to sleep because of an unending slide show of morbid snapshots that flashed behind my eyelids. It began with the poor mutilated kitty in the graveyard, then that picture faded and the image of a woman’s bloody torso took its place. In the final slide, I saw the inside of a dimly lit building where someone was lighting a large black candle. I could almost smell the wax at this point. That’s when I would wake up in a cold sweat. Needless to say, fighting the dreams meant that sleep eluded me until I finally helped it along at three-thirty in the morning with tequila—kept for medicinal use only.
Since my car was sick I’d set my alarm for 6:00 a.m. It was an hour earlier than usual, but it would give me plenty of time to catch a bus and get to the office promptly. However, tequila-induced sleep does what it’s supposed to do. I slammed my fist on the snooze button no less than a dozen times. When I finally did roll out of bed—groggily at that—it was after eight.
“Holy shit!” I yelped and stumbled into the shower.
My apartment was described in the ad as a cozy, metropolitan unit with a parklike view. Actually, it was a dumpy basement studio with narrow, dirty windows, one of which looked out onto the parking lot and some sparse shrubs. The pipes grumbled before spewing hot water for my five-minute shower, then I wrestled my eyelids to remain open long enough for me to impale them with contact lenses. I was hopping into pumps and running out the door a couple minutes later.
As usual, my neighbor, Mrs. Sumner, opened her door a crack and peered at me. Also, as usual, Mrs. Sumner, a stale fiftyish woman, had her hair in curlers, a cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth and sported a ratty pink housecoat. The only time I ever saw poor Mr. Sumner, a meek whipped form of a man, was when he was sneaking out the door and tiptoeing down the hall.
“Mornin’, Mrs. Sumner.” I nodded as I passed.
“If you’re gonna be comin’ in late and leavin’ early don’t always be slammin’ your door!” she shouted after me.
“Bye, Mrs. Sumner,” I shouted back and ran as fast as I could.
The prestigious law firm of McAuley and Malcolm practiced family and criminal law at its location on the twelfth floor of the Bay Tower. It blended with similar glass office buildings downtown that hugged the shores of Elliott Bay. The good news was that there was a bus stop directly in front of the gleaming office tower. The bad news was that I fell asleep on the bus and woke up six blocks past my stop and had to jog back.
In the elevator I attempted to compose myself. I smoothed down my frazzled hair, straightened my skirt and took deep calming breaths. At the twelfth floor, the elevator doors whooshed open onto the reception area. A large mahogany desk, in the shape of a horseshoe, stood front and center. It was my duty to sit behind it and answer telephones. Since I was now an hour late, Jenny was there instead. She looked up at me, her eyebrows raised in amusement.
“You look like shit,” she said, getting to her feet so that I could slip behind the desk.
“I also feel like shit.”
“First morning taking the bus didn’t go well?”
“I’ve discovered a fascinating fact about morning transit commuters,” I announced, depositing my purse into the bottom desk drawer. “Most people who take the bus do not bathe and those that do, choose to do so in loathsome perfumes.”
A call came in and I put on my office voice and sang, “Good morning, McAuley and Malcolm. How may I direct your call?” I managed to transfer the call without cutting the person off.
“I thought maybe you looked like shit because of the whole pentagram and bloody Dumpster thing,” Jenny put in.
“Oh, that. I guess Lara told you.”
Jenny grinned. “She woke me out of a dead sleep to tell me every detail.” She leaned in. “Do you really think somebody was killed and tossed in that Dumpster?”
Before I could reply, the elevator doors opened and Clay Sanderson stepped out along with senior partner Ted McAuley. They appeared to be engrossed in a serious discussion as they passed through the reception area with barely a nod in my direction, but suddenly Clay stopped.
“Do you smell that?” he asked.
Old Ted McAuley sniffed loudly. “Huh? What? I don’t smell anything.”
Clay shrugged. “Odd. For a second I was sure I smelled popcorn.” He glanced over at me, behind Ted’s back, and winked before they continued on their way.
“Oh, my God,” Jenny breathed. “He actually winked at you!”
“Yeah. Every time he points his baby blues in my direction I almost have an orgasm.”
Jenny laughed. “Lara told me he saw you working the theater last night but he agreed to keep it a secret.”
“I guess I’m pretty lucky. If word got around the firm that I was dishing up popcorn at night I’d be a laughingstock and I’d never be considered worthy of anything above receptionist.”
The day trudged on as it usually did. I answered calls, transferred most, lost some and muscled the word processor into producing a couple of interoffice memos. Jenny and I went to the deli next door for lunch where she interrogated me further on Lara’s Dumpster diving and I filled her in on the details of my nightmares.
The day picked up speed after lunch and the staff made their usual dash for the elevator at five.
Jenny paused while she slipped her arms inside her coat. “How come you didn’t sneak out with the FedEx guy?”
I shook my head. “Can’t today. I don’t have enough time to go home before I need to be at the Megaplex. I might as well hang around here for a half hour. Maybe I’ll get caught up on my typing.”
Jenny blinked at me and frowned. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”
I assured her I was, even though bobbing aimlessly inside my head were bleary images of a bloodstained Dumpster and a woman’s mutilated remains. If I had my way those images would be forcibly tucked away into the furthest reaches of my gray matter.
“Okay,” she said, eyeing me skeptically. “But if you need to talk just call me on my cell. I’m having dinner with Jed.”
“Jed? Is he the guy from last week, the one from the meat packing plant?”
“No that was Ed. Jed’s the guy from that doughnut shop in North Queen Anne.”
“I thought that was Fred.”
She shook her head. “Fred was the guy I faked orgasms with. The one who was into scented candles.”
“Oh.” Between the butcher, the baker and the candle-sex-faker it was getting harder and harder to distinguish Jenny’s dates from one another.
After Jenny left, the partners began filing out of their offices. Clay Sanderson was the last to appear. He pushed the call button for the elevator then sauntered casually back to my desk and stood smiling rakishly.
Feeling as though I should say something, I blurted, “Thanks for last night.” I nibbled my lower lip. “I mean, thanks for not saying anything about seeing me last night, working at the Megaplex.”
