Bridgetown, Issue #1: Arrival (17 page)

She came to stop just at the outer edge of
the blast radius. The damage to the wall had been relatively
superficial, even if it was the most obvious effect from the
outside. The bigger problem was at her feet. Like a sinkhole, there
was a crater about fifteen feet deep. The Lotus Boys' dynamite had
blown a hole in the first floor, leaving an unsettling
bird's-eye-view straight down into the basement. She could all too
easily imagine a worker, his nose buried in outstretched
blueprints, taking one step too far into this abyss.

Why hadn't work to fix this
so much as begun? She'd assigned the cleanup task to Howard Rimmler
and his team the day before. She had mixed feelings about her
working relationship with the hard-nosed Rimmler. She'd once heard
him describe his duties, at a philanthropic fundraiser that Cole
Co. put on the previous Christmas, as "real brick-and-mortar
masonry." At the time, she'd found the subtle posturing of this
statement a little odd. It held within it some coded polemic; after
all, if there was such a thing as "real" brick-and-mortar masonry,
it stood to reason there was such a thing as "fake" masonry. This
had stuck out in her mind, and working over it, she had realized
that Rimmer regarded Susanna and Wayne as high-falootin' urban
dandies. She figured Rimmler didn't put much stock in her
word.
Maybe
it
was because she was a woman, but she didn't get that feeling from
Rimmler. No, Rimmer didn't respect her, she realized, because he
didn't think she had any experience.

In truth, he was right, of course. Susanna
had planned to study civil engineering in college, if she'd had the
chance to go. It was that fact, and her hours spent pouring over
voluminous library texts in her first three years in Bridgetown,
that had allowed her to convince Wayne she was the right man for
the job. The two of them, already living a fabricated biography,
had simply woven her qualification into her imagined pre-Bridgetown
life narrative. It had been easy; they'd faked so many other things
about their lives back east.

That she didn't have any previous experience
as a foreman was no longer a source of much insecurity for Susanna.
She'd been performing her duties for over a year now, and had done
a damn fine job of it. The project was on time and poised to
revolutionize an industry. She was proving, out here in the
still-to-be-tamed southwest of 1897, that a woman could do just as
good a job as a man. So she didn't feel guilty for engaging in
nepotism; in fact, she considered her success in the role a true
achievement.

Rimmler, though? She knew he didn't see it
that way. She couldn't blame him; since he reported directly to
her, she stood in the way of his promotion. But she could expect
him to at least do his job and collect his paycheck. To respect her
authority, and execute her directives when she issued them. The
fact that she was standing at the lip of this fifteen foot chasm,
face bathed in daylight pouring in from the massive crevice before
her, was testament to the fact that he did not respect her. She
could feel the anger roiling in the pit of her stomach. She turned
to face the scores of men busily at work assembling the factory
machinery.

"Where's Rimmler?" she shouted, making sure
that all could hear the indignation in her voice. Immediately, the
din of the construction crew quieted.

"I said, where's Rimmler? Tell me he's
on-site, at least."

A second-story office door opened and Howard
Rimmler emerged. He was a broad-shouldered, bearded man who looked
at home in the wild. If he'd been born fifty years earlier, he'd
have been a gold prospector. But the 5' 3" Susanna wasn't
intimidated by his frame. She was in charge here, and she was going
to make sure he knew that.

She watched, hands on her hips, as Rimmler
slowly descended the long, metal staircase that led to the ground
level. The other workers were silent, motionless, as Rimmler
approached.

"Yes, Mrs. Cole?" Rimmler
said when he at last reached the floor. He wiped the sweat from his
forehead with an oily rag he kept slung over his shoulder. It
wasn't nervous sweat; rather, it was indignant sweat. Sweat that
seemed to say,
I'm working harder than
you
.

Susanna pointed to the building's obvious,
gaping wound. "What is that?" she asked.

"That's where the bomb went off, M'am."

"I know that, Howard," Susanna said. "Does
anything look wrong with that picture to you?"

"Yes, m'am. The blueprints never called for a
hole in the floor."

A murmuring wave of chuckles rippled out
amongst the crew, but this was quickly self-censored.

"Why is no one fixing it? When I specifically
gave you instructions to take care of the problem yesterday?"
Susanna let her final word sit. She wasn't even going to bring up
the small matter of why the fence outside had seemingly walked
off.

Rimmler let out an exasperated sigh. "Mrs.
Cole," he began. "As I stated yesterday, we've got a lot to do to
get ready. I've only got the manpower I'm given, and my schedules
do not account for the possibility of bombs going off.

"Now, obviously someone's going to have to
take care of that. But if you want the job to get done on time, I
recommend you hire additional manpower to patch that up. It's not a
difficult job—you can contract the work out to a few extra hands
for a couple of weeks."

"You're missing the point, Rimmler," Susanna
said. "You report to me. I weigh all of our options, I take into
consideration all of the possibilities, I make a judgement call.
Your job, then, is to help me make that judgement call happen."

"I understand that, Mrs. Cole," Rimmler said,
his volume beginning to creep up. Susanna was learning to hate how
he addressed her, putting the emphasis on the "Missus" as he did.
"But what you're asking is not possible. We can't do both things
and still finish on time. So I have to make a judgement call of my
own."

Susanna was at an impasse with him. She
wasn't going to spend her day arguing. She sighed. "Get the hole
fixed, Howard. As a matter of fact, I don't want your crew to do a
single other task until that hole is taken care of. Until I can't
see straight through to the basement. You understand?"

"Yes, m'am," Rimmler grumbled. His words were
a concession, but a fire burned in his eyes.

Susanna turned to the throng of workers that
had gathered to watch the emerging shitshow. "Show's over,
gentlemen," she announced. "Everyone back to work, except for
Rimmler's men. They have their orders."

By lunchtime, her blood pressure felt like it
had resumed a more or less normal course. At noontime every day,
she called lunch for her crew. Then she returned to her on-site
office and ate in blissful solitude. Sometimes Wayne would stop by,
if it was convenient for him. Today, however, when Susanna opened
the door to her office, Wayne was already waiting for her.

"Hey." She gave Wayne a casual peck on the
cheek. "How are things?"

"Not bad," her husband responded. "We haven't
had a chance to really talk since, well, you know. I thought I'd
stop by."

In the flurry of the morning's events, she'd
put the Jesse situation on the back burner. Now it came whooshing
back to her consciousness. Was this what it took for Wayne to show
some concern in her life? The unspoken threat of cuckoldry?

"Thanks," she said.

"Yeah."

Susanna became aware of the buzz of the
halogen bulb overhead. Wordlessly, she retrieved a sandwich Martha
had made for her that morning from the icebox, and started in on
it. Wayne cleared his throat, and took a bite of his lunch
accordingly.

"You know, I was thinking," he said, between
mouthfuls of tuna sandwich. "We should really get away, after the
factory launch. Just the two of us, and Junior. Take a train to New
York, and then a boat to Europe? A nice family trip."

Susanna had to admit, she hadn't expected
that from him. Any time she'd brought up the idea of vacation,
Wayne had banished it to the circular file. Maybe having Jesse
around could, in a twisted way, actually benefit their
marriage.

"I would love to do that," she said. "Knowing
you, though, I'd better get it in writing before you change your
mind."

"I won't," he promised. "I'm itching to
stretch my legs. There will always be work in Bridgetown for us to
come back to."

"Especially if you keep giving me more
factories to build."

Wayne grimaced.

Susanna put her food down. "What is it?"

"Well, it's no big deal," he said, putting
his hands out in a subtle braking gesture. "And, before I say
anything, I really want to stress that you shouldn't take this the
wrong way. I mean, you know how I feel. It's just that, the times
being what they are—"

"Wayne, spit it out."

"The board wants to hand over project
management to someone else. They want you to keep focus on planning
the gala ceremonies instead."

Susanna's heart sank. He had been buttering
her up before the feast. And now came the meat cleaver. "Oh, I see
why you really came down here."

"Susanna, I swear, it's not like that—"

"Why the hell would they want to replace me
now?" She asked. "We're only a month away from the start of
production. We're on time, everything's going great. Who do they
think they're gonna get for the job this late in the game?" As soon
as she asked the question, she regretted it. She could hear the
answer coming like a train roaring down the tracks.

"Well, I believe Howard Rimmler's name was
mentioned." Wayne swallowed, adding, "he does have a lot of
experience."

Was the ringing Susanna suddenly heard all in
her head? Was it possible to be so angry that it drove a person to
madness?

Wayne was waiting for her to say something,
she could tell. Instead, she only glared at him, arms folded.

"They don't want any controversy," Wayne went
on, attempting to explain himself. "Or any doubt about the way our
operations are being run, once we're in the national
spotlight."

That was it. Susanna felt like flipping the
desk over. "Why don't you stand up for me, for once? Instead of
giving in to these backwards imbeciles?"

"Look, you and I both know this isn't about
your actual abilities," Wayne said. His palms were open to her, in
a theatrical show of fealty. "I'm asking you to make a sacrifice,
for the good of Cole Company. This is about public perception. And
I can't change that, you know that. At least, not right away." For
good measure, he added, "I'm so sorry."

"No, you're not. And I know this isn't about
the appearance of impropriety. You're tired of raising eyebrows
every time you go to some smoking club and they wonder who wears
the pants in your house. You must get tired of the jokes, the
rumors. I know the kinds of bigots we do business with."

"Look, I wish it wasn't this way, but there
are some trade-offs to living in the time that we do."

"If people found out that a wealthy woman
actually got her hands dirty by choice—"

"Suze—"

"I can't deal with this shit right now,"
Susanna said. "Just get out." Her lips were pursed.

Maybe Wayne realized he was better off giving
her some distance. He stood up and headed for the door.

"Next time I see Rimmler," Susanna said, "I'm
going to punch him in the face. Just know that when it happens,
it's you I ought to be punching."

Wayne left, closing the door behind him
quietly.

After a moment, Susanna slammed her fists
down on the table.

She steadied her breath. Nothing good came
from letting others get to her. Susanna's honed sense of
self-discipline was the sharpest sword in her armory. And it would
continue to suit her well. She needed to distract herself. She
looked down at the day planner laid flat across her table.

2:00p - Ladies of Btown
Asmbly mtng
was scribbled haphazardly in
Susanna's own hand, along with a little cartoon throwing
up.

Rimmler would have to wait a little bit
longer: she had a meeting to go to in just a few minutes. She got
up, straightened her outfit and tidied her hair in the mirror, and
exited her office, locking its door behind her as she always did.
Even though walking onto the factory floor would give her a
straight-shot to the conference rooms, she avoided doing so. She
wanted to keep Rimmler on his toes. As it stood, it would take all
the calm she could muster to talk to the Ladies of Bridgetown about
the inanities of gala preparation.

So, instead, Susanna walked along the
corridor that hugged the factory floor's perimeter. The longer walk
gave her a few extra minutes to gather her thoughts for the
meeting. The painted ladies would be here to talk about flowers. Or
complementary curtain and tablecloth colors. Or something. She
hadn't really been paying attention on the phone. She'd had real
matters to worry about. And now, all she could think about was how
much she'd rather be making Cole Co. viable. About how her long
hours and many scrapes and bruises earned in erecting the largest,
most advanced structure Bridgetown had ever seen were about to be
stolen from her.

From the hall, the conference quarters were a
series of blank doors, in Wayne's preferred minimal aesthetic, with
only a colored dot to identify each one. The hall still smelled
sour with fresh paint, while the odor of machine lubricant that
Susanna so loved receded into the distance, as did the familiar
sounds of the workers' toiling. That buzz of the factory floor was
so preferable to the stuffy stillness here.

Susanna sighed. She opened the door to the
conference quarters and laid eyes upon a dozen-plus of the most
well-to-do wives of the city. Each one wore a hat that made her
look like the mutant offspring of a palm frond and a peacock. Their
midsections were sucked in to impossible points, their collars
practically reaching up to their earlobes.