by Clea Simon
Now that was curious. Whatever was going on didn’t get Dulcie’s sweater back, but it did add a certain spice to the day. Around eleven, when Dulcie took her first break, she decided to poke around a bit. Maybe she would see her sweater on the back of a chair. Maybe she could ‘liberate’ it. What she found instead was an office humming with rumor, and very few managers in evidence. The temptation to find out more was too great. Joanie had her source, Ricky, in Accounting. So Dulcie headed over to IT, where at least the staff members could be assumed to be reasonably intelligent.
But when she pushed open the glass-fronted door to their section, she saw what Joanie had been talking about. The place, usually a hive of activity, was deserted. The Guitar Hero posters looked down on empty cubicles. One screen, however, was still glowing, and Dulcie walked toward it.
‘What are you doing here?’ Dulcie spun around to find herself facing a very tall, very skinny, and very angry geek.
‘I’m Dulcie. A temp.’
‘I didn’t ask who you were, I asked what you were doing here.’ He pushed past her and, leaning over the keyboard, quickly typed in something that made the screen go black. In his wake, she got a whiff of nervous sweat. ‘This area is off limits.’ He turned back to her and she saw how two purple blotches in his cheeks clashed with his acne.
‘It was unlocked. I didn’t know.’ Dulcie could feel her own face growing hot with color, but the programmer turned away to grab a chair. ‘I just wanted to know what happened.’
‘You and everyone else.’ He wheeled the chair toward his desk. ‘Forty-eight hours at least we’ve been working on this.’
‘I came in late and everything was in an uproar.’ Dulcie wasn’t good at this feminine wiles stuff, but how hard could it be? She pulled a nearby chair close and sat on the edge, trying to look demure. She lowered her voice. ‘I figured you folks here might know.’
He turned to stare at her. He didn’t look taken in. ‘And you just happened to be Little Miss Curious? You didn’t happen to input a little program while you were just kicking around?’
‘I have no idea what you are talking about.’ She sat up straight in her chair, realizing too late that this meant sticking out her chest. The pale-faced geek goggled for a second, but then turned away.
‘Somebody does. And I don’t think it was Accounting. We have to recreate records from the last several months of raw data. There’s a ghost in the machine.’
Interesting choice of words, but before Dulcie could say anything, the computer geek turned back to her. ‘Now, do you mind?’ She was dismissed.
Joanie was gone when Dulcie got back, but within a half-hour the kohl-eyed Goth was once again leaning over Dulcie’s cubicle.
‘Lunchtime – and I’ve got the goods.’ Joanie looked around. There was still no supervisor to be seen.
‘So do I!’ Dulcie felt a surge of pride. ‘Deli Haus?’
Over serious corned beef sandwiches, they pooled their info. From Dulcie’s geek, it was clear that a bug of some sort had been used to infiltrate the Priority data banks. Ricky, who by the sound of things was looking to ingratiate himself with Joanie, had been able to explain why. Premiums, thousands of them, had been jacked up slightly – some by only fractions of a penny a month – but that extra money had been siphoned off, and deposited off-site. Payments, too, possibly, though Ricky wasn’t sure about those. Altogether, it explained the meetings and the air of panic, and certainly the accountant who had been taken out in cuffs. It also made sense of what Dulcie had considered dummy work. If the files were corrupted, well, someone would have to type them all back in.
‘But how could someone do that?’ Joanie was picking her teeth with one of the wooden toothpicks the deli provided. Dulcie toyed with the last dill pickle spear.
‘It sounds fairly sophisticated, but there has to be a precedent.’ Something on the edge of her memory was making this all sound familiar. ‘Someone has done this before.’
‘Can you go back to IT later? Maybe flirt with that guy a little?’ Joanie was a skinny little thing, but she knew how to work what she had. Dulcie, who had more, shook her head.
‘No way. Not until he’s had a shower, at least. But I’ve got some ideas. Believe it or not,’ she popped the last of the pickle into her mouth, ‘in my real life, I’m considered pretty good at research.’
Back at the office, she started a few searches, humming to herself as Google and Yahoo did their work. But just as she was about to log on to Lexis Nexis, using her academic account, she froze. Management was on a witch-hunt, the geek had warned her. Nobody knew who had fed the worm into the system. Right now every non-mandated keystroke would be a target, the data – and the user – observed and analyzed. Backspacing to erase her password, Dulcie cursed her own stupidity. Being scholarly wasn’t the same as being practical.
‘There are some interesting legal issues in hacking.’ Suze had called her the next night, while Dulcie was stripping the blue polish off her toenails. Dulcie had continued her research on her home computer, but when nothing interesting had turned up, she’d left a message requesting Suze’s aid, too. ‘Privacy, intellectual property, corporate security . . .’
‘Purple or pink?’ Something about the array of colored bottles made her living room more like home again. Corporate piracy seemed very far away.
‘Purple.’ Suze might come from a conventional background, but she wasn’t stodgy. ‘But what you’ve described sounds more like electronic embezzlement.’
‘Guess so.’ Dulcie held one foot up toward the desk lamp. The iridescent purple shimmered like the inside of a seashell. ‘I just kept thinking it reminded me of something.’
‘A new way to pay your bills?’ Suze could be cavalier about her mountain of debt. She had folks who could help with her loans – and a degree that would translate into a major corporate pay check.
‘No.’ Dulcie fanned her toes. ‘Something with the university? Something else about a computer virus.’
‘The admissions hackers!’ Suze was excited now. ‘Not at Harvard, though. Some southern school – Duke? A bunch of prospective students got into the admissions systems. They only wanted to see if they were getting accepted, but when the school found out, they considered it such a breach of ethics that anyone who looked was automatically rejected.’
Dulcie shook her head and the bottle of polish. ‘No, that wasn’t it. Something like that, though.’ Maybe it was that comment about a ‘ghost in the machine’. The geek had probably lifted it from a sci-fi novel, but Dulcie remembered it from philosophy: mind–body dualism and all. But there was something else, too. She started on her left foot, splaying her toes the way Mr Grey would when he washed. God, she missed that cat. But Suze was talking.
‘There’ve been a bunch of cases involving smart, competitive types who will do anything for an edge. A virus that feeds out money – or information – is just a step up from peeking at the grading curve. Some of it’s theft, some just high-tech cheating; not illegal, per se, but is it ethical? Or does it show that the students are indeed the best and the brightest? Like I said, interesting law.’
Dulcie stretched out her foot again and for a split second she thought she saw something – something grey – on the couch beyond. Just as quickly, it was gone. ‘Suze?’ She needed a reality check. ‘Would you think it was really just too weird if I told you that sometimes I think I see something? Or that, right before I go to sleep, I feel like I can sense Mr Grey? Like, I feel him jump on to the bed and start purring?’
For a rare moment, her room-mate was quiet. ‘I would understand where you’re coming from, Dulce.’ Her voice was softer now. ‘But, well, it would make me worry a bit. I mean, I don’t want to sound rude here. But have you thought about maybe adopting another cat? A cute little kitten?’
‘No.’ She put the top back on the polish and screwed it tight with a vengeance. ‘Not yet,’ she added, her tone softening. ‘Not ever’ was what she meant.
‘I don’t mean
to replace Mr Grey.’ Suze spoke quickly. ‘I know you can’t do that. It’s just that you’ve been through a lot this summer, and the company might do you good.’
Dulcie closed her eyes, fighting back the tears that had suddenly welled up. ‘Uh-huh.’ She couldn’t manage more without revealing her sudden mood swing.
‘Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry.’
With her friend on the line, Dulcie found herself crying again. ‘I should go.’ She sniffed. ‘This is costing you a fortune.’
‘You sure you’ll be OK?’
Dulcie wasn’t, but she could hear Suze’s relief. Long-distance comfort, for the nth time in as many weeks, would try anyone’s patience. ‘Yeah,’ she hiccuped, ‘I feel better now anyway. Thanks.’ She was telling Suze the truth, or at least part of it. What she wasn’t saying was that as soon as she’d started crying, she’d been aware of something: at the base of the sofa, near her feet, she’d felt the warm, soft touch of Mr Grey’s fur.
Eight
Weird was the new normal at work, and in a way Dulcie liked it. Sure, the first time a uniformed rent-a-cop poked through her bag on her way into the Priority office, it was a bit unnerving. But that was the routine at the university libraries, too, so by her second break she was opening her bag without thinking. The occasional slowdown of the computer systems did make her wonder if somewhere in the building, some poor IT guy was rewriting code – or rewiring the system. For a brief moment, she considered the possibility that, in fact, some shadow program was reporting on her every keystroke. But what she was typing in was so dull that she felt less outrage than pity for whoever might have that job. And the place was decidedly quieter. Maybe for the upper-ups and those who planned on spending their working life here that would be bad – a little more paranoia to ratchet up the corporate tension. But as a temp, the strange, new hush that hung over the office just seemed more peaceful.
‘Must be all that time you spend in the library,’ Joanie had said, when Dulcie had commented favorably on the new quiet. They’d been on their mid-morning break, and Joanie had been a bit miffed at what she’d called the guard’s ‘pawing’ through her stuff.
‘Maybe.’ Dulcie chewed on a muffin. ‘But isn’t it better than having everyone talking constantly and looking over your shoulder?’
‘If you like morgues,’ Joanie said, and then brightened. ‘But you’re right. We haven’t had to sit through one of those stupid efficiency meetings since last Tuesday.’
Dulcie nodded and broke off another piece of the toasted sweetbread muffin. She’d also found a killer Portuguese bakery around the corner. The summer was looking up.
‘You think they’ll ever find out who put the worm in the system?’ Dulcie blotted up the last few crumbs.
‘Who cares, as long as they keep us on the payroll till September?’
Things were so strangely quiet that nobody even questioned Dulcie when she began to pack up a little before five. Joanie found her in the bathroom ten minutes later.
‘Hey, I sent a message from your computer, just in case anyone is still looking at what time we log off.’
Dulcie was trying to get her eyeliner straight as Joanie ducked into a stall. ‘What did it say?’ How come she couldn’t put on eye make-up with her mouth closed? ‘And who was it to?’
‘To admin. Want your money? No, just kidding. I just had you email me asking if we had the new files yet. Nice dress. You going out or something?’
‘Or something.’ Dulcie had even ironed the Indian cotton print. She couldn’t believe she was making this much effort. ‘This woman I dislike has invited me to an after-work drinks thing. She’s really preppy. Always done up, you know.’ She paused; may as well be honest. ‘But there’s a guy who might be there.’
She heard a flush. ‘Well, if he’s not, you can always come over to Foley’s.’ Joanie washed her hands and checked her own mascara. Dulcie noticed the younger girl opening her mouth, too. ‘You know, I’ve been trying to get you to come out with us. At least we’re human.’
‘Thanks, Joanie.’ Had she really been ignoring invitations all summer?
‘No prob. But, hey—’ Joanie licked her finger and leaned over to dab at Dulcie’s cheek. ‘You might try the liquid eyeliner. You’re wearing more of this stuff on your cheeks than your eyes.’
While that comment did little for her confidence, Dulcie was at least reasonably sure that she was speckle free by the time she arrived at Alana’s Beacon Hill address. Fifteen minutes later, she realized she might as well be covered in leopard spots. Nobody would notice.
‘The rich really are different from you and me,’ she muttered to herself, looking around the roof deck. Under a striped awning, a bartender whipped up frothy drinks, the growl of the blender almost drowned out by the volume of the reggae blasting from an unseen sound system.
‘Margarita?’ She turned to see the bartender looking her way. He seemed vaguely familiar.
‘Dulcie – Dulcie Schwartz.’ Had they had a class together?
‘No, I mean, would you like a drink?’ He smiled, and they both laughed.
‘Oh, sorry! Yes, please.’ He gave the almost-full blender a quick spin and poured a light-green concoction into a wide-brimmed glass. ‘Thank you.’ She took a sip. Sweet, but strong. ‘Can you tell me, is Alana around?’
He shook his head and reached for more glasses. ‘I’m not sure. It was a summer school student who hired me. Stacia Something?’ Student bartender, then. He dipped four more glasses in a wide bowl of salt. This was a crowd that wanted its drinks ready fast. ‘You might try over by the lilies.’
Dulcie turned and saw the huge flower display next to – was that a fountain? She whistled softly. Beyond the low, white railing the golden dome of the State House glowed like the setting sun itself. The bartender chuckled. ‘Not exactly tar beach, huh?’
‘I’ll say.’ There was no use pretending she belonged here. Maybe she should put the oversized drink down and sneak out. She took another sip. Or she could finish it back here with the bartender, and then sneak out.
‘Dulcie!’ Her plan was interrupted by Alana’s squeal. ‘You made it!’ The blonde looked happy to see her. ‘And here you are, all by yourself. Come on over and meet everybody.’ With a last look back at the bartender, Dulcie allowed herself to be led out from the shade and toward the small crowd by the fountain. An unnaturally pink dolphin seemed about to buck off an overweight cherub. ‘Do you like it? I rented it for the night. It just seemed like fun.’
‘It is . . . very summery,’ Dulcie managed to say. Over the spray from the cherub’s head she could see Luke. He was talking to a dark-haired woman. Yes, it was Stacia. But almost as if he could feel her gaze, he turned. Their eyes met – and then Stacia turned, too.
‘Dulcie, so glad you could make it.’ Her voice sounded friendlier than her eyes looked, but before Dulcie could get away, the sleek beauty had skirted the fountain and reached her. Taking her by the arm, as if to examine the stacked bangles on her wrist, Stacia walked her away from the cheery cherub and from Luke. ‘Great idea, Dulcie.’ She held Dulcie’s arm tight, but her words were gentle. ‘I told Alana you were artistic. Do you want to be introduced around? You know Luke, obviously.’
Before she could do any more than nod at Tim’s brother, Dulcie found herself led around the roof deck. ‘Dulcie, you must know Jack and Bruce, of course.’ Two of the beefy boys from the funeral nodded in her direction and went back to drinking. ‘And Jessica; and this is our other Jessica, Jessica Todd. And Whitman . . .’ Must be a family name, Dulcie thought, with a flash of sympathy for the freckled blonde. ‘She was just the total heroine of our field hockey team.’
Dulcie smiled until her cheeks began to ache with the strain. Why was she here? ‘I should bring this back to the bar.’ She raised her empty glass, happy for an excuse to retreat.
‘Nonsense.’ Stacia whipped the glass from her and deposited it on the white railing. ‘That’s why we have help.’
Dulcie pe
ered over the railing. ‘I hope that doesn’t fall.’ Stacia wasn’t listening, and seemed intent on steering Dulcie into an almost quiet corner. What did this woman want from her anyway? Was she about to be warned off Luke?
‘Dulcie, now, I feel horrible asking you this. Just horrible.’ It was about Luke. Dulcie braced herself, searching for some wonderfully cutting remark. ‘I mean, I know you and Tim weren’t the best of friends, but he talked about you a bit.’ Something cutting and yet suave would fit the bill. All those hours watching classic films must be worth something. ‘But Alana is my best friend in the entire world, and she’s just a little fragile right now.’
Katharine Hepburn, she mused, or maybe Lauren Bacall.
‘And that’s why I was wondering if Tim had said something to you.’
‘Tim?’ That wasn’t what she’d expected.
‘Well, of course.’ Stacia’s eyes were so wide that Dulcie knew she was lying. Still . . .
‘What would Tim have said anything to me about?’
‘Oh, you know how boys are. I mean, don’t let Alana know.’ She lowered her voice and leaned in closer. ‘But Tim wasn’t always the best boyfriend.’
‘Well, yeah.’ Dulcie thought of Luisa. ‘But, really, Stacia, does it matter now?’
‘It matters how she feels. He was going to propose to her, you know.’ Dulcie wasn’t convinced, but nodded anyway. ‘But there was other stuff, too; private stuff – on his computer. Alana had told me that he’d wanted something, you know, just for him. I didn’t like the idea, but what could I say? And now, well, I don’t want to bring it up again. But I don’t like the idea of that – material – being out there.’
Porn? Did Tim have compromising photos of his blonde honey? Dulcie’s ears pricked up. ‘Well, you know Luke took his brother’s laptop home.’
