In spite of the fact that I brought Kate her coffee in record time, the assignment on the retiring librarian never materialized. With nothing to do other than fetch coffee for Jeff every half hour or so, I decided to do some more digging on weight loss plans so that I could compare them to what Jane had told us over dinner the night before. It truly sounded too good to be true—losing weight by smelling an air spray? But inventors had come up with a lot of amazing things over the years. Just look at the Thighmaster and Silly Putty.
“What are you doing?”
Caroline Osborn startled me by appearing over my left shoulder.
“Oh, just some research,” I said as I clicked on the red X in the corner of the screen. I wasn’t fast enough.
Caroline read the screen before it vanished.
“Weight loss? Are you thinking about going on a diet, DeeDee?”
“I’m always thinking about it,” I replied. “Thinking about it but not necessarily doing anything about it.”
“Yeah, I know how that is. Well, just a word to the wise. Don’t let Kate catch you surfing the web for personal things. She’ll have your head on a platter. Not on company time and all that crap.”
“It wasn’t really for personal use,” I began but then stopped. I didn’t have enough information to suggest a story on the new fat loss spray and even if I did, I didn’t want to tell Caroline about it. If there ever really was a story to do and the paper gave it to Caroline instead of me—a likely scenario—that would be way too painful.
“Yeah, right, and my ‘research’ on vacation packages to the West Indies isn’t for personal use either.” Caroline smiled at me knowingly. “Just don’t get caught,” she advised. “Kate’s a real stinker about what can and can’t be done on company time.”
“Thanks for the warning,” I said sincerely. It was nice to have someone fill me in a little on how things were done at the newspaper.
“Anytime. If you’re not going on a diet, how about having lunch with me today?”
“Sure,” I readily agreed.
“Noon,” Caroline said. “We’ll have a real girl talk and get to know each other.” Although her tone was more than a tad sarcastic, I was looking forward to getting to know Caroline. Yes, she had a somewhat brusque personality but she was a journalist and I wanted to find out more about her.
“Sounds good,” I said.
“See you then.” Caroline sashayed off and I turned back to my computer. After she left, I returned to my research. Maybe I should make a list of the different kinds of diet aids that were currently available to the public. It would take me forever but it would be nice to have the background if I ever landed the story about Kutrate Kemicals’ newest product. I pulled a yellow legal pad out of my desk—brand new and purchased by moi for my new career—and started to write. Within twenty minutes I had four pages of different products. No doubt about it, losing weight was huge.
All this research was making me hungry. I’ve never been able to understand how people can stay on diets for weeks at a time. Just reading about other people losing weight made me want to head for the nearest Dairy Queen and buy half a dozen Dilly Bars. I’d have to call Jane and see if there was any progress on getting her company’s weight loss product on the market. I’d do that as soon as I got home.
“So how’s it going?” Caroline asked me at precisely twelve-oh-seven. We had left the newspaper together and walked the block to the Budapest Café, a small restaurant located in what had once been a funeral home. It was my first visit there since the whole idea of eating in a former funeral parlor creeped me out, but Caroline didn’t seem bothered in the least. “Are you enjoying being part of the Kemper Times family?”
I laughed and took a sip of ice water. “Well, to tell you the truth the family part has pretty much eluded me so far.”
Caroline smiled knowingly. “You mean that you haven’t been swept away by the warm welcome you’ve gotten?”
“Not exactly.” I glanced around the room to make sure that no other newspaper employees were eating there. The new owners had decorated the restaurant in a style that was vaguely reminiscent of Persia or maybe somebody had access to props from the community theater’s production of The King and I. Long curtains were draped along every wall, giant pots of petunias were positioned in all the corners and the waiters and waitresses were forced to wear Harem pants and I Dream of Jeannie velvet bikini tops for the females and little velvet vests trimmed in gold brocade for the males. “Actually, you’re the only one who’s really talked to me so far.”
“I’m not surprised. Everyone who works there is so miserable that they probably haven’t even noticed that a new face has joined the ranks.”
A waiter came to take our order. He was young, around my son Tyler’s age, and his velvet vest was black to match his black gauze Harem pants. He looked so humiliated that I decided to leave as big a tip as I could manage. “I’m Virgil and I’m your server today. What will it be, ladies?”
Caroline looked him over, her eyes lingering on his flat, well-muscled torso. “Hello, Virgil.”
Looking up from his pad, Virgil’s own eyes widened in recognition. “Caroline! My favorite reporter! What are you doing here?” Virgil didn’t glance in my direction but that wasn’t a surprise. I’ve noticed that once women are over forty, they become invisible to younger men, even younger men wearing black gauze Harem pants.
“Having lunch, silly. What else would I be doing here?”
Virgil giggled and some of his macho mystery vanished. “Sorry. I’m just not used to seeing you in the daylight.”
“Virgil!” A voice called from the back of the restaurant. “Snap it up.”
“I’ll have a glass of Merlot and your lunch special,” Caroline told him. “I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble with your boss.”
“I’m always in trouble with that broad.” Virgil turned to me. “And what will you have, ma’am?”
“What is the lunch special?”
“It’s on the board out front.” He adjusted the fez hat he was wearing so that it sat more neatly on his dark curls.
I squinted but could barely make out the board placed in the front of the restaurant much less read what was written on it. “That’s all right,” I assured him. “I’ll have the lunch special too but just ice water to drink.”
Virgil nodded before leaving us. As he was walking away, I noticed that he was wearing those shoes that curl up at the toes. I wondered how he walked in them. “He is such a doll,” Caroline breathed once Virgil was out of earshot.
“Have you known him for long?” I asked, brushing away at a fly that was apparently determined to dive down my throat.
“Oh, a few months. He has a degree in archeology but he can’t find a job that pays better than being a waiter. Those harem pants net him some pretty great tips.”
“That has to be a tough job market, especially in the Midwest.” I don’t know why colleges offer degrees in areas like archeology and philosophy. I mean, really, how many jobs can there possibly be in either field?
Caroline shrugged. “Maybe I should join him and work here. One of these days I’ll find a new job and then I’m going to quit so fast that Jeff Henderson’s square head is going to spin. I plan on giving absolutely no notice.”
“Are you looking for another job?”
“Only all the time but it’s like being in a jungle with way too many tigers fighting over the same few pieces of meat.”
Caroline was starting to depress me although I knew she was right. “Yes, my son Tyler hasn’t had much luck finding a good job.” Or finding any job, actually but I didn’t see any point in sharing that with Caroline.
“What’s his degree in?”
“He hasn’t finished college yet. He’s taking some time off to find himself.” So far Tyler had been searching for himself for over five years.
“Well, good luck to him. Does he live at home with you?”
“Yes, he does.”
Car
oline sighed deeply. “I bet he’s cute too. Why are all the cute guys unemployed or working at crap jobs and still living at home with their mommies?” She shook her head. “Whatever. I swear, I’m going to stop looking for guys in my age bracket and start going for old coots with pensions. At least they’d be able to take me out to dinner once in a while. So, you met the Dragon Lady?”
I knew immediately who she was talking about—not that it was too difficult to figure out. With just three women working at the newspaper, the Dragon Lady was pretty obvious. “I met her. She is a little…challenging.”
Caroline snorted. “You don’t have to be diplomatic with me. I know what a pain in the butt Kate is. Rude, smug, know-it-all—and that’s when she wakes up in a good mood. Watch out when she’s in a nasty mood.”
“Um…is there any way to tell?”
“Not really. To tell the truth, her good moods and her nasty moods really aren’t all that far apart.”
Virgil returned with a wine glass the size of a small fish bowl and set it in front of Caroline. Smiling her thanks at him, she took an enormous swallow. “That’s better. After working at the Kemper Times for seven years, I finally understand the stereotype of the hard-drinking newspaper person with the bottle of bourbon or vodka or whatever stashed in a desk drawer, only I’m strictly a wino. You have to drink or you’ll go nuts.”
“Because the work is so stressful?” I asked.
“Because we work for such jerks and get paid peanuts for the privilege. Has Kate given you an assignment yet?”
“Not yet.”
Leaning back in her chair, Caroline looked perplexed. “I don’t get that. Why did they hire you if they aren’t going to use you? The rest of us are drowning in work and they have you making coffee and cleaning off tabletops. What are they paying you?”
“I beg your pardon?” Bob Meredith had asked me the same question the day before. I had been brought up to believe that talking about money in general and salaries in particular was extremely uncouth, so uncouth that I never knew how much my father made until Steve began to do his taxes. It was then that I learned that Daddy really could have bought me a pink Sting Ray bike for my seventh birthday if he’d wanted to and that there had been absolutely no need to keep the household thermostat at 65 degrees all winter long throughout my entire childhood.
“How much are they paying you?” Caroline repeated. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I’d like to know for my own edification but if it makes you feel weird or anything, that’s okay. I understand how it is with your generation.”
All of Dear Abby’s instructions about how to respond when someone asked a highly personal question refused to surface in my brain. “I’m starting out at nine.”
Caroline blinked. “Nine what?” she asked before taking another sip of Merlot.
“Nine dollars an hour,” I reluctantly admitted since I had the distinct impression that my hourly wage was not going to impress the woman sitting across the table from me.
Caroline came perilously close to spewing a mouthful of red wine all over the dirty tablecloth. She managed to swallow it but was still sputtering when she spoke again. “Are you crapping me? They’re paying you nine measly dollars an hour and you accepted? You do know that nine bucks an hour isn’t that much more than minimum wage, right? You could probably do better for yourself working as a cocktail waitress even at your age and with your legs.”
For the first time in a long time I was glad that my son was unemployed since his jobless status was saving him from dating Caroline. “Well, yes, but hopefully I’ll get a raise in a few months.”
Caroline shook her head. “Don’t count on it. The last raise I got was about four years ago and it didn’t even come close to being a cost of living raise. I can’t believe you accepted that kind of a salary, DeeDee. You’re a professional writer. You deserve more than nine dollars an hour!”
“I’m not really a professional writer,” I admitted. “Actually, most of my writing has been for the schools my kids attended and our Christmas newsletters. Nothing all that big.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Caroline told me with an emphatic bounce of her wine glass. “The point is that the newspaper hired you as a professional journalist and even though it’s as plain as the nose on your face what they’re up to, they should be paying you more than nine dollars an hour.”
It wasn’t plain to me so I asked, “What are they up to?”
“It’s pretty obvious that they don’t care if you can write or not. They’re going to use you as an in-house janitress and maybe toss you a story once in a while so that you can brag to your book club buddies that you’re a reporter.”
“I don’t belong to a book club.”
“Yeah and I doubt that you belong to the Society of Professional Journalists either.”
“Why would the management at the paper bother to hire me if they didn’t plan on using me as a reporter?”
“I just told you why: because they’re cheap! If they can get away hiring a—a mom instead of someone with an actual degree in journalism, then why not?”
Caroline said the word “mom” the same way some people said “hooker.” Stung, I refused to believe what she was telling me. She had to be wrong. I waved for the waiter. When Virgil shuffled over, I ordered a glass of Chablis for myself. Virgil was blessedly fast with my wine and I took a deep sip while wondering if the newspaper business wasn’t getting to me already. “I seriously doubt that there was any kind of orchestrated plot to hire me just because I didn’t ask for more money.”
“Maybe not but you should tell them that you won’t work for less than twelve dollars an hour. Have a little pride, DeeDee. Nine dollars an hour? Are you freaking kidding me? You could deliver the newspaper and make more than that.”
“I can’t ask for more money now. I said I’d take the job at nine.”
“But don’t you see that by accepting a professional job at such a low salary, you’re bringing down the entire journalism field? Pretty soon management will expect you to sweep out the bathroom before you go home at night.”
“I leave at noon.”
“That’s beside the point. You have to ask for more money, DeeDee. That’s simply all there is to it.”
I toyed with the stem of my wine glass, troubled by the turn our conversation had taken. “So you don’t think I’ll ever actually get an assignment?”
Caroline looked like she was torn between wanting to knock herself between the eyes and wanting to knock me between the eyes. “Don’t be a dope. Of course they’ll give you a story. They’ll give you every crappy story that comes down the pike because you’re new and don’t know anything.”
Maybe I was a dope but I felt a wave of pure relief rush through me when I heard Caroline’s prediction. I’d never tell my lunch companion, but I would have worked for even less just to be able to call myself a journalist and not because I wanted to brag to my book club—provided I had a book club—but just because I thought it was such a cool job. “Look, I know it isn’t very much money but I think it’s exciting to work for a newspaper. I’m not young like you, Caroline. I don’t have that many options open to me at this point in my life. I’m thrilled that I have been hired to work in a field filled with people I admire.”
Caroline rolled her eyes. “Right. Have you met Ren Peterson yet?”
“No, I don’t think so. Who is he?”
“One of those people you admire so much. Ren is the editor of the Lifestyles section. He has the cube at the far end of the room. Right next to yours as a matter of fact. Nice looking guy with light brown hair?”
“Oh, sure. He looks a little bit like Tom Cruise.”
“Yeah, if Tom Cruise was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Ren started out as a perfectly normal person last year and then they gave him the Lifestyles section on top of all of his other duties around the paper. He’s gone from a pleasant human being into someone wound so tight that one wrong look, one offhand comment and
he’s going to flip out.”
“Um, what’s your point?” I asked.
“If you allow management to take advantage of you the way they obviously plan to, you’re going to hurt each and every one of us. Why should they give us raises when they can get the likes of you to work for nine dollars an hour? Do you really want to be responsible for pushing Ren over the edge?”
“Caroline, I don’t even know Ren.” Although Caroline seemed to have a sincere interest in how I was being treated, there was no way that I could see myself marching into Jeff’s office the next morning and telling him that I wanted a raise after working at the newspaper for all of two days. “Maybe after six months or so, then I might feel more comfortable asking for more money but not until then. I appreciate your concern, Caroline, but I have to do things my way.”
“Your way sucks,” Caroline argued. “By accepting that crummy salary, you’re bringing down journalistic standards everywhere. I don’t suppose you’re in our union yet either.”
Thankfully, Virgil returned with two lunch specials and set them down in front of us with a flourish before I had the chance to tell her that I didn’t even know there was a union at the newspaper. “There you are, ladies, curried tuna. Careful, it’s hot.” He winked at Caroline. “I told the cook to make yours extra spicy. I know how much you like hot things.”
Caroline winked back at him. “You got that right, Virgil.”
“Another wine?”
“Why not?”
Virgil vanished then returned almost instantaneously with Caroline’s second glass of wine. “Enjoy.”
Black and White and Dead All Over: A Midlife Crisis Mystery (Midlife Crisis Mysteries) Page 5
