Death Loves a Messy Desk by Mary Jane Maffini Page A

others. Even the guys on the other side and the salespeople. Now she says she’s going to call the health department.”
    “And these other people are complaining to you?”
    “That’s not the problem. Someone is making sure that Mr. Van Zandt hears about it. That Dyan is so vile.”
    “And she wants your job.”
    “And she imagines she can use poor Barb to oust me. But she’s not going to harm Barb, and she’s not going to get her claws on my position. This office is everything to me. Everything. And she’s not going to get to me. I have been with Quovadicon since Mr. Van Zandt came home and set it up. I would die before I let her rip this company apart. And Charlotte?”
    “Yes?”
    “We need you to help us. You can’t leave us.”
    “I don’t plan to. I’ll see you tomorrow morning, Fredelle. How’s ten o’clock?”

    When you’re single, you can find yourself alone when you don’t want to be. This hadn’t been such a problem for me recently, because Jack was always there, someone to talk to, someone to lean on, someone to eat New York Super Fudge Chunk with. Sometimes Jack was better than a girl-friend because you knew he would never borrow your clothes and forget to bring them back. And he was better than a boyfriend because he would never break your heart and cheat and lie and generally leave you no choice but to toss your engagement ring into the Hudson. Too bad Jack wasn’t there this night. Pressures of organizing a bike race and fund-raiser and no need of my help whatsoever. Thank you very much, Miss Bossy.
    Never mind, I have lots of good friends. I didn’t need to be sniffling into my tub of ice cream just because he was hardly ever around anymore. I didn’t have to wither on the vine. I picked up the phone and called my friend Margaret Tang.
    “How about a movie?”
    “I can’t. Ow.”
    “Margaret?”
    “Ow.”
    “What happened?”
    “Ow. Ow.”
    “Are you all right?”
    “I cut myself, if you must know.”
    “You cut yourself? Is it serious? Should I call 911?”
    “Better not. I’m just shaving my legs. I have a date in twenty minutes.”
    “A date? You have a date? What date? Since when do you have a date?”
    “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Charlotte. I am a reasonably presentable professional woman, not yet thirty-one. The kind of person who might even be able to get a date, in fact.”
    Oops. “I’m sorry, Margaret. I’m not suggesting that you couldn’t get a date, it’s just that . . .”
    A chilly silence drifted over the line.
    “Just what?” Margaret said.
    “It’s hard to know what to respond to first. The fact that you’re shaving your legs while you are on the phone, a form of multitasking that can lead to permanent disfigurement, or the idea that you have your first date since moving back here and yet you didn’t mention it to me, your friend for what? Nearly twenty years?”
    “I didn’t mention it to anyone because I didn’t want to have this exact conversation. What exactly is wrong with me having a date, Charlotte? What am I, some kind of pariah?”
    “Of course not, but didn’t you tell me that date was a four-letter word?”
    “That would be then. This would be now. Oh crap, it is bleeding. I don’t have anything to stop it. I suppose I’ll have to go on my date with scraps of tissue on my legs. Maybe I’ll wear jeans. Maybe I will call 911. Mona Pringle probably knows what to do. Thanks a lot, Charlotte.”
    “But—” Click.
    I didn’t call her back merely because I wanted to know who the date was. I had advice. Good advice. That’s my job. To help people.
    “Try cornstarch,” I said when she picked up the phone. I listened in disbelief as she swore. “I didn’t know you had words like that in your vocabulary, Margaret. You’ve always been so . . . restrained.”
    “Shaving injuries change a person. Get used to it,” she snapped.
    I decided it wasn’t the best time to ask who the date was with.
    Margaret sniffed.