discuss that after this meeting.”
She dismissed the group immediately and, after issuing an imperious command for Nessie to meet her in an hour to discuss the plans for the next few days, disappeared in a whirl of shoulder padding, heavy perfume and frosted hair.
Nessie retreated to the relative safety of her cubicle. Grace had painted the walls of the department a dark, malevolent shade of purple and, though Nessie tried to quell her imagination, it always felt as though she were being stalked by merciless grapes bent on revenging the deaths of their kind by stomping on the humans who would make them into wine. She dashed to the cushioned walls of her cubicle, but she couldn’t outrun the despair that trailed on her heels. Nessie tossed her notes for the meeting onto her pressboard desk.
Her phone rang once, then went dead—the department employees’ code for a Graceless meeting. She stepped from the high-watt light of her desk lamps and back into the gloom of Grace’s maze. Not only had Nessie’s supervisor painted the walls in dark shades and kept the lighting at a consistent forty-watt hue, but she’d put black velvet curtains on the windows. Grace kept the employee cubicles scattered and separated by large, fake trees and potted plants.
