Termination Man: a novel (14 page)

She felt her face grow red at this question. Partly because of its personal nature, and partly because no, she had not. Without answering Shawn Myers, she knelt down to retrieve a wastepaper basket from beneath one of the desks.

Now there was the sound of Shawn’s chair being rolled back. He was standing up. Then footsteps in her direction.

“You know,” he said. “You might try opening up to me a little more. It would do you good to have an older person to talk to. I know that your mother isn’t married, so you don't have many older men in your life, do you, Alyssa? Well, some teachers, maybe; but what the hell do any of
them
know?”

This remark stung on so many levels: More than anything, there was the reference to her parents’ divorce—which she rarely discussed with anyone, including Tiffany. On a broader level, there was his assumption of familiarity. Why was he talking to her like this—as if the two of them were good friends?

But a part of her believed that she knew exactly why. She might be a virgin, but she wasn’t naïve.

Then she heard Shawn issue an unabashed whistle, what people called a “wolf whistle.” It occurred to her, as she ducked beneath the desk, that she was giving Shawn Myers a clear view of her behind. And the volume of the sound indicated that he was standing right behind her now.

“Do you even
have
a boyfriend, Alyssa?”

Alyssa ignored the question. In a maneuver that reminded her of the games she once played on grade school playgrounds, Alyssa crawled completely beneath the desk, and then the desk that was placed against it in the opposite row, dragging the wastepaper basket with her all the way. She finally emerged from beneath the far row of desks. It had been a bit like crawling through a tunnel. 

“Where the hell did you go?” Shawn asked, his voice revealing an edge of irritation now. As Alyssa clambered to her feet, Shawn ducked beneath the desk that Alyssa had first crawled under. He had to back out. There was not much space down there; and it could only be traversed by a diminutive person.

She heard Shawn grunt as a he reversed course while still on his hands and knees. Under different circumstances, this spectacle would have been more than a little bit funny.

Finally Shawn stood up.
Was this the first time she had seen him at his full height—the first time she had noticed how large he was, compared to her? 
He seemed to be more than a foot taller than she was. And with his broad shoulders and the beginnings of a middle-aged beer belly, he was easily twice her weight.
If not more.

Making his way around the two facing rows of desks, Shawn lumbered toward her. He swayed unsteadily on his feet.

“You know, Alyssa, I’m only trying to be friendly. I really wish you weren’t such a tease. It makes me sort of uncomfortable.”

Please, God,
she thought.
Just let him go away
.

She looked over her shoulder: She was boxed in by the wall and a row of filing cabinets. For a moment she thought about trying to dodge around him and fleeing down the hall. But he was so big, and obviously strong as well. If he got a grip on her—

And that was what he seemed intent on doing. Shawn took another step closer to her, putting himself within lunging range. The only workable alternative (and it made her feel cowardly and small) was to dive back beneath a desk.

This was exactly what she did. With catlike quickness, she crouched down and slid into the cavity underneath the nearest desk. Then she simply sat there, staring up at him, with no idea what to say or do next.

This provoked laughter from Shawn Myers.

“You’re acting like a baby,” he said. “Is this your idea of hide-and-seek?”

Then she heard another set of footsteps, and her mother’s unmistakable voice.

“Is there a problem, Mr. Myers?”

Alyssa scooted herself out from under the desk and sat on the floor, looking up at her mother and Shawn Myers. It was ridiculous, in a way, for her to be sitting here on the floor like this. Like she was a little kid. All the same, she could not bring herself to stand in Shawn’s immediate presence. The older man paused to give her a quick, baleful look through partially lidded eyes before he responded to her mother.

“No problem at all, Mrs. Chalmers.”

“That’s Ms. Chalmers. Or Donna. And if you have a question or a problem with regard to the cleaning, perhaps you would be kind enough to address the issue with me. My daughter is only helping out. I’m the one you need to talk to talk to if there’s a problem.”

Alyssa held her breath while the two adults faced each other, towering above her pathetic position on the floor. Her mother seemed to be attempting to strike just the right degree of firmness. The situation was
ambiguous
, after all, wasn’t it? (
She momentarily distracted herself with the realization that this was yet another word that would be beyond the reach of her classmates at New Hastings High School.)
And Shawn Myers was a man who could easily make life more difficult for her mother and her. It would take no more than a word from him, and another cleaning company would have the contract that her mother had described as being so important.

“There’s no problem, Mrs. Chalmers.”

Alyssa’s mother didn’t bother to correct Shawn Myers again in regard to her name. But she did say:

“Very well. If you don’t mind then, we’ll get back to our cleaning, and I’ll allow you to get back to your work. It’s getting late. I’m sure you’re anxious to finish up so you can head home for the evening.”

Resigned, Shawn gave Donna a sarcastic smirk and turned on his heels. He appeared to be stumbling a bit.
Was he intoxicated?

“My father tells me that the manager should be the last one to leave the office,” he said, without turning around. This comment seemed to be addressed to no one in particular; and Alyssa found its meaning and context to be inscrutable. Shawn’s words were slurred. Yes, the man had definitely been drinking.

They finished the cleaning in silence. It took longer than usual, because Donna refused to let Alyssa out of her sight. When they left for the evening, it was past nine o’clock, and Shawn Myers was still seated at his desk in the front of the room.

He gave them a wave and a lopsided grin as they departed.

Once in the van, Donna turned to Alyssa and asked:

“Has that man bothered you before?”

Alyssa shrugged. She did not want to discuss this issue with her mother. It made her feel embarrassed, vaguely ashamed. She knew that she wasn’t like some of those girls at school, who dressed themselves with deliberate immodesty in a blatant bid to attract random male attention.
She wasn't like that
.

Or was she?
Had she done something to attract Shawn’s stares and verbal advances?
Had she led him on, somehow?
He was a grown man; and a grown man wouldn’t flirt with a fifteen-year-old girl unless he had reason to believe that his attentions were wanted.
Wasn't that the way things worked?

“Alyssa,” Donna said, her tone and expression a notch more serious. “You’ve got to tell me.”

Donna started the van but she did not put the vehicle in gear.

“No,” Alyssa stammered. “Sort of. Not really. I don’t know.”

“What kind of an answer is that? Tell me: Has that man ever laid a hand on you?”

“No,” Alyssa said. And this was the truth, technically speaking. Shawn Myers had never laid a hand on her. “Sometimes he looks at me. Says things. Nothing really bad. Just…stuff that makes me uncomfortable.”

Donna put the van in gear. “Well, this is your last time at this job site. You can stay home from now on.”

“No,” Alyssa protested. Why was her mother making this like a punishment of some sort? It almost seemed that her mother was angry at
her
. “Then you’ll be cleaning until midnight. You know that it takes two people to clean this office.”

“Then I’ll hire someone.”

“You’ve said before that you can’t afford to hire someone. That’s why I started helping you in the first place.”

“Well—I can’t let you go back in there with that man.”

“Mom, please.” Alyssa could feel her face turning read. Would her mother please just
drop it, already
? “I’m not a little girl.”

“You’re
my
little girl.” Her mother had tears in her eyes now. She put the van back in park and leaned over, suddenly embracing Alyssa. “And if I can’t protect you from that man, then I’m a failure as a mother,
too
.”

Alyssa knew that her mother’s statement contained a variety of subtexts. Donna somehow blamed herself for the family’s financial straits, even though it was plain to see that she was working as hard as she possibly could, morning, day, and night.

Over the preceding months, Donna had also intimated that she felt herself responsible for the failure of her marriage, in some indefinable way. How could
that
be? Alyssa knew well that her father had left because he had become involved with another woman. A woman who was considerably younger than her mother.

“Mom, it’s okay. That man won’t both
er me from now on. I could tell
you scared him. And you’re right there with me in the same building. If he tries anything, I can call out for you.”

“That monster,” her Donna said. She released Alyssa and pounded a fist on the steering wheel. “I wanted to kick him in the balls.”

This was the sort of expression that her mother almost never uttered. Donna looked over at Alyssa uncertainly, and the two of them dissolved into giggles. Alyssa felt a wave of relief. She had been on the verge of tears. And she hadn’t wanted to cry in front of her mother.

“He’s not a monster, Mom. He’s just some silly man who likes to throw his weight around. And I think he’s afraid of you now. He’ll probably run away the next time he sees us.”

“That would be a good move on his part,” Donna said. Finally she maneuvered the van toward the exit of UP&S parking lot. “Because next time, I
will
kick him in the balls.”

It was my first day undercover at UP&S.

“Well, this is your desk,” Bill Prescott informed me. He was gesturing to a freshly cleaned desk that bore an imitation brass nameplate embossed with the words
Craig Parker
. This would be my name for the duration of my time at UP&S. It was the name under which I had been hired, the name that would appear, for a time, in a box on this company’s organization chart.

It was a name that didn’t exist. A fabrication. A ghost.

There was an empty desk on either side of the one that I would occupy.

“Alan Ferguson and Lucy Browning will be your colleagues,” Bill said. “But they’re both in a meeting right now.”

Bill Prescott was a bland forty-something man with a weak chin, a receding hairline, and an oversized mustache that reminded me of a caterpillar on steroids. He was the human resources manager at United Press & Stamping.

I knew that Bill was more than a little baffled at my presence here, and—
truth be told
—probably more than a little resentful as well. Bill was part of the pre-takeover management team. He had been hired ten years ago, when everyone assumed that the company would be shepherded by the GM-Takada Press partnership forever. Bill was outwardly cooperating with the new ownership. But TP Automotive didn’t trust him; and there was no way that they would have taken him into confidence regarding my true identity and the reason for my presence.

So the resume of Craig Parker had been personally green-lighted by Beth Fisk from TP Automotive. There had been a pro-forma interview at UP&S, of course, for the sake of maintaining appearances. But Bill Prescott had had no real input in the hiring decision.

And turf infringements like that always annoy corporate managers—no matter how much they may pretend otherwise.

“I’ll introduce myself,” I told Bill, flashing my most ingratiating smile. “I’m pretty comfortable with meeting new people.”

This was exactly the sort of thing that a new employee who was eager to make a positive first impression would say, and Bill Prescott swallowed it. Or pretended to.

“Have it your way,” he said. “Welcome aboard.”

Bill Prescott walked away, and I took a few moments to survey my surroundings.

Owing to its Japanese transplant origins, the main office area of UP&S was laid out in “open office” style. This basically meant that there were no cubicle walls, and no individual workspaces. Everyone was gathered together in one wide space, with no barriers between them.

Most Japanese companies were arranged this way. The Japanese apparently believed that this layout fostered open communication and collaboration. It also enabled managers to more easily monitor their subordinates.

I was standing in roughly the middle of the office area. There were probably two dozen or so people in the room; but no one made a move to talk to me.