LITMIR.BIZ

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Happy birthday, eh?”

      “Jeez, Simon, if somebody had told me that I was going to toast my thirtieth birthday on the rooftop of the Hotel Vancouver, quite a different picture would have come to mind.”

      “It’s exciting,” shivered Cleo, paler and stiller than usual.

      Joey nodded in agreement, looking no less terrified.

      Simon could have been telling Cleo and Joey that the earth was flat and the moon was made of blue cheese and they would have had the same expressions on their faces. Simon was so decorative, so distractingly gorgeous. I should have, I really should have told them what else he was. And wasn’t.

      “Fascinating,” oozed Cleo.

      “Absolutely,” agreed Joey.

      “Now I have something to say,” I announced.

      “Here, here,” said Cleo.

      “I have to inform you all that Penelope Longhurst…”

      “Oh God, here we go,” said Cleo.

      “Penelope Longhurst has decided that I, Dinah Nichols, am a man-eater.”

      “A what?” squealed Cleo.

      “How quaint,” said Joey.

      “You been up to tricks while I been away, Di?” asked Simon. He laughed, took the Brut bottle back, popped its cork, took a swig and handed it back to me.

      “Not enough tricks,” I said.

      “Now let me see,” said Cleo. “There are the Joan Crawford, Lana Turner, Sharon Stone, Madonna, Hollywood kinds of man-eaters. Then there are the literary kinds—the Iris Murdochs and the Sylvia Plaths who eat men like air.”

      Joey said, “Actually, the image that comes to my mind is more basic—a jungle animal, a lioness ravaging some poor male.”

      “If only I had it in me, Joey. I hate to say it, but that Penelope’s starting to piss me off big-time,” I said.

      “We’re pretty sure she was sexually traumatized at some point in her young life when she was at Swiss finishing school,” said Cleo.

      I muttered, “I wish somebody would sexually traumatize me. It’s been nearly three years if you don’t count that one stupid little mistake with Mike. Here’s my point; if the shoe doesn’t fit, cram your foot in a little harder until it does. Here’s to me, Dinah Nichols, man-eater.” I raised the bottle and drank.

      Monday

      I felt as though I had a hamster wheel in my head. And worse, the hamster was hungover. I made a list of all the no-brainers I could do that day to make myself look busier than I was. Penelope wafted past my open door with her The-Intact-Hymen-Shall-Inherit-the-Earth look on her face. Jake was right behind her and when I caught his eye, he pointed at her and mimed eating something. Yipeee. He was sending her on her way to do gopher errands.

      I felt a bit better and was just contemplating how to continue avoiding any real work when the office intercom suddenly erupted with Ida’s voice at top volume. “CODE BLUE, and I mean REALLY REALLY BLUE.” I raced out of my office and into the main room.

      What was left of breathable air was bombarded with fragrant powders and atomized scents. A frenzy of beautifying shook the office. Jake came out of his office, too, and looked on, shaking his head.

      Ida’s voice came over the intercom again. “Code Blue about to advance.”

      We all raced over to the window. On the street below, a black Ferrari with beige leather upholstery was inviting the local grunge merchants to either take it for a joy ride or just leave it where it was and vandalize it. But a second later, a svelte figure in a dark-gray glam Goth suit stepped out on the sidewalk.

      Ida’s voice broke in again. “Code Blue looking better than my dreams.”

      He had a full head of messy black hair with a hint of silver that stayed perfectly in place even though huge gusts of wind were making litter roil up the street. He gazed up at the facade of the GWI building. We all leapt back out of his view, except for Lisa Karlovsky, our big blond volunteer coordinator, who smiled and waved down at him. Then she turned her head upward and laughed. “Guess who else is hanging out the window upstairs?”

      “Not Ash?” said Cleo.

      We all shoved and jostled and pushed ourselves out through the window frame to get a look at Ash looking at Ian Trutch. She was leaning out above us, her glasses dangling from her hand, her dark eyes wide.

      “That,” said Lisa, “is the first time I have ever seen her without those bottle bottoms covering her face.”

      “We should hold a press conference,” said Cleo.

      Ash, otherwise known as Aishwarya Patel, was our entire accounting department. Thin and sallow, of undetermined age and wearing a dull black frump suit intended to be a power suit, Ash seemed to think she was the most important person in our organization because the donation money was processed by her. She was allergic to the human race and ate her daily lunch of sour grapes at her desk in her office. Her door was always closed. All communication from Ash came through e-mail directives, usually capital letters, which came across like cyber-screaming. Even though her office was upstairs, right next to the lunchroom, where all of us made at least ten stops a day at the fridge full of goodies, Ash found it too socially challenging to get up and walk those few feet into the lunchroom to tell us anything in person, to give us, for example, her last earth-shaking directive, TO ALL OFFICE STAFF: DO NOT STIR COFFEE THEN PUT WET SPOON BACK IN SUGAR BOWL. LUMPS FORM.

      And I heard that Jake, in a rare moment of unprofessionalism, sent an e-mail back to Ash, “Well, hey, Ash, sweetheart, that’s life. LUMPS FORM.”

      Ian Trutch frowned up at all of us, then walked toward the main entrance.

      Ida’s voice burst in. “Code Blue advancing. Code Blue advancing…oh baby…”

      We all pulled ourselves back into the room.

      “So that’s the big mucky-muck, eh? The new CEO. Like them apples,” said Lisa.

      “It’s him,” said Cleo. “And thank goodness for that. Can’t have a morning’s makeup wasted.”

      Fran, the secretary, said, “He’s had work. I’d put money on it.” Since her husband had dumped her and her three children for Silicon Chick, Fran had been wearing her forty-nine years, crow’s feet, double chin, limp gray hair and extra hip-padding with pride. Her favorite game these days was Spot The Cosmetic Surgery. “He’s a careful piece of work, I’ll bet. Expensive work.”

      “Fran.” Cleo laughed. “He’s only in his thirties. Why would he need work?”

      “Wake up, sister. This is the Age of Perfection. And perfection can be bought,” she snorted. “But I just want to add the footnote that I’d let this one warm my bed on a cold night, nose job and all, just as long as he’s out of it by morning.”

      I was reserving judgment. I got myself a cup of coffee and went back into my office to think about what I’d just seen. Ian Trutch was everything we were not. He was trouble in a fancy package. And it was going to be very bad for our image to have a CEO who whizzed around town in a black Ferrari. But then the frisson of nervousness kicked in and for the next few minutes I fantasized about meeting the enemy halfway and riding around in a fast car with an even faster man. Something I’d never done.

      The ringing phone interrupted my reverie. I picked it up and said, “Dinah Nichols.”

      The voice on the other end was incoherent. It took me a minute to realize it was Joey. He was crying and stuttering.

      I said, “Joey, Joey, calm down. I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”

      All I could make out was “hoia…coy…hoia…glop…oodle” between the gasps and the tears.

      I tried again.

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