Blind Squirrels (4 page)

“No, it can’t.  You were late
coming back from lunch.  Do you care to explain?”

I gave Nancy a smirk.  “It was
only ten minutes.  I worked until seven last night, and I came in at
seven-thirty this morning.”

“It doesn’t make me – I mean the
department – look good.”

Brad walked up behind her.  “You
were right the first time, Nan.”

“I’ve asked you to quit calling
me that.  Besides this is none of your business.”   Nancy didn’t like me, but
she despised Brad.

“Why don’t you fire her?  Then
I’ll quit, too.  Let’s see how long this company will stay in business without its
IT team.”  Brad was up to his old tricks.  “We’ll get a job somewhere else
making twice as much as this place pays us.  Go on – do us a favor.  Fire her.”

“I’m not going to fire anyone.  I
just want Katrina to realize that she’s taking advantage of her salaried
paycheck.  If she punched a clock, she would be milking it for every minute.” 
Nancy thought she was so smart.

“If I was punching a clock, I
would get time and a half for all the hours I work before eight and after
five.  Or I would sleep late and be home on time every day.”  Brad made it easy
for me to stand up for myself.  I think that’s one reason I liked him so much.

“Let’s cut out the jokes and
remember that this is a workplace, folks.  I don’t like being the bad guy...,”

“Sure you do,” Brad interrupted.

Nancy ignored his barb, “...but I
am the IT manager.  I have to make sure my people follow the rules.  I’m not
going to dock you or anything, Katrina.  This is just a warning.”  With that
said, Nancy slithered back down the hall to her office.

“Now that the Wicked Witch is
gone, why were you late, Kat?”  Concern filled Brad’s voice.  He was imagining
a ten car pileup or an explosion that shook downtown.

“I just stayed in Hurricane
Gardens too long.  Have you been over there yet?  That garden is really
beautiful.”  Hurricane Gardens was in the center of downtown Foster’s Bank.  The
gardens were the result of an effort to revitalize a long neglected and
distressed section of town.

“I keep promising to go, but I
never make it.  It’s probably for the best.  A rosebush would probably rip my
leg open, causing an infection that would lead to gangrene and the amputation
of my leg.  You know how my luck runs.”

“You are just so pitiful.  I’m
amazed you ever get out of bed in the morning.”  I couldn’t help laughing a
little.

“You are so right, Kat. 
Sometimes, I just want to hide under the covers.  But then I think – whoa, you
could suffocate under there.  It always seems that danger lurks around every
corner – whether it’s at home or somewhere else.  So, I might as well take a
chance and come to work.  After all, once I get here, it’s hard for even me to
imagine a mishap while sitting at my computer all day.  We have a reasonably
safe – if slightly boring – job.”

I didn’t want to burst his
bubble, so I kept quiet as I imagined an electrical problem that electrocuted Brad
at his desk.  He had enough to worry about.

“Anyway,” I continued, “he showed
up at the garden again.  He left well before I did, but I got caught up in a
daydream.”

“I can’t believe that you are
still moony over some guy you knew in high school.  Were your daydreams of
marriage or just an affair?”  I never knew if my tales of Max bored Brad or if
he just liked to tease me.

“The truth is, I was thinking
about the day I met him...”  Even now, it would be easy to let myself slip back
to that day.

“Now that’s a story I’ve heard a
thousand times.  Suppose I was you for a moment.  When that stupid little geek
asked Max if I was his girlfriend, my first reaction wouldn’t have been
embarrassment.  I would have grabbed Max’s arm and said, ‘Why yes, I am his
girl.’”  Brad was using his falsetto voice, and he sounded more like the
stereotypical lisping homosexual than a young girl.

“Why?  I’m dying to know why.”  I
wasn’t really, but Brad expected me to play along.

“Because I would have known then
and there if Max abhorred me.  I wouldn’t have gone twenty some odd years
wondering if I missed out on the love of my life.  You can bet that I wouldn’t
have wasted more than five minutes wondering that anyway.  More importantly,
I’d wonder if I could have had a date with Johnny.  From your description, he
was always the one any self-respecting teenage girl would have wanted.”  Brad
always rooted for Johnny but that was because he didn’t know Johnny the way I
did.

“You just don’t know the whole
story,” I said.  “I’ve never finished that story.”

“So tell me.  I really want to
know what is so great about Max.  He must be something.  He kept you single all
these years – except for that brief entanglement with Beefcake, or whatever his
name was.”  Brad was referring to my brief marriage to Ben Bellanova.  That was
another story altogether.

“I can’t tell you now.  Fancy
Nancy will be back down here soon to see what we are gabbing about.  Some other
time.”  Nancy didn’t mind spending several hours flirting with her boss or
doing her nails or talking to one of her friends on the phone, but she watched Brad
and I like a hawk.  We sorely missed the pre-Nancy days when Mel Shaker had
been our boss.  He was a good sport and a hard worker.  Nancy was neither.

“Well, I’m not busy for dinner. 
Why don’t you cook us up something tasty, and I’ll show up around seven?  First
we’ll eat, and then we’ll talk.  I’m anxious to hear how the story ends.”  Brad
would do anything for a home cooked meal, and – besides Olivia or Donna – there
were few people I’d rather cook for.

“Sure.  I guess that’s okay.  I
don’t want to bore you, though.”  Did the story of Max really interest Brad?

“You aren’t going to bore me. 
There’s no one else I’d rather talk to, and I do want to understand why you’ve
carried this flame for Max for all these years.  It’ll be better than anything
on TV.  Especially if you cook spaghetti.  I’ll bring the wine and the garlic
bread.”  Brad had never flattered me this way before.

“Are you sure it’s safe to eat my
cooking?  Are you sure I clean my utensils properly?  Is my meat fresh?  Oh –
by the way, be sure to get a real wine this time.  I’m not particularly crazy
about Cold Duck.”  No matter what, I had to tease Brad about his paranoia.  One
day all of his worrying was going to kill him.  Maybe one day I would suggest
that.

“Okay, okay.  Boone’s Farm it
is.  Strawberry should go fine with spaghetti.  As for your cleanliness, I’ll
take my chances.  Now I’d better get back to work.  Slave-driver Martin will
soon be making the rounds.”  Brad headed back across the hall.  For once he’d
managed to come into my office without starting a speech about ignorant
customers or even more ignorant coworkers.  In Brad’s eyes, he and I were the
only intelligent people in the company.

I thought about Max for a moment
and about the approaching evening with Brad.  Then I turned back to my work.  I
really needed to review the payroll data before I went home.

Dinner with Brad was one laugh
after another.  As he slurped his way through a mound of spaghetti while waxing
eternally on the misfortunes that could befall unsuspecting diners, I could
barely quit laughing long enough to eat.  And he hadn’t been kidding about the
Boone’s Farm.  It wasn’t great – more like disgusting – but it served to
lighten Brad’s usual morose frame of mind and to set the mood for the rest of
the evening.

After dinner, Brad and I curled
up on my couch with a glass of Boone’s Farm and my ninth grade yearbook. 
First, I pointed out Olivia, Aurelia, and me, and then I moved on to Max and
Johnny.  Brad made faces at all of them.  “I know this was the seventies, but
all of you just look so – so – trendy.”

“Don’t you mean ‘hip’?  It was
the seventies, remember?”

“Oh – exactly.  You were a bunch
of hip cats, that’s for sure.”  The sarcasm in his voice was more delectable
than the pink stuff in my glass. 

Brad flipped some pages and came
face to face with Monsieur Guest.  “This has to be that delightful French
teacher of yours.  I can see where your Captain Kangaroo reference comes in,
but, to me, he’s more of a Sergeant Schultz.  I can picture him right now in
that German uniform.  Can’t you see it?  He seems too much of a bungler to be
the good Captain.”

I’d never thought of it before,
but Brad was right.  I could see Monsieur Guest’s bushy mustache and his rigid
stance – all reminiscent of the incompetent character from Hogan’s Heroes.  And
didn’t we students always sneak around behind the old man’s back, often leaving
him feeling foolish and looking oafish?  I was suddenly envious of Brad’s
insight.

Since Donna played a part in the
story I was about to tell, I produced a picture of her – also from 1975 –from
my wallet so Brad would know all the characters.

Donna was short and a bit chubby. 
She was of Korean descent, but she had been adopted as a baby by a nice Irish
Catholic family.  In the ninth grade, she wore her straight black hair in a
pageboy cut that was very complementary to her creamy white skin.  Her cute
little nose and sensual lips were noteworthy, but her eyes were her focal
point.  They were dazzling milk chocolate in color and in the same alluring
shape as cat’s eyes.  Her eyelashes were long, thick, and as black as night.  Donna
was also very enchanting.  She was funny and clever and everyone loved being
around her.  Many a young man had lost his heart to her beauty and her charms.

She entranced Brad right away. 
“Why haven’t I ever met any of your friends?”  Donna was the one he was really
talking about.

“She’s married,” I explained.

“Of course she is.”  Brad poured
himself another glass of pink stuff.  “Okay, I know all the players.  Let’s
hear this story of yours.”

I took a deep
breath, and then I began traveling back in time again.

Chapter 4

I picked up the phone to call Donna. 
For the next hour, I told her about Max, Johnny, and Travis, and then she told
me that her day had been completely boring.  She told me that I was so lucky
because I only had one sibling.  Donna had three – two brothers and a sister. 
The worst part – to Donna anyway – was having an older sister with her in high
school.  Apparently, Colleen – the older sister – had impaired Donna’s ability
to make friends.  I told her that given time Colleen would find something
better to do and would leave Donna alone.  Donna paused indicating that she
didn’t believe me.  At three o’clock we hung up.  Her mom was due home at
three-fifteen, and Donna couldn’t talk on the phone when her mom was around.

Donna’s mom was like that.  She
was a tough disciplinarian.  Donna and her younger brothers, Thomas and Mark,
were deathly afraid of Mrs. Daley.  Only Colleen stood up to their mom and
showed no fear.  She had Mrs. Daley wrapped around her finger, and, being the
oldest, she would take no gruff from the old lady.  She never disrespected her,
but she did expect Mrs. Daley to treat her with respect as well.  And she got
it, at least most of the time.  Mrs. Daley frightened me just as much as she
frightened her kids.  She had a ferocious temper, especially when she had been
drinking, and that was quite often.

Mr. Daley, on the other hand, was
sweet and pleasant.  He spent most of his time at either his construction
business or at home in the kitchen.  He loved to cook, and Mrs. Daley was happy
to have him make all the family meals.  His specialty was Shepherd’s Pie, and
it was a favorite of all the Daley children.  Mr. Daley often invited me to
dine with them when he made this wonderful meal.   I did love the meal as much
as his own children, but I rarely took him up on his offer.  Sharing a meal
with Mrs. Daley was just too scary for me.

After my conversation with Donna,
I started planning my future.  Whenever I did this, I went outside and talked
it over with my dog, Lassie.  Lassie (a gorgeous collie, what else?) was my
true best friend.  Lassie never told my secrets, and she never criticized.  We
rolled on the soft green grass together, and I told Lassie all about Max.  Of
course she favored the union.  Lassie always took my side in these matters.

My mother got home around
five-fifteen.  I hinted a little to her about Max, but working all day at
Brenda’s Boutique, a beauty salon that she managed, left her tired and cranky. 
Mom didn’t make much money, but she liked getting away from home.  She had no
desire to be a hair stylist; she was much more oriented towards clerical work –
and she liked being the boss.  As she prepared dinner – fried chicken, mashed
potatoes, gravy, and biscuits – I noticed how old she looked.  I’d never
thought of her this way before, but now I noticed the crinkles on her face and
the gray in her hair.  Mom was forty-four and now that seemed so old.  Still, she
looked younger than some of my friends’ mothers – women who were younger than she
was.  She often told me that the one good thing about being fat was how it
fanned out your wrinkles and made you look younger.  I guessed that she was
right, although I never thought my mom was very fat.  At one time, she had been
thin, sleek, and beautiful.  Now she had a pudgy belly and large breasts –
sometimes it was hard to find where one stopped and the other started.  Once,
wavy blond hair had cascaded down her back.  These days, her hair was short,
auburn, and permed.  She still had a gentle, remarkable face – punctuated by
large blue eyes and a winning smile and peppered by light freckles and several
moles.  She wore oversized rimmed glasses, and her face creased around her nose
and mouth when she smiled.  Yes, she was still beautiful.  Not wanting to
disturb her, I decided Max could wait for another day.