Deceptive Nights (16 page)

He took her hand and kissed the back. “I
understand. You’ll call me though if you need anything?”

Glancing up at him and giving him a smile,
she promised, “Yes.” After lightly kissing his cheek, she got out
the car and went up into her office. Simon and Madeline had yet to
return and she decided instead of running away from Madeline, she
would stay and face her boss. A little of what Lawrence had said
was true. In the beginning, she had not known that Jacoby was
Madeline’s lover. There was nothing to tell her that he was and she
should not be blamed. Now if Madeline knew about the second time
when Phoebe did know who he was involved with, that would be an
even bigger problem.

Madeline and Simon came back an hour later.
Simon went straight into his office and Madeline stopped in
Phoebe’s and closed the door. Phoebe watched as Madeline went over
to the window and looked out over the Downtown Detroit area. It was
a beautiful view and Phoebe often loved to stare it at herself. The
view was relaxing making her feel that she was not alone in this
great big crazy world and that maybe her problems were probably
small compared to others out there.

Phoebe made no attempt to start talking. She
watched the tension in Madeline’s back and wondered what her boss
was thinking.

“
Desmond explained to me
what happened,” Madeline said quietly. “If you want to know, I
don’t blame you. He did stress you didn’t know. Neither were you
aware of who he was when you were together.”

Unsure of how much Madeline knew, hesitantly,
Phoebe explained, “It was just supposed to be a one night
stand.”

“
I know. You’ve already
told me that.” Madeline was silent for a long moment before she
turned and said, “I can’t really be mad at him either. It was an
arrangement and no commitments were ever discussed. Plus, he didn’t
know who you were either.” She sat down in front of Phoebe’s desk.
“Given that he is insatiable I don’t blame him, but I am interested
in how you met. Desmond said he couldn’t really remember, but I
knew he was trying to blow me off.”

Phoebe chose her words carefully. Madeline
had a bullshit detector and Phoebe would not be making alarms go
off. “He approached me, gave me an offer too good to be true, I
accepted and like I told you it was a one night stand.”

Madeline gave a long hard look, but then
relaxed. “It sounds like him and he is quite irresistible.” She
smiled to herself. “And to think I actually insisted you meet
someone like him.”

She wasn’t sure if she wanted to discuss
Jacoby with Madeline and hoped Madeline wouldn’t do anymore
prying.

“
I don’t want you to worry
about your job. I’m not going to let a man come between my
business. I never have and I never will.” She stood up and asked,
“I will see you Wednesday?”

“
Yes,” Phoebe assured her,
but felt as if she was lying. Yet at least this reminded Phoebe
tomorrow was the twins’ doctor’s appointment.

Madeline started to leave, but stopped in the
doorway and said, “I see the system is getting full and this might
be a busy week seeing that Thanksgiving is next week. Why don’t you
raise the purge to forty eight hours until Friday so we won’t fill
up too fast?”

This was a rare request, but Phoebe nodded.
“I’ll do it before I go.”

“
Why don’t you just do it
now while I’m standing here.”

Phoebe felt a little tension, but moved over
to the audio computer and obeyed Madeline’s order.

Madeline seemed much happier about this. “See
you Wednesday,” she said and left out Phoebe’s office.

Fifteen minutes later, Simon buzzed in
Phoebe’s office to say Madeline had decided to step out the office
and would not be returning for the rest of the day. Phoebe didn’t
think this was strange since it was three o’clock nearing the end
of the day.

Phoebe still felt uncomfortable about the
casual way Madeline had taken the whole thing. She remembered
Jacoby’s words from the other night. Hell, it felt like she
remembered everything all at once and was trying to fight this
overwhelming sense of grief, as if she had lost something major in
her life.

No, she told herself. She couldn’t feel this
way right now. She wouldn’t think about him.

Yet, the idea that Madeline was going around
bragging that she had gotten over on Phoebe really perturbed her.
Going into Madeline’s office she looked through the desk drawers
until she found a locked card file box. Using a paper clip and a
trick she had learned from Daniel, she picked the cheap lock and
searched through the set of keys until she found what she was
looking for. She removed the key she needed from the ring and
replaced everything back in its place using a Kleenex just in case
to wipe off all the fingerprints because Phoebe was really
paranoid.

Quickly, she left the office and went back
into her own office glad Simon had not caught her in the act
because sometimes he was so nosey, he usually followed her shortly
after every time she left her office as if he were spying on her.
Knowing that this time he had not, started to gnaw at her brain.
She walked quietly out her office and headed for the back offices
to check to see if Simon was done with getting the back offices
together per Madeline’s instructions. Phoebe thought maybe Simon
was so adamant about finishing the offices that he wasn’t thinking
about what Phoebe was doing. Just as she was getting to the door,
she heard Latrice over the speakerphone inside the office, which
were installed over the weekend.

“
...I can’t believe Phoebe
would sleep with him for money!” Latrice exclaimed. “Does Madeline
know that?”

“
No, Madeline doesn’t, but
you know why she needs the money,” Simon said.

Latrice giggled into the phone as if it were
some deep dark secret. Phoebe quietly leaned against the wall and
listened barely breathing so she could hear every word. “No reason
Maddie called this afternoon and starting barking down
instructions.”

“
What do you mean?” Simon
asked.

Latrice sighed as if in regret. “She said she
wanted me to call to inform security in your building that she
would might need assistance this Friday at the office in Detroit.
She was planning on letting an employee go and she thinks it might
be disturbing. Can you imagine Phoebe being disturbed?”

Simon giggled now. “More like perturbed if
you ask me. That’s why Maddie was telling me in the car on the way
back here that I needed to step up to the plate and take on more
responsibilities because there was going to be big changes in the
office.”

“
I just assumed it was
going to be one of the typist?” She clicked her tongue. “I can’t
believe Phoebe could be so dumb as to believe all of Maddie’s
promises to raise her pay after she does a good job. I’ve seen that
child jump through so many hoops for Madeline and Madeline keeps
adding on things without giving her the raise. I thought maybe
Phoebe would get smart after she made Madeline do everything in
writing. It’s about six different agreements each one Phoebe has
kept and each one Madeline has broke. I think Madeline may owe her
about a hundred grand in back pay. Phoebe doesn’t even know the
real pay Phoebe told the state she was promising to pay Madeline.
If Phoebe wanted revenge all she has to do is get those agreements
and take them to a lawyer.”

“
Where are they
at?”

“
There are two copies. One
here in Lansing and the other in the locked employee cabinet in the
copier room in the file room there in Detroit. Madeline keeps
copies of all employees’ stuff there for the politics. But in truth
I think Madeline really thought Phoebe would fuck up any moment and
Madeline would take great pleasure in rubbing the shit in her face,
but Phoebe did everything perfect that I even heard Maddie say she
should have hired Phoebe to run the office in the first place, so
she wouldn’t be in so much trouble with the state.”

Simon inquired full of curiosity, “ If she
gets rid of Phoebe - and they like her a lot - won’t she lose the
state account?”

“
I think that’s a chance
she’s willing to take, but legally the state can’t take the account
away unless if ten or more reports come up missing with the
exception to an act of God.”

“
What about the other
accounts that love Phoebe?”

“
Like I said it’s a chance
Madeline’s willing to take because she is so pissed off at Phoebe.
I didn’t understand how much until you told me what happened, but
now I know Madeline’s going to make sure Phoebe can’t get work to
save her life in this city again. I just don’t know how she’s going
to fire Phoebe and not have to pay the unemployment office. That
would burn her up even more than having Phoebe on the
payroll.”

Simon gasped. “I know. She asked me to hold
the Lansing package this afternoon, because that’s the one that
won’t get to Lansing until Wednesday morning. If they aren’t
accounted for by the end of Wednesday they are officially lost and
we would end up paying the doctors to do a rush report and that
would come out of the company’s pocket, not the state.”

Latrice quickly caught on. “And that would
give Madeline a good reason to fire Phoebe for incompetence.”

They chuckled and Phoebe closed her eyes to
control her anger as it was building by the second. Simon was
supposed to be her so-called friend and as many times as she had
saved his ass from getting fired by cleaning up his stupid shit,
this was the thanks she would get.

“
Well I won’t worry about
shit when I’m sitting in that nice office Phoebe’s got because she
took care of all the big problems. I won’t have shit to do almost
because she’s cleaned up the mess. All I have to do is make sure
the reports get out and answer any problems or questions the
clients have.” His voice turned harsh when he said, “And I won’t be
taking the shit pay Madeline gives to Phoebe. I’m not doing shit
until I see it in my paycheck.”

“
Phoebe doesn’t know about
all that stuff I told you about her pay, does she?” Latrice said
nervously.

“
Of course not. She’s so
blind. Once I asked her why does she take all this crap and not get
paid for it and she’s going to tell me in some goody two shoe voice
that good things come to those who wait. I wanted to tell her to
wake up and smell the cappuccino because if you wait for Madeline
to actually do something good for you, then you’ll die
waiting.”

They had a very good laugh off of that one
and Phoebe really fought for control. ‘Am I really that bad of a
character judge?’ she wondered to herself. It seemed as if everyone
knew she was being screwed, except Phoebe.

Latrice changed the subject to ask if Simon
would be coming up for the weekend. Obviously now Phoebe was old
news to them. As quietly as she had come up there, she made her way
back to her office and cursed under her breath. Her mind was moving
like a runaway locomotive and by the time she sat in her seat, she
knew exactly what she needed to do in order to save her ass and
make sure Madeline had a taste of her own deceitful medicine.

While she worked like lightening on the
computer, keeping an eye on the phone, which indicated it was in
use - knowing it was Simon and Latrice gossiping more - and keeping
an ear on anyone coming down the hallway from the typing room, she
called Leslie Cross, the Lansing supervisor.

“
Hey kiddo,” Leslie said
happy to hear from Phoebe. “How’s it going down in
Detroit?”

“
Stressful, but I don’t
have time for our usual talk sessions.”

Leslie sounded really disappointed when she
said, “Aw, that’s really too bad, because I miss those.”

Phoebe almost miss those days when they could
sit on the phone and just talk like old pals, but she had only
gotten in good with Leslie because she was trying to keep the
account for Madeline and it had worked like a charm. Leslie would
give her the inside scoop on what the administrators were getting
upset about and what the other offices were saying about the
reports. In all, Phoebe was well liked through all the FIA offices
that she handled the reports for and she knew she could screw
Madeline really bad if she wanted to, but instead she decided to
save her own butt first.

“
I need to ask you a
favor,” Phoebe said slowly.

“
Oh this sounds juicy. You
know you can ask me anything.”

“
I’m going to send you
something special delivery through the email and I only want you to
handle it. Don’t even let your assistant know you received it
because he will be asking you about it. I’m having a hunch about
some things and I want to make sure before I make accusations I
want to make sure it’s the person I’m accusing.”

“
Will this make my doctor’s
upset?” Leslie’s priority for her office was to make the doctors
happy.

“
Oh no, but you have to
promise no matter how much shit hit the fan, you can’t let on that
you know the truth until I tell you. This involves my integrity. It
has nothing to do with the doctors.”

“
Alright, give me the juicy
details and we’ll go from that, kiddo.”

Phoebe quickly told Leslie her plan

Simon came into her office at the end of the
day to ask when she would leaving just as she was sending off the
last email to Leslie. It was ten minutes to five and everybody else
was gone.

“
I just have to take care
of some reprints, then I’ll be all done,” she answered. “Then I
have to wait until Leslie sends me a fax. It should be any minute.”
She tried to sound as cheerful as possible, without it sounding
fake.