by Hunt, Angela
Michelle drops her hand to her belly and feels the burgeoning warmth beneath her palm. How will a baby change her life? Years ago she believed the occupation of motherhood was only slightly more estimable than fast-food service, but she’s beginning to see things from a different perspective.
“My kids aren’t perfect,” Gina continues, propping her cheek on her knees. “But I’d do anything to protect them—anything at all.”
Her last words are edged with a sharpness that cuts through the soft spell cast by her tone. Michelle stares into the woman’s stony features as a ripple of alarm undulates down her spine. Do most mothers feel that protective? Hers didn’t.
She leans back and tries to picture herself in the stands of a soccer game, her fist clenched in the face of some bully’s mother.
Yeah, she could do that. She’s worked hard to cultivate a sophisticated facade, but underneath she is still as rough and tough as Bald Knob granite.
Suddenly aware that her skirt was far shorter than anyone else’s, Michelle tugged on her hem, then followed Howard Jones into the cubicle in front of his office. “This will be your space,” he said, gesturing to the desk, chair and padded walls as if he were granting access to a royal box at the opera. “You’ll be close enough to hear if I raise my voice even a little bit.”
She nodded and refused to look at him, knowing that the gleam in his eye had nothing to do with her meager word-processing skills. Six months as a Kelly girl had taught her a lot about men and their secretaries—a girl could get into trouble in a hurry if she didn’t establish strict boundaries right away. A too-quick smile, a too-friendly expression, an offer of a ride to lunch…any of these innocent things could lead to trouble if a boss were inclined to step out on his wife.
She’d worked as a temp for the Jones Personnel Agency last week; Howard had been so impressed with something about her that he’d offered her a permanent position. Because she liked gathering experience from many different companies, Michelle wouldn’t have accepted the offer except for two things: Howard’s wife worked in the office to his right, and Olympia Densen-Jones insisted on paying the office help $8.50 an hour, double the minimum wage.
After living for months on baked beans, tuna fish and hot dogs, Michelle was looking forward to fresh fruit and an occasional meal out.
Olympia breezed out of her office and gave Michelle a quick smile. “I’m glad you’re here. Howard—” she cut a glance to her husband “—aren’t you supposed to have a nine o’clock meeting with Tom Oliphant?”
Howard flushed. “Um, yeah. I was on my way.”
“Bye, then.” Olympia tilted a polished cheek toward him. “See you when you get back.”
Michelle looked away and suppressed a smile. Howard Jones’s name might be listed first on the business cards, but anyone who spent five minutes in this office would learn who really called the shots.
“Well, then.” Olympia pressed her hands together as her husband left. “Howard was so impressed with you last week. He said you have a real aptitude for the business.”
Michelle shrugged away the compliment. “I’m not so fast on the computer.”
“You can learn the computer. What we need are folks with people skills, and something tells me you have plenty of those.” Her eyes rested on Michelle’s face and lit with speculation. “We’re in the business of matching people with jobs, and we’re good at it. If you’re as creative and bright as I think you are, you’ll be a natural.”
Michelle stiffened, uncomfortable with such free-flowing praise. “I’ll try to do the best I can for you.”
“Don’t try—just do.” Olympia swiveled on her leather pumps and placed her hand on the top of a tall metal filing cabinet. “What we do is teach our clients how to market themselves—not everyone looks as polished as you did when you came through our door. We’re in the business of creating what I call pleasing people packages. We take what clients have to offer, dress it up a bit, and offer them to a prospective employer. Once our clients have been through our polishing sessions, they almost always get the job.”
Michelle folded one arm across her chest. Maybe this job would pay off in ways she hadn’t expected. “You dress people up?” she asked, hoping she didn’t sound like a hick. “In new clothes?”
Amusement flickered in Olympia’s eyes. “Sometimes. But mostly we dress up their résumés. For instance—” she opened the top drawer of the filing cabinet and pulled out a folder “—take Bill Baker, a former mail clerk for one of the mining companies. By the time he left for his first job interview, he thought of himself as a former director responsible for fielding, targeting and expediting crucial corporate communications. And here’s Sally Courtland. She came to us as a secretary and left here an administrative assistant. Same job, same responsibilities. But a little judicious résumé enhancement can lead to higher pay and a much better job.”
Michelle blinked. “So—I’m an administrative assistant now?”
“You bet. And you work for a placement professional.”
“But isn’t that…a little misleading?”
Olympia slid the folders back into the file, then closed the drawer. “I read your application,” she said, leaning against the cabinet. She folded her arms and looked at Michelle as something sparked in her brown eyes. “And how is Bald Knob these days?”
Michelle swallowed hard. “Fine, I guess. I haven’t been back in a while.”
“It’s a nice place,” Olympia said, her tone steady and smooth. “But not for women like us. Not for people who want to make their mark on the world.”
“You know Bald Knob?”
Olympia tugged on her gold earring and stepped into Michelle’s cubicle. “I know it,” she said in a softer voice, allowing the tips of her manicured nails to click over the keyboard. “And I won’t go back there. Neither should you…unless you really want to.”
“I don’t.”
“I didn’t suppose you did. So you can’t think like folks in a small town. You have to adapt.” She smiled, then gripped the back of the rolling chair with both hands. “Everyone in this business expects a certain level of exaggeration. The employers paint their positions in optimistic colors and our clients dress to impress. In the corporate mating ritual, playing the game is half the fun.”
Michelle leaned against the door frame, unable to understand her new employer’s motivation. “I appreciate this job, I really do, but—”
“What?”
“I don’t understand why you’re doing this. I mean, I’m not the most talented girl you’ve had working in this office.”
Olympia smiled and looked toward the front, where a half dozen other women sat with telephones pressed to their ears. “Maybe not,” she said, the corner of her mouth rising in a wry smile, “but you remind me of myself at your age. Someone helped me out, and I think it’s time I returned the favor.” She hesitated for a moment, doubtless reliving some memory, then she patted the back of the chair. “Come on, Michelle, take a seat. I have a stack of new clients I want you to call. Bring ’em in, check ’em out, write up a plan of action. For the first few weeks, I’ll be looking over your shoulder, guiding you every step of the way.”
Michelle stepped forward and sank into the chair, then rolled closer to the desk. She looked up as her new boss moved toward the doorway.
“Olympia?”
“Yes?”
“You wouldn’t happen to be my fairy godmother, would you?”
She’d thought Olympia would laugh, but instead a knowing look entered the woman’s eyes. “You’re going to make it, Michelle Tilson.”
Eddie glances to his right, where every few seconds a wave crashes into the seawall and launches a plume of spray. Tampa Bay, which usually ranges in color from a sunlit green to deep blue, is now the same murky shade as the sky. He can’t help feeling as though the world has liquefied into a colorless gray morass….
Morass: six letters, something that overwhelms or impedes.
Too ba
d that word doesn’t figure in his current puzzle-in-progress.
The rain-shrouded Howard Frankland Bridge looms in his rearview mirror; downtown Tampa lies ahead. To his right and left, at the edges of the four-lane highway, light poles stretch toward the sky like skeletal arms, their halogen bulbs pushing vainly against the encroaching gloom.
Beside him, Sadie rests on the seat in a down position, her tail drooping toward the floor. “Look at this, girl,” he says, spying another white stripe on the highway. “We’ve managed to stay in the lane.”
His voice crackles with hoarseness; he’s had to shout to make himself heard above the thrumming rain. He knows it’s foolish to keep announcing progress reports to a dog, but the sound of his voice seems to comfort Sadie.
Her presence certainly comforts him.
He takes care to keep his vehicle to the right of the white line and eases forward, moving toward downtown Tampa and exit forty-four. What was that hymn his grandfather used to sing? “Peace Like a River.” The old man said that troubles were crashing storm waves that could knock any man off his feet, but faith was an anchor, as comforting as a warm puppy—
Well, maybe that last part came from Charles Schulz.
A light fog rises from the pavement like steam, raised by the force of raindrops striking the warm asphalt. Water streams like sheets over the windows while an occasional rogue drop sneaks through the rubber seals and drips onto his left shoulder.
All this dreadful weather, and Felix is still seven hours away.
On the radio, a country artist is singing the story of six men caught in a coal mine: Two miners are obsessin’, two men are regressin’, and two confess to messin’ with each other’s wives….
Eddie can’t help but wonder what’s happening with the women in the elevator. The woman he spoke to, Michelle, seemed like the confident type, but even confident people can crack under pressure.
If he had his druthers, he’d want to work with calm men instead of panicked females. Growing up in a house with six sisters has taught him that chickens are easier to corral than agitated women.
He glances at the dog, then reaches out to rub her ears. “You could set a good example for them, couldn’t you, Sades?”
The dog snores in response.
Michelle is about to ask if Gina’s kids have inherited her red hair when she hears the distinct sound of breaking glass. For no reason she can name, the sound raises the hair at the back of her neck.
“That can’t be good,” Gina whispers, her gaze darting toward the door. “Do you think that’s the wind…or looters?”
Michelle swallows hard. She hasn’t even considered the possibility of looters, but she’s beginning to believe anything could happen today. The streets are blocked off, but she found a way in and so did Gina. Like most urban centers, Tampa has a sizable homeless population, and some of those people are averse to government shelters. Anyone could walk into the parking garage and find the stairwell.
“Do you think—” she pauses to run her tongue over her dry lips “—do you think we’ll be safe even if we get out? Gus said he was going to leave after he evacuated the building.”
“Looters want only one thing—loot.” Gina’s eyes gleam with contempt. “They shouldn’t bother us. I’d hate to think, though, what might happen to anyone who tried to stop them.”
Michelle lowers her head onto her hand as a company of new terrors takes up residence in her imagination. What if they escape the elevator only to be accosted by crazed looters? What if they’re attacked, raped? She could be traumatized…and lose the baby.
“We need to obey your elevator man and stay calm,” Gina says. “We’re safe in here and we’ll stay safe until the storm passes and the authorities commence rescue operations. We might be a little hungry and dirty when this is over, but we’ll survive.”
Michelle smiles at the floor. Gina has shifted to a calm, no-nonsense tone, probably the voice she uses to reassure her children. Though she can’t know they’ll make it out of this cage, the assurance in her voice settles Michelle’s nervous stomach and persuades Isabel to relax against the back wall.
“Staying in here is a nice plan B,” Michelle says, smiling at Gina, “but I’m sticking with plan A and hoping Eddie gets here soon. I’d rather leave sooner than later, wouldn’t you?”
Gina crosses her arms and exhales heavily. “I’m not holding my breath.”
At exit forty-four, Eddie eases the truck off the ramp and heads south, toward downtown. He can see Tampa’s skyscrapers from the elevated highway, though their rooflines are buried in low-hanging clouds.
In one of those buildings, three women are waiting for him.
He’s not surprised to see flashing red and blue lights at the bottom of the exit ramp. A police cruiser sits crossways in the middle of the intersecting road, blocking access to the southbound lanes.
Again, he crawls to a stop and prepares to roll down the window. For a long moment he sits, waiting for the cop to realize he’s not going to head back onto the interstate, then the cruiser’s door opens into the rain.
The beefy cop lumbers forward, reluctance evident in every line of his posture. When Eddie rolls down the window, he finds himself looking at narrow eyes, a square jaw and a jutting chin.
“You can’t go downtown, son.” The cop points to the entrance ramp on the opposite side of the intersection. “So you might as well get back on 275 and head home.”
Eddie pulls a business card from the ashtray and hands it over. “Three women have got themselves trapped in the Lark Tower,” he says. “If I don’t get them out now, they’ll be spending a few days in that elevator. That could be rough.”
The cop holds the card up in the rain, then lifts his gaze. “You suicidal or crazy?”
Eddie grins. “So—you gonna move the cruiser?”
The cop shakes his head, then lifts his hand and lets the wind snatch the wet card. He thumps the roof of the pickup. “Bet you were grateful for a nice, heavy truck when you came over the hump.”
“Happy to have every one of these six thousand pounds.”
“Sure I can’t talk you outta this?”
“I’m sure.”
The cop wipes water from his cheek with the back of his hand, then nods. “Sure hope you find a safe place to ride it out, ’cause I’m afraid the nearest shelters are all full. The surge is comin’ in as we speak.”
Eddie rolls up the window as the cop walks back to his vehicle; a moment later the pickup is moving onto North Tampa Street and approaching the Lark Tower.
This part of downtown is older and slightly shabby, nothing like the upmarket tourist areas by the convention center. The traffic lights are out, so he drives cautiously past deserted parking lots and one-way streets. Oak trees dot the sidewalk, still secure in their concrete planters, but their canopies are twisting in the wind.
He glances at his watch and frowns. He got the emergency call around ten; it’s now nearly one. He’s spent the last three hours driving fifteen miles, and though the storm is still building, disaster doesn’t operate on a predictable schedule. One of those women could have found a way to pry open the doors; all of them could have plunged to their deaths by now.
The entrance to the Tower’s parking garage appears at his right, an empty white square. He jerks hard on the wheel, momentarily upsetting the dog’s balance, and pulls into a whitewashed corridor. Now that rain is no longer hammering the roof, dense silence settles over the cab.
Eddie follows a curving driveway, then brakes when he comes to a gate. At his left, a machine advises him to press a button for a ticket. On a whim he presses the button; no ticket emerges. Of course not, the power’s off.
For an instant he considers barreling through the black-and-white mechanical arm (in the face of impending destruction, who would care?), but reason assures him that the women have done what he asked and waited calmly. He steps out of the truck, pulls the arm into an upright position, then hops back in his seat and pulls f
orward.
The second floor, a sign assures him, is for visitors; all spaces on the higher levels are reserved for tenants. But the storm surge is coming and Hurricane Frances, which bypassed Tampa in 2004, caused the Hillsborough River to rise fifteen feet at downtown’s Platt Street.
If he has to drive the women out of here, the higher he parks, the less distance they’ll have to cover.
Eddie turns the steering wheel and drives upward as quickly as he dares. The experience is like navigating in a cave—with no windows; the darkness is penetrated only by small lamps above the exit signs at the center of the structure.
When his headlights flash across a six painted onto a wall, Eddie discovers that he has reached the uppermost parking level. He pulls alongside the glassed-in lobby that houses two banks of elevators, then cuts the engine.
Is he too late? He’s not familiar with these elevators, and sometimes people modify them in dangerous ways. Just last month three people got stuck in an elevator in Minneapolis; instead of waiting for help, they pried open a modified door and jumped to the floor below. The third man, however, didn’t land safely, but fell backward down the shaft.
Have these women kept their promise? Or have they panicked in the face of the coming storm?
Eddie gets out, whistles for Sadie and pulls his toolbox from the space behind the front seat. As the dog belly-crawls across the bench, he turns on his flashlight and examines the surrounding structure. The building has been around a while, for the long pipes of a retrofitted sprinkler system hang between unlit fluorescent light fixtures overhead. Electrical conduit snakes along the walls and air-conditioning units have been squeezed into irregular corners.
The sound of his breathing is loud in his ears as the beam of his flashlight bounces over empty parking spaces and silent AC units. A chilly black stillness surrounds him while the wings of a vague premonition brush his spirit. A ghost building.
When Sadie’s nails click on the concrete, he locks the truck and moves toward the elevator lobby. His flashlight reveals two entrances—one for the six express elevators and one for the elevators that service the first twenty-five floors.
