Spooky Little Girl (4 page)

Nola, the office manager of the dental practice the girls worked at, was easily excited and had a tendency to inflate anything that wasn’t noted on her schedule into a drama worthy of a prime-time cable network hour. Her position in Dr. Meadows’s office consumed her whole life, and considering that Nola’s time was a little free after she clocked out, her entire life force was focused on the office. Lucy and Jilly often mused that Nola’s home life was so hollow that she kept a baby monitor on her nightstand with the twin monitor placed strategically in an open desk drawer at the office, or tucked behind a silk plant, so she could listen to the office sleep at night. Rumor had it that Nola had once had a beau, who had broken her heart years earlier, leaving Nola no other choice but to throw herself into the workings and minute details of a dental office.

Every important duty was Nola’s responsibility by design; she needed it that way. But there was one exception. Every night at the office, Marianne would total out the day’s tally, and whatever was paid in cash and checks that day would get put into a sealed envelope and handed over to the designated deposit person, who would go to the bank on their way home. This method was devised after Nola saw the same man at the same ATM two nights in a row. She became convinced that he was casing her deposit habits and was hatching a plan to kidnap her and sell her into the sex trade in an
Eastern Bloc country, like she’d seen in a segment on human trafficking on
48 Hours Mystery
. The following morning she called an urgent staff meeting and demanded that everyone in the office take turns making the deposit and visiting different bank branches all over town, and she had indeed made a schedule. It was now everyone’s duty to make the deposit when it was their turn.

“So there’s a problem with the deposit,” Lucy replied to Jilly snottily. “What was the problem? Did Stranger Danger pop up at one of Nola’s spots and she’s now wearing a black negligee and marabou slippers somewhere in Estonia?”

Jilly shook her head and grinned. “No. The deposit wasn’t made. The bank never got it. She’s been tracking it all week to see if it was credited, but it never was. And … it wasn’t Nola’s deposit,” Jilly replied. “It was the one from your night.”

“My night?” Lucy said, her hands flying up to her mouth in horror. “It was my night? I forgot to make it?
Oh, no!
Shit. I was so excited about the trip that I ran home and just started packing. I must still have it. It’s here somewhere. I think I had my black bag that day.”

Lucy climbed up into the bed of the truck and found the box of purses and shoes, then handed it down to Jilly.

“Here’s the black bag,” Jilly announced after digging for a few seconds. She opened the purse, and there was the deposit.

Lucy looked at Jilly, and they both broke out in laughter that immediately sliced the heavy tension that had caused Lucy to break out in a nervous sweat.

“Whew!” Lucy said with a massive rush of relief. “I can’t believe I forgot it. I guess I was in a bigger rush than I thought.”

“This is such good news,” Jilly said, smiling and shaking her head. “Such good news. I thought Nola was going to have your head. All right. Let’s get your stuff into the garage and then we can get you settled in. You’ve had a long day.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever had a longer one,” Lucy said in agreement, and started to unload.

As soon as Lucy walked through the door of the office the next morning, Nola bolted into the foyer, her squat figure moving quickly toward Lucy. She had the body of a stout fifth-grade boy—petite in stature but solid in the middle, with several curves on her, though not one of them was desirable. Despite her lack of feminine shapeliness, Nola’s face was soft, her peachy cheeks always a little bit flushed, and her eyes were a deep aqua green. Her chin was delicate and well proportioned to her heart-shaped face, and her black hair, thick and enviably shiny, was always closely cropped in a style women usually waited until retirement age to acquire. She was in her early thirties and would have been considered almost pretty if it wasn’t for the bulb of a peasant nose that was stuck in the middle of so many enviable features. The nose rendered her not to an unattractive level but to simply plain and unremarkable. She knew this, and had determined a long time ago that what she could not attain with the benefits of beauty, she would take by force and will. With all her might pushing forward like a train, Nola speed walked in through the foyer, her right arm pumping furiously like an oil drill, her left arm pointed at Lucy sternly.

“Dr. Meadows and I need to see you immediately,” she said as harshly as her dimpled face looked, resembling the closest thing to an angry donut Lucy had ever seen.

“I know. Jilly told me about the missing deposit,” Lucy replied, trying to ease the situation, pulling the deposit from her purse. “I have it right here. I’m really sorry.”

Nola looked at Lucy and smirked. “I said Dr. Meadows and I need to see you,” she repeated.

“Okay.” Lucy nodded, eager to settle the situation. It was all very
easily explainable, she knew; it was a mistake, a silly, stupid accident, but she was sure Dr. Meadows would understand. It was the first deposit Lucy had ever forgotten about or had made late. She had never been in trouble at the office before, all of her job performance reviews had been positive, and she had faith that the dentist would see this for exactly what it was: a touch of irresponsibility and distraction, but nothing more than that. She had worked for this man for almost two years. Jilly had gotten her the job when the previous hygienist had suddenly quit and they’d needed someone in a hurry. It was a good office, a solid practice, and she knew she was lucky to have the job.

Nola escorted her back to Dr. Meadows’s office, where he was already sitting behind his large mahogany desk.

“Dr. Meadows, I’m very sorry this happened, but I can explain—” Lucy started, and then stopped when the dentist raised his hand.

“Do you have the deposit, Lucy?” he asked plainly.

Lucy nodded and handed it to him. Nola looked over her shoulder and watched her carefully.

He took a letter opener, sliced across the virgin seal of the envelope, and pulled out the contents of various checks and cash. The dentist went through it slowly, and then stopped when he got to a particular check.

“Well, it all seems to be here,” he said, without looking up.

“Of course it’s all there,” Lucy said with a laugh in response to the absurdity of what she was hearing. “The envelope was sealed. I never opened it. Why would I open it?”

“There was a check in the deposit that was of a sizeable amount,” the dentist said, without a trace of the robust and usually jovial and friendly man Lucy knew. “When the amount didn’t show up in the account, well, let’s just say that questions arose.”

“Questions?” Lucy found herself saying. “What questions? You can clearly see I never opened that envelope.”

“Well, Lucy,” he continued, looking at Nola and then back to Lucy. “When twenty thousand dollars fails to be accounted for, it becomes a serious situation.”

Lucy’s mouth dropped open. “Twenty thousand dollars?” she said, not even believing the amount herself, and then she turned to Nola. “You gave me an envelope with twenty thousand dollars in it and didn’t bother to
tell me?”

“For precisely the reason we’re talking to you now, that’s something we didn’t care to broadcast,” Dr. Meadows said without any further explanation.

Lucy paused for a moment, until it fully hit her. “You think I tried to
steal
that money?” she asked angrily. “How could I steal a check that wasn’t made out to me, a check in an envelope that you can clearly see has never been opened?”

“There are ways. They can be washed. It’s really very simple. I’ve seen it done,” Nola said very matter-of-factly, then quickly added, “On TV. It was on
Primetime Live.”

“I only have basic cable,” Lucy shot back. “I don’t get the criminal mastermind channel.”

“And then there’s also an issue of pharmaceuticals that went missing before you girls left on vacation,” Dr. Meadows interrupted. “Several bottles of sedatives are not where they should be.”

Lucy could not believe what she was hearing. She shook her head in exasperation. “I don’t know anything about that,” she said simply, looking Dr. Meadows in the eye. She would never have done something to jeopardize her job, let alone anything as outlandish as washing checks and stealing meds. She had celebrated holidays and birthdays with the people in this office, including Dr. Meadows. He knew her better than that.

“So I’m going to ask you to submit to a drug test, Lucy,” the dentist said. “I’m asking everybody. I’m not singling you out because of the deposit. Drug use—and theft—will not be tolerated in this office. That’s something I can’t risk.”

“I have absolutely no problem with that,” Lucy offered. “I’ll take any drug test. I have nothing to hide.”

From nowhere, Nola produced a plastic cup with
LUCY
stretched across the middle of it in marker. Lucy took the cup and headed to the bathroom, where Nola posted herself right outside the door.

Lucy would have found the entire episode laughable, except that five minutes later, her employer came into the break room, where Lucy was waiting. He looked at her for a moment before saying anything.

“You tested positive for cocaine,” he said simply. “I have to say I didn’t expect that.”

“That is impossible,” Lucy asserted. “It is absolutely impossible. That test is wrong. It’s
wrong
. This is insane. It’s a mistake. Do another test. There’s no way that’s right. No one’s done cocaine since 1987, except for Fleetwood Mac cover bands!”

Instead of arguing, Dr. Meadows went to the supply cabinet and pulled out another test. Lucy stood there in amazement, wondering how she had never noticed bulk urinalysis drug tests in Costco. This time, Lucy stood next to Dr. Meadows as he opened a new pouch and lowered what looked like a multipronged dipstick into the urine sample. After the five minutes of laborious dead silence between Dr. Meadows and herself, Lucy saw the results on the test strip herself. A red line appeared after COC.

“I’m sorry, Lucy. I’m going to have to let you go,” the dentist said. “It looks like you’ve made some poor decisions. You’ve become a liability to this office, and we can’t run a practice that way.”

“This whole thing is a joke, right? Are you filming this for some crazy show that Nola watches? If you are, I will totally date a midget,” Lucy said firmly.

“Nola will give you your last paycheck,” he said. “I’m sorry it turned out this way, Lucy. Best of luck to you.”

And with that, he turned and walked away, as Lucy stood in the break room, her head swirling almost as quickly as it had when she’d thrown up on vacation in that guy’s toilet. Jilly appeared at the doorway.

“What happened?” she asked. “Are you okay?”

Lucy shook her head. “My test came up positive for coke,” she said with a little laugh and a shrug.

Jilly looked puzzled. “What? When did you do
coke
?” she asked.

“Oh, I dunno,” Lucy responded. “When was the last time I got my hair frosted? Long before you could buy a twelve-pack of drug tests at the mall and have your boss mix it up in the break room next to the coffeemaker. I don’t know what happened, Jilly. I haven’t done coke since my boobs were able to hold up a tube top on their own. I don’t even
like
coke. I hate the way its bitterness clings to the back of your throat. All I know is that the test is wrong. And they don’t believe me.”

“Lucy, you’ve got to say something,” Jilly insisted.

“Oh, I did,” Lucy said, laughing again in futility. “So we did the test twice, and the second time I watched with my own eyes as Dr. Meadows stuck a gloved hand into my pee and twirled the stick around like it was a very dirty martini. I’d rather take an unemployment check than watch that again. And that’s not all. They think I was trying to steal the deposit. Apparently, there was twenty thousand bucks in there that Nola neglected to mention. And you’d better be prepared to submit a sample yourself. Dr. Meadows said
they’re drug testing everyone because some sedatives are missing from the cabinet. You know how I thought yesterday was the crappiest day ever? Nope. It somehow got topped.”

“What are you going to do?” Jilly asked, putting a soft hand on Lucy’s arm.

“Good question,” she replied. “I’m already a coked-out embezzler, so maybe I’ll hit either a street corner and wait for my pimp or a karaoke bar that plays a lot of Stevie Nicks songs. Big deal. So they fired me. Fired me from a job where I spend my days scraping plaque buildup and rotten food from the mouths of people who don’t know how to brush their teeth. Do you know I spent roughly sixty percent of my workday watching people spit? I could go to China if I wanted to see that all day long.”

“Try calling Martin again,” her friend pleaded.

Lucy took a deep breath. “I have,” she admitted, exasperated. “I’ve been trying to call him since last night, and I tried again this morning. He’s disconnected his cellphone and the house phone. What did I do? I don’t know what the hell I did. Maybe I’ll find out what this is all about when I get Tulip on his day off, on Thursday. I’m still in shock. I can’t believe any of this is happening.”

“Maybe you should go down to the store and try to talk to him,” Jilly suggested.

“Confront Martin?” Lucy laughed. “At work? No way. Only if I never want to straighten this out. I’ve never known him to do anything remotely like this, but I do know that when Martin is ready to talk, he’ll talk. All I can do is hope he will call me back, but if he’s this upset, it’s got to be on his own terms. Maybe he just needs time to calm down from whatever freaked him out, but my hope is not high. He threw me out without so much as one word of explanation. Truthfully, that’s not something I want to lock into for a lifetime, you know? Cold feet is one thing, but this?”

“Yeah, you’re right. You can stay at our place as long as you need to,” Jilly reassured her.

“Thanks,” Lucy said with a nod before Jilly gave her a hug, but Lucy already knew that although it was a selfless offer, it wasn’t an option. How long could she sleep on Jilly’s couch with no job and no references to get another one? How long could she bunk in the living room of a generous friend when she had hardly any money saved to get her own apartment? Easily, she would need to work for a month or two before she’d have enough money for a month’s rent and security deposit. No one was going to rent to her if she was unemployed. And despite Jilly’s love for Tulip, how could Lucy ask that her friends take in her dog, too? Lucy had one, and only one, option, so after she got everything she had from her cubby in the break room and her last measly check from Nola, she sat in the cab of her truck in the parking lot of the doctor’s office and dialed her cellphone.