Pale Stranger

by Mac Flynn

  Cecil straightened, and frowned at Benson. "I was informed by the secretarial service that Miss Sievers had quit her job."

  "Not quit, fired," Benson corrected him. "And I won't need you to find me another. This woman here will suit me perfectly."

  Poor befuddled Cecil whipped his head between us, and pointed an accusatory finger at me. "This girl? You wish to have this girl as your secretary?"

  "Why not? If she's been talking to you for a few minutes she must have some spunk," Benson pointed out.

  I puffed up at the praise; Cecil withered me again with his glare, and he shot one at Benson so murderous I don't know how the bullet deflected off him; it must have been his stoic manner. "We must have a discussion immediately," Cecil demanded.

  Benson stepped aside and swept his arm toward the open door. Cecil stomped in, and Benson turned to me. "You can stay out here if you wish, or come inside and explore the house."

  "Explore the house, I think Cecil just wilted all the flowers out here," I quipped.

  CHAPTER 5

  Benson followed me inside, and led Cecil into the study. I was curious to know what was going to happen to my now-precarious position, and snuck down the passage. The idea to hide on the other side of the door was nixed when I remembered what Benson had done to Sievers' eavesdropping; I wouldn't make the same mistake. The old walls of that house were thin, so I tiptoed into the living room, wincing at every creak beneath my feet, and stuck my ear against the wall that separated that room from the study. Their voices came through like they were standing on the other side of a paper-thin wall, which they were.

  "That was quite a show, Cecil. Did you mean to scare the girl half to death?" I heard Benson ask his guest.

  "If she scared that easily than she didn't deserve to be your secretary," Cecil laughed. My hands balled into fists; now I saw Cecil's game. He'd been testing me with that gruff attitude. "Why did you pick this one?"

  There was hesitation from Benson. "She was kind to me," he finally explained

  Cecil scoffed. "It's a good thing you don't get out much. You'd find many women would be kind to you if they knew who you were. Did she know who you were and how much money you had before you took her on?"

  "I don't think so, but that hardly matters now. She's been hired."

  "I beg to differ, it matters most especially now that she's been hired," Cecil argued. "She may ingratiate herself with you to acquire your money."

  "Like Constance?" Benson bitterly replied. "She tried very well to ingratiate herself with me, and when she saw I was having none of it she became belligerent."

  "And that's when she quit," Cecil finished.

  "That's when I fired her. If she's saying otherwise then she's lying," Benson shot back.

  Cecil sighed; it was great enough to be a category one hurricane force wind. "She was only with you for a year, John. You're getting worse," Cecil scolded.

  "They're getting worse," Benson countered. "And at least with this new girl I won't be dealing with that agency. Nothing but worthless, greedy women who take me on to get at my money."

  "Perhaps like this girl. Do you know anything about her? What's her name?" Cecil asked him.

  "Didn't she tell you?"

  "She said Calhoun, but didn't give me a first name."

  "Her first name is, well..."

  "You don't know it, do you?"

  "I haven't asked yet," Benson briskly replied.

  Another exasperated sigh from Cecil. "That's quite an achievement considering you've already hired her for a position as your personal secretary. What do you call her, Girl?"

  "That's none of your business, and it never should have been. You were my guardian until I was twenty-one, but no more," Benson replied. "My business is now solely my business."

  "I only mean well for my only nephew," Cecil insisted. I cringed; what an uncle. "And as your nearest living relative I only want you to be happy."

  "Then stop bothering me!" Benson bellowed out.

  I was startled by his outburst and jumped away from the wall. My shoulder knocked against the wallpaper and made a thud sound through the hollow partition. The voices in the other room quieted. "Did you hear something?" Cecil asked Benson.

  I crept as quickly as I could out of the living room, but the hurried footsteps of my boss crossed down the hall and caught me before I could slip to the other side of the house. He grabbed my wrist in a painful grip and twisted me around. Those bright blue eyes were flames of anger that melted my courage. He shook me hard enough to jolt my marbles loose. "What are you doing? Were you listening in on us?" I meekly nodded my head; I was never a good liar. "Why?"

  "I-I just wanted to see what would happen to my job." Cecil came up behind Benson, and I nodded at him. "He said he didn't want me around, so I thought you'd get rid of me." Then my dream of supporting myself through college would end and I'd be forced to live with my mother, or get a dull butter knife from my apartment and commit seppuku; I was leaning toward the butter knife.

  Benson turned his sharp eyes on Cecil, who was surprised to see the look aimed at him. "If you hadn't scared her she wouldn't have been listening at us."

  Cecil raised an eyebrow. "You think so?"

  "Yes," Benson firmly responded.

  Uncle Cecil was taken aback by Benson's quick reply. He glanced between us, me still wiggling and quivering in Benson's strong grasp. The pale man was stronger than he looked, even with all the muscles I'd seen. A smirk curled onto Cecil's lips. "I see."

  Benson didn't like that look; neither did I. There was a hint of lecherousness in it. "What do you see?" Benson asked him.

  "I see that I shouldn't be intruding any longer," Cecil added. He stepped back and gave us both a deep bow. "I can see three's a crowd in this house, and wish you, Benson, happy hunting."

  I was perplexed by his dramatic change in attitude and Benson was angry, but Cecil swept outside before either of us could stop him. We raced onto the porch and were in time to see Cecil drive by the front of the house and wave to us. I weakly waved back, but Benson scowled at his uncle long after the car had driven out of sight. I glanced over to him. "Any idea what he was talking about just now?"

  "Just the foolish prattle of an old man..." Benson grumbled. He stomped back inside and I scampered after him. He strode down the hall to the study, and I took it as a good sign when he didn't slam the door in my face. Instead I followed him inside and found myself surrounded by old shelves full of older books. There was a large desk opposite the door that sat in front of large paned windows. They were covered in thick black cloth, but that didn't dampen the effect of their size behind the person who sat behind the desk. There was also a world globe so large I could have set myself on its top and spun around; I promised myself a ride on it later if I wasn't fired on the spot.

  "I'm really sorry about eavesdropping on you. I didn't mean to do any harm," I apologized.

  Benson plopped down into his large leather chair and sighed; he gestured to the one opposite him on the other side of the desk. I gulped big enough to swallow a small lake and sat down. "How much did you overhear?" he asked me. I couldn't tell if he was angry, annoyed, or constipated.

  I sank down into the chair. "Everything?" I squeaked out.

  He leaned back in his chair and stared at me for several minutes without speaking. The wheels behind those sky-blue eyes turned as he decided my fate; to toss my curious ass out or not to toss my curious ass out. Finally he sighed and ran his hand down his face. "What trouble these last few days have been..." he murmured to himself.

  "You're telling me," I quipped.

  Benson glanced up at me through his fingers and raised an eyebrow. "I do wonder after that transgression how much I can tell you, Angel," he countered.

  My heart sank to the bottom of the Marianas Trench; I hated disappointing people when it really was my fault. "I'm sorry, I really am. I was just so worried about losing this job and my college bills that I guess I just-"

  "You go to
college?" he interrupted me.

  Apparently I'd forgotten to mention that part to him. "Yes."

  He was surprised and pleased by this information; he wouldn't have been if he knew my grades and debt. "What subjects are you studying?"

  "Geology. Some guy gave me a rock one time for Halloween instead of candy, and I thought it was pretty cool so I've been interested in them ever since," I replied.

  "That must be difficult to manage, the work at the diner and your classes," he wondered.

  I shrugged. "I get along." For now.

  "Is that why you accepted my offer of a position? To help pay for your college?" he asked me.

  I sheepishly smiled. "Maybe?" He smiled and looked at me with newfound admiration; I had to keep my grades hidden from him, but first I needed a final answer to the question of my job. "Before I spill out my life story could you tell me if I still have a job here"

  "That would entirely be up to you," he enigmatically replied.

  "So does that mean I get to write out my own paychecks?" I guessed. Benson smirked, and shook his head. I shrugged. "You can't blame a girl for trying."

  "I could, but I won't," he promised. "As for the matter of your position, you still hold it."

  All the weight of uncertainty fell off my shoulders along with my propriety. I jumped out of my chair and dove around the desk to give him a big hug. He stiffened for just a second and then relaxed in my arms. "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" I chanted. "Now I don't have to commit seppuku!"

  "Seppuku?" he repeated in bewilderment.

  I stepped back and shrugged. "It was either that or go live with my mom again."

  "You have a parent? Only one?" he asked me.

  "And a dad, but my parents divorced a few years back so I don't see him much," I told him.

  "My angel has a more unusual life than I thought..." he murmured.

  I shook my head. "Nope, it's just your average-everyday-trying-to-live-by-the-skin-of-your-teeth kind of life."

  Benson leaned back in his chair and pondered me; science did that, too, but hadn't come up with an answer yet. "I wouldn't know much about that, but perhaps that's one of the reasons I need to keep you around," he replied.

  "I could tell you stuff, but if you really want to know about people you're going to have to go out and meet them," I pointed out.

  He firmly shook his head. "That's not possible, not in my condition."

  I rejected his argument and substituted my own. "You get along just fine with all that covering, so why don't you-"

  Benson slammed his fist down against the top of the desk. I jumped high enough to feel the ceiling brush against my head, and came back down rattled. "We will not discuss that any further. I will not leave this house except for business and health, do you understand?" I nodded my head; he'd scared the talk out of me. Benson saw the fear in my eyes and sighed. "I'm sorry, but getting out isn't an option. My secretaries are my link to the outside world. That is their greatest asset to me."

  I folded my arms across my chest and frowned at him. "Makes me feel like a phone operator trying to connect you through a long-distance call to reality."

  "However you feel it must be this way." He stood and towered over me; for the first time I was reminded that he was my boss and I the lowly employee. "I won't be stared at like an animal at a zoo."

  He marched out of the room, leaving me feeling very foolish. I'd already forgotten how he looked, and how Sheila had reacted to him when he'd come into the diner. A lot of other people would react the same way, and no amount of sunblock could block their curiosity for his strangeness. I furrowed my brow and straightened my spine, but winced when it cracked. My new goal in life, behind finishing college and scuba-diving off Hawaii, was to try to get this man out of his white-skinned shell. Judging by his outburst it wasn't going to be easy, but I knew my SSD would come through for me; stubbornness, stupidity, and determination.

  All I needed now was a plan. I thought long and hard for all of two minutes, gave up and figured I'd think of something. For now I needed to find where my boss had stomped off to. I found him upstairs in his bedroom pacing the floor; if he'd kept it up he would have come to me in the study. "So, um, that phone meeting you had must have been really short." He'd been quick to appear and greet Cecil.

  He waved aside my question with a flip of his hand. "The signal was bad. He'll call back later," he briskly replied.

  "And you don't have anything else to do until four, so what would you like me to do?"

  Benson stopped pacing and gestured to a chair close beside his walking path. "Sit."

  "Woof? I mean, what?" I asked him.

  "I want you to sit down and tell me about yourself. Surely you remember the conversation between Cecil and myself. It made me realize how little I know about you. Now I want to know about you," he replied.

  "All right, but I hope you're taking notes here. I plan on writing my autobiography someday, so I may as well start now." I slid into the chair and he stood in front of me.

  "First off, what is your name?" he asked me.

  "Trixie."

  "Trixie?"

  "Yeah, like the cereal but with more eek to it," I quipped.

  "So your full name is Trixie Calhoun?" he wondered.

  I smirked and nodded. "Yep. My mother wanted a name nobody would forget."

  "And raised a daughter very much like the name..." he murmured.

  I frowned. "You murmur to yourself a lot. Didn't you have somebody to talk to other than yourself? What about your previous secretaries? Were they mutes?"

  He chuckled; I was glad to see he still had his humor. "No, but some of them believed a barrier existed between an employer and their employee, and idle chat was never to be commenced."

  "Um, yeah, no. That just isn't going to work for me," I objected.

  "I can see that," he smirked. "You seem to be a very extroverted, personal sort of person."

  "And I'm friendly, too," I added.

  "It stands out, but I don't believe we're getting very far with your autobiography. Where were you born?"

  As much as I loved the topic of the conversation, this wasn't getting me any closer to my life goal of helping out this introvert. Therefore, I decided to be a hostile witness to my own life. "At my place of birth."

  "Obviously, but what city? Do you have any parents?"

  "It takes two to tango," I reminded him.

  He was already exasperated; I had to avoid a meltdown of frustration or he wouldn't open up to me. Instead there'd be an atomic explosion of boss proportions. "Do you have any siblings?"

  "That's enough about me, let's talk about you." I didn't give him a chance to object before I swooped on top of him and switched our places. He sat in the chair and I lorded over both him and the conversation. "Now answer all the questions I just did."

  "But you didn't answer any of them."

  "No excuses, just the facts."

  "Fifteen miles away, yes, no." That backfired in my face.

  "On second thought, just tell me everything you can remember."

  "That's a lot of story. I've lived a long life," he playfully countered.

  "Start the same place as the Bible, at the beginning," I suggested.

  "I was born sickly, my mother died in childbirth, I was raised by my father until he died when I was ten, and then I was taken in by Cecil, my mother's brother." The facts blew past me so fast my hair stuck out the back.

  "Well, that was oddly specific and yet not very helpful," I told him.

  He shrugged, but there was a smile on his face. "Turnabout is fair play." So I cheated and held up his wallet. His face fell faster than a cartoon anvil out of a plane. He jumped up and clapped his hand over his nice ass. "When? Where? How?" he stuttered.

  "Elementary, my dear boss. I swiped it when we traded places." If there was one thing I learned at a dingy diner was that there were thieves who frequented the place to get at tired customers. I had to learn to grab back the wallets and purses the
y swiped because the brazen thieves were never going to admit to taking it; not when their livelihood and reputations were at stake. I opened the wallet and looked at the contents. "A driver's license telling me you're thirty, a few crisp one hundred dollar bills, some-"

  "Give that back!" He jumped at me, but I swung to the side and avoided his clawing hands.

  "-some credit cards, and a folded piece of paper." He stole back the wallet, but I'd already plucked the folded paper out of the container. "And a-" I stopped cold when I saw a child's crayon drawing of a ghostly stick-man with sharp fangs. Beneath the picture was written the word 'monster.' Benson snatched the drawing from me and stuffed it into his pants pocket. "Why...why do you have that?" I asked him.

  His face was tense and his voice was strained. "To remind me why I shouldn't go out," he replied.

  "Because people will make fun of you?" His reply was to turn away from me. I folded my arms across my chest and frowned at him. "Come on, that's really childish."

  Benson's head snapped back, and I wish it hadn't. Those bright blue eyes revealed a deep, bitter anger beneath the surface of his calm demeanor. "Try being on the receiving end of fear from every new person you meet. They whisper and gossip about you because of your appearance, and shun you for the same. Everyone is the same."

  Since I was 'everyone' I took offense at his whining. "But I'm not like that. I'm not afraid of you," I insisted. I nodded at his pocket. "And you're the one keeping that around in your pocket. Nobody else is making you look at that picture and keeping you out of sight of everyone. Of course the less they see you the more they're going to be afraid of you. What else are you expecting?"

  "Humanity. Dignity," he snapped back.

  "You're going to have to earn that from the strangers you meet, not expect them to greet you with open arms and chocolate."

  "I don't like chocolate," he told me.

  I threw my arms up in frustration. "Fine, expect everyone to greet you with open arms filled with torches and pitchforks, but don't blame anybody but yourself. You're the one keeping yourself shut up in this musty old house, and when you die alone and bitter you're going to be just as musty and old."

  Benson plopped back down in the chair and sullenly glared at me. "So everything is my fault?" he bit back.