Kings of Infinite Space: A Novel (26 page)

But as he swung into his cube, what Paul saw was worse: a new Post-it from Olivia pasted against his streaming screen saver. It read, in her razor-sharp print:

RFP TEAM MEETING
RICK’S OFFICE
8:00
AM
.
SHARP
.
—
O. H
.

Paul whirled. Olivia was not in her cube, so he jerked the Post-it off his screen and ripped it in half, then ripped it in half again and stuffed it into his wastebasket. He jiggled his mouse to get rid of the screen saver—the motto was beginning to annoy him—and marched out the door, around the corner, and up the aisle towards Rick’s office to announce his decision not to work for Olivia. He blundered straight into Renee and caught her by the shoulders. “I’m, I’m, I’m
sorry,”
he stammered, the two of them wheeling round each other like square dancers. Renee stamped her foot against the carpet, instantly red faced and speechless, and Paul let her go—
gingerly, so that she wouldn’t fall—and rounded the corner. Ahead, all three of his luncheon companions were gliding out of their cube doorways like wooden soldiers on an antique clock. The Colonel cocked his eye at Paul and waved him alongside, putting his arm around Paul’s shoulders. “What’s going on here, Professor?” he murmured in Paul’s ear. “What’s Olivia up to?”

“How should I know?” Paul said.

“You sit across from the little bitch.” The Colonel’s blunt fingers dug into Paul’s arm. “If there’s something we need to know, you might give us a heads-up.”

As they approached Rick’s office, Nolene looked up at them from her monitor and rolled her eyes. Inside, Olivia had pulled a chair up to the front of Rick’s desk, her knees together, her heels lifted, the balls of her feet pressed to the carpet. She clutched a notepad on her lap, her hands neatly folded over the pad, her pen clutched between them. She nodded as each man came into the room. Bob Wier cowered in the corner, putting a chair between himself and the rest of the room, and J.J. tried to prop himself casually on the lip of the little round table across from Rick’s desk. The Colonel maneuvered Paul into the office ahead of him, then set his feet at parade rest, crossed his arms, and lifted his chin. Paul hunched near the door with his hands in his pockets. Behind the desk Rick lifted his eyebrows at the little crowd. A copy of the RFP, heavily emended, was spread before him.

“Looks like we counted our chickens before the barn door was shut.” Rick’s eyebrows danced. “I’ve asked Olivia to join the team, and she’s hit the ground flying.” Olivia dipped her head.

J.J. edged off the table, and after a glance at the Colonel, crossed his arms and affected a pout. Bob Wier looked wildly about like a trapped animal. The Colonel sniffed and said, “Welcome to the team, Olivia.”

“Thank
you,” chirped Olivia, without looking at him.

Rick waved his hand vaguely. “Olivia, why don’t you, uh . . . ?”

“I’ve taken the liberty of making copies of the RFP with my
edits.” Olivia half rose from her chair and lifted a stack of fresh copies, collated and stapled, off the corner of Rick’s desk. She thrust them towards Paul who, after a sullen pause, heaved himself out of the doorway and took the stack. He handed a copy each to J.J. and the Colonel. Bob Wier reached gingerly out from behind his chair and snatched a copy from Paul’s grasp.

“I’m not suggesting that we go through it now.” Olivia perched again on the edge of her chair. “I’m sure we all have too much work to do.”

Paul flipped through the pages of Olivia’s edit. The original, on Rick’s desk, was as bright as an illuminated manuscript, with lime-green highlights and Olivia’s sharp marginalia in red pen; in the photocopy in his hands, the red commentary was black, and the highlighter came through as long, gray blots swallowing line after line. Paul tried to read what Olivia had done, but his rage and terror turned the letters to cuneiform.

“So what I’m suggesting, with Rick’s approval,” she continued, and Rick flipped his hand in the air,
okay, whatever
, “is that the team take some time to digest my suggestions, and that we reconvene on Friday morning—”

“Tomorrow?” gulped J.J.

“—and take the whole day to go over the document, line by line, in light of my suggestions.” She swiveled her gaze round the office. “If that’s okay with you all.”

“Tomorrow?” whimpered Bob Wier.

“Well, you have all day today,” said Olivia. “And if we each take it home with us tonight—”

“Tomorrow’s good,” barked the Colonel. He had not budged from his stance; his arms were still crossed, biceps bulging. His copy of the RFP was rolled up and squeezed nearly in two in one tight fist. “We’ll all make it a priority.”

“That’s good enough for government work,” announced Rick, pressing his palms against the pages of the RFP. “Paul,” he said, darting a glance in Paul’s direction, “whyn’t you book the conference room and the laptop and projector for tomorrow, all day?”

Paul’s throat seized up, but at last he managed to croak, “It’s kinda short notice—”

He was interrupted by a loud harrumph from the Colonel. “The professor’s holding out on us,” he said. “I hear tell he’s got some
pull
in Building Services.”

All eyes turned to Paul, who wanted to shrink against the wall. He glared at the Colonel.

“Sure,” he rasped. “No problem.”

“Well then!” Olivia widened her eyes and stood up. “Let’s all get to work.”

“Yep, you betcha, let’s do that.” Rick waved at them all as if from the deck of a departing cruise ship. Paul and the Colonel stood aside, and Olivia minced out the door and up the aisle. Then J.J. slouched after her, and Bob Wier disentangled himself from his chair and slipped quickly away. The Colonel ostentatiously waved Paul ahead, and then fell in step beside him. He put his arm around Paul again and directed him up the aisle into his own cube, settling Paul into a chair in the narrow space across from his desk. J.J. and Bob Wier crowded in after them. The Colonel flung his rolled-up RFP onto his desk and sat. He folded his hands and glowered at Paul. J.J. glowered at him, too, from the cube doorway, his copy of the RFP crushed under his arm, while Bob Wier clutched the document with both hands and nervously surveyed the cube horizon.

“Professor,” the Colonel said in a low voice, “you might have warned us.”

“About what?” Paul shifted uneasily in the chair. His copy of the RFP was coiled loosely in his hand.

“About Olivia joining the outsourcing project,” the Colonel said.

“I only found out yesterday.” Paul hated the way his voice shot up in pitch.

“You coulda said something at lunch, dickhead,” hissed J.J.

“She’s going to ruin it for all of us,” whispered Bob Wier, his eyes wide and white.

“You’ve been sitting across from her.” Behind the desk the Colonel crossed his arms and stared hard at Paul. “Whatever
you’ve been doing over there, she’s been keeping an eye on you, and now she thinks she can muscle in and take over the whole goddamn project.”

Paul nearly erupted out of his chair. “What I’ve been
doing
over there,” he said, struggling to keep his voice down, “is writing the goddamn RFP.” He shook the document at the Colonel. “I do all the research, I do all the writing, I do
all the fucking work!”
He stopped and drew a breath. Bob Wier shot a nervous glance at the Colonel, as did J.J., and the Colonel lowered his gaze to his desk.

“Jesus Christ,” Paul said, dropping his voice an octave, “did you think I wouldn’t
notice?”

“The professor has kind of a faggy intonation sometimes.” J.J. looked to the Colonel. “Have you noticed that?”

“J.J.,” warned the Colonel.

“You’ve been a real blessing to the team,” Bob Wier said to Paul, in a quavering voice. “Which is why we’d like to invite you to—”

“Reverend!” barked the Colonel. “Shut. Up.”

Bob Wier shrank lower, his shoulders rising up around his ears.

“Invite me to what?” Paul glanced from Bob Wier to the Colonel to J.J., who glared angrily at the floor. “Invite me to
what?
What the fuck is going on with you guys?”

“Karaoke night.” The Colonel uncrossed his arms and touched the top of his desk with the tips of his fingers. “Friday night. The whole team’s invited.”

“Even Olivia?” J.J. glanced up.

“Especially Olivia,” said the Colonel.

The three men exchanged a look while Paul watched from his chair. But before he could say anything, the Colonel stood up and said, “Dismissed. We’ll reconvene at lunch.”

Bob Wier hurried out the door, while J.J. fixed Paul with one last angry glance before he left. Paul stood.

“You have a choice to make, Professor.” The Colonel smoothed out the RFP with the edge of his palm. “You can be a slave for Olivia Haddock, or you can be a man.”

Paul waved his copy of the RFP dismissively and moved out the door.

“We keep you alive to serve this ship,” the Colonel called after him. “Row well and live.”

P
AUL AVOIDED LUNCH WITH THE COLONEL BY PERSUADING
Callie to take him to Sonic, and they sat in the hot cab of her truck with the windows rolled down, in a hot breeze redolent of hot fried foods, and ate cheeseburgers and fries. Paul couldn’t remember the last time he’d shared a meal with a woman at a drive-in. His ex-wife wouldn’t have been caught dead in one—like most postmodern theorists, she was a frightful snob—and Kymberly would have quizzed the plump waitress with the paper hat and the coin changer on her belt about the fat content of every goddamn thing on the menu. It was different with Callie. As hormonal as a fifteen year old, still thinking of the night before, Paul got a teenaged thrill from the way their fingers brushed when they reached into the bag of fries at the same time. They slouched across the big bench seat, their shoulders touching, and traded commentary about the patrons in the vehicles on the far side of the awning.

“See that slick sonuvabitch in the Jeep Cherokee?” Callie asked, with her mouth full.

“The one on his cell phone?” Paul wiped his fingers on a paper napkin. “He’s in real estate.”

“Worse than that,” said Callie. “He’s the kind of snake who buys people’s houses in foreclosure and then leases their own house back to ’em—at twice the interest.”

“Weasel.”

“Plus he’s cheatin’ on his wife.”

“C’mon,” Paul said, “how can you tell that?”

“Look at the way he’s smilin’ and laughin’ on the phone. A guy don’t smile like that when he’s talking to his wife.”

“How do you know he’s married? Maybe he’s single, and he’s talking to his hot new girlfriend.” Paul waggled his eyebrows lubriciously.

“You can see his ring, where his hand rests on the steering wheel. God,” she laughed, waving her burger, “look how he’s curling his fingers around the wheel. Look how he’s
rubbing
it! He ain’t thinkin’ of the little woman.” Callie took an enormous bite of the cheeseburger and a pickle oozed out the other side and landed
plop!
on her darling clavicle.

“I’ll get that,” Paul said. He wanted to pluck the pickle off her warm skin with his teeth.

“Easy there,” she said. She sat up straight and pinched it off herself between two fingernails. Then she rewarded him anyway with a greasy kiss.

On their way back to work, Callie manhandled the stick shift and maneuvered the big, rattling truck through lunchtime traffic, and Paul almost felt he should confide in her. He was beginning to think she might have some rough, sensible, working-class way of looking at his predicament, some Oklahoma gal’s prairie insight into how to deal with a cheer-leading queen like Olivia Haddock or with the oppressive military bonhomie of the Colonel. But at the moment he was happily drowsy, with a bellyful of ground beef, a hot breeze rippling his shirt, and a warm, diffuse, noonday lust for the woman at the other end of the seat.

“How ’bout I come to your place tonight?” Callie said as they pulled into a spot in the TxDoGS lot.

“My place?” Paul said, stirring out of his stupor of beef and desire.

“You’ve been to my place twice. I thought I’d come over to yours this time.”

“You, uh, you were there last night.”

“Unless you don’t want me come over.” She gave him a canny look. “Maybe your
other
girlfriend is coming over tonight.”

“Other girlfriend?” Paul laughed nervously. “I should be so lucky.”

“Ha. Ha.” Callie tugged at the door latch. “I’m not kiddin’, cowboy. I’m coming over.” She heaved the door open on its whining hinges. “I want to see that cat you say you don’t have.”

Paul reached along the seat and clutched Callie’s arm, keeping her in the truck. He had thought that last night’s moment of more or less sincere vulnerability had bought him all the credit he needed for the time being, and now he found himself calculating the likelihood of an appearance by Charlotte if Callie came over. The ghostly cat had been fairly discreet when Paul had lived with Kymberly, but then, it had been Kymberly’s house. Now that Charlotte had Paul all to herself, he wasn’t sure she’d be willing to share him. And there was still Mrs. Prettyman to reckon with, not to mention the beetling stares of all those horny Snopeses.

“You know what?” Paul said abruptly. “Come on over. We’ll get a pizza. We’ll watch a little TV, make a little love. We’ll read to each other from the
Norton Anthology.”
Back off, you freaking dead pussycat, he thought, I have a
girl
, goddammit. And I’m going to have noisy, athletic sex in my own apartment tonight, and you’re going to vanish in a fucking puff of smoke.

“Okay, now you’re foolin’ with me,” Callie said.

“No, I’m not.” He took her hand in both of his and kissed her. She tasted deliciously of mustard and onions and pickle. “Really, truly I’m not,” he murmured, and kissed her again.

Callie was blushing when he pulled away, and he heaved open his door and got out of the truck. He heard Callie’s door bang shut, and then she was alongside him, looking at him quizzically.
“What ain’t you telling me?” She gave him a playful rap with the back of her hand.