Hardly Working (24 page)

“Hell no, I've invested too much hard time and effort in staying sober to blow it all away for a visit to a cold climate.” He twisted the end of his mustache and said, “Well, gotta get back to the paperwork. You talk to Trutch yet?”

I lowered my voice. “Jake, Ian isn't talking to me. Not a word since we broke up two weeks ago. I don't know what to do.”

“Jeez. I hate this kind of crap. We've got enough office crap of our own without adding the personal stuff. That's why they always tell you not to mix business with pleasure, not to sleep with your boss. Anyone can tell you. It always causes problems in the workplace. I sure wish you'd thought about that before you got involved, Dinah. I've seen it before. One half of the couple usually ends up leaving.”

“You don't need to lecture me, Jake. I can beat myself up just fine on my own,” I mumbled, staring at my desk.

“Yeah, I know, Dinah.”

“But just for the record, Jake, I love my job here at Green World International. The pay is shit, the hours are shit, my office is made of cardboard, the CEO is shit, our international conference interpreter is super-shit but I have no intention of quitting just because I slept with the vampire in the fancy suit who is doing dick-all while the rest of us work our guts out.”

Jake grinned and said, “That's why I hired you, Dinah. Your ability to pinpoint the situation.”

“Listen, Jake. Are you up for an out-of-office coffee break? With everybody but Trutch? Ash, too.”

“Important?”

“I think so.”

“No problem. I'll let the others know.”

Half an hour later, Cleo came into my office like a whirlwind. She ranted and railed and gesticulated while I grabbed at my toys, my ceramic mug, my Marge Simpson for President statuette, to keep them from getting knocked over by Cleo's flying hands.

“I can't believe it,” she fumed. “They're reducing at the Recycling Depot. Cutbacks. Evidently, we're giving them less funding. Ian made a few calls.”

“What?”

“It's going to set the whole process back. We had a lot of volunteers there and now where are they going to go? We're going to have to give it up to the landfill barons again. It stinks. Literally. If we don't get on top of recycling every last frigging pin, we're all going to drown in our own garbage within the decade. And that is not the death I pictured for myself.”

“Oh yeah? What kind of death did you picture for yourself?”

“Me, age ninety-nine, swinging in a hammock on some tropical island, a clean energy-efficient tropical island where they all recycle and have up-to-date structures for dealing with urban waste. And I'll be surrounded by a lot of tight young male bodies waving those palm fronds and refilling my drink. Then in a moment of extreme beauty, the sun setting over the ocean and that sort of nonsense, I'll just pop off.”

“That does sound like a happy death, Cleo.”

“It does, doesn't it? I'm going out again. I need a hit of chocolate cream pastry.”

“That ought to hasten your happy death,” I said.

“Yes. And make a note. I want a takeout order in my coffin with me when I do pop off.”

After Cleo had left, I picked up the phone and called the Eldorado Hotel for the umpteenth time.

“This is the television studio,” I said authoritatively. “I'd like to speak to Rupert Doyle. It's urgent,” I said.

The voice on the other end replied, “I'll try his room.” There was a ringing and then the voice came back on and said, “He's not in his room.”

“Can you leave a note to say…?”

“I know. Dinah Nichols called. I know who you are. I'll give him the message.”

Okay. Okay.

I went back to my computer screen and the Mudpuddle project. I could feel it slipping out of reach. Although the Space Centre event had brought in some more substantial donations, it would never be enough for the startup. I wondered if Ian Trutch was building himself a new office because he thought Tod's money was still there.

As I was looking over the figures, I had a sudden irresistible impulse. I left my office, went out through the main room and down the stairs to the reception area where Ida worked.

She was flicking through
People
magazine as she listened to somebody else's conversation on the headset.

“Hey Ida, could you do me a favor?”

“Anything. Just name it.”

“Could you call up to Ian Trutch's office and see if he's in?”

“He's out. Believe me, honey, I always know if that Trutch guy is in. Or out. Or on top. Or on the bottom. I don't miss a second of him. He's better than
Days of Our Lives.
”

“He's out, eh? When did he leave?”

“About forty minutes ago. Took Shirley Temple with him, too. Looks like they were going for an early lunch.” She winked.

I raced up the stairs to the third floor and opened the door cautiously.

I called out his name five times but there was no answer. I went past the secretarial cubicles, positions still to be filled by a parade of anorexic dilettantes from wealthy families, no doubt, and into the huge main office. Although some of the cabinets still needed to be fitted and the room wasn't finished yet, I could see that it was a shrine to luxury. I wandered around, running my fingers over the expensive sur
faces, the rich dark mahogany desk and shelves, the smooth pink marble bar and counters, the custom-crafted brass fittings in the private bathroom and shower, the deep green leather couches and chairs. I took off my shoes and walked across the luscious deep-gray carpet.

With what he was spending on this office, we could have been halfway to setting up Mudpuddle.

To one side of the desk was a tiny tape recorder. Without thinking, I picked it up and pushed the Play button.

It was Ian's voice making lists.

The sound of it did something eerie to me so I pushed the Rewind button.

I pushed Play again. His voice said, “Item. Redundancy. Under review. Ida Fairfax, Cleo Jardine, Lisa Karlovsky. Jake Ramsey. Penelope Longhurst.”

I clicked it off.

Redundancy?

And “under review?”

Is that what they called it now?

Penelope
was under review?

Hey, sailor, you wanna come home and put me under review?

What about me? Where did I figure in his schemes? Did he really think I was going to stay on and work under him (in a manner of speaking) while he axed the rest of the office?

I pushed the Play button again. Ian's voice went on, “Item. Policies stipulated. Alliance Health and Life. Jake Ramsey, Aishwarya Patel. Dinah Nichols, Fran Meyers…”

There were more names listed but I didn't recognize them.

I hurried out of Ian Trutch's office and downstairs to the safety of my own. Except that it wasn't very safe at all. The ship was taking on water. Going down. Sinking.

Lisa interrupted my revelation. She stepped into my office and said, “Bears.”

“What about bears, Lisa?”

“There's a bear problem now. Up in Squamish area. Maybe heading toward North Van. They're wandering into those big forest gardens people have. They've treed a few already. Habitat, Dinah, habitat. There's nowhere to go.”

I put my head in my hands.

She squeezed my shoulder. “But it's okay, Dinah. We're addressing the issues. Oh, and remember. Only ten shopping days until Christmas.”

Ouch, Christmas.

My mother was going to be out of the country so I'd be spending it in town instead of on the island. She'd asked me if I wanted to go with her to Mexico on a manatee-chasing expedition but I'd said no, that I had to track down a certain donor.

I felt like doing something wild so I spent a good part of the afternoon chasing down Alliance Health and Life. By the time I'd finished talking to them, a crisis of the real kind was on its way.

“B
astard,” said Fran. “And he
has
had work. That nose belongs to somebody else.”

“Probably paid for by Green World Recycle-a-Face Fund,” said Cleo.

It was the first time Ash had ever come to Notte's with us, and I could see she was bursting to have her say. “I've been getting receipts for restructuring, plumbing, Italian marble, brass fittings, leather furniture…and they amount to…a lot.”

“Five figures?” ventured Jake.

She shook her head.

“Six?” yelled Ida. “Well, decorate my interior, big daddy.”

“Italian marble imported from Carrara,” said Ash. “I have the invoices.”

“Shit,” muttered Jake, and took a huge mouthful of his black forest cake.

I said, “I can tell you who's under consideration for redundancy. Ida, Cleo, Lisa. Jake…and Penelope.”

Ida shook her head. “What a creep. Axing his squeeze.”

I put down my éclair. “You guys haven't heard the worst of it yet. He's got insurance policies out on me, Ash, Jake, and Fran. And not just any old policy. It's called ‘janitor's insurance.' If one of us kicks while we're working for the company, the management gets the money. We don't even have to know about it.”

“Jesus.” Jake rubbed his chin.

“The last place he was in, there was this union woman. Moira told me, before she was fired, that he pressured her. She had a heart attack…and
died.
”

Everyone stared at me, stunned.

“She was covered by Alliance Health and Life, too. But wait, I still haven't finished. At the Space Centre event, I overheard him talking to a certain politician, and you all know who I mean, the one who hates us, and Ian Trutch and him are planning on selling water to anyone who'll pay up…”

Everyone was frozen.

Except Lisa.

Lisa was smiling and serene. “You guys are getting all worked up over nothing. I'm sure everything's going to be all right. I'm sure it is.”

Tuesday

After work, I went to see Thomas. I stretched out on his creaky leather couch and took a big breath.

“You look well, Dinah,” said Thomas.

“I don't feel well.”

“Why do you say that?”

“First of all, the man I was going out with dumped me and hasn't spoken to me since.”

“In the Buddhist way of seeing things, pain is a given, Dinah. We've talked about this. It's all right to feel pain.”

“Pain. Right. Feel it. Gotcha.”

“Is that sarcasm I'm hearing?”

“I would never be sarcastic with you, Thomas,” I lied.

He made a satisfied little snuffling noise.

I went on, “And second of all, I danced with somebody on Friday night and I can't remember who it was although I can remember everything else about the rest of the evening. I still can't picture his face. Could that be psychological?”

“You're answering your own questions.”

“Okay. But could it?”

“Possibly.”

“And the third thing is, I'm a dead peasant.”

“Excuse me?”

“There are these things happening at work. I just found out that our new CEO, the same guy I just told you about who dumped me, has taken out life insurance policies on me and five other people.”

“Oh, yes?”

“I spent the whole afternoon researching it. First, I called up the insurance company pretending I was his secretary and it turns out that he can do this. A lot of corporations do it, take out insurance policies on their employees without telling them, and if the employee dies suddenly before retirement age, the corporation gets the benefits. Nothing goes to the employee's family. They don't even know about it. Sometimes the corporation funnels the money back into their retirement fund, and sometimes they don't. Sometimes that money is buying a nice vacation home for the CEO in the Bahamas. It's called dead peasants insurance. Or janitor's insurance. The name dates back to the days when plantation owners took out insurance on their slaves.”

“Are you sure about this?”

“Too sure. And do you know how this makes me feel?”

“That's…disturbing.”

“You're telling me.”

“How do you feel about it?”

“God, Thomas. Do you really need to ask? How do you think I feel?”

“Let's talk about it. “

“I feel like a nothing. Like dust. And why does he think I'm more likely to drop dead accidentally than some of those other people who he didn't take out policies on?”

“That's good. Keep going. Tell me about all your feelings.”

“It makes me feel very, very angry.”

“Let's talk about that anger…”

“
Bronca.
I'm full of
bronca.
”

“You've lost me, Dinah.”

“It's an Argentine word. It means full of anger to the point of exploding, but not actually exploding.”

“It's all right to explode, Dinah.”

“I don't like wasted energy.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean that when I explode, my anger's going to have a direction and a purpose.”

“Oh.”

“Oh what, Thomas?”

“I'm not sure that we're making progress here, Dinah.”

Wednesday

I was early for my tango lesson. And so was Hector. There was a feeling growing between us and it was all wrong. Our wires were crossed and I had to uncross them.

“How are you tonight, Dinah?” he asked me.

He looked surprisingly good. Rested. Happy. Jeans and T-shirt casual. And he wasn't smoking. I didn't mind him being my father at all.

“I don't know.”

He laughed. “I don't believe you.” He went over to the stereo and put some music on it. “Astor Piazzolla. A master.
He tried to deny his tango heart but in the end it captured him. Now tell me how you are.”

“I'm full of
bronca.
”

“Bronca?”
He laughed again. “Why is that?”

“Everything. Everything in my life is a mess.”

“Then you must come to the
milonga
this Friday.”

“Can I?”

“First show me what you learned last time.”

I repeated the steps with him.

“I think you will be all right, Dinah. You are a very fast learner. It is hard to believe that you have never danced the tango. You have a natural ability.”

I didn't tell him about all those hours of practice, trying to follow the tapes from the library, and posturing and gesturing like a crackpot tango diva in front of the bathroom mirror, and the prancing and stumbling back and forth in my living room and along the hallway with imaginary partners. Inner tango, I called it.

He turned me in an elaborate figure. I let myself go and followed.

He said, “Tell me about your family in Buenos Aires.”

“That's not so easy for me to do, Hector.”

“No?”

“No.”

“And why?”

“You were telling me about your sister?

“Yes.”

“When you mentioned your sister Alicia…”

“Yes, Alicia. She was older than me. It's hard to believe that in one night, my life was changed forever.”

We moved faster around the dance floor, our figures growing more complex. And when the dance was over, neither of us wanted it to end. The two of us stood at the center of the floor, face-to-face.

Hector looked me in the eyes and said, “You must under
stand that my family was privileged. We grew up with nannies and tutors for French and English. We were members of the polo club. At the time, we believed we were some kind of royalty. This is a problem that some of us Argentines have, wishing we were European. And wishing we were royalty.” He laughed bitterly.

“When the generals took over again, things became difficult. Artistic families like mine were a target. In a moment like that you realize that some artists, and I am talking about many of my friends who were writers and musicians, are more vulnerable than you believed. And my sister. She had such a spirit. We were very close, only a year apart. She was a famous dancer in Argentina. Very talented. She was an icon in Buenos Aires.”

“What happened?”

“My family lost everything in the upheaval of the time. I wasn't there when it happened but they were left with nothing, and were unable to bear the strain, emotionally, physically. My mother, father and sister. I should have been there. I should not have left them alone. Argentina has always been a difficult and temperamental country. I was away at the time, in New York, playing with a group. There was no reason to go back. I would not have been able to bear it.”

“You could go back now. Years have passed. Things have changed.”

His voice became low and gravelly. “I don't think so. What would I find when I went back? Memories. There are so many ghosts. I'm afraid they would follow me.”

I nodded.

For several minutes there was only the sound of the music, and our feet scraping and clattering across the wooden floorboards.

Hector murmured, “Now I would like to hear about
your
ghosts.”

I swallowed. It was now or never. I jumped in. “I also have a father from Buenos Aires.”

“You have not told me your family name. Who was your father? Perhaps I ran across him. You never know.”

I hesitated. I was scared, a little sorry about my deceit, and ready for Hector's
bronca
.

I choked out the word. “You.”

He hadn't heard me. “Pardon?”

“You.”

I waited for the explosion.

Nothing.

“My father's name is Hector Ferrer,” I said.

He stopped dancing and pushed me back. He shook his head. “What do you mean? What are you talking about?”

“You and Marjory Nichols.”

“Marjory…?” He peered at me, searching my face for clues, struggling to grasp what I'd just told him.

I said, “Marjory Nichols is my mother. I'm your daughter.”

In a split second, Hector Ferrer became another man. His expression closed down and became unreadable and formal. He was now an embarrassed stranger. He went over to the stereo, turned off the music and said politely, “I'm sorry. I can't teach you again. You must leave. This has all been a mistake.” He became flustered and said, “Go, you must go. I can't see you. Please, don't come back. I'll make sure you have a refund for any other lessons.”

“I don't want a refund. I haven't paid for any other lessons.”

“Please, just go.” He seemed disoriented and confused. He turned his back on me and walked toward the little room off the stage. He went through and shut the door. I followed him and tried the door, but he'd locked it. I thought about banging it down but I'd had enough rejection for one evening.

 

On the way home from Los Tangueros, I stopped at the Eldorado Hotel. Just on the off-chance. The same accordion-faced receptionist was on duty. Sort of. I had to yell at him to wake him up.

“Is Rupert Doyle here?” I asked.

“He is,” said the man. “Room five-thirty-three. But he'll be sleeping. Still getting over all the travel and the change of climate. He's come in from…Brazil,” whispered the man, as if he were Rupert's proud father and Brazil was at the end of the universe.

I headed for the elevator. It was a Claustrophobia Special and groaned and jerked in a way that did not inspire confidence. It took just a little too long to arrive on the fifth floor, but at least I did arrive.

I knocked hard on his door.

A whole two minutes passed. No answer.

I tried knocking again, and calling his name softly.

After a few minutes of this, there was a noise from within.

The door opened and Rupert Doyle filled the doorway wearing nothing but a pillow in front of himself.

“Oh Christ,” he said when he realized who I was. He jumped back out of the doorway and half closed the door. “Just give me a minute, eh, Dinah. Just let me get something on here.” The door opened up again. He was wearing pants and not much else. “Come in. This is an unexpected…uh…pleasure.”

I stepped inside. The room was chaos, bachelor-style, wall-to-wall books and photographs. An unmade bed. Clothes heaped on the floor.

“Excuse the mess. They have maid service here but I don't like them cleaning. I can never find anything afterward. Can I offer you something to drink? I've got a bottle of Bahia…”

I shrugged.

“It's a Brazilian coffee liqueur.”

“Sure, I guess,” I said.

“I just got back a few days ago. I was down there doing a piece on the rain forests.” He snorted. “Ha. What's left of them, I ought to say. I didn't say goodbye, did I? I'm sorry I left in such a hurry last time we met… I have a glass around here somewhere. Patience.” He went into the bathroom and came out holding a tooth mug triumphantly. He poured some of the liqueur into the tooth mug and some into an old paper coffee cup for himself. He handed the glass to me and raised his. “Cheers.”

“Your health,” I said.

“Have a seat.” He pulled a chair over near the bed. I sat down. He perched on the edge of the bed and then gazed at me. “Amazing. I saw a little of it before but now I can see it more and it's so remarkable.”

“What is?”

“The resemblance.”

“Who? What resemblance?”

“I should show you something, Dinah.” He stood up and began to rummage through books and papers on the shelves above the desk. “I haven't been completely honest with you.”

“It's okay, Rupert. November was National Dishonesty Month. We all get a second chance to come clean in December.”

He chuckled. “Okay, I found it.” He came over to me and held out a color photograph. A black-haired woman in a gorgeous tight red dress held a tango dancer's pose. I peered a little harder at the woman's profile.