Pulpy and Midge (11 page)

‘What are you looking at?' she said.

‘Nothing.' His face went hot. ‘I was just –'

She ignored him. ‘The thing is, you trade one evil for another. You either have your thighs all squashed out on the seat or you get varicose veins. You pick your poison. Then she tells me I'm supposed to have my arms in the neutral position when I type. I don't know what she's talking about – my arms are just fine, thank you very much.' She blew out a long breath and put her hands on her desk. ‘And my mug is missing. Have you seen it anywhere?'

Pulpy took a small step back. ‘What mug do you mean?'

‘My duck mug. You haven't seen it?'

He creased his forehead and pretended to think for a moment. ‘A duck? Like a nature scene?'

‘No! The duck with the glasses on.'

‘Sunglasses?'

‘No! Glasses like mine. It's on my desk every day.'

‘Ah.' Pulpy put a finger on his nose. ‘Yes, okay, yes, now I know which one you mean.' He looked at the floor. ‘I'll keep an eye out for you.'

‘Thanks.' She smiled at him. ‘You know something? You're the only one around here who gives a damn about me.'

‘Oh, I'm sure that's not the case.' Pulpy reached over and gave her shoulder a tentative pat. She closed her eyes and leaned into him, and he pulled away quickly and put his hand in his pocket. ‘I should get upstairs.'

Pulpy sat at his desk and lifted his knees. His keyboard tray rattled.

‘Stupid tray,' he said.

‘Did you say something?' said Eduardo.

‘No.'

Lift. Rattle.

‘Stupid,' he whispered.

‘Now, before you go looking at the menu,' said Dan, ‘I think I should tell you that the wings here are killer.'

‘Killer?' said Pulpy.

‘You can't go wrong with the wings at this place.'

‘All right.' Pulpy put down the menu, which had sketches of sports equipment on it. ‘You've convinced me.'

‘You'll get the wings?'

‘I'll get the wings.'

‘Yes!' Dan smacked his palm on the table.

Pulpy jumped a little in his chair, which had domed pleather padding on the seat and the arms.

Their waitress appeared and smiled at them. Her T-shirt was tight. ‘Are you ready to order?'

‘You bet we are!' said Dan. ‘We'll each get a three-pounder of wings, volcano-style.'

The waitress started to write on her order pad. She had long nails with a fleur-de-lis pattern on them.

‘Volcano?' said Pulpy.

‘They're hot.' She stopped writing.

Pulpy looked at Dan.

‘Anything less than volcano and you don't get the whole experience,' he said.

‘I'm fine with volcano.' Pulpy smiled at the waitress, and her pen descended again.

‘You want another pitcher here?' she said.

Pulpy looked at the half-full one already on the table.

‘Just keep 'em coming, sweetheart!' Dan winked at her.

‘I'll be right back.' She tucked her order pad into her apron and walked away.

Dan watched her. ‘Now that,' he said, ‘is something.'

‘What?' said Pulpy.

Dan grinned at him. ‘Come on.'

Pulpy focused on a small rip in the red plastic tablecloth.

The waitress returned with their pitcher and set it down between them. ‘Anything else?'

Pulpy couldn't look at her.

‘No thanks, sweetheart,' said Dan. ‘I think we're perfect.'

She nodded and left them again.

Dan leaned forward, putting his arms on the table. His suit jacket was hanging over the back of his chair and he'd loosened his tie. ‘So, Pulpy, what kind of trouble do you think our women are getting into tonight?'

‘Trouble?'

‘You know.' Dan reached for the half-finished pitcher. ‘Spending our hard-earned money and all that.'

‘Oh, well. Midge earns her own money.' Pulpy watched the level rise in his glass as Dan filled it up.

‘You know what I mean.' Dan took a long drink of his beer. ‘Damn, this is good beer.'

Pulpy took a small sip. ‘It's pretty good.'

‘What makes you tick, Pulpy?'

‘Pardon?'

Dan emptied his glass and poured another. ‘What goes on, you know –' He tapped his own forehead. ‘Up here?'

‘Oh, I don't know.' Pulpy drank more beer.

‘Well, we're all enigmas, I guess.' Dan topped him up and raised his own full glass in a toast. ‘Clinky-clink,' he said. They were onto the next pitcher now.

‘Clinky-clink,' said Pulpy. He was starting to feel a bit unsteady.

A while later Dan said, ‘You all right?'

Pulpy wiped his forehead and looked at the dark design his blotted sweat made on the napkin, which had a cartoon of a basketball player slam-dunking a chicken into a vat of sauce. ‘I'm fine, thanks.'

‘You didn't eat that many wings. Look at your bone pile compared to mine.'

‘Yours is bigger.'

‘I'll say it is.' Dan swallowed some beer and then belched softly into his hand.

Pulpy picked up his glass and pushed his finger through the ring of moisture underneath. ‘This beer stays cold,' he said.

‘It's a new pitcher.'

‘Oh, I forgot.'

‘Ha! But who's counting, right?' Dan slapped Pulpy's shoulder, hard enough that Pulpy worried he might spill his beer. He put his glass back down, firmly, and faced his boss across the table. ‘Dan, about the pager, I've been thinking about it, and –'

‘Pulpy, I need to say something to you. And I'm not saying this to come down on you in any way.'

Pulpy leaned back a little. ‘Okay.'

‘I'm just saying it to get at something else I want to tell you.'

‘Sure.' Pulpy drank some beer.

‘Your punctuality is not the best, Pulpy.'

His stomach made an unruly sound. The wings had been very hot. ‘Yes, you're right, I'm sorry. Yes, I know that.'

‘And most employers would frown upon that. Most employers would, in fact, not condone it.'

‘Al did,' said Pulpy in a quiet voice.

‘What was that?'

He cleared his throat. ‘Al didn't really mind so much, as long as I made up the time at the end of the day.'

‘Uh huh. Well, like I was saying,
most
employers wouldn't condone it.' Dan poured more beer for both of them. ‘But I am not most employers, as I'm sure you've figured out by now.'

‘I have, yes.'

‘And I like you, as I've said. As I've said many times. And when you get right down to it, punctuality doesn't matter.'

‘It doesn't?'

‘No. What matters is that you and I are men of action, and men of action make their own schedules. Pulpy, as of now, you've got flex hours.' Dan selected a mostly eaten wing from his bone pile and put it in his mouth. ‘As of right now.'

Pulpy watched his boss remove the wing, cleaned of meat, and replace it on the mound. ‘Flex hours?'

‘Flex. As in you get to flex your muscle of judgment when it comes to when you arrive at and leave work.'

‘Thank you, Dan.'

‘Within reason, of course. I mean, we're still talking eight hours here. As long as you get the job done, and work your full eight hours, I have absolutely no qualms. Think of it as my gift to your marriage.'

‘Sorry?'

‘You know. This way, you and Midge in the morning …' Dan winked. ‘Now you can have more time together.'

Pulpy frowned a little. ‘I don't think that's really any of your –'

‘Let's do a toast to marriage!' Dan hefted his glass. ‘Clinky-clink!'

‘Clinky-clink.' Pulpy lifted his own glass and touched it to his boss's. ‘To marriage.'

Dan tipped his head back and drank.

Pulpy filled his mouth with beer and slowly let it all go down. The dark room went out of focus for a moment and he put both hands on the table to stabilize himself.

‘You okay there, Pulpy? You're looking a little –' Dan made a teeter-totter motion with his sauce-spotted hand.

‘Well, I'm just – I'm okay.'

‘Great.' Dan poured him another. ‘So, tell me more about Midge. Fill me in on that wife of yours.'

Pulpy felt his mouth moving in a number of different directions and he concentrated on making it form a straight line. ‘Midge is my wife.'

‘That she is.'

‘I love her very much.'

‘I know you do.' Dan reached for another wing bone. ‘She's a lovely woman.'

‘She is. She is lovely.'

Dan nodded. ‘She's lucky to have you. Beatrice and me, we don't have the same rapport you two do. But that's fine. I mean, that's the way we like it. She goes her way, I go mine. And we like other people's company.' He leaned forward. ‘We like you and Midge.'

‘We like you too,' said Pulpy.

‘That's good. That's really good.' Dan nodded, and drained his glass. ‘There was something else I wanted to ask you,' he said. ‘It's about our secretary.'

Pulpy looked past him to the television set mounted over the bar. There was a game on, but he couldn't tell what type.

‘What do you think of her?' said Dan.

People in the stands started cheering. ‘She does a good job.'

‘I don't know about that, Pulpy. I don't think I agree with you there. Her methods, her processes, they're outdated and inefficient. Beatrice and I are doing an overhaul, as you know, and Beatrice has been trying to introduce her to new and improved ways of doing things. But she refuses to adopt them.'

‘She already has a system in place. I guess it works for her.'

Dan laid his palm flat on the table and spread his fingers wide apart. ‘Do you see this? This is the hand of a man who knows what he's talking about.'

Pulpy stared at it, and then Dan curled it into a fist.

‘Everything we're trying to do for the good of the office, she obstructs. She sits there, and sits there, and Pulpy, just one time –' He looked directly at Pulpy, unwavering. ‘I see her sitting there, and I want to corner her.'

Suddenly Pulpy could hear the blood rushing in his ears, louder than the cheers from the
TV
, louder than the conversation sounds around them, louder than the loud music that was playing over everything else. ‘She does a good job,' he said again, quietly.

Dan's eyes had contracted into angry pinpricks and he looked like he was going to say something else, but then he swerved around and focused on the game behind him. When he turned back a minute or so later he was grinning. ‘What the hell, huh? Let's have some more beer.'

Pulpy watched him pour, and felt dizzy, and then an alarm went off inside him and he sat up in his chair. ‘What time is it?'

Dan checked his watch. ‘It's only ten. Huh. Can you beat that? Time really does fly, doesn't it?'

‘I have to go now,' said Pulpy. ‘I have to go home.'

The apartment was dark and quiet when Pulpy got in. He took off his coat and boots and tiptoed into the bedroom. The bed was empty.

He looked at the fishbowl on Midge's dresser. ‘Hi, Mr. Fins. Where's Mrs. Pulpy?'

The fish swam to the surface, dove back down and darted from side to side in a happy zigzag.

Pulpy went back to the living room and sat down on the loveseat. He crossed his legs.

He felt something on his neck and realized he was still wearing his
ID
badge. He reached up and undid the safety clip on the lanyard. He took it off and refastened it in front of his face. The click it made was louder than he expected.

Then his thigh started beeping. ‘What –' He looked down. It was buzzing too. The pager. He took it out of his pants pocket and held it in front of his face, trying to focus on the numbers on the glowing screen.

He got to his feet and went to the phone and dialled.

Dan picked up on the first ring. ‘Pulpy!'

‘Oh, hi.'

‘Tonight was fun, wasn't it?' Dan was slurring his words a little.

‘Sure.'

‘We gotta have boys' night more often, I say.'

‘Okay. But I should probably get off the phone, Dan, in case Midge is trying to reach me.'

‘Beatrice left a message and said she'll be home late, so I wouldn't wait up.'

‘Oh.' Pulpy sat back in the loveseat.

‘The thing about us men is, we have to stick together. A wife is all well and good, but a man needs the company of other men.'

‘Hmm. It's just strange I haven't heard from Midge, that's all.'

‘She probably figured I'd get Beatrice's message and tell you. I wouldn't worry about it.'

‘You're right.'

‘You're right I'm right. Damn, those wings were good, weren't they?'

‘They were really hot.'

‘The hotter the better, if you get my drift. Now, like I was saying about that secretary.'

Pulpy rubbed his forehead. ‘What were you saying, Dan?'

‘She sits there, and sits there, and sits there. Doesn't she?'

‘I'm not really sure what you're talking about. She sits at her desk all day. That's her job.'

‘Her job. I keep hearing those words. I don't like them.'

‘I'm pretty tired, Dan. I should probably get some sleep.'

‘Sleep, yes. Shut-eye. And don't forget about those flex hours! You go ahead and doze away with your wife tomorrow morning, on me.'

‘Yes, thank you. Goodnight, Dan.'

‘Goodnight, Pulpy.'

The first time Pulpy met Midge, they were both standing in front of a tropical fish aquarium at the pet store in the mall.

He noticed her scalloped hair and wide-set brown eyes, and the way she stood perfectly still with her hands folded in front of her. Her face was blue-green and ripply from the tanks all around them.