Karen Kendall - After Hours

Troy rinsed off the chipped plate he’d put the burger on, and watched a parade of tiny sugar ants emerge from a corner of the kitchen window. If he hosed them down with bug spray, he’d just have to inhale the nasty stuff, and a new line of them would be back tomorrow.

He looked at the four-inch stack of city regulations governing building codes and permits that sat like an oversize brick on the sagging cushions of the former owner’s olive-green couch. He sighed and hauled them into the room he planned to make his office, dropping the stack onto the computer table with a thud. He might have done a good thing today, but he still felt like an asshole. However, this was business. He needed that retail space. It didn’t make any financial sense to pay rent somewhere else when he owned the building.

He armed himself with a Spaten and a Cohiba and got to work, looking specifically at electrical and plumbing code. He wouldn’t be surprised if the business partners at After Hours had used illegal labor to cut costs on some of the installation. And if they’d cut corners that way, then it stood to reason that they might not have all the correct permits.

PEGGY SURPRISED EVERYONE, especially herself, by singing at work the next day. The singing wasn’t particularly tuneful, and the lyrics weren’t from anything hip, but just the fact that she warbled stanzas of actual song was a shock. “‘I wanna hold your haaaaaand…’”

“What’s wrong with you?” Shirlie asked. “You sound happy, and you’re never happy in the morning.”

“Even Oscar emerges from his trash can occasionally,” said Peggy, breezing by in a clean white lab coat.

“Now you’re putting yourself on par with Muppets?”

Peg just smiled and disappeared into the back.

Marly was the next to comment, when they came nose to nose in the supply closet. “Just one drink, huh? What’s with the circles under the eyes and the bowlegged gait?”

“So maybe it was a couple of drinks.”

“Uh-huh. Are you going to see him again?”

Peggy shrugged and tried to look as unconcerned as possible. Unfortunately the intercom squawked next to her ear, and Shirl’s voice said, “Peg? You have the most massive floral delivery here…. I swear it’s an entire South American jungle. Birds of paradise, orchids, tiger lilies, nasturtium—there’s a good possibility there’s a leopard hiding in here somewhere. Can you come up and get it?”

Marly tagged along, and her eyes widened when she saw it. “God Almighty, if it’s not the rest of the Amazonian rain forest!”

The arrangement was huge. Peggy stepped into the reception area just in time to see Shirlie holding the sealed card up to the light, trying to read the message and identify the sender.

“I’ll take that, thanks.”

“Who? Who? Who?” Shirl was almost jumping up and down.

Peg twitched the card out of her hand and unsealed it. The sender had written, “You are unforgettable. Looking forward to seeing you again.”

She tried to sidestep the receptionist, but Shirlie must have leaped over the reception desk like Daisy Duke over the door of the General Lee. “Who are they from?”

A wide smile had taken over Peggy’s face completely without her permission. That’s for me to know and you to find out?

Shirlie, despite being a babbling bubblehead, caught on fast and let out a jealous shriek. “It’s Troy Barrington, isn’t it!”

So much for keeping a secret.

“Oh…my…God! He’s such a dream! He sure must like your massages!”

Among other things. Peg’s fair skin betrayed her: she felt herself blushing at some of the things she’d done last night. Maybe she was walking a little bowlegged. But at least she had panties on today.

Since Shirlie was looking at her with high suspicion, Peggy pulled the arrangement into her arms, staggering under its weight. She buried her face in it to avoid looking at her coworkers and inhaled the green, leafy scents.

The lilies and nasturtium had no smell, nor did the birds of paradise, but the orchids filled her nose with sweet heaven and mingled with the earthy, damp scent of moss and the dried grasses used to weave the basket container.

How long had it been since a guy had sent her flowers? She couldn’t even remember the last time. A vague memory surfaced: on their first Valentine’s Day together, Eddie had brought her a dozen roses wrapped in clear plastic and secured by a rubber band. They’d still had the grocery-store price sticker on them.

It wasn’t that the roses weren’t pretty. They were. But Eddie had just walked in with them, plunked them on the table of the apartment they shared and then said, “Hang on. I gotta fill this out first.”

From inside his jacket he’d produced a dog-eared card which he filled out in front of her, scrawling “Happy V-Day, Love Eddie.” Then he’d dug his pinky into his ear to scratch an itch before handing both card and flowers to her and shoving his hands into his pockets.

Peggy had never received an elaborate, expensive floral arrangement like this one, and in spite of her cynicism, she was charmed. A warm, mushy feeling spread through her stomach and stayed there until, unable to see over the plant life in her arms, she almost ran over Alejandro.

“Since when do I need a machete to hack my way through the hallway?” he asked. “Did someone die?”

“No,” Peg said, craning her neck around a patch of orchids. “Someone likes me.”

“Miracles will never cease,” he declared. “Who has the poor judgment to do that?”

“Ha, ha.” She made it into the kitchenette and set the flowers in the middle of the small table, leaving only about four inches around the edges for anyone’s plate or cup.

“The salad course is served,” said Alejandro.

I am unforgettable? Really? Peggy mooned over the flowers in a disgustingly girly way, feeling the goofy grin spreading across her face.

She did her best to wipe it off, but by the time she got down to work, she was floating on a silly pink cloud, humming as she gave Pugsy Malloy his weekly rubdown.

She watched her hands all but disappear into his squishy white flesh and for the first time it didn’t really bother her. She kneaded him as if he were dough, worked him on the table until he gasped like a dying fish, wiped away the perspiration that rolled off him without a blink.

Pugsy disappeared into the showers a happy man, while Peggy fantasized every time the phone rang that it was Troy Barrington. When she caught herself doing it, she felt pathetic. Why didn’t she take the initiative? After all, he’d sent her flowers. She should call him and say thank you.

She’d whipped out her cell phone to dial his number when she realized that she didn’t know it. She’d have to get it out of the appointment book at the reception desk. Ugh.

“So has he asked you out?” Shirlie pried, before Peg could even ask her for the book.

No use pretending she didn’t understand. “Um. We went for a couple of drinks last night.”

“And?”

“Shirl, how are we stocked for highlighting foil?”

“Aha. You’re avoiding the subject, which means Something Happened. So is he a good kisser?”

“Because I’m trying to get that order together. The rep will be by tomorrow—”

“We’re fine. So about the kissing? Lots of tongue action? Little nibbles? Does he go for the ears?”

There simply was no explaining to Shirlie that she was Peg’s friend but not her confessor—especially not of intimate personal details!

“Can I see the appointment book, please?”

“Why? I gave you the day’s schedule. And you’re holding out on me!”

“Shirlie, there’s really nothing to tell,” Peggy said firmly, and rounded the reception desk to grab the book. “I hate to disappoint you, but it was just a couple of drinks.”