Girlfriends (Patrick Sanchez) (36 page)

“No, Shirley, I’ve told you over and over again to stop speeding.”

“I wasn’t speeding. I was at the gas station, minding my own business, when I got the ticket.”

“Somehow I doubt that, Shirley.”

“I was at a gas station in Arlington, and I needed to vacuum the car. I figured I might as well do it while I was in the ’burbs. The dog was in the car with me—you know how Gomez likes to ride in the car. Anyway, I was afraid if I left him in the car while I was vacuuming, he might jump out and get hit or something.”

“What does this have to do with anything?” Gina asked impatiently.

“Well, like I said, I was afraid he might jump out, so I put him in the trunk for a few minutes.”

“What? Shirley, you put the dog in the trunk?”

“It was just for a few minutes. He didn’t mind. He was just napping anyway. Well, someone must have seen me do it and called the police. Next thing I know, I’m getting lectured about pet care from some little Nazi in a police uniform. I think he was all of twenty-two or something. Can you believe that? Someone calling the cops on me. They probably trip over homeless people on the way to their Mercedes, but one little dog in the trunk, and they have to call the cops.”

“Well, good. He should have given you a ticket. You ever stick my dog in the trunk again, and I’ll stick you in the trunk.”

“I’m telling you, Gina, he didn’t mind. It was quite a sight. The cop was trying to be all serious and uppity, and the whole time Gomez was barking at him and panting—”

“Gina?” Liz’s unnerved voice came from the lobby. “We can have the meeting in the parking lot if we’re disturbing your phone call.”

“Shirley, I have to go. I’ll call you later.”

“Okay, but can I borrow the money? Hello? Gina?”

Gina hung up the phone, pulled her chair around to the front of her desk, and joined the meeting.

“Let’s get started,” Liz said to the bored group. “First thing on the agenda is our new sales incentive program. I’ve asked Gina to tell you about it.”

Part of Gina’s career improvement plan was to further develop her leadership skills, so Liz thought Gina would like to start running some of the staff meetings. Liz had met with Gina earlier that day and discussed her idea for an employee-of-the-month program. Gina thought the concept was as stupid as the free movie ticket idea. She gently tried to dissuade Liz, and recommended offering time off to employees who met their sales goals. She knew that just like her, most of the bank’s employees would do almost anything if it would get them a day or two of paid time off. As usual, Liz ignored Gina’s suggestion and stood firm about her employee-of-the-month program. If that wasn’t bad enough, she asked Gina to present the idea to the group.

“Liz asked me to speak to everyone about
her
idea to incentivize all of us to improve our sales performance,” Gina said to the crowd.
“She
thought it would be a good idea to identify an employee of the month based on who best meets or exceeds his or her sales goals.”

Gina felt like a complete idiot handing out a stack of convoluted forms that explained the scoring system and the criteria for being named employee of the month.

“So what does the employee of the month get?” Bob, one of the tellers, asked.

Trying to muster up something that resembled enthusiasm, Gina said, “Your name engraved on the employee of the month plaque and your picture posted on the bulletin board.” I know, whoopty fucking doo!

“That’s it?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so.”

Once again Liz’s idea was met with unilateral apathy.

“It’s a chance for you guys to get some recognition for your hard work. Being employee of the month will make you a Premier celebrity of sorts. I’ll make sure Mr. Toosh knows who each employee of the month is,” Liz added, trying to raise some excitement for the idea but succeeding only in getting a few polite nods. Discouraged with the group’s reaction, Liz decided to move on to other business. She discussed some upcoming changes in the bank’s fees and some other policy revisions, then opened up the floor for questions.

“Does anyone have any other issues they would like to bring up?” Liz asked the group.

“Yeah,” Tammy, who was never one to mince words, added, “Someone’s dropping turds in the toilet and not flushing.”

“What? Dropping turds?” Liz responded.

“You know, taking a dump and then leaving it in the can without flushing.”

“She’s right,” Linda added. “I’ve seen it a few times, and it’s pretty nasty. The other day they did it right
on
the toilet seat.”

As the other women in the room nodded in agreement, Liz dropped her mouth as if the news were a total shock, which just confirmed Gina’s suspicion that she was the culprit. How was it possible that every other female in the bank had come upon the Mad Pooper’s (as Linda and Gina had started calling her) little gifts but Liz?

“That’s terrible,” Liz responded, starting to turn a bright shade of red. “I’m not sure what to do about this.”

“Why would someone do that?” Bob asked no one in particular.

“My cat does that when she gets mad,” Tammy said. “Whenever we leave her for long periods of time, she shits all over the place—on the sofa, the bedspread. . . .”

“Enough, Tammy,” Liz snapped. “I will put up a sign in the bathroom reminding people to flush. Sometimes individuals from other cultures aren’t aware of proper bathroom etiquette,” Liz said, condescendingly smiling at Jabeen, who was from Iraq.

How dare you! Gina thought, sending an angry glare at Liz before adding, “Oh, I don’t think that’s the case. I’ve seen it happen on several occasions when no one from
another culture
was here.”

Something about the way she had smiled at Jabeen unleashed a new disdain for Liz and made Gina terribly angry.

“In fact, Linda and I were comparing notes, and the only consistency we could come up with was that
you
always seem to be here when it happens,” Gina said to Liz.

A tense silence fell over the room. Gina had just shot a bullet, and everyone waited to see what Liz would do—dodge it, suffer a minor injury, or drop dead. Liz responded to Gina’s jab by sitting in her chair stone-faced. She couldn’t respond. She didn’t have any words. She sat in silence, and Gina almost felt sorry for her but couldn’t because Liz had been perfectly comfortable trying to put the blame on Jabeen.

Oh, God. I’ve just pissed off a woman who regularly defecates on toilet seats. What else is she capable of? “Well, what’s it really matter who’s doing it as long as it stops. I think the meeting’s over, guys,” Gina said to the group, gesturing for them to move on before turning to Liz. “Liz, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply anything. Are you okay?”

Trying to hide her humiliation, Liz responded, “Of course I’m okay. Now, I’d better go put up that sign. We have to try something to make this person, whoever it is, stop this.”

Now Gina really did feel sorry for her. What fantasyland was she living in? Everyone knew she was the Mad Pooper, and there she was, trying to save face anyway. Gina was really starting to question Liz’s sanity.

“God! Is this what seventeen years at Premier does to a person?” Gina said to Linda as they watched Liz walk back into her office.

“She’s trippin’, Gina. I’m worried about her.”

“I’m sorry I embarrassed her, but she was trying to pin it on Jabeen.”

“I know. That was dirty.”

“Well, if she didn’t hate me before, I’m sure she hates me now.”

“What do you think?” Liz interrupted the girls, holding up a sign that read “Please flush the toilet after use.” She was smiling as if nothing had happened.

“It looks fine,” Linda responded.

“Great,” Gina added.

The girls watched her march into the ladies’ room with her sign.

“Gina,” Linda said. “I don’t think you need to worry. I don’t think she even remembers what you said. I think she deleted it from her hard drive, if you know what I mean.”

“I hope so,” Gina replied, pausing for a moment. “You know what, Linda? We need to get the fuck out of here.”

“Okay, I’m right behind you.”

“No. I mean permanently. This place sucks the life out of people. Look at Liz and Mr. Toosh. They’re deranged.”

“Gina, I’m sure they were deranged before they ever started working here.”

“Linda, I’ve got to find another job. How do you stand it here?”

“It doesn’t bother me that much. In fact, some days I like it here. I like the customers for the most part, and I like helping them work the system so Premier doesn’t get the best of them. Besides, I’m good at it.”

“Yes, you are, but I’m certainly not.”

No, you’re not. “Sure you are. You just don’t have any motivation. You know, Annie was rambling on about her business the other night. If you want out of here so bad, why don’t you call her?”

“I think she was just hitting on you, Linda.”

“Maybe so. Who could blame her?” Linda joked, and actually cracked a smile, one of few since René had shown up at the bank. “But I’m sure she can offer some advice and maybe even a job.”

“You know, Linda. I might just do that. This place makes me nuts. I mean, my God, Liz is acting like an angry animal. Gomez does that every once in a while. He gets mad when I leave him alone too much or try to feed him cheap dog food, and then he pees in the apartment.”

Gina forgot to mention that Gomez also got annoyed when she had guests over and didn’t pay enough attention to him. Like that night a few years earlier when she and Peter stayed up late, watching movies on HBO and drinking wine. They hardly paid any attention to him at all. Gomez got so mad, he peed right on the bed while Gina and Peter were sleeping.

The Birthday Boy

G
ina, Linda, and Dennis added their names to the waiting list at Lauriol Plaza, a popular Mexican restaurant with some of the best margaritas in town. The hostess gave them a beeper and they waited in the bar area. It had been over a week since Linda found out about Rosa’s husband. She had been keeping to herself the past few days, but Gina wouldn’t hear of her missing Peter’s birthday party. The three of them had spent most of the day in the middle of Dupont Circle, catching rays, and they had all picked up slight tans. Once again, Gina swore it was her last summer in the sun. Next summer she’d stay under an umbrella. She saw what years of heavy tanning had done to Shirley’s skin, and Gina was determined to age more gracefully than her mother.

“Any prospects?” Gina asked Dennis, eyeing the crowd, looking for someone to fix him up with.

“Gina, we just got here. I haven’t even gotten a drink. What do you guys want from the bar?”

Gina and Linda both asked for margaritas, and Dennis headed off toward the bar. They were still waiting for Cheryl and Peter, and Shirley was also due to show up later. She had started walking a few more dogs in Gina’s building and needed to get them squared away before coming to the restaurant. It was Peter’s birthday, so the gang was celebrating with dinner at Lauriol Plaza and maybe some dancing later at Rumors or Polly Esthers. They were all trying to put on a happy face for his sake but, truth be known, the assembling group was rather gloomy. Linda was still down in the dumps over the whole Rosa fiasco, and Gina and Cheryl were totally distracted with trying to keep their naked bodies off the Internet. But they agreed to try to relax and have some fun for one evening.

The girls leaned against the wall and looked around. Gina felt a sense of relief being in a bar and just hanging out with her friends rather than man hunting. As she thought about it, going out to bars seemed more like work than anything else. She couldn’t quite place the exact time that it happened—when going out to clubs turned from seeking a fun evening of drinking and dancing with her friends to the task of trying to find a decent guy. And the older she got, the more urgent the task seemed to be. She read somewhere that if she wasn’t married by the time she was thirty, she had a better chance of getting hit by a bus than landing a husband. Or was it thirty-five? God! She hoped it was thirty-five.

“So Cheryl is coming and you don’t mind,” Linda asked, intrigued by Gina’s sudden reconciliation with Cheryl.

“No, we had a chat the other day. We’ve decided to put the past behind us.”

“Really? What happened?” Linda questioned again, still having trouble believing Gina and Cheryl were going to sit down to dinner together.

“Nothing,” Gina lied. She wasn’t ready to tell Linda about the whole mess with Griffin, and she wasn’t sure she ever would be. “I guess I’m just getting soft in my old age.”

“Whatever,” Linda said, not really buying Gina’s story but willing to let it go for then.

When there was a quick lull in their conversation, a young man leaned toward Gina and Linda in the crowded bar area and spoke to Gina. “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?” an unbelievably gorgeous, and obviously gay, young man joked to Gina.

“Because the margaritas rock,” Gina said.

“They do, don’t they,” the young man with killer blue eyes and dark brown hair replied. “The pretty boys are just an added bonus.”

“For you, maybe.”

As they continued talking, Dennis came back from the bar with three margaritas in his hands. He offered two to Gina and Linda.

“Thanks. Dennis this is . . . well, actually, I don’t know who this is.”

“Christopher.”

“Chris, this is Dennis, and Linda, and I’m Gina.”

“Christopher,” he said, correcting Gina. “It’s a pleasure to meet you guys. What brings you out tonight?”

“It’s our friend’s birthday. He’s not here yet. We’re taking him to dinner here and then out for some more fun,” Linda said to the young man.

“Sounds like a fun evening.”

“I hope so,” Gina said. “And what about you? What’s your deal,
Christopher?”

“My boyfriend and I are just waiting for a table.”

“So where is this boyfriend?” Gina asked, curious to see what his boyfriend looked like.

“He’s right over there,” Christopher said before calling to his significant other. “Hey, Karl,” he yelled across the bar. Karl didn’t hear him, so he yelled again. “Karl . . . Karl Mullins, you twit!” he yelled again, waving for him to come over and meet Gina and her friends.