Pink Slip Party (21 page)

It takes Ferguson a few minutes to extract himself from the back of the Impala. His flashlight gets tangled in the seatbelt, and he spends a second disengaging it.

“Hurry up,”
Missy is hissing at Ferguson. Once free, he clambers over to us and we begin our twenty-yard walk to the door. Ferguson, who has been crouched low and giving us all hand gestures like a Navy SEAL, stops midway there, winded. He bends over and puts his hands on his knees to catch his breath.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Missy hisses.

Once at the front doors, Missy uses Ferguson’s key card to slip inside. Ferguson does an elaborate spin move, as if he’s a SWAT commander trying to avoid laser light triggers. I walk normally over the threshold, giving him a look. He gives me the “OK” then “thumbs-up” signs.

“Strike Team is in place,
over,”
Ferguson says into his walkie-talkie.

“We’re all on the same team,” I hiss at him. “There’s only
one
team.”

“You’re supposed to say, ‘over,’
over,”
he whispers back.

“Come on,” Steph says, dragging him away.

We take the stairs up to the second floor, and almost immediately come upon Steph’s old cube. It’s now covered in framed pictures of someone’s Scottish terrier, along with a terrier calendar, and an oversized postcard that says “Dogs Are People, Too!”

I have to wrap both arms around Steph to prevent her from actually dismantling the cube.

“Let me break just one framed picture, just one!” she pleads with me as I wrestle her back into the hall.

“That wouldn’t be very obvious, now would it?” I ask her, trying to settle her down.

“Well, let’s go visit your cube, and see how you like it,” Steph whispers.

My cube is two sections over from Steph’s. It faces a window, so I know someone’s bound to have moved into it the very afternoon I left.

What I am not prepared for is to see that the entire IT department has moved into my old space. Part of me was hoping for the poetry of the lone empty cube, a standing memorial to the significant loss of my leaving.

Instead, my old desk is nearly unrecognizable. It has been converted into a
South Park
mecca, every available surface covered in pictures of Cartman and cows.

It’s like I never existed at all.

Steph shrugs. “Well, on the bright side, at least it’s not decorated entirely in Scottish terrier,” she says.

*   *   *

Missy takes two wrong turns before we’re in the server room, which is really nothing more than an oversized janitor’s closet, with lots of dusty shelves containing stacked electronic equipment like some sort of storage room for Star Trek props. Wires hang out everywhere.

Ferguson knocks over the trash can in the corner with a clang, causing us to stare at him.

“Sorry,
over,”
he cackles into the walkie-talkie.

“Is someone going to take that from him, or do I have to do it?” I ask the group.

Missy sits down in front of the only computer screen in the room and begins typing.

“Commander, permission to secure kitchen area,
over,”
Ferguson demands of Missy.

“Permission denied,” Missy says.

“But I’m hungry,
over,”
Ferguson whines.

“Why didn’t you eat before we left?” Missy hisses.

“I did eat before we left.” Ferguson is holding his stomach and making a pinched face.
“Over.”

“We’ll eat later,” Missy says.

With chilling precision, Missy takes a crowbar out of the bag she’s carrying and jimmies the lock on the file drawer in front of her. She picks up a notebook inside, containing, she says, all the system’s passwords. With ease, she gets into the email system, and times the email, which will fire all the executives, to go out the next day. Then she starts on payroll.

“One month or two?” Missy asks me. “Should we suspend their pay for one month or two?”

“Two,” Steph says.

“Where’s Ferguson?” Missy asks me.

Steph and I find Ferguson crouched in the corner of the office kitchen, trying to eat someone’s Dinty Moore stew.

“Kitchen secure,” he says, jumping up and wiping his mouth.

“Over.”

“Give me that walkie-talkie,” I hiss, jumping at him. We get into a tug of war before Steph pulls us apart.

“Stay focused, people,” she commands.

“Copy that,
over,”
Ferguson says into his radio.

On our way back from the kitchen, we pass by Human Resources. The door is open, and a couple of desk lights are on.

“Let’s do it,” Steph says.

“Do what?”

“See what other people make,” she says.

The personnel files are locked, and so it takes us a little while to get them open using nothing more than a ruler and the leverage of my Doc Martens. Unlike Missy, we are not seasoned in the techniques of larceny.

“Look at this,” Steph says, pulling out the file on Mike.

He has three documented counts of sexual harassment against him, and one pending lawsuit. Looks like he tried the old let’s-have-an-expensive-dinner-and-sex trick with a few other people in the office. But not all of them had been as willing as I was to accept it. I am strangely peeved. I thought I’d been special.

“The company settled two cases against him already,” Steph says, flipping through a few other pages in his file.

“How much?”

“Doesn’t say.”

“Give me that,” I say. I’m copying it. I don’t know what I’m going to do with it, but I’m taking it with me.

“Come on, we’re done,” Missy says, clamping a hand on my shoulder.

“Where’s Ferguson?” I ask Missy.

“Who cares?” she replies.

“We can’t leave him,” I say.

“I’m going. If you want to stay that’s your business,” Missy says.

Steph looks from me to Missy and back again.

“I’ll help you look for him,” Steph says.

Steph goes one way, and I go another, and we each whisper Ferguson’s name. Before we even cover half the floor, a blaring alarm sounds. Missy’s tripped up a fire alarm, either on purpose or by accident. Knowing Missy, she probably deliberately set it off to make us her patsies.

I run toward the kitchen, where I nearly collide with Ferguson, who is trying to eat someone’s week-old leftovers. I grab him by the hand and start running, and see across the row of cubes that Steph has the same idea. We’re both headed for the stairwell. We push open the door, fly down the stairs, and are suddenly out the door and into the underground parking lot — the executive parking lot. Ferguson’s shoes are making clacking sounds against the concrete enclosed garage.

Suddenly, there are bright white headlights in front of us. Steph grabs us and shoves us behind a car.

The headlights have to be the guard, or the police. We’re dead.

I heard once about a plane that lost part of its roof midflight, the force of lost air pressure sucking out several rows of seats.

I often wondered what you would do in a freefall. You have seven minutes or more before you hit the ground. You’d grow tired of screaming. You’d have to take several breaths to scream. And then, nothing to do but wait. You have an eternity to watch the ground come up to meet you. You see it coming the whole way. Faster and faster. A tiny road map growing bigger and bigger. Circles becoming trees, lines, roads — the Monet turning into a photograph, sharp and clear. Until you smash into a hundred blades of grass, and beneath, hard earth.

What Color Is Your Parachute?
does not have a chapter on worst-case survival advice for plummeting 1,000 feet at terminal velocity.

I am bargaining with God.

Never again will I ever do anything illegal, I vow silently, as I watch the bright headlights stop in front of us as we crouch by the bumper of the Lincoln. I swear, from now on, if I am not caught, I will say hello to Mrs. Slatter every day — that is, if she ever gets back from Las Vegas. I will bring her cookies. I will ask if she has enough heat in her apartment. I will be nice to my brother Todd. I will make an effort to be nice to my dad. I will be more supportive of my Mom. I will stop feeling sorry for myself. I will stop blaming other people for my problems. I will get out of debt.

I will happily answer phones at any law office that will have me. I will return Kyle’s calls. I will be nicer to Ron. I will pay all the rent I owe Landlord Bob, even if he is a gambling addict and double-dealer. I will not press charges against Missy. I will be nicer to animals. I will be nicer to the homeless. I will do charity work. I will volunteer.

I will go to church. I will pray regularly. I will confess my sins. I will consider joining the Peace Corps.

The engine stops, and I hear the sound of a car door opening.

I will never again say anything bad about anyone with a “Jesus Saves” bumper sticker. I will faithfully pass along any chain email letters I get professing to be sent from angels. I will always let people over into my lane when they are trying to get on the expressway. I will never again shun people giving out fliers on the street. I will even be nice to Scientologists.

“Dudes, what are you doing?” I hear Ron’s voice. I open my eyes and see Ron standing in front of the headlights of his Impala. I have never been so glad to see him, ever.

Ron, however, doesn’t want to leave without Missy, and so we circle the parking lot until it’s obvious she’s already gone. He won’t even go when the fire truck arrives, and we wait, lights off, at the far end of the parking lot, while we watch the firefighters pile out of their truck and investigate the false alarm.

“Missy was just after my bod, I guess,” Ron says, sadly, as he starts up the Impala and takes us home.

Kinsella and Wood
Attorneys at Law
635 N. St. Clair Street
Chicago, IL 60611

Jane McGregor
3335 Kenmore Ave., #2-E
Chicago, IL 60657

April 10, 2002        Certified Letter

Dear Ms. McGregor,

We represent Robert Mercier, the owner of the property located at 3335 Kenmore Avenue, where you currently reside. According to our records, you owe Mr. Mercier two months’ rent ($3,300) along with additional late fees and penalties ($650), and the security deposit ($1,650), which Mr. Mercier says he has no records of you paying him.

We urge you or your representative to contact us immediately to work out a payment of this outstanding debt or face legal eviction. If we do not hear from you within three business days, we will petition the court to have you physically removed from the premises.

Sincerely,
David Wood
Attorney at Law
Kinsella and Wood

14

A
t my apartment, we find the muses painting one another’s toenails and watching reality TV. None of us says anything about the break-in. We are all too stunned to speak.

Missy doesn’t come home, which is good news as far as I’m concerned. In fact, it seems she’s already somehow planned her exit, by removing most of her stuff from my apartment. I wonder if she planned this escape from the beginning.

The muses use up the last of Steph’s Biolage shampoo, and so by the end of the weekend, she’s had enough and moves out to stay with her sister. Ferguson, after fending off a nasty bout of food poisoning from the bad leftovers he stole from Maximum Office, decides that he ought to go back to his own apartment. When he leaves, he gives me a tight hug and says that he owes me his life.

“I didn’t do anything,” I say.

“You saved me, and I won’t forget it,” he says. “You could’ve left me behind and you didn’t.”

“Really, it’s nothing.”

He gives me a mock salute and hugs me again.

Ron, who is taking Missy’s sudden departure hard, won’t even smoke pot when offered, and instead stares out the back window like a Lab waiting for his owner to get home. I put the copy of Mike’s file underneath my bed. I still don’t know what I’m going to do with it. I am tempted to mail it to his fiancée, but I don’t want to make any hasty decisions.

The muses stay, after offering to do some housework, and besides the fact that Vishnu likes to do yoga poses naked in my living room, things are almost normal.

Monday comes and, miraculously, I discover that I have not been fired from my temp job working for Jean Naté as the front office receptionist. It figures that the one job I want to be fired from I may keep forever.

After a long day of answering phones, I get a letter from Landlord Bob, threatening eviction. Immediately, I march up the stairs and start pounding on his door.

I know he’s there, because I can hear the television on inside, but he’s not answering his door.

After I start banging the tune of “Oops, I Did It Again” on the door, he finally shouts at me.

“TALK TO MY LAWYERS, YES?” he shouts through the door.

“Bob, it’s not my fault that you have a gambling problem,” I say. “You can’t do this to me. It’s extortion.”

“TALK TO MY LAWYERS!”

“Admit it Bob, I only owe you one month’s rent.”

“ZOO LATE ON RENTS, NOT MY PROBLEM,” Landlord Bob shouts through his door.

“One month, Bob. One.”

“LAWYERS!” Landlord Bob shouts.

Talking to Landlord Bob is like trying to get a Parisian to admit to speaking English; it’s a futile exercise.

At my temp job at the law firm the next day, I find myself so preoccupied with my current state, and with thinking about Mike’s folder, that I nervously tangle up the phone cords so that my headset is only a foot from the console. I am trying to untangle a pretty serious knot when the elevator doors in front of me open and in walks Kyle Burton.

His eyes widen a bit in surprise, but he recovers quickly. I must look as shocked as I feel because Kyle says, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Hastily, I jump up from my seat — I don’t know why, but the force of my movement unplugs my headset, sending the endpoint of the cord straight into my eye. This is not the Ice Queen act that I so desperately wanted to play out the next time I saw him.