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“Why, yes, the Undead Realtors Association is meeting tonight. I ’m the chapter president,” Missy told me. She laughed, tweaking Dick’s nipple. “Wait, are you trying to get rid of me so you can get to your next appointment? You ’d better watch yourself, Jane, we may have a little catfight over my Dickie.”
Missy laughed and disappeared into the trailer. Dick caught my apparently horrified expression and said, “She’s just messing with you. We’re not dating or anything. It’s not even what you would call a relationship. We’re just…” He looked away, avoiding eye contact. “You know, sometimes you just need a lukewarm body.”
“And there’s the Dick I know and…barely tolerate,” I said, as Missy opened the door. She was wearing another slick pink dress suit and fluffing her blond curls back into their “Junior League gone slightly slutty” style.
“Well, I’m off, shug,” she said, then leaned in for another tongue bath. She winked at me. “Jane, don’t forget. Monday.
Mojitos at my place. You promised you’d try. Y’all be good now.”
Did I use the word “promise”?
“I should be going, too,” I said, as Missy slid into her sporty little car. “I hope you find some use for that stuff.”
He smiled, opening the door to show me his rumpled fold-out couch. “You know, you could stick around—”
“Again, I’m going to have to ask you not to finish that sentence.”
“What’s the matter, Stretch? We could have a lot of fun, you and me.” Dick leaned in far too close and made preliminary moves to kiss me. I leaned out of it until I was bent back at a spine -breaking angle. Spicy man treat though he may be, Dick was not boyfriend material. He was just barely respectable acquaintance material.
“Dick,” I said, “I’m really flattered, but I’m not going to let you use me to piss off Gabriel.”
“But I do want you. I want to hear you whisper, pant, scream my name. I want to know what kind of panties an out-of-work librarian wears,” he said, grinning lazily. “Pissing off Gabriel would be an added side bonus.”
I laughed, hoping it would cover up the involuntary shivers Dick was giving me. I hadn’t lived a sheltered life where attractive men didn’t say that sort of thing to me, but I hadn’t had sex in three years. Do the math. “You two have no idea how alike you are.
Dick, I like you. But don’t make me choose between being friends with you and doing whatever the hell I’m doing with Gabriel.
My choice wouldn’t make you happy.”
Instead of taking my rejection at face value, Dick smirked. “You like me?”
“You’re mildly amusing and remotely charming, when you’re not giving me the full-on Pat O’Brien routine.” I sighed, rolling my eyes. “Plus, you’re one of the few people who actually tell me what they ’re thinking, even when I don’t want to know. I appreciate that.”>Why were the words “willingly” and “legally” necessary? Wait a minute. Pleasant phone voice, good communication skills, and people-pleasing personality? This was not secretarial work, this was telemarketing.
“I don’t think this is going to work for me,” I said, hesitantly rising to my feet.
“Oh, honey, please, just give it a try!” she cried. “You’ve got the voice. And you’re well educated, articulate. People who are lonely, just waiting by the phone hoping someone will call, they ’ll love talking to someone like you. You could make a lot of money doing this.”
OK, we were talking about telemarketing, not phone sex. Right?
“But I’ve never done telemarketing before,” I said, clutching my purse like a lifeline and taking a step toward the door.
“Oh, we don’t like to use that word around here. We prefer telecommunications-based sales.”
“And the difference is…”
Sandy ignored my question. “You said you needed a night job, and you won’t find many nice, safe sales jobs with hours available this late. We call the West Coast until eight P.M. Pacific time. You’ll get on-the-job training. And you won’t find a sweeter group of girls to work with. We’re just a big, happy family here.”
I chewed my lip and cast a longing glance at the reception desk, which I now noticed was brand new and looked as if it had never been touched. I could not afford to be proud or picky. I had bills to pay and a dog who expected to be fed occasionally.
Besides, they probably weren’t going to ask me to do anything grosser than scraping chewing gum off the bottom of tables or degunking a grease trap, both of which I’d done regularly while working at the Dairy Freeze in my teens. Hell, I was the one who ran for the “vomit dust” whenever a kid got sick at the library. Nothing could be worse than that. Right now, something was better than nothing. And this was something.
“When can I start?”
As I rounded the corner, I couldn’t help but think I’d just made a rather large mistake. I was not a salesperson. I was definitely not a telecommunications-based salesperson. But I’d already given Sandy my social security number, and I think that’s the point of no return in terms of employment etiquette. Sandy had even given me an information packet on Greenfield Studios and how the company was bringing affordable family memories to you. I was supposed to review the materials before Friday, my first night on the job.
As I turned toward the block where Big Bertha was parked, the breeze carried the scent of blood. I looked around for an injured person, some source of the smell. But the scent was old, the blood long cold and dead.
The closer I walked to the car, the stronger the smell. I could make out splashes of red across the hood. I jogged closer to see that some ambitious soul had scrawled “BLOODSUCKING WHORE” in huge, dripping, bloody letters across Big Bertha’s paint.
