Randall #01 - The Best Revenge

by Anne R. Allen

  “You mean you never got it on with him?” Jimmy took a gulp of beer. “No wonder he found another lady. What’s the matter, you lesbo or something?”

  “I certainly am not. But he is. I mean—I thought he didn’t like girls, and then he acted like he did, but then I thought he didn’t again, and—I guess he does. Angela kissed him and she was in his bedroom when I got there and—” Camilla sniffled. “Maybe it’s just me he doesn’t like.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t like that you thought he was a faggot.” Jimmy gave a snort. “Hey, you hungry?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You eat today?”

  “No. I threw up.”

  “Yeah. You eat yesterday? The day before?”

  “I had chocolate pudding last night. A lot.”

  “Sugar? That’s not food. Ever had tofu pizza?”

  “I don’t think so.” She picked at the carpet, feeling like a scolded child.

  “There’s this place down the street that makes real healthy pizza. Whole-wheat crust. No sugar in the sauce, tofu-rella instead of animal fat cheese.” He downed the rest of his beer. “I’ll be back in about twenty minutes. Why don’t you call this guy? Maybe he still has the hots for you. You know, he could just be with the old lady because she puts out.” He gave Camilla’s knee a reassuring pat before he took off.

  She stood by the door and stared across the room at the old black dial phone that sat on the floor by the kitchen. She moved toward it, her head filled with images of Plantagenet. She tried not to think of him as she’d seen him yesterday, tanned and nervous, with Angela’s hand squeezing his, or of the scary way he looked the night he left her in Perth Amboy, but of her old and dear friend, laughing as he escorted her through the streets of Manhattan, happily making rude remarks about the clothing of passers-by.

  She got a dial tone. So at least she still had phone service for a bit. She dialed the number.

  “Camilla! I’m so glad you called.” It was Angela. “Plant has been desperate to get hold of you. You aren’t listed with Information, and apparently your mother’s phone has been disconnected. I assured him you’d call, but you know how men can be.”

  Camilla forced a laugh. “May I speak to him?”

  “He’s just gone for groceries. I sent him out to get his mind off worrying. Now he’ll be furious with me.”

  “Worrying about what?”

  “That’s exactly what I said. He thinks you’re a damsel in distress and it’s up to him to rescue you. As if the poor man could rescue anybody. He’s totally submerged in debts himself. Anyway, I told him that you’re a grown woman and would hate to be treated like a helpless child.”

  “Of course,” Camilla said, with a little cough. “But I did just lose my job and—”

  “Exactly. What you need is a job—not Mighty Mouse flying in to save the day.”

  “Yes, but jobs aren’t that easy to come by—” She wanted to say that a superhero, even of the rodent variety, would not be unwelcome at the moment.

  “I know. I know,” Angela went on. “This administration pretends it’s solved the unemployment problem, but that’s all whitewash, isn’t it? Oh—I shouldn’t get started on that. Anyway, you’re one of the lucky ones. I’ve found you a position as a reporter for the San Diego Sentinel. It doesn’t pay what you’re used to, but that’s hardly something a Randall would worry about, I’m sure. But you just may find it’s a good career move. You’ll be working with a great bunch of people. Can you start Monday?”

  “Monday?” Camilla could hardly speak. Her brain was too busy trying to process what Angela had just said. A job: as a reporter.

  “Tuesday, then. I understand. You need a little breathing space. I’ll call the editor and tell him. You’ll like Jonny. He’s a New Yorker, too. A perfectionist—but he really cares about his people.”

  “Tuesday.” That came out as a squeak. “Uh—what time? Where do I go?”

  “The Gaslamp quarter. ‘F’ Street. I’m sure nine AM will be fine. Don’t let the homeless people bother you. Remember, there but for fortune…”

  “Homeless people?” Camilla’s head felt as if it had gone on a merry-go-round without her. “Angela, I really appreciate this, but—”

  “No problem. Glad I could be of help. I own an interest in the paper. I could kick myself for not thinking about it when you were here yesterday. Plant did the kicking for me. Our first big fight. A romantic milestone of sorts, though, isn’t it? Oh, while I’m thinking of it, what’s your phone number?”

  Camilla recited the number automatically as she wondered if she could remember enough from her journalism courses at Rosewood to pass herself off as a reporter.

  “Oh, but wait a minute,” she said as Angela carefully read the number back to her. “This number might not work very long, because—”

  But Angela was talking again. “Plant will be so pleased. He wants to see you again soon. I hope you’ll be able to come up and have dinner with us in a couple of weeks—after he’s recovered from his ordeal in the South Pacific.”

  “Um, thank you,” Camilla said as she heard the phone click. Angela was being perfectly wonderful. Everything about Angela was perfect. Damn her.

  ~

  “I got tofu, mushrooms, and artichoke hearts,” Jimmy said as he pushed through the front door carrying a large white box that said “Pizza Nirvana”.

  He opened the box and revealed what looked and smelled like good pizza. For a moment the sight filled Camilla’s head with thoughts of Plantagenet and Perth Amboy, New Jersey, but she tried to brush them aside as Jimmy handed her a gooey slice.

  “Awesome, huh?” he said, helping himself to a piece. “Hey, I ran into a cousin of mine down there. His mom has this old apartment building downtown. Full of bluehairs.” He rescued a string of tofu-rella before it hit the grungy floor. “The rent’s real cheap and there’s usually a couple of vacancies because the tenants are always dropping dead. She’ll probably let you move in if you promise there won’t be any parties or drugs or shit. She’ll want a deposit and first and last, though. Did you call that guy who dumped you?”

  An apartment. He was talking about an apartment. A home.

  “I called. But I only talked to Angela.”

  “He let you talk to the other girlfriend? What a Bozo.”

  “Actually, she was pretty nice. She found me a job. Have you ever heard of the San Diego Sentinel?”

  “The newspaper? Yeah. Kind of off the wall. No nukes; save the whales—that stuff.” Jimmy balanced a piece of pizza on his knee as he leaned over and took a beer from the case on the floor. “So that’s where you’re going to work?”

  “I guess so. I’m supposed to start on Tuesday.”

  “OK.” Jimmy gulped his Oly. “We move you tomorrow. So is that guy gonna call you back? Can he come up with money for the deposit?”

  “I can’t ask him—Angela said he’s in debt and he doesn’t have a job, either.”

  Jimmy nodded. “Some kind of a gigolo, this dude?”

  Camilla swallowed a garlicky mushroom.

  “I suppose people might think that, but he’s really a writer—”

  “Stay away, Cammie. Don’t even talk to him. He’s a loser. A dude like that will have you turning tricks before he’ll do a minute of work. Or maybe he thinks you’re rich because of all those fancy clothes you wear. A lot of people don’t know what great stuff you can pick up at thrift stores.” He took another slice of pizza. “So what have you got that you can sell?” He reached with his free hand and grabbed Camilla’s wrist. “Looks like a good watch. Ought to be able to get something for it.”

  She looked sadly at the Cartier watch her father gave her to celebrate her acceptance at Rosewood. She unhooked the clasp and placed it in Jimmy’s hand.

  “Can you sell it for me?”

  Maybe she shouldn’t trust him, but she had nobody else.

  “Good as done.” He shoved it in his pocket and handed her another piece of pizza. />
  She took a huge bite, as if somehow all that whole wheat and olive oil could fill her newly empty life.

  The telephone rang. Jimmy reached for the receiver.

  “Yeah?” he said. “She’s kinda busy now, dude. We’re eating.”

  Camilla tried to swallow as she gestured wildly at Jimmy to hand her the phone.

  “Cammie says tell that Angela chick ‘thanks’.”

  Jimmy dropped the receiver back into its cradle, turned to Camilla and grinned.

  “Make the slimeball sweat a little.”

  Chapter 12—A Pleasant Bus Ride and Other Surprises

  On Tuesday morning, Camilla looked around her new home once more before setting off for work. The apartment’s one main room was covered in a threadbare carpet, which might have once been turquoise. Now it was the color of long-forgotten cheese. Her bed and fruit crates look forlorn in their corner by the only window, where her lavender-print Laura Ashley bedspread was utterly defeated by the giant orange daisies on mustard-colored drapes, which sagged loosely on a bent rod.

  She checked the kitchen one more time to make sure she hadn’t left the burner going under the saucepan she used to make her morning coffee. She’d discovered the blackened pan at the back of a dusty cupboard last night, and although it looked as if it had survived similar tragedies, she didn’t want to start a fire on her first day in her new place. At the entrance to the kitchen, the heel of her shoe caught on the curled linoleum for the third time this morning.

  “Damn!” she said. Also not for the first time.

  She had decided to wear her gray snakeskin pumps, which were dark for August, but they matched her pinstriped Halston suit, which she hoped would make her look businesslike. However, every time she tied and retied the neck bow of the matching blouse, she felt like a kitten about to be presented to someone as a birthday gift.

  When she found the stove safely cold, she glanced at her wrist to check the time, feeling a pang when she saw the naked place where her watch used to be. However, the money it fetched got her into her new home, so the sacrifice was worth it.

  Finally, she set off to catch her bus to the Gaslamp Quarter. According to her new landlady, Mrs. Rodriguez, this section of San Diego was called Golden Hill. Nothing seemed very golden, except the already hot California sun, but it certainly was a hill. Her pumps were painful as she trudged to the bus stop.

  She was not looking forward to this. She had ridden a bus before, once when she was shopping in Manhattan with Pookie McGill, who was a native of Manhattan and stranger to fear. She recalled making her way behind Pookie through a crush of bodies while trying to remove an apparently unattached male hand from her breast, and dodging someone being sick on the floor while another woman screamed about spacemen.

  But the shiny blue and white bus that arrived almost immediately was nearly empty. Camilla sat next to a well-dressed, dark-skinned woman who, although she might have been wearing just a touch too much Arpège, displayed perfect manners by pretending not to be there at all. Camilla did the same.

  She didn’t see a lot of gaslamps on “F” street, but two unfortunate-looking men were passed out in the doorway across the street, just as Angela had predicted. She hoped the men would stay unconscious a while longer. Halfway down the block, she came upon a door bearing a hand-made wooden plaque painted with the words “San Diego Sentinel”.

  The door led to a dingy hallway and a flight of narrow stairs. At the top of the stairs, behind another door, she found herself in a large, high-ceilinged room full of desks and busy people. She straightened the bow at her neck.

  “You need something?” said a droopy-faced, middle-aged woman. She wore layers of drifty Indian gauze, and patchouli wafted as she approached.

  Camilla handed the woman her calling card.

  “I’m Camilla Randall. I was told to see a man named Jonny.”

  “Jonny?” The woman ignored Camilla’s card. “No one here by that name.”

  “Jonny?” said a tall woman who moved toward them at super-efficient speed. She wore jeans and a T-shirt with a picture of Picasso’s “Guernica” silk-screened on the front. She broke into a loud guffaw. “She means our beloved leader, Sunshine.” She glanced at the card. “I’m sorry—ah, you want to see the editor?”

  Camilla nodded, in what a hoped was a professional and reporterly way.

  “You’re here about the ‘Save the Seals’ benefit in La Jolla—right?” said the sad woman called Sunshine. “No point in wasting your time. All marine life is doomed.”

  The tall woman gave Camilla a quick smile.

  “End of the room. In that glass cage thing. The private office. You can’t miss it.”

  Camilla walked past people at work on clicking typewriters. When she reached the “glass cage thing,” She saw a dark-haired man seated at a desk inside, talking heatedly into a telephone while shuffling through a stack of papers. He looked awfully busy, so she decided not to knock until he hung up. She watched him through the dingy glass. He wore an ill-fitting sport coat and his hair was badly cut, but he had a wonderful profile.

  A profile she’d seen before.

  Ditto the broad shoulders.

  And that sexy, arrogant mouth.

  The man in the office was Jonathan Kahn, the mean reporter from the Guardian.

  “Miss, are you OK?” said the tall woman, now dropping a pile of papers on the desk of a small Asian man who was frantically typing with two fingers.

  “I’m—just fine,” Camilla lied. “I thought he was expecting me, but he looks busy. I’ll come back later.” She wanted to make a dash for the stairs, but her legs had gone numb.

  “Mr. Kahn is always busy. He’s from New York,” the woman said, as if she had explained everything. “You say you have an appointment?”

  “Sort of. Angela told me to be here at nine.”

  “Angela? God—you’re the new reporter!” The woman grinned as she extended her hand. “I’m Julie, assistant to the editor. We were so ecstatic that Angela finally got us a reporter with San Diego experience that nobody asked your name. What is it—” She glanced at the calling card. “Camille?”

  “Camilla. Camilla Randall. But Angela may not have been clear about my experience at the Union…” She wanted the floor to swallow her up.

  “Don’t worry. Mr. Kahn couldn’t care less. He’s been fired from a lot of places himself, Carmella—a lot.”

  Camilla laughed nervously. “Camilla. Camilla Randall.”

  Julie laughed. “Randall. How about if I call you Randy? I’m terrible with names. But I can remember Randy. Same as my cat. Ayn Rand. That’s her name—my cat. Pure selfishness, cats are.”

  “Fine.” Camilla adjusted the kitten-like bow at her neck. Names wouldn’t matter once Jonathan Kahn saw her, anyway.

  Julie glanced into the glass office. “He’s still on the phone,” she said. “Why don’t you take that desk there? I’ll get the tax forms and stuff you need to sign.”

  She pointed at a desk next to the two-fingered typist.

  “Bob,” Julie said to him. “This is Randy, the new reporter.”

  Bob offered Camilla one hand while the other stayed poised above the tab key. He gave a perfunctory smile and resumed typing.

  “Bob’s our star investigative reporter,” Julie said. “Working on a Pulitzer as we speak.” She laughed, but Bob didn’t.

  Camilla decided to fill out the forms just to show she’d tried. She was fishing through her wallet for the card with her Social Security number, which she never could remember, when she heard Mr. Kahn’s familiar voice talking to Julie. She ran her fingers through her hair, letting it fall in front of her face as she bent over the forms.

  “We got anybody going to that computer fair in Rancho Bernardo?” he said.

  “Not yet,” Julie said.

  “Send the new one. If she ever shows up.”

  “She’s right over there. Do you want to talk to her?”

  “No. I’m out the door. Tell
her I want a consumer angle—old farts throwing away money on toys that’ll be out of date by the time they figure out how to use them. Who needs a personal computer? Oh, yeah, and say… Is that her over there, the blonde?”

  “Yes, that’s Randy,” Julie said.

  “Randy?” Camilla could feel Mr. Kahn looming over the desk as she buried her face deeper in the IRS form. “Randy,” he said. “Do you think you could try to make it by six-thirty tomorrow morning? That’s the time the rest of us get here.”

  She raised her head, slowly pushing her hair away from her flushed face, but all she saw was Mr. Kahn’s broad, wrinkled back as he rushed toward the stairs.

  She jumped as she felt a hand on her right shoulder. She turned to see Bob grinning at her. He gave her back a pat.

  “Welcome to the Sentinel,” he said. “We sure can use another trained reporter.”

  ~

  But by five-thirty that afternoon, Camilla knew she would never be a reporter for the Sentinel, or anywhere else. She lay curled in a ball at the foot of her bed, wrapped in her bedspread. Her face was damp with tears, but she wasn’t crying any more. She was doing nothing. There was nothing left to do. She was a failure, and there was no point in going on. She pulled the covers over her head and tried to will herself to stop thinking. It didn’t work.

  The wrong bus. She’d taken the wrong bus. How could she have been so stupid? She’d ended up in some little mountain town called Ramona instead of the fancy retirement community of Rancho Bernardo where she was supposed to cover the computer fair. At the cafe where she went to ask directions, they told her there would be another bus in an hour, but without a watch, she lost track of time, and missed that one, too. It had been more than three hours later when she finally boarded a bus going in the right direction. The bus driver had been kind, but by the time he got her to Rancho Bernardo, the computer show was over. When she got back to the Sentinel, the place was locked up tight.

  She sobbed into her pillow. Why did she pretend to be a reporter? She couldn’t even take a bus. She pulled the coverlet tighter around her.