Hadrian's Wall (13 page)

“You have very long hair,”
she said, impassively watching me attempt to hide my hair under the
cap.
I think it was not a
compliment
.

She kept looking at my hair until I felt
embarrassed. I turned on my heels and left the locker room. She
followed close behind me, her face still inscrutable.

“Come,” she finally said.

We did a tour through the store. My boss
introduced me to the rest of the cleaning staff first and then to
the other employees who were on the morning shift, but only those
who crossed our path, since some people I had seen before did not
join the queue for introductions. Stan was one of them.

Suddenly, I saw the guy—you know, the kind
of person who strikes you as threatening the instant you see
them.

“The security chief,” my
new boss muttered with obvious displeasure. The man stared at us
intently. He smiled, but didn’t approach me. I thought it would be
polite for me to reciprocate, but my boss scolded me softly. “Don’t
give him any rope. Be very careful with Simon
Cridde
r. He’s worthless, but he’s also
very dangerous.”

What exactly does that
mean?
I wondered, hurrying to follow her.
She walked faster and faster. When we passed in front of him, I
realized how huge he was—well over six and a half feet tall.
Although he wore a uniform like other mall cops, it did disguise
the fact that he was the size of a Viking.

“New meat, Hilda?” He chuckled in a low tone
voice, which to my ears sounded as obscene as his question.

“Don’t mess with my employees,” she hissed
at him, without breaking stride.

I saw him wink at me as I
sped past to catch up with her. I turned my face away and silently
prayed to never cross paths with him again, but I knew that would
be impossible working in such a small environment.
Sooner or later
... I
shuddered, unable to finish the thought.

My boss must have read my mind because she
said, “The secret is never to be alone with him. Always make sure
that there’s someone else around and if not, then go to another
department. Understood?”

I was afraid to ask her what the man had
done that made it necessary to take such measures to avoid him.

Hilda showed me where the cleaning materials
were kept. She gave me a map of the cleaning sectors and how I
should proceed without interfering with customers or colleagues.
She also told me that employees and a schedule of workdays and
hours, as well as the areas they were to clean. Because she was
new, her boss would have to fit her into the schedule, rotating
between day shift and night shift, every other week.

She concluded her explanations, promising to
fit me in the schedule by the end of the day. From there, she let
me work with the “cleaning team,” as she liked to call her
employees. Each team consisted of three girls who were in charge of
cleaning the bathrooms on each floor.

Although I didn’t have
immediate rapport with them, I was relieved that there wasn’t any
trouble. They treated me like the typical “new girl.” It was no
different than at school when the students do their best to make a
new student feel left out. My colleagues talked only among
themselves, speaking to me only when they wanted to tell me, in
great detail, the procedures for cleaning the most disgusting
places—especially the toilet bowls, which of course was to be my
job. They talked about past situations when they saw really
disgusting things, as if they thought it would make me feel
disgusted and angry.
Are you
serious?
I said to myself.
Do I have ‘baby girl’ tattooed on my
forehead?
I think they doubted that I had
the same strength or capacity as they had to perform these
tasks.

As the day progressed, I proved that they
were sadly mistaken. Despite my frail physique or my baby face, I
managed to perform the tasks I was given, all the while diligently
ignoring my fatigue. I couldn’t be as physically strong as they
were, but my determination was stronger than theirs—stronger than
everyone’s.

At the end of the day, Carmen found me
changing my clothes in the locker room. She was eager to know how
my first day had gone. We chatted about the day’s events as we back
to her apartment. She explained some things about the department
store’s policies and procedures, and my hiring.

I seized this opportunity to tell her about
the bizarre advice that Hilda had given me about Simon Cridder. I
thought we’d have a good laugh, but that’s not what happened.
Carmen became very serious, surprising me when she spoke with the
same vehemence as my new boss.

“There was an episode last year...” she
began, but hesitated for a moment when she saw my confused look. “A
girl claimed that he attacked her, but it was never proven. When
the cops discovered that her boyfriend was involved with drugs, it
became a case of one person’s word against the other’s.”

She lowered her head and stared at her own
feet. “All of the women who work in the department store have
something against him. Cridder always tells offensive jokes, makes
obscene invitations...”

“No one did anything about it...like filing
a complaint? If all they did that, it would be difficult for the
cops not to believe them.”

Carmen gave me an exasperated look.

“With respect to Simon Cridder, they don’t
get involved,” she said. “You don’t know Cridder, who his friends
are, who he knows. It’s better for you to just stay clear or him
and always be on alert. We’re subjected to this kind of situation
everywhere, so stay alert and don’t let yourself get into
precarious situations.

Is she serious? It’s the
21st century and women still believe this?
We didn’t have to allow ourselves to be treated with
disrespect. I’d read several articles on the Internet about the
struggle to change the status of women around the globe since the
time of the suffragettes, but it was obvious that the benefits of
these changes didn’t reach all social dimensions. Women continued
to be assaulted and threatened, and for those who live alone, it
seemed even harder for them to be taken seriously.

I kidded Carmen, asking if Cridder was part
of the Mafia and that was why so many people were afraid of him.
She didn’t laugh my joke as I expected. “Something like that...”
was the answer she gave me.

Game over. In view of this, I thought it
would best to follow her original advice: Don’t give bad luck a
chance.

Once inside her apartment,
I forgot Simon Cridder. I was too tired to think about anything. We
prepared a quick dinner—noodles with cheese. Carmen turned up the
TV so we could listen to the news from the kitchen, but I was too
tired to
process
any information!

While I was cutting tomatoes for our salad,
I felt my arms stiffen up, making me wonder if they’d return to
normal in time for work the next day. I never imagined that
cleaning bathrooms required so much physical effort. It was far
worse than mowing lawns or taking lazy dogs for walks.

If I were philosophizing
about it, I think the worst part of my job was getting the tile
shiny and clean, only to have a customer come in five minutes later
and destroy all my work in less than five seconds and then having
to start over again.
Ugh!

“...the rangers are on the
hunt for a giant cat seen in the vicinity by joggers,”
the reporter was saying. “
The locals are terrified and no one wants visit the park while
the animal is on the loose. Several witnesses reported hearing
deafening roars around midnight...”

I heard the news story, but paid little
attention to it. I yawned.

“You’re worn out, girl!” Carmen said,
looking at me dubiously. “Are you going to be able to handle this
job?”

“Appearances are deceiving. I’m not as frail
as I look. I’ve been through much worse situations—not in the
physical sense, but I’m not afraid of hard work. I’m more afraid of
being unemployed!”

Carmen nodded. She couldn’t argue with me
about that. For a girl like Carmen, who also depended on having a
job in order to support herself, it was easy to understand my point
of view.

“What exactly did you
see?
” continued the reporter on
television.

“It was the most appalling thing I’ve ever
seen...I don’t know how to describe it! It was a panther with eyes
illuminated by moonlight. He stopped about ten feet from where I
stood, stared at me for a minute, and then quietly moved away. He
seemed to be looking for something because he sniffed the air all
the time. Although it was a clear moonlit night, the trees cast
shadows. I could only see that the animal was huge. I’ve never seen
a cat that size. It was much larger than a lion or a tiger...but it
was a panther.”

“Are you sure?”
the reporter asked, sounding somewhat skeptical,
like the women were exaggerating the facts.
A panther with sparkling eyes in a quiet state like
Maine?

“Son,” t
he woman replied angrily, “
I think I
know the basic difference between felines. I didn’t miss class that
day
.”

“Uh huh!”
Now the reporter sounded embarrassed.
“
The police recommended that people avoid
this area. Don’t walk alone through the park until the animal has
been captured. I’m Paul LeFleur, direct from South
Portland.
”

“Just what we need...an over-developed pussy
prowling the city. You brought it with you, right?” Carmen laughed,
setting a pitcher of iced tea on the table.

“Ha! Ha! Very funny,” I said.

* * *

The work days that followed were hard. It
took a while for my muscles to get used to the drudgery of my new
routine. Worst of all was the back pain, but I was determined to
ignore it. I had youth on my side. Plenty of other people had been
doing the same job their entire lives and never got tired or called
in sick. Why should I be different? Did I consider myself a damn
princess? No! In fact, I had an aversion to people like that.

The days went by fast. I
was happy to have a job and a roof over my head. I felt like Carmen
and I were becoming good friends. She was always cheerful and
talkative, which made
up for my silence. On the other
hand, in my silence, Carmen discovered the essential quality of a
listener. We got along well. I listened to her vent about the
fights she had with her boyfriend—a guy two years younger than her
who worked at the marina. I offered encouragement, but nothing more
because I’d already noticed that Carmen was the kind of girl who
didn’t like being contradicted—especially when it came to her
romantic relationships. She listened to what she wanted to hear. If
you confessed what you really thought of her boyfriend, she
wouldn’t like it one bit.

Taking these small precautions, not exposing
myself to unnecessary problems or situations, everything went very
well, until that first weekend when Carmen decided I should revive
my love life. She dragged me to a rave party that was swarming in a
place situated on the outskirts of Portland, one that her boyfriend
frequented—yet another reason I didn’t like it.

Being there was real
torment for me. I hated parties, but Carmen felt hurt, even angry
because of my constant excuses to avoid going with them, so I
agreed to make my debut at a rave party the following
Saturday.
I will live to regret that
decision until the day I die.

That night ended with me dead tired, deaf
(because of very loud noise level), and sandwiched between three
drunks inside a smelly car—Carmen, her boyfriend, and the “blind
date” guy they brought along for me.

When Carmen and her boyfriend started
necking in the front seat, my blind date followed suit. His breath
smelled like the whiskey he’d been drinking and I couldn’t stand
anymore. I pretended to be sick and jumped out of the car. My
relief was short-lived because the contender to my “TB#1”—temporary
boyfriend—also jumped out of the car and was calling me with a
thick-tongued voice, slurring his words. To get away from him, I
decided to go back into the nightclub we’d just left.

You know the expression, ‘If it weren’t for
bad luck, I’d have no luck at all’...well, I’d have opted for “bad
luck” because as I made my way back inside, who should appear to
totally ruin my night—Simon Cridder. He blocked my way. I
automatically stepped back, but even from that distance away, I
could smell his bad breath. It was no better than that of Carmen’s
drunk friend.

“Excuse me?” I said, trying to sound
annoyed. I tried to sound self-assured, but I think he realized how
intimidated I was by his size and his indecent leer.

Cridder crossed his arms over his enormous
pectorals and gave no indication that he was going to let me pass.
His smile was predatory when he looked down at me.

“What’s the matter, baby? You running away
from your date?”

Yuck!
So he’s been watching me. It’s time to try a different
strategy!

“No, I think I drank too much and I’m sick
as hell!” I opened my mouth, forcing myself to salivate in a
grotesque way. “I think...I’ think I’m gonna puke!” Immediately, I
threw myself at him.

Cridder quickly got out my way for fear that
I would empty the entire contents of my stomach on his clothes.
Taking advantage of his surprise, I ran like Ricochet Rabbit to the
ladies room without looking back.

“Hey!” I could still hear him yelling.