David was getting more depressed and horrified every second, and when he met his coworkers for the first time, he knew that things were bound to get worse. They sat around the table drinking coffee, waiting for someone to tell them what to do. They were all much, much younger than he was, and he felt even more humiliated than he had up in Chilton’s office. One was a young woman whose eyes were nearly closed; not from fatigue, he discovered momentarily, but from the fact that she was almost always stoned on grass. She giggled when David was introduced, and looked as if she was about to slide right off her chair and onto the dirty tiled floor. A male Oriental-American of high school age sat next to her, a transistor radio attached to his ear. He bounced up and down to the song. What was worse, he sang along with the music, seemingly unaware that he was practically tone deaf. The third was another young lady—Maritza, she was called—who sat popping her gum and drawing doodles on the bag which had once held her morning donut.
The room looked as if it had been filled according to some sort of quota system. The two young women were black and Puerto Rican, respectively, the kid was Chinese, and David was the closest thing to a WASP they could probably find. He couldn’t have cared less about his coworkers’ races, sexes or ethnic backgrounds. But God—their ages! They were children, and he was doing children’s work. He thought of that subway train again and wished he had jumped.
He spent most of the morning listening to Miss Cummins droning on about the peculiarities of the Belmont filing system, and learning what to do with the white, black and buff copies of the order forms which were delivered by dour-looking mailroom boys two times daily in large brown sacks. “It’s the time when stores order their fall line of cards,” Peggy explained, “which is why we have to hire extra help to take some of the weight off our regular file people.”
“Where are they?” the Chinese kid inquired.
“Upstairs in another office.”
“We temps get stuck down here in the black hole of Calcutta,” Concetta, the black woman, explained. “And we get paid about half of what the permanent workers do.”
“That’s because the agency gets fifty percent of our salary, practically,” the Puerto Rican lady added.
“And it’s such shit work, too,” Concetta groaned, not caring if Miss Cummins heard or not.
It was nearly lunchtime when Peggy finally finished explaining. (Like David, his three coworkers were pros —together they had managed to stretch out the training period to nearly four hours, playing dumb, asking questions over and over again. Peggy was too stupid to catch on. Or else unconcerned.) David was glad that they’d been given a brief reprieve before starting in proper on what promised to be some of the most boring work ever conceived for the hapless temporary worker. He went out and grabbed a slice of pizza for lunch. He was on a very tight budget until payday, and even after that, as his check would be pretty pathetic.
He spent the afternoon tearing carbons, and scribbling the names of stationery stores on pink slips, and going back and forth to the john to take up time. Concetta, Maritza, and Joe, the Oriental lad, all seemed to be nice enough, but they were still living with then-folks, or just earning extra money, concerned with problems peculiar to their age, problems David could no longer relate to. Finally, it happened.
“How old are you?” Concetta asked, scrunching up her face quizzically.
David told them.
“Man, that old and working here. You must really need the money,” she said mercilessly, though without any actual hostility.
“That’s the way it is,” he said, thinking: I will not last another day on this job.
At three o’clock they had a coffee break. Joe turned up his radio and resumed his excruciating vocal activities. Concetta slipped out to the ladies’ room, smoked another joint, and came back even more blurry-eyed and silly than before. Maritza continued to draw her terrible sketches on every unused piece of paper. Any minute he expected her to pull a sanitary napkin out of her purse and doodle on that. What was worse, she insisted on showing everything she drew to David, who had to nod and pretend he liked it. He decided not to mention that he was “into” art; she would probably never let him be if he did.
He couldn’t take much more of this. He went back to work, pulling off the carbons, scribbling the names, filing the white copies ill the makeshift boxes which served as filing cabinets. Pulling carbons, scribbling names, filing white copies, pulling carbons, scribbling names, filing white copies, pulling carbons . . .
By four o’clock he was nearly half-crazed with boredom. He decided to find out where the art department was. He excused himself from the room, went to the elevator bank and went up to the main floor. He stepped out into the corridor, hoping Miss Chilton wasn’t around. He went over to the receptionist, and asked where the art department was, hoping she’d assume he had to go there on some errand. She bought it. “It’s on this floor, to your right. The third door.”
He thanked her, and followed her directions. Right inside the third door was another receptionist, a pretty blonde woman with a short hairdo and long bangs. “Can I help you?” she asked.
“Could I speak to the art director?” he queried.
“Can I ask what this is in reference to?”
He decided to level with her. He was midway through his explanation, trying to be as charming and vulnerable as possible, when the receptionist’s eyes whirled up towards an attractive, aggressive-looking brunette coming in from the hallway. “This is our art director,” the blonde explained. “Ms. Morrison.”
“Yes. Can I help you?” the brunette asked pleasantly.
David took the plunge. “Could I talk to you for a second? I’m a new employee. I work in the ordering department.” That much was true. Morrison didn’t ask him what it was ”in reference to,” thank goodness, but simply ushered him into her office.
David knew this was a golden opportunity and that he couldn’t afford to blow it. This was one card company that rarely used the work of free-lancers, relying instead on a regular staff of artists. David had figured that without connections he’d never get on their staff, so he had never bothered sending them any material. Now, the art director was sitting right in front of him, waiting for him to speak. He did.
He told her that he thought his work was good, too good for him to be pulling carbons on the lower floor in a room without filing cabinets. He asked if he could show her some samples on the following day. She was decidedly noncommittal, but told him that he could. “I’ll be in and out tomorrow, but keep trying. I can’t promise anything. We don’t use freelancers, and there aren’t any openings right now. But . . . you never know.”
David thanked her profusely and left. It had just been a freak chance that she’d walked in just when he was talking to the receptionist. Otherwise he might never have been granted an interview, which is what had happened at the other greeting-card firm he’d worked at. She had been kind enough to at least give him a chance. He had to go home, look over his portfolio, perhaps draw up some new stuff. He was really excited.
He was in such a happy mood that he threw himself into his work when he got back to his spot at the table. Said work had piled up. His coworkers had been careful to evenly distribute the workload, and his percentage of the order forms were waiting for him to process. He speeded up, trying to catch up with the others. The only way to survive work like this was to make a game of it.
They heard footsteps out in the hall. “Must be that Peggy creature,” Concetta said.
It wasn’t. It was dear Miss Chilton. She asked David to step out into the hall with her. Oh no, she couldn’t fire him! Not now! What if he was unable to get in to see Morrison? He told himself to stop being silly. All he had to do was call the woman and make an official appointment.
“What were you doing upstairs?” Chilton asked.
“I—uh—had to see somebody.”
“Who?”
“Someone in the art department. I’m an artist.”
“Really?” She was unimpressed, a dried-up old witch who had to make everyone else miserable because she was. “The temporary workers are not supposed to go around bothering people. I’ll be held accountable for your actions. Please stay down here. And remember. Tomorrow, a tie.”
It was nearly five. The moment the ogress had gone up to her office in one elevator, David went down to the lobby in the other. He was anxious to get home and go through the sketches. Miss Chilton would not get in his way or he would run her over. He suddenly remembered that he had forgotten to say good night to the “children,” but he didn’t care.
Two good things happened when he got home.
He found a money order for 150 dollars from his father. Someone at the home must have taken care of it for him.
And Anna Braddon called at six on the dot.
“Did you have a nice day?” she asked.
“All right.” He told her about finding work. He mentioned the part about seeing the art director, but intentionally left out all details of the carbon copies and the file room. He had to have some dignity, didn’t he?
He wanted to ask her out for a drink, for dinner. For anything. But it was too late to cash the money order, and any restaurant she picked would probably eat up most of the money. He felt trapped. The conversation went on and on, small talk, lots of pauses, giggles over remarks that weren’t funny. Both of them were waiting, waiting for the other to make the first move.
“Well, I just thought I’d call and see how things were going,” Anna said, her voice weary, frustrated.
David took the plunge. “I’d like to see you again. Soon.”
Anna didn’t waste a moment. “My husband is out of town. Come to dinner this evening. My place.”
She didn’t have to ask him twice.
Derek Bishop’s townhouse was most impressive. A strong black metal fence went around the building, which took up half a block, and there was a path up to the stoop with a small lawn and bushes on either side of it. David walked up and rang the bell. He was dressed casually, but handsomely. He smelled of a nice, fresh scent he’d found in the bathroom cabinet, but had only used twice before tonight. His leg was hurting like hell. Subconsciously he’d been trying to hide his impairment now that he was out among people again. He’d barely limped the whole time he was with Anna, or while he was at work. Now he was paying the piper with pain, baby, pain. He didn’t want to come on like a cripple. But surely Anna must have noticed there was something wrong with his leg by now. He had no choice this evening but to limp quite noticeably. He hoped it wouldn’t repel her.
The maid opened the door and David was ushered into a huge foyer.
“May I take your coat, sir?” the elderly woman asked. David handed over his jacket and she hung it up in a nearby closet. David looked up and saw Anna come rushing down the wide white stairs leading off from the hall. He was relieved to see that she, too, was dressed casually. Tight jeans, a pink blouse. She went straight over to David and gave him a big kiss. David licked his lips as she led him into the living room; she tasted like fresh strawberries.
She sat down next to him on a big couch, and asked him what he wished to drink. The maid went to get them the cocktails, and David wondered what he and his hostess would talk about. He didn’t have long to wonder. Anna grabbed him and kissed him again, and didn’t let go until Clara came back with the drinks. David washed down the strawberries with some scotch.
They resumed kissing, their mouths even tastier than before.
They went in for dinner a little while later. Anna seemed quite different tonight. While Clara served the chicken and vegetables, she asked him again about work, and what he hoped to do, and stuff like that, but she wasn’t even bothering to pretend that she was actually interested. It was as if he were there to satisfy some sudden craving, nothing more. As if only his body interested her. He should have been flattered, happy. But he felt disillusioned. Anna made countless witticisms throughout dinner, acting like a frivolous schoolgirl determined to be light and bubbly and entertaining at all costs. And the cost was that what David had hoped would be an evening to bring them closer, to help them discover more about each other, was instead turning out to be a vapid disappointment.
“Will you do some cartoons for me later?” she purred in a mock seductive tone, her lips clamping down on a forkful of spinach. David felt like a ten-year-old whose interests were being humored by a sexy older cousin.
“If you’d like,” he answered. He felt like adding that he’d do a caricature of her, but she was already making a caricature out of herself, wasn’t she? David wanted to talk about something more serious, perhaps, but her mood was not conducive to anything other than silly remarks and giggles and cutesy-wutesy expressions that he could do little but respond to as best as he was able.
Clara was about to serve dessert when the phone rang in the kitchen. She went to answer it, then came back and told Anna it was for her. Anna excused herself and stepped into the next room. Clara cut him a big slice of chocolate cream pie which he dug into with relish.
He could hear Anna’s voice turning more serious, starting to tremble, as she listened to the caller on the other end of the line. Had something happened to Derek?
A few minutes went by. “Thank you for calling,” she said. A few moments later she walked back into the dining room, pale and dissipated, as if someone or something had taken all the energy from her, had sucked away the vigor and vitality that she’d been running on all evening, leaving her hollow and drained, too tired to stand.
“Is something wrong?” David asked.
She didn’t answer at first, but sunk down into her chair and buried her face in her hands. He couldn’t tell at first if she were laughing or crying, until she looked up and he saw the tears running down from her eyes.
“It’s my brother,” she said. “Jeffrey. He’s dead.”
She got up at the same time he did, then he held her as she collapsed into his arms, sobbing and shaking all at once. He didn’t know what to say.
He wanted them to be closer. But not at such a price. She needed someone—needed him—now, and he was not going to leave her, would never leave her, if she didn’t want him to.
He took her into the living room, and they sat on the same couch as before, and she told him all she knew about her brother Jeffrey’s death.
Part Two
Containment
Chapter Five
Milbourne, Connecticut—Spring, 1983
Milbourne, Connecticut is a quiet farm community, population: 4,500. Harry London had lived there for the past twenty years, working diligently in the large sporting goods store he owned in the center of town. The shop was surrounded by a block or two of other stores, a bar and theater, which together made up the entire Milbourne commercial district; a quite respectable one for such a small town. At age forty-eight, London was looking forward to an early retirement—his store was doing marvellously, and had become the place to go to for sports and outdoor equipment, not only in his section of the state, but in nearby New York and Massachusetts communities, as well.
It was a Monday afternoon in the spring—too early in season to be really hot, too late to bother with jackets— that his world began to slowly crumble; to evolve, to mutate, into something vast and unusual, something unknown and frightening. London had always lived an extremely calm and conventional life, and had thought he was satisfied with that, but he was to discover that he secretly longed for something different and more exciting. At that time, however, he had not been aware of the price he would have to pay for misadventure.
His store had two floors, not including the basement area, which was stocked with camping equipment and open tent displays. It was a handsome place, full of colorful arrangements of the items for sale, with light blue walls that were painted fresh every two years. The flows were washed and polished nightly. London was very proud of his “little” emporium.
He had moved to the town not long after his marriage, hoping th
at he could sustain a business successfully while raising children in fresh air and sunshine. His wife had been a lovely but frail little woman, and she had died before three years were up, and they had never had children. Harry threw himself into his business, hoping it would replace the loss of wife and family, knowing it never could. He’d still been a young man then, still was, depending on how you looked at it. He’d met and dated several women, but nothing had ever clicked. Perhaps he was too afraid to start a relationship again, to risk the pain of losing a loved one for a second time.
His two closest friendships were with the current assistant manager of the store, Jeffrey Braddon, and his head clerk, Paula Widdoes. They spent a great deal of time together, the three of them, and some suspected that London was “carrying on” with Paula. Actually, Paula was carrying on with Jeffrey, although it had never become serious in a romantic sense. They were both about the same age, mid-thirties, both attractive. Harry was a plain older man with a bald pate and graying sideburns. He kept himself in nice physical shape, but half the time felt like a protective father worrying over his two younger associates.
He was sitting in his office, eating a lunch of yogurt and half a swiss cheese sandwich, when Paula came in, a tense expression on her face. “I’ve been calling and calling his house,” she said, “and there’s no answer.”
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