“Hey, gorgeous,” Billy, the twenty-year-old stock boy, greeted her as he tugged over a box of balloons. He was a tall, gangly kid, good looking, with blond hair tied back in a pony tail. She envied him his costume, modest by Party World standards: a butter yellow smock emblazoned with party hats, balloons, and grinning cartoon animals.
He leaned against the pile of boxes.
“When you gonna break down and come see my band?”
“Never,” she answered. “Go find a girl your own age.”
He leaned closer. “I like older women, Maggie.”
She fought down the urge to rip out his throat.
“Ya know, I’m not so bad. Lots of people think I look like Brad Pitt.”
Just what she needed in the midst of her self-pity and misery, she thought. A horny wanna be. “You got two legs, two arms, a face … yeah, I see the resemblance. Definitely the same species.”
“Ha ha,” he responded with a punch to her upper arm.
“Ouch! Don’t do that again.”
“Aw, c’mon. That didn’t hurt.”
Mrs. Owens approached.
“Billy, I want you out at the loading dock, right now.” She marched off with Billy in tow. He looked back and winked lasciviously at Maggie. She sighed. It was gonna be a very long day.
The conversation with Mrs. Owens turned out to be just the tip of the iceberg. Shortly after one P.M., a trio of adolescent boys approached her cubicle. They took one look at her crimson butt and erupted into loud guffaws. One inane remark followed another. They were their own best audience, elbowing and snickering at each lame comment. Her first line of defense was to ignore them. Then one of the kids decided to ratchet things up.
“Is that your real ass?”
He reached across the counter and poked her flaming baboon butt.
“Sheeit. She’s got a cushion back there.”
They whooped with laughter. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back. She whirled around and with narrowed eyes hissed at them, “If you don’t clear out of here in ten seconds, I’m going to turn the helium on you. You ever been squirted with helium?”
Evidently they hadn’t, and they were uncertain what — if anything — this would do. Maggie’s murderous expression was probably more frightening to them than the helium threat.
“Let’s get out of here, man,” one of them said. “She’s friggin’ nuts.” They walked off, throwing a few more asinine jokes over their shoulders, just to prove they weren’t scared.
Just after two P.M. she glanced toward the door and a day already in the weeds suddenly got even worse. To her horror, Andy and Jennifer walked in, hand in hand. She was smiling up at him and he gazed down into her eyes in a way that Maggie had to confess he’d never looked at her. She ducked behind a wall of balloons and began frantically to inflate more. She couldn’t let them see her, dressed in the insane baboon suit, blowing up balloons. The air was thick with balloons — red, yellow, blue, green, all of them bearing cheery messages: Happy Birthday. Congratulations. I Love You. They bobbed around her in their multi-colored splendor, effectively concealing her from view. The recorded voice cackled in her ear. Then a wrinkled hand parted the wall, like Moses parting the red sea. The balloons, freed from their moorings, drifted toward the ceiling.
“Miss Tyler,” Mrs. Owens peered in at her. She clutched wildly at the balloons that were floating upward. “What in the name of God,” she shrieked, “are you doing?”
Mrs. Owens’s outraged voice drowned out the squeaky high-pitched recording. Andy was standing directly behind Mrs. Owens, and his eyes widened.
“Maggie?”
She ducked back behind the remaining balloons. She pumped helium gas into two more, trying to fill in the gap that Mrs. Owens had created. The manager batted her way through the sea of balloons.
“Have you lost your mind?”
Maggie was too busy inflating balloons to reply.
“Stop that at once! Do you hear me?”
She reached out, trying to pull Maggie’s hand away from the helium tank. Maggie shook her off and reached for another balloon.
“You’re fired. Turn in your employee badge.”
All her suppressed rage, fueled with nicotine withdrawal, rose to the surface. Crazy lady burst out of her inner cage and took center stage.
She yanked off the Binky Badge.
“You want my badge? I’ll give you my badge!” Maggie straightened out the pin and began to puncture the balloons. “How’s this for a badge?” The popping balloons, sounding very much like a mini-explosion, drew a crowd of onlookers. Maggie ripped off her Binky Bonnet and hurled it to the floor.
Mrs. Owens backed away, as one does in the presence of a madwoman. From a safe distance, she shook her finger at Maggie. “This will come out of your final paycheck.”
“Whatever.” Maggie swiped at two more balloons with the pin, flung the name tag to the floor, and strode through the carnage of colored latex with as much dignity as anyone wearing a baboon footie suit with a bouncing scarlet butt could muster. She held her head high as she walked past a wide-eyed Andy and the group of customers. One red deflated balloon clung to the furry baboon paw, and with a high kick, she sent it flying. It landed on the foot of a man who stood in the cluster of startled observers. He bent and removed it from his shoe, as she stormed past him. As she neared the door, one of the onlookers said, in a loud voice, “Hey, honey, whatcha got behind that big old monkey butt?”
She whirled around, not sure which of her audience had spoken. One man stood holding a shred of balloon. He held it out to her.
“Did you forget something?”
“Go to hell, all of you,” she shouted, yanking the door open.
Halfway to her car, she realized she’d left her purse in the store, along with her car keys and her cell phone. A sinking sensation took root in her stomach. How could she go back and walk the gauntlet of staring eyes? Rescue came in the unlikely form of Billy. He ran through the parking lot waving her purse over his head.
“Maggie, wait!”
She wanted to kiss him.
“You forgot something,” he handed her the purse. “That was beautiful! I just wish you stuck that old bat with the pin before you walked out. You should’a seen her face, standing there knee-high in balloons. Man, it was worth a week’s pay!” he enthused.
She sighed. “That’s what it’s gonna cost me.” She took out her car keys and unlocked the door. “Thanks again, Billy. I really appreciate it. You’d better get back before the Rottweiler comes looking for you.”
“Hey, Mags, that’s a good name for her. Rottweiler.” He broke into wild laughter. “Can ya see the banner on the six o’clock news? Rottweiler attacks Binky in Party World parking lot.”
“Oh, damn. She’s gonna charge me for this monkey suit, too. I wonder how much it costs?”
She fingered the fake fur.
“Wanna make a deal? You come to my gig tonight, and I’ll return the suit for you.”
She laughed suddenly, with just a hint of hysteria.
“Billy, you got yourself a deal.”
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Love, Lies, and British Spies Page 15
