Car Pool

by Karin Kallmaker

  Shay stared at him for a long minute. Then she turned on her heel and marched out of his office before he saw her smile.

  An uncomfortable guard watched her pack up her desk. A few feet behind him, Scott lingered, watching what she packed. Rehind Scott the other occupants of their cubicle area watched with interest. Except Harold, who watched in glum acceptance. A couple of the other men had “I knew it was bound to happen” looks on their faces. Jerks, Shay thought. They’d never said a kind word to her. Shay gathered up her things and then gave Harold a grim smile.

  “Viva la guerre,” she said.

  As she left their work area she heard a voice whisper just loud enough for her to hear, “How come the Chink got axed?”

  In the blink of an eye, Harold whirled to face the direction of the voice and he looked huge. Several of the other men stepped backward.

  “For your information,” Shay said in a tight voice, “that’s Nip, not Chink. The least you could do is get the insult right, asshole.”

  “There’s no call for that kind of language,” Scott said.

  “It’s a side effect of a hostile work environment,” Shay said. He’d know all about that by the time she was through with him and NOC-U, she thought.

  When she walked out of the trailer, her only regret was leaving Harold behind. He deserved better. She said nothing as the guard drove her to

  Anthea’s car in his little security truck. She’d kept Anthea’s key this morning because they’d both known she was going to get fired. Anthea was going to meet her at the main gate when she got off work.

  The guard followed her to the parking gate and watched her turn in her badge and trailer key.

  When she drove through the gate she felt like a free woman. Stress poured out of her like sweat after a long run, and it felt wonderful. She had nearly two hours to kill until Anthea would get off work, so she took the Legend for a spin with the speakers cranked up to maximum.

  When she saw Anthea, she cruised up to the gate. “Let’s go celebrate. My treat. Anywhere you want.”

  Anthea settled in and said, “You know, I have this tickle in my throat. I think my glands are swollen.”

  Shay glanced over at her. “Oh, no, I hope it’s not too serious.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” Anthea said. “Probably just until the weekend. Long enough to help you configure a computer and start working on your report.”

  “Oh, I get it. You don’t have to do that.”

  “The old Anthea wouldn’t have done it.”

  “I like the new Anthea,” Shay said.

  Anthea grinned. “Who’d have thought we’d be so happy for you to be unemployed?”

  “Hey, I’m not unemployed. I still have my lucrative waitressing career.”

  “Sorry. I know,” Anthea said.

  “Getting fired makes me hungry. Where am I taking you to dinner?”

  “I have a confession to make,” Anthea said. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but we’ve been together so much that I haven’t been able to get my fix.”

  Shay gave Anthea a sidelong glance. What on earth was she talking about? “What fix?”

  “I’d kill for a burger. From anywhere. Sometimes haute cuisine just doesn’t cut the mustard.”

  Shay giggled. “I can live with that. And right in the pocketbook range for a part-time waitress.”

  Anthea walked two fingers across the top of Shay’s hand as it rested on the gear shift knob. “I’ll have to think of some way to thank you.”

  Shay exhaled with a smile. “I really, really like the new Anthea.”

  Anthea said, “I like her, too.”

  11

  Freeway of Love

  “Jesus Christ, Shay, this looks like something your dad did.”

  “What can I say?” Shay looked across Joan Lewis’s cluttered desk and noticed that Joan had no better success keeping her salt-and-pepper hair in a ponytail now than she had four years ago. “He rubbed off on me.”

  “How did you get all this shit?”

  “I’ll never tell. Do you think you’ve got a case?”

  “I’ll have to read all the way through it, but I don’t see where’d you’d make a mistake this big. Where there’s smoke, you know.”

  “Does the agency have the resources to investigate something like this?” One of the problems with applying to the EPA for a job was the perpetual hiring freeze that was almost impossible to get around.

  “Let me put it as delicately as possible,” Joan said.

  Shay braced herself.

  “Ever since we got the fucking Republicans out of the fucking White House this is a fucking decent place to work. We haven’t had a suicide since.”

  Joan hadn’t changed a bit.

  Joan plucked the pencil from behind her ear, saying, “Let me just skim through your summary. Ooooh. Tampering with a scrutinized area, I like it. That’s five mil. Intent to cover up aforementioned tampering. We’ll make that five mil times three. And the new administration isn’t nearly as prone to waiving fines as the old administration. I think they’re going to pay.”

  “Do you know a good EEO lawyer? I really don’t want to go to one of the guys advertising on late night TV.”

  Joan smiled — it was positively feral. “I know just the woman for you.” She scribbled a number down out of her Rolodex. “Tell her I sent you and it’ll be her ovaries if she doesn’t treat you right.”

  “Joan, my love, you’re a good woman,” Shay said.

  “That’s what’s going to save the planet, m’dear.

  I’ll give you a call when I’ve digested your little

  opus here.”

  “I’ve got two numbers right now, though I’ll be at

  this one most of the time,” Shay said, as she handed

  Joan her numbers.

  “What’s her name? And is it serious?”

  “Andy — Anthea. And it’s not just serious, it’s —”

  “Fucking serious. Good for you, doll, good for you.

  The four of us will have to get together and do the

  fucking Michelob commercial thing.”

  “She’s a gourmet cook and a little bit rich and

  I’m totally in love. Can’t help myself.” Shay realized

  that she would be proud to introduce Anthea to

  Joan. She realized she’d be proud to introduce

  Anthea as her mate to anyone.

  “Why would you want to? Oh, run along, I’m late

  for a meeting,” Joan said. She shooed Shay out of

  her office.

  Anthea slid into the only empty chair in the conference room. “Sorry I’m late,” she said to Martin. “I lost my car pool and haven’t quite got the timing down.” There were some sympathetic murmurs from other people in the room — the entire reporting and costing staff. She would have made an early start, but she’d forgotten it was the quarterly staff meeting.

  Martin went back to his agenda. It included an announcement, to Anthea’s delight, of the ability to hire some additional staff. She’d speak to Ruben this

  afternoon. The last item was a mention of how all analysts and department heads were to remember that they were not to talk to the press, particularly in this current public relations “challenge” about some toxic problem at the refinery that had been in the papers for the last three weeks.

  Anthea looked nonchalantly over at Adrian. He was looking innocently in her direction. Anthea had been asking herself how she could go on working for NOC-U after what they had done. Maybe because “they” were a single executive who, inside scuttlebutt said, had acted in isolation. On the other hand, ever since the announcement of the EPA investigation, NOC-U had claimed the investigation was based on flimsy evidence from a disgruntled ex-employee, and was just another example of regulatory harassment. The ex-employee, a company representative said, was only looking for a way to bolster her civil suit for wrongful termination.

  The company was doing everything Shay had
said they would do. It made it hard for Anthea to find self-respect coming to work every day. And if Shay moved in with her and NOC-U found out, they’d know where some of Shay’s information had come from. And if Shay moved in with her and she couldn’t tell anyone except Adrian how happy she was it would bother her.

  She didn’t know what she was going to do. But she was realizing more and more that she might have to walk away from the job she’d said she couldn’t give up.

  Martin concluded the meeting and people began

  milling around to chat before going back to work. Anthea gave a high-five to June Jamison, the head of reporting. June looked a bit like Lena Home.

  “It’s a glad day for me,” June said, her ready smile flashing.

  “Me, too. I know just who I’m going to swipe from product accounting, too.”

  Adrian joined them. “If Ruben comes back he’s going to find just about the same work he left on his desk.”

  Martin joined them and looked at Anthea. “So you’re not car pooling with that militant anymore?” Anthea shook her head, not wanting to talk about Shay. “I’m surprised you could take it.”

  “I didn’t mind.”

  June said to Martin, “Militant what?”

  Martin rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t want to be accused of anything, but let’s just say that Anthea’s probably glad to not have some lesbian thinking God knows what about her every day.”

  Anthea was sure other conversations around the room halted, like in an E.F. Hutton commercial. She noticed that June glanced at one of the men on her staff, then at Adrian. As if from a great distance she heard herself say, “Just because someone’s a lesbian doesn’t mean they have designs on every woman they meet.”

  Martin actually laughed as if Anthea had made a great joke. “What are you, some sort of expert on what queers are like?”

  “I don’t like bigotry,” she said.

  “I’m not a bigot,” Martin said. “I’d just prefer they didn’t work for me.”

  Again, just about everyone glanced at Adrian, then at the man in June’s group. Apparently, they thought they knew who all the gay people in the room were.

  “Then I guess you’ll have to fire me, because I’m a lesbian. And I don’t like hearing bigotry where I work.”

  It took Anthea a moment to realize that the voice she’d heard was her own. She broke out into a sweat.

  Adrian’s voice came from behind her. “You’ll have to fire me, too.”

  The other man everyone had been looking at said grimly, “Me, too.”

  June lifted one shoulder and fixed Martin with a look. It was the look of a woman who had raised four kids and didn’t have time to spend on nonsense. “You may be my boss, but let me point out that this company has strict policies about the kind of thing you’re saying. Andy doesn’t like to hear it and neither do I.”

  Martin was turning bright red. “I had no idea,” he said in a weak voice.

  Anthea said quietly, “I shouldn’t have to tell you I’m a lesbian to get you to stop making that kind of remark.” A bead of sweat ran down the small of her back.

  “I don’t think I said anything all that bad.”

  “It was bad enough,” Anthea said. “I don’t like being accused of being out to sleep with every woman I meet. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

  “I didn’t accuse you, I was talking about that woman I met in your car.”

  “It’s the same thing. That’s what you don’t understand. Make a blanket generalization about her and you’re making one about me.”

  Martin spluttered. “Well, I thought I was making a joke, but I won’t say it again.” He seemed to realize that everyone was listening. “I had no idea,” he said to the group at large. Anthea wasn’t convinced.

  “Well, now you do,” June said. “And it’s a glad day for all of us.”

  “You’ll never guess who I’m going to car pool with,” Anthea said. “Well, for as long as I work there, but who knows how long that will be?”

  Shay put down her satchel in the corner of the kitchen. She wanted a shower as she always did when she left the pizzeria. “Oh yeah? Who?”

  “Well, these two guys we know. You know, the ones we fixed up? Adrian says they’ve been inseparable for three months, so they’re getting an apartment together. They found a place in Montclair. Said they couldn’t wait to have a view like mine.”

  “That was quick,” Shay said. Compared to her and Anthea, at least.

  “Adrian said they just click. Clicking on all cylinders. They had this long list of things they wanted to do and living in two places was slowing them down. Get this — Harold has convinced Adrian to try bungee jumping. Do you believe that?”

  Shay nodded. “Yeah, I can see it. I mean, I can see Harold selling it. But I can’t see Adrian jumping off a bridge.”

  “He said it was an intense male-bonding thing. Robert Bly, drums in the woods and all that.”

  Shay slid into a chair at the breakfast table. She was happy for Adrian and Harold. Mrs. Giordano was right. She and Anthea were taking forever to get anywhere. Anthea had only to say the word, any word. She’d been practically glowing since describing that scene with Martin. She’d been unpredictably sexual and bursting with energy. Another new Anthea. Shay loved her even more.

  “That’s not all the good news.”

  “There’s more. Let me have it.”

  “Joan Lewis called. This is a direct quote.” Anthea picked up a note and read from it. ” ‘Their balls are twisting in the wind. Tomorrow’s news will be about a twenty-two-million dollar fine assessment. Tell her she’s going to get a fucking subpoena for the hearing, but that may take a year to convene.’” Anthea looked over at Shay with a grin. “There’s more. And I quote. ‘The Washington brass is shitting bricks over the work she did and if she’s looking for a job, she’s got one. All garbage work, but it’s a start.’”

  “A job?” After turning over her report to Joan, Shay had felt decidedly let down. She’d increased her hours at the pizzeria again, kept an eye on want ads, and just plugged through each day and looked forward to coming home to Anthea.

  “A job. A real job. One you could respect yourself for having.”

  “I’m … I don’t believe it.”

  “She said to call her for the details, start whenever you want, but not more than four weeks from now because they have to close the position.”

  “I could start tomorrow,” Shay said.

  “Hey… why not take a vacation for a week,” Anthea said. “You’ve been working your butt off for months on end. We could go someplace … drive up the coast in the Bug and stay at a B&B or something.”

  Shay felt as if someone had put a menu for life in front of her. She had her pick of one item from the work, love life and habitat categories. She’d gladly take an EPA job from the work menu. It looked like she was going to go on loving Anthea for a while yet. Maybe forever. And habitat… living in two places was getting old. Especially when she’d rather live here.

  “I have a better idea,” she said slowly. “How about we spend a few days here … maybe … settling me in.”

  Anthea paled. “You mean permanently?”

  Shay felt a rock land in the pit of her stomach. Had she been so wrong about Anthea’s feelings? She nodded.

  Anthea caught her breath. “I thought… I was waiting these last few months, thinking you’d gotten used to us just going on … kind of the way we are.”

  “I don’t have to —”

  “Yes, you do!” Anthea crossed the distance between them in a heartbeat. “It’s driving me nuts having you half here and half there.” She dropped to her knees next to Shay’s chair and flung her arms around Shay. “I’ve been dying to ask you but you said to let you get settled.”

  The rock in Shay’s stomach turned into butterflies. “I want to get settled,” she said. “Here.”

  “I love you,” Anthea said. She drew Shay’s head down to hers, and kissed her tender
ly on the mouth.

  “I love you more than your house,” Shay said. “Though I love your house.”

  “I love you more than Jodie Foster,” Anthea said with a giggle.

  “I love you more than pizza.”

  “That’s not saying much. You hate pizza,” Anthea said with a protesting kiss.

  “I love you more than your cooking.”

  “I love you more than chocolate.”

  “Oh my,” Shay said. She let Anthea pull her down onto the floor.