Mrs. Saint and the Defectives: A Novel

by Julie Lawson Timmer

  Markie set her sheaf of papers in the in-box on the corner of the Log Sheet Lady’s desk, then stood quietly, staring at her sandals. She almost committed the sin of letting out a sigh at the sight of her own chipped toenail polish, but she caught herself in time and waited soundlessly as the woman first checked carefully over the ten pages of completed columns of notes and figures, then made unintelligible marks in a small notebook before reluctantly handing over a new sheaf of blank sheets.

  In Markie’s view, more than simply being an exercise in sartorial humiliation and interpersonal unpleasantness, her weekly trips to headquarters were a ridiculous waste of time. Surely, she had suggested to Gregory, it would be more efficient to have all the files scanned and available online, to have Markie submit her log sheets over e-mail, and to have the Log Sheet Lady send new ones the same way. The claims review department was singularly focused on churning out as many closed claims as possible (preferably with DENIED stamped across the front). Indeed, Gregory’s entire bonus structure hinged on the number of completed files his team members reported each week. Wouldn’t everyone involved be better served if Markie spent her Friday mornings at home, adding another dozen or so files to her weekly numbers count?

  But streamlining the work-at-home process wasn’t a priority, Gregory had insinuated, though he refused to come right out and say it. Hiring a few dozen work-at-home employees was the brainchild of Global’s human resources department, as a response to shareholder dismay about the company’s being passed over by a number of “preferred employer” lists. It was bad for PR to have the company excluded from those lists, many of which focused on how much flexibility the workplace provided for its employees.

  Global’s leadership agreed to give the program a try, but they hadn’t completely bought into the idea, and for that reason, some of the clunky aspects of the program, such as the weekly in-person file-and-log-sheet swap, weren’t likely to be ironed out anytime soon, or possibly ever. Markie had begun to suspect that management was hoping the work-at-home employees would find it all so frustrating that they would finally give up and agree to take up residence in the cube prairie. The company would still earn a place on the various lists for having “offered” the flexible positions, and it would have all its rank and file downtown, under the close supervision of managers like Gregory.

  She could imagine the rhetoric in the future press release: “We at Global Insurance have generously offered flexible work situations to a number of employees, and some have tried it. It is a proud reflection on the unique esprit de corps we have developed in our office that each of our work-from-home employees has opted to give up their flexibility in order to join their fellow Global comrades in our downtown headquarters.” If Markie hadn’t been desperate to hang on to her work-from-home privileges as a means of hiding from the world, she might have been tempted to fight for them as a statement against corporate oppression. But reclusiveness was her current focus—she would leave employee subjugation for someone else to rail against.

  Stepping out of the Log Sheet Lady’s office, Markie aimed herself toward the two glass exit doors at the end of the hallway. Before she had taken more than a few steps, she heard Gregory call her name from somewhere deep in the cube prairie, and without thinking, she made the dire mistake of stopping midstep. Now he would know she had heard him—there was no way she could race to the exit, pretending she hadn’t. Next week she would be more strategic.

  As the considerably sized Gregory puffed and sweated his way down the corridor, Markie studied her fingernails and pretended not to notice how long it was taking him to shuffle his heft the final forty feet that stood between them. She knew she should close the gap herself, spare him the effort, but she was hopeful that having to cover the entire distance would cause him to associate physical discomfort with trying to talk to her so that next time he wouldn’t bother. She also knew she deserved to go straight to hell for such thoughts and hoped her pre-divorce displays of compassion would make up for her post-breakup grumpiness.

  Finally, Gregory reached her, doubling over, hands on knees, to catch his breath. After half a dozen wheezing gulps, he straightened. “Whoo! Maybe I need to add more steps to my Pep Walks!” He held out his wrist to show her the electronic step-counter he wore. Not surprisingly, his wasn’t the subtle black she had seen on other men, but the same garish hue that colored the walls of the fortieth floor, the surface of every desk, the cushions of every chair, and even the ceramic sinks and toilets in the bathrooms: Global Insurance purple.

  “Purple is energizing!” Gregory had told her during her office tour. She thought “vomit inducing” was more accurate, but she kept the thought to herself, sparing herself the chiding from Gregory that such a comment would be considered, according to the Glossary of Global Insurance Terminology, “Morale Oppositional” or “Potentially Team-Dismantling.” In Markie’s four weeks on the job, she had not demonstrated satisfactory use of GI terminology, despite countless hints from Gregory that her Recommend for Retention Rating would skyrocket if, in addition to her higher-than-average Claims Review Completion Levels, she would demonstrate a willingness to exhibit Full On-Boarding with the GI Way.

  “Nice,” Markie said, indicating his step-counting device.

  Gregory clasped his hands over his head and attempted a side bend, but the weight shift put him off balance, and he had to thrust an arm out against the wall of a nearby cube to catch himself. Recovering, he patted the cube wall as though he had been making a planned inspection of it all along, and then he shuffled back into the center of the hallway. He wiped a great deal of sweat from his forehead, checked his step-counter again, and smiled.

  Markie was crushed that the work of chasing her down seemed to have made him feel pride rather than agony, but maybe she should have expected it. Gregory fancied himself an athlete. His office was filled with the kind of motivational posters that compared work ethic to physical endeavor. On her tour, he had pointed out his favorite, centered over his desk: under a photo of an eight-man rowing crew was a caption that said, WHEN WE ALL PULL TOGETHER, WE ALL SUCCEED!

  “That’s us, here at GI,” Gregory told Markie that day. “And I’m like the player-coach. You know, pulling the wooden . . . thingie, right along with the rest of my, uh . . . boat fellows.” Whereupon he had made a motion with both arms that was nothing close to rowing or canoeing or any other sport, water-based or otherwise.

  “How’s it going, Gregory?” Markie asked, giving him a warm smile to make up for her earlier uncharitable thoughts.

  “Good, good,” Gregory said. He scanned the hallway, the cube prairie, and his own shoes, looking for something else to say, before finally settling on “You?”

  Poor Gregory, she thought. As verbally inept as he was, she knew he would like nothing more than for the two of them to have a long, meaningful conversation. He had told her that he viewed his direct reports as friends more than employees. He considered them family, even, having no wife, no kids, no life, really, outside of work. If he spent all day taking Pep Walks and Networking or Mind Mapping or Info Sharing in the cube prairie and didn’t get his own work done, no problem—he would just stay until seven, or nine, or midnight, and finish up.

  “It’s worth it, for the, you know, to be close to people,” he told her. Worth it only to Gregory—on prior visits, Markie had spied him from the hallway as he hoisted himself along the rows of cubes, and she had seen the panicked looks on people’s faces as he got closer, the frantic moves to pick up the phone and fake an important call, the mad dashes out the other end of the row for a pretend bathroom break.

  “I’m good, too,” she answered.

  “Good like your numbers,” he said, grinning. “You’re going to have the highest of the whole team by next week.” He leaned closer. “I had them give you more files this go-round. That’s good for you and for me.” He blinked—she was pretty sure he meant to wink—and rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. “Not to mention good for GI. But a li
ttle bump in our checks is nice, right?”

  “It sure is.”

  “You should splurge next payday,” he said. “Get yourself something new.” He indicated her green dress, then touched the collar of his golf shirt, which was, naturally, Global Insurance purple. It was also quite new looking, with a crisp collar and a row of buttons that lined up neatly instead of veering west like the neckline of Markie’s dress. Her face reddened at the thought that even Gregory dressed better than she did.

  “I’m afraid my next paycheck’s already spoken for,” she said. “And the one after that. And . . .” She made a rolling motion with her hand to complete the idea.

  He cocked his head to the side, confused by her gesture, but she had already said enough. She was not about to list for him her many creditors and payment deadlines and interest rates and penalty fees. Or tell him about her strategy of financial self-flagellation: if anyone was getting anything new in her house, it was the fourteen-year-old who had done nothing to warrant having his finger pinched so many times by constantly tightening purse strings, not the forty-five-year-old who had let them get into that condition.

  They stood awkwardly for a few moments while Gregory tried to think of something more to say, and Markie tried to conjure up an emergency that would allow her to leave, stat.

  “Oh!” she said, patting her purse. “Was that my phone?”

  “I didn’t hear—”

  “Yes, I think it was.” She rooted through her handbag, pretended to find her cell, and fake-read a terrible message on its screen. “Oh no!” she gasped. She looked up at Gregory with simulated panic in her eyes. He didn’t catch on, so she added, “Something terrible happened!”

  “What happened?” he asked.

  She turned away, artificially distraught, and raked a hand through her hair, hoping the dramatic gesture would serve to both distract him and give her time to think of some awful thing that required her to rush home immediately. She couldn’t think of anything, so she went with “I know! You’re right! I have to get home right away!” Turning, she headed for the exit doors. Gregory started to walk with her, so she picked up her pace, losing him in fifteen steps.

  “What is it?” he called after her. “What happened? Markie?”

  “I will!” she called back, waving without turning around. “I will drive carefully! Thanks! You’re a great help, Gregory.”

  This is how the universe punished Markie for pretending there was a disturbing message on her phone earlier: she got a disturbing message on her phone. She had finished her last file for the day and was waiting for Jesse to get home so they could start their mother-son night out when he texted to say he wanted to hang out with Trevor after school. Maybe even stay for dinner at Trevor’s house. He would be home by ten. Was that okay?

  Trevor, whose name I’ve heard exactly one time, but whose face I’ve never seen? she wanted to text back. This boy I haven’t met, whose parents I know nothing about, expects your mother to have no problem with your spending the entire afternoon and evening there? Is Trevor’s father going to drive you home, or do they intend to have you walk, alone, in the dark? What are these people thinking, these so-called parents of this so-called Trevor, letting a ninth grader walk home by himself? Tell me the address, and I’ll come and get you at ten. Or right after dinner. Better yet, why don’t you just tell Trevor that tonight’s not going to work out?

  At Saint Mark’s, she had known every child, every family, every parent’s occupation. She had most of Jesse’s friends’ mothers on speed dial, could get to their houses with her eyes closed. It was time to remind her son of this, she thought as she reread his text. She would do it over dinner that night as they reconnected. They could leave Trevor of the Negligent Parents to invite some other unsuspecting kid over while she explained to her child that he needed to take things a little more slowly when it came to his social life. She wasn’t at all comfortable with this insane public-school laxness where kids made plans willy-nilly with people their own parents had never even laid eyes on. He had to give her some time to catch up.

  I’m not so sure, she finally texted back. I’ve never met Trevor.

  ?? Jesse replied, and because Markie had an honorary PhD in Interpreting Teenage Boys, with a major in the Naturally Quiet subset and a minor in the Recently Turned Sullen, she knew exactly what “??” meant: This again, Mom? First you grill me about sneaking cigarettes in the backyard, and now you don’t trust me to choose my own friends? What’s next—you going to check to see if my toothbrush is wet after I tell you I’ve brushed?

  She set her phone in her lap and closed her eyes. He was adapting to his new surroundings, making friends. Did she really want to interfere with that, to tell him to hold on just one minute, let’s stop this forward advancement and rewind things to how they used to be? This was how things were now. And if that made her nervous, if that made her feel uncomfortable, then she was going to need to suck it up and learn to be nervous and uncomfortable.

  Never mind, she texted back. Ten is fine.

  Chapter Nine

  One morning the following week, as Markie lowered herself into one of her patio chairs, a stack of files cradled in her arms, she heard the door from Mrs. Saint’s house to her screened porch open and close, the scraping of chairs on the wood floor, the clatter of dishes being placed on the coffee table, and the voices of the elderly woman and the four members of her staff as they prepared to sit down. Coffee hour was about to begin, and Markie could predict exactly how the next sixty minutes would go.

  She hadn’t set out to memorize the daily goings-on across the fence, or even to take note of them. She had no interest in getting to know her neighbor or the elderly woman’s household employees or how any of them went about their days. Her goals were to be alone at her own house and to maximize her income by reviewing as many claim files as she could. But the fact was, it was impossible to live or work in the bungalow without hearing almost every word spoken next door. Mrs. Saint had half an acre at least, but her house sat so far back from the street that it was mere steps from the low wooden fence that separated the two yards. Markie’s property was tiny—there were only a few feet of lawn space between the house and the property line. This meant that neither Markie nor Mrs. Saint could have a conversation in their yards, or even inside their houses if the windows were open, without the other hearing.

  Markie had taken to whispering to Jesse when they spoke on the patio and to making sure her kitchen window was closed before she called down the basement stairs to let him know the pizza was ready, or that she was going up to her bedroom to watch TV, or any other announcement that might elicit a disapproving finger wag from her neighbor. She made work-related phone calls from the patio from time to time but never personal ones—those she took inside, from the corner of her bedroom farthest away from her neighbor’s house.

  Mrs. Saint took none of those kinds of precautions, however, and that was why Markie could predict not only how coffee hour would go, but the rest of the day as well. First, Ronda, the cook, would produce a tray of baked goods, apologizing about how undercooked or burned or misshapen they were, while everyone would tell her it all looked wonderful. But halfway through the meeting, when Ronda went inside to fetch more coffee, the others would huddle together and discuss in hushed voices how terrible the day’s scones or muffins were and how they planned to get rid of them. The least offensive ones could be rendered somewhat edible by smothering them with jam, while the worst would be tossed out the door and onto the lawn for Bruce to collect later and bury at the bottom of the compost bin behind the garage.

  Next, Mrs. Saint would ask Bruce, Patty, and Ronda what they had planned for the day, and no matter what answer they gave, she would offer suggestions for amendment: Do this thing first, the other second. Spend more time on that one than you did last week. Markie noticed that Mrs. Saint rarely asked Frédéric how he intended to spend the day, and when she did, it didn’t seem she was doing it to provide a critique, but
only to make conversation. After the meeting ended, Frédéric and Bruce would confer outside the screened porch for a few minutes while the sounds of running water, clinking dishes, and Ronda’s humming would float out the kitchen window. Markie would have thought cleaning the kitchen might be something on Patty’s list, but she was trying not to let herself deliberate over the proper division of tasks between the cook and the housekeeper.

  Several times during the day, Mrs. Saint would check on everyone’s progress—Markie could hear her voice ringing out through the house or yard as she pointed out errors and made suggestions for fixing them. Most of the fixes seemed to require Frédéric’s oversight, so Markie heard his voice often, as well, as he checked in on the others and tried to help them avoid disaster before it was too late.

  “That kind goes in the shade, not the sun, remember?” she had heard him call to Bruce when the other man was poised to plant a shrub in the wrong spot in the garden. “You have to unplug the iron every time,” she had heard him remind Patty—not that this one had stuck, as Markie heard him say it almost every day. She had lost count of the number of times she had heard his low, gentle voice in the kitchen, followed by Ronda crying, “Oh, you’re right! I can’t believe I did that again! It’s completely ruined!”

  At the end of the day, Patty would leave in a frantic hurry, claiming she was going to be late for some evening activity that everyone seemed aware of but no one ever named, while Ronda, Bruce, and Frédéric stayed to eat dinner with Mrs. Saint. Markie found the fact that her neighbor took all of her meals with her employees to be equal parts endearing and controlling—which, she had decided, was the perfect description for the Frenchwoman herself.

  Markie was opening her first claim file when she heard her neighbor’s voice. “So. You will join us for coffee today?” She was at the fence, gesturing to the screened porch behind her, where the others were still getting set up. “It has been some long time now.”