“Only the one!” I protested. “The gas station manager broke it up. And speaking of the manager, he’s suing.”
“You’re kidding, for what?”
“Loss of income, pain and suffering. The usual. Since I was more or less in charge, I might get fired. So if you could take my boss up on the ride-along as well, she might cut me slack. Especially if she’d have a chance to give a pitch for ridesharing on air. I don’t know if you can do that, or—”
“You might get fired over this?”
“Quite possibly.”
“I had no idea.” He groaned, “I left you a message laughing.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“You must think I’m such an ass.”
For a minute there, yes. “Nah.”
“Well, the ride-along’s no problem. There’s plenty of room for two. I can’t guarantee you’ll get on air, though. I’ll have to run it by the producer. Depends on how bad traffic is, whether or not there’ll be time. I’m usually more open on Fridays, so if that works for you…”
“Sure, Friday’s perfect.”
We set up a ride-along for the following week. The helicopter he piloted was based at the Van Nuys Airport, a few miles from my parents’ house. “I go up at five,” he said, “so if the two of you can be there at four-thirty, we’ll have time to get you situated.”
“Four-thirty? As in the morning?” I gulped. “Hoo boy. Mind if I wear my jammies?”
“Wear whatever you want. It’s radio.” He paused and then said, “What kind of pajamas?”
My mind flashed to my favorite pajamas. Flannel shorts and a T-shirt with little Snoopys on it. Sexy lady! “I’ll surprise you,” I said.
“Sounds promising.”
He gave me directions to his hangar in the airport, and when I thanked him again, he said, “Looking forward to it. By the way, you have any problem with heights?”
“Nope.”
“Speed?”
“Fine with it.”
“Flips, turns, nosedives, midair stunts?”
“How ’bout you drop me off before you get to that part? But don’t rule it out entirely. I’m sure my boss would love it.”
THE NEXT MORNING, I marched boldly into the office—head held high for the first time since the fiasco. As soon as I could tell Lizbeth about how Troy Jones would be working with us, she’d sing a different tune about me. She’d throw her body in front of Dr. Death to preserve my job. Granted, it was only the one ride-along, but there was no need to get into picky details.
Lizbeth was in a closed-door meeting all morning. I was editing my newsletter when I noticed Dr. Death hovering near my cubicle. My heart froze. No…not before I had a chance to spring my surprise on Lizbeth…he couldn’t. That was the problem with these cubicles. No place to hide. If only I could…Oh, wait…he passed me by. I exhaled a breath. Close call.
When I felt the chill from the air recede, I peeked around the corner. I saw him stop to talk to Brie and then go into Lizbeth’s office.
I escaped to the deli downstairs to get doughnuts and Diet Coke. There was no way I was going to risk an encounter with Dr. Death before I had a chance to talk to Lizbeth. By the time I checked back to see if he’d left and if she was available, it was almost noon. Brie sat at her station, thumbing through an Ebony magazine.
“Can I see Lizbeth now?”
“She’s gone.”
“Damn! I was hoping to catch her so I could—”
She lifted her head. “You didn’t hear? She’s gone. Dr. Death fired her an hour ago. Escorted her out the door. He gave her enough time to pack up a couple boxes, and that was it.”
“Lizbeth was fired? Lizbeth was fired?”
“Tossed out on her skinny behind.”
“Why?”
“Beats me. Nobody knows. She didn’t see it coming, I’ll tell you that. I know she’s white, but I never seen anybody that white. She looked like a ghost seeing a ghost.”
“That’s unbelievable.”
Lizbeth…fired! I couldn’t get my mind around it. Ding-dong, the witch is dead. I should have been elated, should have been dancing with the Munchkins in the streets. But I stood there, numb with confusion. How could Lizbeth possibly have gotten fired? “It’s so strange,” I muttered.
“Yeah, and you want to know the saddest part? She took her TV. Now how am I going to watch The Guiding Light? Shoot—and Buzz was about to find out whether Olivia’s been cheating on him with his evil twin.”
Rumors flew the rest of the day. They ranged from Lizbeth getting fired for sabotaging my gas giveaway (my personal favorite and one I did nothing to squelch) to a lovers’ quarrel between her and Bigwood.
Finally, I couldn’t stand it any longer and went to find Phyllis. She was close to Bigwood. Maybe she’d know. Mostly likely she knew. The question was: Would she tell?
“Hey, Phyllis,” I said, peering into her space. It was a windowless room that sat off of Bigwood’s office. Papers were stacked against every wall and littered her desk. She had a door, though—the only secretary to have one, underscoring her clout. “Got a minute?”
“Sure. What’s up?”
I pointed toward where her office led into Bigwood’s and mouthed, “Is he in there?”
She shook her head. I shut the door behind me and helped myself to a mini Snickers from a dish on her desk, then took a seat.
“First off, I’m not in here to gossip,” I said. “I am hoping to get information.”
“About…?”
“Why Lizbeth was fired.”
“Last I heard, she was embezzling. Or was it that she was discovered trying to use one of those blowup dolls to ride in the carpool lane?”
“I’m serious,” although I’d heard that last one myself from Brie minutes earlier. “You may think that this is none of my business, but I am involved. I was in charge of a gas giveaway that went badly. The next thing I know, my boss is being escorted out.”
Phyllis tipped back in her chair, her hands forming a steeple in front of her face. “So are you here to take the blame or the credit?”
“It’s not like that. I’m not going to fake any love for Lizbeth. She was the worst boss I’ve ever had. I’m thrilled that she’s gone. But Dr. Death…um, I mean Ivan…did a lot of poking into what happened. If Lizbeth messed up my project, I deserve to be told.”
“What makes you think I’d know?”
“You know everything.”
“Point taken.” After regarding me a moment longer, she said, “You’re not hearing this from me. I’m telling you because I owe you one. Lizbeth was squeaky clean, and so, for the record, were you. As best we can determine, a guy at Fox News took it upon himself to stir things up. The other TV stations followed suit.”
“If that’s the case, why don’t we say something? We look like fools, and it wasn’t even our fault!”
“Lou’s chummy with people high up at Fox. They all belong to the same country club. Anyway, the gas station owner wanted blood. We gave him blood. Lizbeth’s. It was the easiest way to stay out of court.”
“That’s so awful. It wasn’t even her fault.”
“You’d rather you got canned?”
“Of course not.” I took another Snickers, a question forming. “But why wasn’t it me? I was in charge of the project. Plus, I’m the one the gas station manager was so angry with.”
“That I don’t have the answer to. I suspect it may be that Lou sees potential in you…thought you might deserve another shot. And you know, with Lizbeth gone that means there’s a vacant position now.”
Or in other words, just because I was in the house that landed on Lizbeth didn’t mean I couldn’t yank off her ruby slippers.
“When are they going to post the position?” I asked.
“Didn’t you learn anything from the last time you got passed over for the job? That’s not what Lou’s about. He doesn’t put people in management unless he sees that spark in them. Then rules and protocol be damne
d. They’re hired on the spot.”
“Spark? Come on, Phyllis, who are you kidding? He hires eye candy.”
“Is your friend Susan only eye candy? Am I? If you want the job, prove yourself. The braless stunt you pulled was brilliant.” I felt myself go hot with embarrassment as she continued, oblivious that it hadn’t been an intentional career move. “That’s enough to get noticed, but it won’t close the deal. You’ve got to deliver the goods.”
“Deliver the goods! I am not sleeping with Lou Bigwood!”
She tipped her chair forward so that she landed with a thud and gave me a hard stare. In that moment, I could picture her around the pool hall with the other Hell’s Angels, talking trash and chugging cigarettes. I wondered if that was why Bigwood kept her around—because he was afraid of her. “Do I strike you as a pimp? I thought you were bright, but you’re not getting it. Do something. Make it big so it wows the pants off him. And do it soon before he finds a honey who’s willing to wow him first.”
Chapter 14
My dad was sitting on the front porch drinking a glass of wine and listening to Roy Orbison on a boom box when Deedee and I walked up carrying our overnight bags.
“Lawn’s looking good, Dad,” I said, and then I introduced him to Deedee.
He shook her hand hello. “We’re barbecuing steak for dinner—you like steak?”
“Sure. Love it.”
“I was afraid you might be one of those vegetarians.” Then he turned to me, apparently out of small talk. “Your mother’s inside.”
It was Thursday evening, and the ride-along with Troy was the next morning. I was spending the night at my parents’ house since they lived only a few miles from the Van Nuys Airport. If I had to report in at four-thirty a.m., I was cutting the drive as short as I could. I’d invited Deedee to join me—it wasn’t as if Lizbeth needed the seat anymore, and I thought the girl could use a special treat. Even if I had a chance to talk on air, I knew it wouldn’t be enough to wow Bigwood. But it might, I hoped, get his attention—not to mention cross two items off my list while I was at it.
“Honey, I’m home!” I shouted as Deedee and I made our way into the kitchen. My mom stood at the counter, chopping vegetables for a salad. Something spicy was cooking, and it smelled divine.
“Jeez, you look so much like your mom,” Deedee said quietly, and I guess on first glance we did—same wild hair, only she wore hers short. And Doris is where I inherited all those curves. I got her chin, too, which is slightly pointed, but thank the Lord I didn’t get the Delaney nose, which suits my mom but if you ask me is beaky on the rest of her family.
“So this is Deedee!” Mom exclaimed. She set down her knife and marched past me to give Deedee a quick hug. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. June tells me she’s been having so much fun with you.”
As we set our bags on the floor, my mom asked me, “How was the drive out?”
“I took the 405,” I said. “It was how it always is—a mess.”
She shook her head and then said in a joking voice, “I always say that traffic is like the weather. Everybody talks about it, but nobody does anything.”
“I try!” I protested.
Ignoring me, Mom said to Deedee, “Are you excited about your helicopter ride?”
They started to talk about the morning to come—a safe topic. I’d primed my parents ahead of time. No talking about the baby. In fact, no talking about any babies or baby-related topics. As far as they were concerned, there was no baby. Deedee was six months along, and her belly was starting to pop. She was back in the oversize clothes, however, so you couldn’t tell. She said she hadn’t told anyone at school and, so far, nobody’d guessed.
Deedee, my dad, and I helped carry the food out to the dining room table and took our seats. Dinner was soup, salad, “Oprah” oven fries, and steak from my dad’s grill. My mom had set the table with tikithemed place mats and dishes. The cutlery had palm tree designs, and the water glasses were painted with hula girls.
Dinners at my parents’ house had gotten progressively more elaborate since my father retired. He’d always been relegated to the grill, over which he is lord and master. But in the past couple of years, he’s tried his hand at a bit of experimenting in the kitchen—a salad here, a pasta dish there. Mom must’ve felt threatened, because suddenly she was adding sauces and trotting out new recipes the likes of which we’d never seen before and saying things like “Martin, this salad you made is delicious. Hey, did you guys know that a baboon can make a salad? They can! I saw it on the Discovery Channel!” Dad was edging into what had always been my mother’s domain, and enjoying a good meal as I do, I wasn’t above fueling the competition.
“Dad, those steaks sure smell good!” I effused as my mom carried in bowls of soup and set them in front of us. “Mmm, and Mom, is this soup homemade?”
My dad poked at his bowl. “What is this?”
“In honor of Deedee’s Mexican heritage, I made taco soup.” My mom gave Deedee a smile and said, “Now I know it’s not a traditional recipe, but I thought it would be silly of me to try to make a dish that you probably get at home every day, only better and more authentic. A friend of mine got the recipe at her Weight Watchers meeting, and…”
I have no idea what she said after that because my brain was buzzing as if bees had set up shop in there. Did she say taco soup? The taco soup?
I was about to ask what was in it when I tuned back in to hear my mom say, “And truthfully, it’s nothing but opening a bunch of cans.”
Deedee dug in. “If weawwy goog,” she said, her mouth full of hot soup.
“Gracias, señorita,” my mom said, showing off that she had about as vast a command of the Spanish language as I do.
I regarded the soup as if it were a murder weapon, which it sort of was. Then I thought, What the hell, I’m starving, and it smells delicious. I took a spoonful and blew on it before tasting it. Okay, it was pretty good. Weawwy goog, in fact, I thought, scooping up more. Why not? It wasn’t as if the soup had been driving the car.
“Do you enjoy school?” my mom asked Deedee.
“It’s okay.”
“June tells me you’re an honors student. Good for you! So, do you have a boyfriend at school?”
Deedee poured ketchup over her oven fries, looking as if she’d like to crawl under the table. “Not really.”
I shot my mom a look. What was she doing? Had I not made it clear there would be no talk of babies, and didn’t the fact that Deedee was pregnant imply that there was, in fact, a boy in the picture, at least at one point?
My mom barreled ahead, pretending not to notice the daggers I was shooting at her. “You will. You’ll have lots of them, that’s for certain. You’re such a pretty girl.”
Deedee seemed increasingly uncomfortable, so in an effort to get my mom off whatever oddball track she was on, I said to Deedee, “She’s right, you are…but don’t put too much stake on anything my mom says. She used to think that I was cute when I was your age, too.”
“You were cute!” my mom insisted.
Dad gave a chortle. “Didn’t she have those braces? And the eye patch?”
“It’s not my fault I had a lazy eye! And it was only for a few months!”
Deedee cheered instantly. “An eye patch? Serious?!” And she made an arrrgh noise like a pirate—as if I hadn’t heard that every second of every day that I wore it. “Got any pictures?”
“Sorry. There are no pictures of me because I was so ugly…and the second child. If you want to see my brother, however, we have about a million photos of him.” Then I patted the back of my head to remind her of the neglect I’d suffered.
“Don’t you listen to her, Deedee,” my mom said. “She may have had an…awkward phase for a while there, but that’s exactly my point. By the time she reached high school, she’d blossomed. Truly, it’s the best time of your life. I can’t wait for you to get out there and experience it all. With your brains and beauty, I’ll bet you have
big things ahead of you.”
Ah. So that’s what she was doing. I’d been baffled at first, until I realized that this was Doris Parker’s one-woman public service announcement to try to convince Deedee to give the baby up for adoption. Not so subtle, but an A for effort.
Deedee responded by putting her attention to sawing at her steak, to the point where my dad said, obviously annoyed, “Hey now, you ought to be able to cut that with a fork.”
Dessert was rhubarb pie and ice cream served on the back patio to the sounds of the bug zapper killing flies and my father’s complaints that the Bloomingdales next door recently landscaped with low-water plants—cactus and rock gardens—instead of grass. “Can you believe it? What do they think this is, Death Valley? They ever hear of a water hose? Next thing you know, they’re going to be installing one of those solar panels.”
“Your parents are a riot,” Deedee said as I showed her to my brother’s old room, where she’d be sleeping. It was only nine o’clock, but since the alarm would go off at three a.m. we were both eager for an early turn-in.
“They sure liked you,” I said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re downstairs right now adding you to the will.” Then I left to shower, not daring to leave it for the morning in case I overslept. It was quarter to ten by the time I’d blown-dry my hair, and I’d already done the finger-counting thing and realized the most sleep I could hope for was five hours. Ugh—how did Troy Jones do this every night? Before going to bed, I noticed a light on in Deedee’s room. I gave a knock and went in. She was under the covers, still in her big shirt, reading one of my brother’s old comic books. “I can’t fall asleep this early,” she said.
“I can. I have a remarkable gift for slumber. It’s waking up on time that I’m worried about.”
“Me too. I set the alarm.”
“Good—between the both of us, one should manage to roll out of bed.” I sat on the edge of her bed. “You need a lullaby?” I started to sing, “Gitchy gitchy ya ya da da…”
She set down the comic. “You told your mom that I’m pregnant.” I attempted to put on an innocent face, but she said, “I’m not stupid.”
The Next Thing on My List Page 14
