Heather stared past Jean to the podium behind her. This was it. A total collapse of her mental stability. Gravity compressed her, there was nowhere left to escape. Jean would torture her for eight hours a day only for her to endure harassment from Lance in the evening.
“…oh the schedule, you can do the scheduling for the staff.” She paused. “Are you even listening to me?”
Heather snapped awake. “The schedule? There’s more than seventy-five employees in the kitchen, when will I see my patients?”
“I guess you’ll have to stay late. You’re salaried, remember?” Jean’s sneer looked like melted putty on her bulging face.
The door opened and Victoria entered. She saw Heather in her usual seat, but then noticed Jean slumped over the table, red faced and huffing. Victoria hesitated for a second, then took a seat, but this time selected the chair right next to Heather.
Jean glared at Victoria and Heather, both on the far end of the table, but said nothing. Jean gathered her papers that had made their way across the table, the top ones covered with spit.
“Where is that Bordeau? She’s another one. The three of you comprise some of the worst dietitians I have ever worked with. Irresponsible, unintelligent, lazy, argumentative, selfish. And without any passion.”
Heather tilted her head and massaged her eye with her hand. Victoria gazed out the window.
“The three of you are clueless and have no idea what you want. You wander in and out of here like you’re high on something. If it wasn’t for me giving one hundred and twenty percent to catering events, administration would think this department was a joke. A fuckin’ joke you three are.”
Loud hammering pounded inside Heather’s head. Victoria remained silent. Her days and nights were as dismal as Heather’s. Life could not be worse than now. At least Victoria had Aiden to run to. Maybe Heather should have continued with Silvatri. Life was pretty good over the summer. So she’d be his sex slave, was that so bad?
“I have no idea where that worthless crumb is. I’m starting the meeting and she’ll be reprimanded later.” Jean piled her papers under her armpit and trudged over to the podium.
Before she could start, Catherine hurried in, steered toward her chair, then noticed the two of them in the back, understanding completely. She retreated to the far end of the room and grabbed a seat on the other side of Heather.
Jean wrinkled her nose until the flesh from her cheeks rolled up. She gritted her teeth and stacked the papers into a neat square. Catherine looked at the other two for answers, but they stared off emotionless and drained.
“Now, to begin– ”
The phone in the conference room rang. “Now what?” Jean scanned the three of them but they refused to get up. She tramped over to the phone herself.
“Hello? Oh, what do you want? Don’t you know I’m busy?” Her hand parked itself on her enormous ass, the ass that was encased in a brown muumuu like a sausage. “They do? Why? Well, what good are you then? Isn’t that part of your secretarial duties, to take proper messages? Secretaries are a dime a dozen you realize that, right? Hello, are you still there?” Jean slammed the phone into its cradle snapping off the right side. The phone plunged to the floor and cracked.
“Get that fixed,” she said. “I have to go. People that are more important than you want to speak to me. We’ll have to resume this later this afternoon.” She scooped up her papers and left.
****
Heather sat in her nurse’s station staring at the computer screen. She had been unable to write a word in the chart for almost an hour now.
“Heather, 612a wants to speak to you,” a nurse’s aide said.
“Did you ask him what he wanted?”
“No, he just said he wanted a dietitian now.”
“I’m sure it’s about a bedtime snack of cookies and cake, or extra packets of salt on his tray, or that he didn’t get enough bacon this morning.”
The poor nurse’s aide froze.
“Sorry Jenna, just having a bad day. Ignore me.”
Heather stared at the patient as he droned on about how his roommate received two blueberry muffins at breakfast and he only received one. She tried to explain how he was on a calculated carbohydrate menu for his diabetes but he threatened to report her to administration if he didn’t receive it. A freakin’ muffin. This was the last straw.
Heather headed to her office at one o’clock for lunch, her appetite absent as it had been for days. Catherine and Victoria walked in together and observed Heather’s miserable expression.
“What’s wrong?” Victoria asked.
“I’m done.”
“With all your work?” Catherine said with an uncertain tone.
“No, with this place.”
“You’re leaving early? How are you going to pull that off?” Victoria asked.
Heather leaned forward until her elbows rested on her thighs. “Guys, I’m done with this place. I typed up my letter of resignation just now.”
“You can’t,” Victoria shouted
“Oh Lord, no, please don’t leave.” Catherine’s fingers flew to her parted lips.
“I can’t do this anymore. The divorce is bad enough but I didn’t go to school for seven years to be bullied by my
superior
and by obnoxious patients who think I’m their personal waitress. I’ll find something else. Maybe in a gym or a school.”
“Please don’t, please think about it.”
“I have, for weeks now. Today was the sign I was waiting for.” Heather stood up and reached for the doorknob. “I’m not sitting through her degrading meeting this afternoon or starting my day tomorrow with her abusing me. Please understand.” Her eyes glistened from the overhead lightening. She staggered through the door and down the hall.
Victoria and Catherine followed and begged her to reconsider. What was there to reconsider? Stay and continue working for an oppressive brute. No. The crisp sheet of paper flapped with her swinging arms.
She turned the corner and Victoria grabbed her arm before she could knock. “Please, Heather I’m begging you. We need you, we’ll work through this. We’ll figure something out together.”
“Yes,” Catherine said. “We have more power together.”
Jean’s door swung open. This time, they all cringed. Heather steadied herself, the other two stepped back. Now or never. No more putting things off.
Tyrell exited the office. A triumphant smile covered his face.
“What did you do?” Heather squinted. “You didn’t kill her did you?”
“Didn’t have to.” Tyrell stepped back, opened her door and served his palm toward Jean’s desk. Heather, Victoria, and Catherine stepped in.
The office was bare. No pencil cup with that ham-shank pencil topper. The display of empty Styrofoam cups, Post-its, used hairnets and latex gloves, all missing. Her cases of diet coke gone. Staggering towers of papers threatening to topple, absent.
The smell of musty body odor and discarded food still lingered.
Heather narrowed her eyes. “What happened?”
Tyrell examined Catherine. “You didn’t tell them?”
“No, I didn’t know which way it would go and well, we’ve all been so stressed.”
“What are you talking about?” Victoria leaned against the back wall.
Tyrell’s arm swung around Catherine’s shoulders. He arched over and tapped his head onto hers. “Last week Catherine went to human resources, for me. She told them everything and even got the other cooks down there to support me. They called me down on Thursday, called a few people from the line down on Friday.”
“I wasn’t sure how they would take it, what they would think. Initially they seemed concerned but…” Catherine looked away.
“Today was strange, right?” Tyrell said.
“They called us back in this morning. Me, Tyrell and Cliff. That’s why I was late to Jean’s meeting.”
“They acted like they didn’t believe us, like we were a bunch of liars.”
“Yes, as if they were questioning our integrity. I left there thinking I made a terrible mistake, that there’d be repercussions, that our lives would be worse off.”
“I was scared all morning, messed up the Chicken Marsala.”
“When Jean received that phone call during the meeting I thought I was going to be sick. I didn’t see any patients all morning and I thought our evening meeting would be sure death.”
“But then what happened?” Victoria asked.
“I went into the storeroom around 11 to get more corn and Roger told me there was a security guard outside her office. Lots of boxes. He joked that maybe she got in trouble for it being a fire hazard in there.” Tyrell chuckled. “Then the lunch line started. I was so nervous that I overcooked the chicken, forgot to bring out the corn…but then people started coming in saying she was fired. That she was cleaning out her desk and then they escorted her out. As soon as the line ended I ran in here.”
Heather drifted to the other side of Jean’s desk. Her custom-made chair was gone. She sat on the back counter and looked down at the paper in her hand. It had crinkled from her grip. She held it up to her face, skimmed it and then grinned. She crumpled it into a tight ball and threw it at Tyrell’s face.
Heather smiled at Catherine and Victoria and then raked her hair back with her nails. “Peaz and Chaoz?” she said.
“Peaz and Chaoz,” Victoria agreed.
“I’ll buy the drinks,” Catherine added.
“What time do you get off of work, Tyrell?”
“Half hour.”
“Good,” Heather laughed. “Meet us there when you’re through. We’re taking an extended lunch today.”
Epilogue
Victoria
One Year Post the Beast
Victoria unwrapped the Christmas present their new food service director Jacqueline, bought her. A glass vase with a fun frosted swirl design. “Thank you,” she said.
“I thought you could use it in your apartment with all the flowers Aiden always sends you.”
Victoria chuckled. “In the summer he brings me flowers from his garden. In the winter he apologizes that the florists’ are not as fresh as his.” Victoria placed it next to her in the booth.
“Toast?” Heather said. The four of them held their water glasses high and toasted to the new year. Peaz and Chaoz had streamed the inside with dozens of colorful lights. “We should have the waiter take a picture of us by the Christmas tree before we leave.”
“It’s much more festive this year. The ornaments are extra trendy,” Catherine said.
“I just wanted to thank the three of you for making my first few months here less stressful. This is more demanding than my chief clinical position,” Jacqueline said.
“Jean did away with our chief clinical when they first hired her. She thought it was a wasted position. Of course she divided her responsibilities amongst us.” Heather made a choking noise.
“I can’t believe the stories everyone has been telling me. It really is a shame.”
“You’ve increased the morale in our department tremendously, and the healthier cafeteria fare has everyone buzzing upstairs,” Victoria said.
“I mainly changed it because I couldn’t stomach the meatloaf and chicken wings every day. I felt like I was back in my high school cafeteria.”
“Jean would pile on four or five pieces of the meatloaf in one plate and then had them pile mashed potatoes on a separate plate because it wouldn’t fit.” Heather laughed.
Jacqueline grimaced. “Well, it’s been tough, but you’ve made it fun for me. Let’s hope next year is even better.”
****
Victoria left Andrew’s apartment surprised at how immaculate he kept it. She remembered his old bedroom piled with clothes, unable to tell which ones were dirty and which ones were straight out of the dryer. Stacks of plates and cups, filthy sheets.
Now he scolded his mother for draping her coat over his kitchen chair and instructed her to hang it in the hallway closet. If she knew this years ago, she could have conserved her energy. Sara’s dorm room was another story. How two girls could destroy a tiny room baffled her.
Victoria strolled into her apartment passageway with the bag of Christmas presents from her co-workers. Before she inserted her key, the site of a fresh wreath on her door, adorned with cranberries and a green velvet bow, greeted her. The nutmeg and clove-scented pinecones, welcoming.
She entered and placed the bag on the end table. Garlic mixed with cinnamon made the apartment feel like home. She sauntered into the kitchen to find Aiden with a silly chef’s hat on his head. “Hungry?” he asked.
“Very.” Victoria kissed him on the lips while he stirred the pan of garlic and butter. The cinnamon candle on the table made her wish she picked up an apple pie.
Aiden turned off the burner and slid the pan back. “You don’t mind that I snuck in here early to cook do you?”
“Not at all. It’s actually a wonderful surprise. You should do it more often.”
He brushed his fingers over her lips and then gazed up at her eyes. He had not seen sadness in them for quite a while.
They ate his salmon and asparagus meal and then ended their evening on her couch with a glass of white wine. “I want to give you one of your Christmas presents early,” he said.
“Now? Why?”
“You’ll see.” Aiden reached behind the couch and removed a flat two by two square, wrapped in brown paper. Victoria ripped the thick layers off to reveal an 8 x 11 gold-framed photograph of his fireplace, blazing with an inferno.
“Are you trying to convince me to move in with you?”
“No, not at all. I know you need your space and time alone. I just wanted you to think of me whenever you see this, and also, I thought it would be nice to look at while we sat on your couch.”
“Like a yule log?”
“Exactly.” He winked.
“Thank you.” Victoria kissed him. “It’s perfect. I love it and I love you.”
“I love you too Vicki.” He eased her back on the couch and slipped her sweater off her shoulder, tasting her skin.
Catherine
Two and a Half Years Post the Troll
Catherine bounced down to the cafeteria excited for this year’s National Nutrition Month celebration. Due to their delay of hiring a Food Service Director, they decided to forgo the event the past two years. With fresh eyes and new blood, this year’s celebration even excited Heather.