The P.U.R.E. (2 page)

Head down and mouth shut topped my to do list for two days after my gaffe with Bob, who thankfully wasn’t big on confrontations other than the lift of a scolding brow. By the third day, the sorry state of Aphrodite’s records had eroded my resolve to a nub.

“I’m off to check with Nicky about a lease, then to filing room hell to pull invoices.” I made my announcement with a put-upon tone. As boring as my task sounded, I enjoyed the quiet solitude.

Jon joined me shortly after I started and gave me a friendly shoulder bump as he passed. We worked in silence for a quarter hour before he left me alone again.

“Where’d Jon run off to?” Our supervisor, Doug, stood in the doorway.

“He just left,” I said.

Doug leaned back from the doorjamb, his head turning both ways as if scanning the hall.

If I had any psychic powers, I drained them dry willing Doug to leave.

“So Gayle, why’d the blonde put lipstick on her forehead?”

Here we go again.
He treated me to a stupid blonde joke almost daily. Most of them I’d heard before. “I don’t know, Doug. Why?” I asked in a world-weary voice.

“Because she was trying to make up her mind. Ha! Figured you’d love that one.”

“Boy, did I ever,” I deadpanned. I kept my attention on the papers in front of me. “I’m surprised you remembered it long enough to run in here and tell me.” In truth, I was more surprised he’d shared a G-rated joke instead of his usual X-rated ones.

He moved to my side, far too close. “ Maybe you can do Jon’s errand for me.” I grimaced as his acrid garlic breath fried my nostrils.

I sighed and stopped my search. “Right now? Or can I finish up here first?”

“Right now?” he mocked. “Yes, right now! Leave the stuff you’ve pulled on the table and come with me.”

Aphrodite was bad enough on its own rotten merits. Doug as my supervisor was the shit icing on top.

“Fine.”

As
I stacked my files on the table, Doug pressed up against me from behind.

“So, Gayle …” His mouth moved next to my ear as he braced his arms on either side of me. “What were y’all up to in here?” His hips rocked against my butt.

I elbowed him with one sharp swing to the ribs.

He grunted and backed away.

I turned to face him, one lonely folder pressed to my chest as a barricade. He’d never been so bold before.

“Back off, Doug, and don’t ever touch me again. Ever.” I willed myself not to show any fear.

A smirk crept across his face. “What’re you getting all worked up about? I was just fixin’ to help you with your work. It’s not my fault you backed into me ass first. You should be more careful.” He sucked air through his teeth as his eyes dropped and rose upward, tracing my body and soiling me with his unspoken thoughts. “Never mind on the errand. I can’t risk having Cheetos fingerprints on something
this
important.” He cackled as he left the room.

I fled to the safety of the restroom. With my hands on the sink, my head down and eyes closed, I replayed the moments since I’d first been placed on Doug’s team.

He’d ‘accidentally’ rubbed against me the day I met him but hadn’t touched me since. Instead, he’d treated me to a constant stream of crude remarks, innuendoes, sexist jokes and inappropriate questions with abandon, either in person or via text messages.

Normally, it all rolled off my back. I grew up with three older brothers and their cadres of foul-mouthed friends. I learned early how to handle crude words and propositioning.

Coming from my supervisor, though, they conveyed hostility and misogyny and an arrogance that he could act with impunity.

In the three months I’d been assigned to Doug and Aphrodite, I hadn’t told a soul. With too many hushed stories of backfired reports, I had no faith in my firm’s anti-harassment policy.

Doug was Bob’s golden boy and could do no wrong. I, on the other hand, could do no right.

Not only did I accidentally get orange fingerprints on Bob’s wife’s evening gown picking it up from the dry cleaners, but the pot-smoking ditty Bob caught me singing in the audit room, and the freshly added chicken-fried steak gaffe certainly didn’t help, either. Worse, the performance allegation on my latest assignment meant my career teetered on the edge of a giant toilet.

Though the unwelcome physical contact pushed me to the limits of silent tolerance, I sucked up my misery once again.

I returned to the file room and gathered all my stuff.

Doug leered as I carried my load and slapped the files down on the table. I countered his look with my most disdainful glare before I resumed my work.

Jon’s eyes tracked me. I threw a glance in Doug’s direction before giving Jon an eye roll complete with a loud exhale. His frown suggested he understood trouble simmered, though I doubted his male brain had filled in all the blanks.

• • •

Jon and I worked controversy-free for another hour, popping in and out for meetings or research. I stood and gathered my files into my arms.

“Need some help with those, Gayle?” Jon asked.

“That would be awesome. Thanks.”

Once we were alone in the file room, Jon said, “Something not quite kosher?” No context. No preamble. Typical Jon.

“Doug cornered me in here after you left earlier today and pressed up against me.” I’d let him draw his own conclusions from that tidbit.

“On purpose or accident?”

I huffed.
“Never mind. Just forget it. Forget I said anything. Nothing happened. I’m just in a bad mood.” I moved to another cabinet, seething because even my closest co-worker didn’t believe me.

He glanced my way every few seconds—I guessed trying to assemble something appropriate to say.

“I’m sorry,” he said after nearly ten minutes.

“For what?” I slapped down my stack of files and whipped around to face him.

“For giving you the impression I didn’t believe you. I do. I’m just having a hard time understanding why he’d do something so stupid. Why he’d think it would be okay, you know?”

“Those are questions I ask myself as well.”

Approaching footsteps halted our conversation. Doug sauntered in and leaned against a nearby file cabinet, his arms and ankles crossed. “We’re working late tonight, Gayle, so I need you to pick up Chinese in an hour. Get the whole team’s order, including Bob, Marilyn, Kenneth and Arthur. “ He cocked his head in Jon’s direction. “You can take lover boy to help if you like. Don’t waste too much time getting his rocks off though.” He smirked at each of us in turn before he left the room.

Jon’s jaw dropped. I guessed he never expected to be on the receiving end of one of Doug’s jabs.

“Welcome to my world. I hate him so much it’s not even funny,” I said.

• • •

Doug always assigned me the “woman’s-work” errands, never my peers, Tony or Jon, or Scarlett, my other team member, who had a year and a half more experience. Though a woman, she was also African American. Sexism he’d flaunt with pride—but not racism.

Plus, I thought he was a little scared of her.

I was.

She had a boulder-sized chip on her shoulder and a formidable temper.

After I’d passed around an order sheet with the menu to those around me, I went to the executives.

Arthur sat at his desk. He smiled and motioned me inside. “Come on in. It’s Gayle, isn’t it?”

I grinned, thrilled he remembered my name. “Yes.” Unlike the first time I met him, when he’d behaved with presidential haughtiness, his latest demeanor was downright grandfatherly. “I understand you’ll be working late tonight and will be joining us for Chinese takeout from …” I glanced at the menu to refresh my memory. “Chang’s Happy Joy Luck Buffet.”

“Ah, yes, Chang’s Lucky Joy Happy Buffet,” Arthur said with a sly grin.

I laughed because it was kind of funny, and I assumed he expected me to. “Do you think it’s a superstition for a Chinese restaurant to have happy, joy, luck or lucky in the name?”

He chuckled softly. “Yes, ma’am, must be. I’d like sweet and sour pork, won ton soup, and two egg rolls.”

“The mu shu pork is fabulous and much healthier than the fried sweet and sour pork.” As soon as I’d uttered the words, I knew I’d screwed up.

A scowl replaced his smile. “I got a wife at home to lecture me about that kinda nonsense. I don’t need some auditor still wet behind the ears to do it too. Get me what I asked for, thank you kindly.” He returned to his work, and I skulked out in disgrace.

What was wrong with me? Was I doomed to crash and burn before I even completed a single project?

Moving on, I vowed to keep my lips zipped.

Kenneth Petrovich snatched the menu from my hand and stabbed his finger on an entrée. That was it. Never uttered a single word. I took it as my reward for controlling my wayward tongue.

Bob dashed off his selections while Marilyn took longer to contemplate her choice.

I managed to stick to the ordering plan each time—no mention of Doug, no mention of the conversation I’d overheard and the trouble they’d all be getting into when the ink dried.

• • •

No one seemed to have budged by the time Jon and I returned with dinner. I moved around the room, matching food to orderer. While I leaned over the table to pass Scarlett her rice, a hand ran up my leg from calf to knee. I jerked back and whipped my head around to catch Doug straightening in his chair.

No one could have seen him touch me.

Hell, I didn’t see him, but he was the only one close enough.

Fury rose within me. How, in a room full of my superiors and colleagues, could I send a message to the son of a bitch?

I reached in the bag to withdraw Doug’s soup, but the lid popped off in my hand. I went to push it back down into place, but it wouldn’t stay secure.

Holding his soup near the top, I steered toward ground zero, relaxing my grip until I held the bowl only by its half closed lid. With precision targeting, the lid broke off.

“Shit! Gayle, what the fuck?” Doug jumped up as the hot soup saturated his crotch. Slimy white wontons fell onto the floor while a few noodles clung for dear life to the fabric of his pants.

That’ll teach you, asshole.

Everyone in the room perked up at Doug’s cries.

“Oh no! I’m so sorry, Doug,” I simpered. “The lid must not have been on tight. Here’re some napkins. Please … let me pay the dry cleaning bill.”
Heh-heh.
Dry cleaning and I were a match made in hell as Leslie Turner could attest.

I hadn’t been with Anderson-Blakely more than a few days before I’d been tapped to pick up and deliver Bob Turner’s dry cleaning. My assignment sounded simple enough and probably would have been for someone familiar with Dallas.

I wasn’t.

I’d missed my lunch, stopped for directions, and purchased a bag of Cheetos. Leslie, Bob’s wife, found the orange fingerprints. I never even saw them. When I apologized and offered to have the dress re-cleaned, she slammed the door in my face.

“You did that on purpose, you little bi—!” Doug wisely bit back the last word.

“I did not!” I exclaimed with outraged innocence. “It was an accident. I swear.”

“You’re a friggin’ accident!”

“Doug! Enough!” Marilyn said. “Go clean up and calm down. It was obviously an accident.” Marilyn caught my gaze and held it for a second before she turned away—but not before I detected the hint of a smile.

Doug treated me to a parting glare while I blinked at him with mock virtue as fake as the tits on a Penthouse centerfold. He’d thrown down the gauntlet, and I’d picked it up, perhaps foolishly, but it was too late to alter the course.

Him or me.

I knew my odds weren’t hot when I took Doug on, but when Bob glowered and shook his head at me, I realized I had grossly miscalculated.

3

Saturday brought the Aphrodite “after party”—a celebration of the completion of our audit despite it not being finished. Bob, though, had already scheduled the event, and since it was at his home, he’d kept the date the same. Partying with the bosses and Doug ranked dead last on my list of fun ways to spend a Saturday night—right above testifying in court about those inventories and missing cash.

Since Jon and I lived in the same apartment community, I hitched a ride with him. His Porsche seemed right at home parked next to the large black Mercedes in the Turner’s driveway.

Leslie, Bob’s wife, greeted us at the door with a Miss America smile and game show hostess sweep of a hand. A black sheath dress set off her immaculately coiffed blonde hair and her tanned skin. “Welcome, welcome! I’m Leslie Turner, and you are?”

“Gayle Lindley.”

She cocked her head to the side as she shook my hand a little too long. After a few rapid blinks, she moved on to Jon.

“Jon Cripps,” he said with a killer smile as he, too, shook her hand. Jon made dazzling first impressions on women. I hoped his sex appeal prevented Leslie from remembering me.

Leslie’s gaze stayed on him as she said, “Jon and Gayle. I’m so glad you could come.” She showed us where to stash our jackets and my purse. A hushed request to slip off our shoes or put on booties before treading upon her snowy white carpet followed. Barefoot suited me fine.

“There’s a full bar and hors d’oeuvres table set up in the dining room. At seven thirty, we’ll eat dinner and enjoy live music out by the pool. You probably know everyone here or at least their lesser halves.” She tittered at her own joke, floating off in a cloud of Estee Lauder perfume to answer the door again.

Marilyn stood at the bar, her back to me.

In the living room, Nicky and Jayna sat, chatting. Behind them stood Scarlett.

Nicky squealed Jon’s name and scurried toward us, attaching herself to his side. I left him with a wink and headed in Scarlett’s direction. Her husband, James, I recognized from photos—a huge man with a thick neck and a bawdy laugh.

Tony, another of my coworkers, and his girlfriend made it to Scarlett’s side just after I did. “Howdy gang,” he said. “I’d like to introduce you to my date, Jillian. Jillian, this is Scarlett and Gayle, and I’m assuming this fellow here is with Scarlett.”

“Why do you assume he’s with me?” Scarlett asked with one eyebrow cocked. “How do you know he’s not Gayle’s date?”