April Smith - North of Montana

“Does he need to see a doctor?”

“I don’t think so. I think he gonna get better in a day. I just give him soup.”

I am watching the group behind the glass partition of the lunchroom. Donnato is listening along with everyone else to Duane Carter holding forth. Even with his slumped shoulders Duane is tallest. He says something that makes everyone laugh.

“Did you get the money from Mrs. Claire? I was waiting to hear.”

“No. I didn’t. I talked to her, but … I didn’t get anywhere.”

“How can I take care of the children with no money?”

“I don’t know, Mrs. Gutiérrez.”

While I am standing there, Henry Caravetti, a mailroom clerk with muscular dystrophy, rolls by in his electric wheelchair and puts a bundle of envelopes into my tray. I give him a thumbs-up. His pale lips stretch into a wobbly smile as he removes one frozen hand from the controls, jerks it up toward the ceiling to return my gesture, and travels on.

“These children are your family,” Mrs. Gutiérrez spits angrily, “but you feel nothing. Lady, I am sorry for you.”

She hangs up. I sit there motionless, feeling attacked from within and without. Suddenly it all turns to anger and I slam through desk drawers, purse, and the pockets of my jacket, finding the peach and gray card from the Dana Orthopedic Clinic squashed on the bottom of my blue canvas briefcase along with some warped throat lozenges. Once again I fight the impulse to identify myself as an FBI agent in order to cut through the standard receptionist bullshit but I do use the words “very urgent” and “legal matter,” which finally get me through to Dr. Eberhardt.

“I’m sorry — who are you again?”

I tell him that I am a cousin of their late housekeeper, Violeta. It sounds odd but I stick with it.

“Apparently you still owed her money when she left your employ.”

Cold: “She was paid.”

“She told a friend you still owed her approximately four hundred dollars.”

“That’s crazy. I wouldn’t rip off a housemaid.”

“Let’s short-circuit this.” I feel guilty and deeply conflicted and he is a doctor living in a million-and-a-half-dollar house with a crystal chandelier. “Her children have nobody to take care of them, okay? May I suggest out of common decency, as her last employer, you make a contribution to their welfare?”

“Hold it, Ms. Grey,” he says, making a big deal out of Ms . “I fired Violeta. Do you want to know why? Instead of watching my children, which she was paid very well to do, she was inside gabbing with another housekeeper. Because of her negligence my four-year-old daughter fell into a pool and almost drowned.”

Subdued: “I didn’t know about that.”

“No, you didn’t know, but here you are making insulting accusations.”

“Still,” pressing forward despite shaky ground, “her children need help.”

“How about help from a government agency? I pay fifty-one percent of my income to the government, which is supposed to take care of people like Violeta. People, by the way, who aren’t even American citizens.”

Another burst of laughter from the lunchroom.

There is a pause as if he’s thinking about it, then Dr. Eberhardt blows an exasperated breath into the phone. “If she claims I owed her money I’ll write out a check just to close the books.”

I thank him and tell him to send it directly to Mrs. Gutiérrez.

“Violeta behaved negligently, but what happened to her was senseless and outrageous, and I feel for the kids. Just don’t ever come to me again.”

I sink into the chair, nodding triumphantly toward the Bank Dick’s Undercover Disguise as if it should congratulate me for solving the problem of Teresa and Cristóbal. It doesn’t wave or hold its sleeves up in a clasp of victory, however, and a darkening shadow edges my relief. The doctor’s description of Violeta’s negligence does not square with his wife’s reaction to my questions. Claire Eberhardt shut down, saying only, “We had to let Violeta go, it didn’t work out.” If a maid let my kid almost drown in a pool I’d feel a right to be a bit more critical. My impression of her at the door wavers and finally becomes clear: Claire Eberhardt was behaving like the classic suspect with something of her own to hide.

As if to sort things out, I absently start going through my mail. That is when I find the official letter from Special Agent in Charge (SAC) Robert Galloway, who has reviewed my request for transfer to the Kidnapping and Extortion Squad. He has denied that request, citing an “unfavorable addendum” from my supervisor, Duane Carter.

I return to the lunchroom and stand there empty-handed while people tuck into neat slices of Kyle’s French apple tarts and Duane Carter tells a story about a fifteenth-century katana sword worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Harder than steel we make today, it is still incredibly delicate. Touch it and your fingerprint will ruin the surface. Breathe on it and it will begin to rust in thirty minutes, Duane says.

The men wow and the females in the room start to clean up.

I say to Barbara: “Duane fucked me.”

“What now?”

“Request for transfer denied.”

“Damn.” She folds her arms and sinks into the word. “Damn.”

Our voices are low. My jaw is clenched with the effort of not giving in to a rage that is steadily building out of control.

Barbara leans over to pick up a dish off the table. “This is discrimination.”

Looking past her I see the smudgy glass window plastered with notices of Softball games and scuba diving trips, wavery white shapes of anonymous people passing in the hall. Sometimes I so desire the comforting of a mother.

“If it is discrimination it’s going to stop right now.”

Ignoring her look of caution I step toward Duane Carter and square off with him right there at the potluck lunch.

“Hey, Duane.”

“Ana?”

“The SAC denied my request for transfer.” The talk quiets. “Your unfavorable addendum had a big influence on his decision.”

Duane glances at the members of the squad who have caught the drift and suppresses a smile.

“I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”

“Are you really sorry, Duane?”

“Of course he’s sorry,” says Donnato from out of nowhere. “Now he’s got to put up with you for seven more years,” giving our supervisor a sideways cock of the head as if commiserating on how difficult and challenging it is to manage women on any level in this world today. I hate it when Donnato mediates for Duane, even though he does it because he thinks he’s protecting me.

“I guess I can put up with her,” Duane jokes.

“If you force me to continue to work on your squad, Duane, I promise you this: only one of us is going to be left standing.”

Donnato’s smile fades into a look of appalled disgust, as if I have just wandered out into the middle of a firefight like some rank rookie amateur while he and every other smart veteran is well under cover and intends to stay there. Nothing I can do for you now, he is telling me with a shudder, the only question remaining is whether he will hang around to watch me get blown away.

But instead of letting loose with everything he’s got, Duane surprises everyone by pulling up a chair and straddling it so he and I are actually eyeball to eyeball and I can observe the fine texture of his porcelain-white skin and the few short dark hairs that lie flat beneath his lower lip, wondering if he even shaves.

“Why don’t you like me?”

It is meant to be disarming and of course it is, this roll-up-the-sleeves honesty undertaken in public, Duane’s attempt to make me look like the bad guy, my aggressiveness turned ugly in the face of his genuine hurt. I know Barbara doesn’t buy it and neither does Donnato, but they leave the room anyway, along with most everyone else who suddenly has to get back to their desks.