Wiseguys In Love (3 page)

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Lisa got to work a little before nine, sweating from the August humidity and wet from the rain that had begun falling.

She shivered as she sat down at her desk. The air-conditioning vent right above her was going full blast. She bent down and pulled off her sneakers and socks, then readjusted her panty hose on her feet. She opened up her bottom drawer and wiggled her feet into a pair of heels.

Back to grim reality, she thought.

Tom appeared by her desk with an armful of galleys from the previous day's work. He dropped them down.

“Ready for the pit beast from hell today?” he quipped, and then leaned down, his voice low. “He wants to see these right away. He's been in since eight-thirty.”

“Thanks,” she said, as though he had just thrown a sack of snakes down on her desk.

“You should have come out with Lynn and me last night; at least it takes the edge off.” She watched him shrug sympathetically and take a step away from her desk. He turned around.

“Oh yeah, Mrs. Morelli in Accounting needs to see you about something,” he said, and walked back off down the hall.

That would be an excuse to get out of his office fast. She got up, armed with the pile, and began walking down the hall to his office.

A cold shiver always went through her as she got to his door. But this morning, she felt her teeth begin to grind together angrily. She should—no, she
was
going to say something. She gave two gentle knocks.

“What?” Henry Foster Morgan's deep voice boomed, annoyed.

Her resolve faded into her usual reaction—fear, which was followed by the thought that she just had to make it through until February.

He was sitting at his desk with the
Post
opened to Page Six. A fuzzy photo of him and several “unidentified blondes” was splashed across it. He was on the phone. In front of him sat a glass of tomato juice. He usually poured into it a good dose of vodka from the bottle he kept in his lower drawer. Lisa would sit as he screamed, holding her nose from his breath.

She looked at the other things on the desk. Next to the glass was a half-empty bottle of aspirin and a pack of French cigarettes.

She was going to have to definitely block out any smell coming from him.

“Here are the gal—”

“One moment,” he said into the phone, then placed his hand over the receiver. “Where have you been?”

“I just got in.”

“When I say I want these on my desk first thing, I mean it. What the hell do we pay you for? Playing around all morning?”

“I'm not due in till nine—”

“Have you proofread these?” He cut her off.

“But I thought you wanted to see them.”

“Not if you haven't even proofed them! What the fuck do I want with unproofed text? It's bad enough I have to read this shit at all—now I'm supposed to do your idiot work? What the hell is wrong with you? Sit,” he ordered.

She sank down into a chair as he hung up.

He was going to scream for the next five minutes. She stared into his bloodshot left eye, his right being hidden behind a cascade of long hair. Several strands were stuck in a ridiculous pair of glasses he wore.

The odd thing, she thought, was that he didn't need to wear them. She'd looked through them once and there was just plain glass in there.

It was funny—the first time she'd seen him, she thought he was going to be totally different.

He was mouth-dropping gorgeous. Tall, trim, with dark wavy hair, big brown eyes, and golden tanned skin. His face was rectangular, with a strong chin that was gently cleft, and the suit he wore didn't make him look like, well, a suit. He looked like a man with style and grace and charm who knew who he was and where he was going. He had walked past her with what looked like the board of directors, silver-gray-haired men who were all laughing at a joke he'd made.

And he was handsome and charming and gracious—to anyone who could either do something for him or make his life better in some way.

Boy, do some appearances lie, she thought as the sound of him screaming at her began to intrude.

To the board of directors of the company, Henry was a money-making dream. To the people he worked with and over, Henry was a nightmare.

Her eyes glanced down at the photo in the paper. He always photographed well, more distinguished and intelligent-looking, probably because thirty-one on him looked more like forty-eight on the rest of the world. In the four years she'd worked for him, Henry had begun to fade. He was in the same rumpled pink linen designer suit he'd had on yesterday.

“And when I tell you to do something…” She zoned out, staring intently at a crack in the wall and concentrating on the coming weekend.

“I'm going to make your life so miserable, you'll—”

She stared at him. He'd obviously been out all night. That was the only way he ever made it in this early.

“I'm sorry, I thought—”

“I don't pay you to think!” His voice screeched and she felt her face get warm. A lump formed in her throat.

“Get out!”

She stood up abruptly. She made it to the door as the galleys she had dropped on his desk flew over her head. As she bent down to collect the papers, the door was slammed quickly behind her.

She walked down the hall stiffly, trying to hold herself together till she got to the bathroom. She wasn't stupid. She wasn't dumb. She was trying so hard at this. She made it to the first stall as the tears began to flow. She locked the metal swinging door and sat down on the toilet, wishing she was back in bed with Andrew.

It wasn't fair. She'd been so happy when she'd gotten this job as an assistant to the publisher on a big new magazine. She was not going to be sitting outside of someone else's office the rest of her life.
She
was going to have the office and the secretary and a good career.

All she did here was type and file for Mr. Henry Foster Morgan, keep his social calendar straight, and get yelled at and humiliated.

And that was the reality, to have to sit at that desk day after day pretending that this was some great thing. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

She should quit her job. That's what. To hell with waiting until February. She really didn't want to settle in this city for life, anyway. She should stop being so afraid of it and just do it.

She started to feel as if she couldn't breathe in the stall, as if all the oxygen had been sucked from the room while she sat there.

She'd go home tonight and try again to work on her resume. She'd put down anything this time. Another wave of tears drizzled hotly out of her eyes. She knew what would happen the second she'd sit down to do it. Her mind would go blank and she would get all shaky as she'd try to come up with some basic office skills. Stupid skills. Skills she used every day, which she could do in her sleep. But sitting at home, trying to put them down, they seemed to vanish, until it seemed like a miracle that she could walk and talk at the same time.

No. She had to be strong and just put up with it until the stupid loan was paid off. This was just so humiliating.

This weekend, she could think about this weekend. She should spend the rest of the day concentrating on Connecticut and the engagement party.

Engagement party. Her insides went somewhat cool at the thought of having to go to one of those.

The bathroom rematerialized before her as she heard the door open, and she stood up, wiping her face. She flushed the toilet as she blew her nose to cover up the sound.

She'd feel worse if someone saw her.

She'd just have to get by till 11:30. Maybe he'd go for one of his long lunches today. No, she could bet on it. Half the time, it was when he did his sleeping.

She stared at the tiled wall. Labor Day. That's right. It was next weekend. God, if she was really lucky, he wouldn't come back at all after this weekend, what with some big wedding out in the Hamptons. She was going to stop letting everything get to her, like she had resolved last night. She was going to be strong. All she had to do was make it through the rest of the day.

She ducked into the hallway, avoided looking at anyone directly, and quickly made her way back to Accounting.

She could hear the click of Mrs. Morelli's old adding machine as she approached her desk. Lisa looked at the newer calculator, which the woman had placed on a pile of invoices.

“Mrs. Morelli, why don't you use the calculator?”

“I been using this adding machine thirty-one years, and I ain't gonna change now.” Her voice was deep and husky and she spoke with a heavy New York accent. She didn't take her eyes off the machine.

“Be wid youse in a minute,” she added.

Lisa shrugged and looked at her as she worked. She had dyed reddish hair, coiffed in a style that hadn't been popular since the early sixties. Her old faded print dress was frayed and sleeveless. The flesh on her upper arms sagged and flapped as her fingers danced across the keys. The fake pearl and bead string that was attached to a thick pair of glasses swung in tandem with her arms. Smoke from a cigarette, hanging out of one side of her mouth, curled above her. She pulled the handle on the adding machine and looked up at Lisa, smiling.

“Sorry, if I lose my place…” she began, then frowned at Lisa. “What's a matter wid youse? You look like shit.”

“I just … have a cold.”

“That bastard's started wid you already?”

“How—”

“Aw, Tom come by here. He said he had bug up his ass from eight-thirty.”

She felt the lump returning. As she looked away, Mrs. Morelli placed her hand under her chin and turned her back. Lisa looked down at her lined face, staring at the long ash hanging off her cigarette.

“You don't gotta take shit from nobody, you hear? You shouldn't let him talk to you like he does, you know? You should stick up for yourself.”

“I just … don't … How would you handle it?”

“Me?” She took her hand away, and Lisa watched the cigarette ash fall onto the desk. “You got a husband?”

“No.”

“A boyfriend?”

“Yeah.”

“Then I'd look at him and say real low, ‘You don't ever talk to me like that again, 'cause my boyfriend'll come and break your knees.' Then I'd walk out.”

“I couldn't do that.”

“Then tell him
you
'll break his knees.”

Lisa stood still for a moment, watched Mrs. Morelli laugh and stub out her cigarette, and then Lisa let out a chuckle.

She began to feel better. This was exactly what she needed to hear.

“You gotta stick up for yourself in this world; otherwise, the bums walk all over youse,” she said, and pulled out another cigarette.

“Is that how you do it, Mrs. Morelli? You have a husband who breaks your boss's knees?” she asked, joking.

“Naw, my husband, Gino—may he rest in peace—been dead thirty-three years this past May.”

“Oh I'm sorry.… What did he die of?”

“He got shot in the neck.”

“Oh my God.”

Mrs. Morelli lighted her cigarette, shook her head, and looked up at her.

“Well, um, what did you want to see me about?”

“I got some questions about Mr. Foster Morgan's expense account here.” She coughed deep in her chest and pulled a sheet out of the pile. “You see here, he's got eighteen hundred charged and the stub reads on a Saturday.”

Lisa felt a chill at the base of her stomach. His expenses were always padded. She knew because she was the one who had to fill them out and add them up. When she first started doing it, and really began to look at the charges, she realized what he was doing. And now that Mrs. Morelli knew …

“He can't do this here. And you know, I been going over some of the rest of these, too, and he owes us money back on a lot.”

Lisa's stomach went hollow. She wasn't going to be the one to tell him. She couldn't.

“Oh please, couldn't you just,” she began in a whisper, then stopped, a bit shocked at herself.

Of course Mrs. Morelli couldn't ignore it. It was fraud, and even if she did ignore it, what if Mrs. Morelli's boss found out about it?

“You look pale.”

She focused her eyes on Mrs. Morelli.

“I … I just…”

“Lissen.” Mrs. Morelli's voice dropped. “Normally, I'd look the other way, but they been cracking down on the expenses, and I don't want no trouble. I got four months and eight days before retirement, and I ain't going to lose a cent of that pension.”

“Of course not,” Lisa whispered. “It's just…” She swallowed. Her mouth was dry.

“Look, you want me to talk to him?”

“Would you?” She nearly jumped.

“Sure, sure.”

She got up, carrying the paper, and picked up the powder blue sweater that was hanging over the back of her chair. Lisa watched her sling it over her shoulders. She was taller than Lisa had remembered, and wider, too.

Lisa felt a pang of guilt. It wasn't fair for Mrs. Morelli to have to do this. She felt a wave of fear at the idea of confronting her boss with this, and again came the thought that she just had to keep her mouth shut for six more months. Her eyes glanced over at Mrs. Morelli. And after all, she
had
offered, Lisa thought with a certain feeling of relief.

“Why they gotta blast us wid the AC, I don't know,” she muttered, and Lisa followed her out into the hall. Mrs. Morelli's slippers made a spongy sound on the linoleum as they walked.

“So, you get in early?” Lisa asked, trying to make conversation.

“In at seven, out by three. My boss said if I watched it, she'd let me do that till I'm gone.”

“In just four months, huh?” She smiled. It would be great to retire.

“And eight days. I'll be sixty-five.”

“What are you going to do with all that free time?”