James Hynes - Kings of Infinite Space

“Hey, Paul.” She hooded her eyes and turned to the driver’s door with her keys in her hand.

“Yesterday,” he said, “when you were telling me about Stanley Tulendij. .?”

Nolene let out a long sigh, her hand on the open door and one foot on the little running board.

“You said the Colonel, Bob Wier, and J.J. never did. . something. You didn’t say what.”

Nolene lifted one plucked eyebrow and looked warily over her shoulder at the General Services Division Building.

“All I know is,” she said, not quite looking at Paul, “everybody in the Purchasing Department brings me stuff to do all day long. But whenever any of those three wants me to type something or fax something or process a purchasing order, whatever, the work is waiting on my desk when I get here in the morning.” She gave him a significant look and hoisted herself into the driver’s seat.

“So?” Paul called out as she shut her door.

Nolene started her van and stared out the windshield. Then she rolled down her window and stuck her elbow out and beckoned Paul. He came around to the side of the minivan, where she looked imperiously down at him.

“So do the math, Paul,” she said quietly. “Those boys always leave ever’ day a good twenty minutes before I do. And not a one of ’em comes in until eight-thirty, and I’m here, every blessed morning, by seven-fifteen.”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Paul said. “What is it they don’t do?”

“Work , Paul.” She widened her eyes at him, as if at a dimwit child. “They don’t do a lick of work, ever . Not when I can see them, and I sit across from ’em all day long. Colonel’s yakkin’ to his stockbroker, Bob Wier’s speed-reading goldang self-help books, and J.J. surfs the Web all the livelong day.” She sighed. “But then, every morning, the work they’re not doing shows up on my desk for me to process.” She put the van in reverse and gunned the engine. Paul stepped back.

“The only thing I can figure,” said Nolene, backing slowly out of her spot, “is that they come in in the middle of the night, and I don’t believe that for a minute. Not from them.” She swung the van into the lane and put it in drive. She gave Paul one last, significant look and jerked her thumb over her shoulder towards the building.

“You’d never catch me in there after dark.” Then Nolene roared away, leaving Paul standing in her empty space, next to his trembling car.

THE FOLLOWING DAY, Friday, Paul avoided luncheon with the Colonel by leaving the building. He ate his sandwich in his car, then spent the rest of his lunch hour at a car wash on the other side of the river. He blasted the outside of his ancient Colt with the high-pressure hose, half afraid that the impact of the spray would loosen his bumper or penetrate the Colt’s sunbleached roof. Still, even the mail girl deserved a clean car on a first date. He forked out fistfuls of trash from the backseat and slotted three quarters, three times, into the roaring industrial vacuum cleaner, sweating right through his t-shirt as he wriggled through the car, pushing the plastic nozzle under the seats and into every cranny of the upholstery. He bought a pinescented air freshener from the vending machine and hung it from his rearview mirror; the heat inside the car would probably cook it to a nubbin, but at least the car would no longer smell like sweat, old hamburgers, and failure.

After lunch he took his time sheet to Rick, a weekly humiliation, and Rick dashed off his signature without looking up. Paul hesitated in the doorway and said, “Thanks again for the raise,” and Rick glanced up at him sharply, his eyebrows dancing. For an awful moment Paul thought Rick was going to say, “What raise?” But he only said, “You earned it,” and waved Paul away.

Then Paul ran the gauntlet of his erstwhile lunch companions. Bob Wier glanced up from his speed-reading and chirped, “Missed you at lunch today!” The Colonel narrowed his eyes as Paul hurried past his doorway. “Don’t be a stranger, Paul,” he called out. “You’re one of us now.” J. J. said nothing, slouched in front of his monitor, but a moment later Paul heard footsteps behind him, and he glanced back to see J.J. stumping after him. Paul ignored him, but then J.J. followed him around the corner into his aisle, and as Paul went into his cube and sat, J.J. loomed in the doorway, dangling his wrists over the partition on either side.

“We don’t need you,” he said, but diffidently, more as if he were stating a fact than making a threat.

Paul swiveled towards J.J. “I beg your pardon?”

“Guys like you.” J.J.’s gaze wandered all over, everywhere but towards Paul. “You think you’re better than everybody.”

Paul sighed. He glanced past J.J. across the aisle, but Olivia, for once, was not in her cube. “No,” he said, “I just think I’m better than you.”

Paul was surprised at himself, but he was even more surprised at J.J.’s reaction: He laughed, his gaze shooting all over the room. “That’s good,” he said. “I’m gonna use that one.” He nodded and smiled to himself. “It’s just. .”

“What?” snapped Paul. “It’s just what?”

J.J. slid his wrists off the partition and stepped into the cube. His eyes locked onto Paul’s at last.

“Colonel, he thinks you’re some kind of genius or something,” J.J. said in a low voice. “Whatever. But I know you’re a fuck up, ’cause I’m a fuck up, too. Okay?”

Paul said nothing. He perched tensely on the edge of his chair and fought to hold J.J.’s glare. From the neighboring cube he heard the hiss of the dying tech writer.

“We got a sweet thing going here,” said J.J. “and we don’t need you to screw it up.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” said Paul. “Lunch?”

“Hey, you wanna call it lunch, whatever.” J.J. backed out of the cube, but he pointed at Paul, fixing him in his chair. “Just don’t fuck it up.” Then J.J. abruptly walked away, leaving Paul turning slowly in his chair.

During his afternoon break in the empty lunchroom he scarcely read a word of H. G. Wells. He was still fuming over his encounter with J.J. Fine, Paul thought, I won’t sit at his fucking table during lunch. After a while, though, he realized he was watching the doorway for Callie. They had yet to set a time for Saturday night, and he didn’t know where she lived. He let his break drag on an extra ten minutes, turning the page of his book only once, and still she didn’t show. I can always look her up in the phone book, he thought as he went back upstairs, but then he realized that he didn’t even know her last name. He slouched before his computer screen for the next hour or so, canoodling on the RFP. He wasn’t about to track her down. He had already done his bit and asked her out; surely it was up to her to seek him out and tell him where she lived. Christ, Paul thought, I’m going out with a community college student, for all I know; why else would she be lugging around the Norton Anthology? Surely she doesn’t expect me to trail after her?

Just before quitting time he overheard another hissing exchange between Olivia Haddock and the dying tech writer.

“Today,” croaked the tech writer, “is my last day.” Wheeze . “My contract expires today.”

“It’s up to you.” Olivia’s voice ricocheted sharply off the ceiling tiles. “All I know is if the work isn’t revised by time I come in on Monday morning, I’m not signing off on your time sheet.”

“That’s.” Wheeze . “Blackmail.”

“Call it whatever you like. I’m not paying for work that isn’t finished.”