No Safe House

Forty-three

It was nearly ten thirty when Jane Scavullo arrived at the offices of the Anders and Phelps advertising agency with her purse over one shoulder, the strap of an oversized gym bag, the handle of a tennis racket sticking out one end, over the other.

“Hey, Jane,” Hector, the young guy on the front desk, said as she walked through the lobby. “Lookin’ a little wasted there.”

“Fuck off, Hector,” she said.

“Late, too,” he said with pleasure.

She had to admit she’d looked better. Not nearly enough sleep last night. All that drama with the Cummings house and Grace and Vince. Then, this morning, finding out that Bryce had lied to her. Finally, making a stop on the way to work to deal with another matter.

She dumped the gym bag in the well under her desk and kicked it forward, then saw the light on her phone was flashing. She wasn’t ready yet to face her messages, so she got up and went around the corner to the lunchroom to see whether anyone had put on a pot of coffee yet.

Yes.

She grabbed a mug and filled it. Jane drank her coffee black, the way Vince drank his. If you’re going to have coffee, he’d told her, have coffee. Don’t pussy it up with milk or cream and sugar.

She blew on it, then had a sip, caught her reflection in the glass of a framed newspaper ad: “Riverside Honda! We’ve Rebuilt and NOW We’re Having a Fire Sale!”

Not one of her ads. That was before her stint here began, although she remembered when the car dealership burned down a few years ago. She hadn’t worked at Anders and Phelps — A&P, everyone around here called it — long enough to earn a framed piece of work on the wall, not even here in the lunchroom. And these days, an effective ad was unlikely to be something you could frame. Who advertised in newspapers anymore? Who looked at newspapers anymore? Jane couldn’t remember the last time she’d picked one up, not even the New York Times. When Jane wanted to know what was going on in the world — which was not that often, if you wanted to know the truth — she went online. That’s where she liked to see her clients’ ads placed. You just had to find the right Web site so you were going after the right demographic. Or figured out peoples’ surfing habits and made the ad pop up wherever they went. There was radio, too, which seemed like the oldest medium on the planet next to newspapers. But it was still a good choice. People driving around in their cars all day, radio turned on for background noise. That could work.

Like she gave a shit about any of this.

Was this what she really wanted to do? Mr. Archer, he’d figured her out. She wanted to write, and not stupid jingles for gas stations and furnace repair companies. She wanted to write novels. She wanted to write about what it was like to be a young woman growing up today. Wondering what the hell you were going to do with your life. Having to fight for everything you got. Nobody wanting to give you a permanent job. All short-term contracts. No benefits. The whole 22-22-22 thing. If you were twenty-two, companies worked you twenty-two hours a day for twenty-two thousand dollars a year. And if you didn’t like that, well, tough shit.

Kind of like Anders and Phelps.

She went back to her desk, set the coffee down, and retrieved her messages. She’d made cold calls the day before to a couple of dozen random Milford-area businesses. She got three callbacks, all saying thanks but no thanks, they didn’t have the budget to advertise at this time.

Dumbasses. If things were slow, you had to get your name out there. If there wasn’t a lot of business, you had to make sure what business there was went to you. Jane tried to tell them, but some people were dumb as turnips.

Fucking Bryce.

Talking about his gig, how the evening had gone, but he hadn’t even been there. Jane hadn’t let on that she’d seen his text. She’d left his phone facedown on his bedside table. When he’d come out of the bathroom, she’d said his phone had buzzed. Bryce checked it, turned his back to her.

“What is it?” she’d asked.

“Nothing,” he’d said. “Just Hartley, saying he thinks we should work on some new things.”

She’d seen him fiddling about with his thumb, no doubt deleting the exchange in case she got curious.

If Jane was guessing, it was Melanie. Her supposed friend Melanie. She’d seen something going on between the two of them. Nothing overt. It wasn’t as if Melanie had leaned across the table the last time they were all out for drinks together and shoved her tongue down Bryce’s throat. It was more the way she laughed at everything he said, and let’s face it, Bryce was not exactly Jerry Seinfeld. And Jane was pretty sure she’d caught him looking at her out of the corner of his eye more than once.

Jane got out her phone, brought up her contacts, and tapped on Melanie. Considered how to go about this. What message could she send her friend that might trip her up?

She typed: Hey maybe a drink after work? Did you catch band last night? I couldn’t make it.

Sent the message.

Jane set the phone down, took a file folder out of her desk. She had to write some copy for a law firm’s radio spot and think up some way to make a protective mattress pad sound like something you just had to buy, without using the word “stain.”

Her phone buzzed.

Melanie had texted: Yes to drink. Duh. Went by bar, Bryce not there. Sick?

That was interesting. Jane had to think about that response. Melanie wasn’t covering for him. If she and Bryce had been out together, wouldn’t she have lied? Wouldn’t she have said yes, she saw the band, Bryce was great? Something like that?

She texted back: Shit just had ton of stuff dropt on me cant do tonite. Bryce seemed ok 2 me this morn.

So if he hadn’t been out with Melanie, what was he doing? Who was he with?

The hell with it. She dialed Bryce’s cell.

Seconds later, he said, “Hey, babe. Sorry about this morning. We just seemed to get off on the wrong foot or—”

“Don’t lie to me, okay? Don’t lie to me when I ask you this question.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Where were you last night? I know it wasn’t with the band.”

Silence on the other end.

“You there, Bryce? This is not a good time to pretend you lost my signal.”

“Look, uh, I couldn’t make it to the gig. I was feeling off.”

“So if you didn’t do the gig, where did you go? Spend the night in the ER waiting for them to treat you for sniffles?”

“Jane, I can’t — I can’t do this right now.”

“I can.”

“It’s just, things between us lately, they’ve been kind of rocky, you know? And you’ve been totally on edge. Sometimes, when I’m talking to you, it’s like you’re on another planet. You don’t hear a thing I’m—”

“Just tell me her name,” Jane said. Hector had appeared and was standing in front of her desk.

A long sigh from Bryce. “I went for a drink with Steph. That’s all it was. A drink.”

“You were out with Staphylococcus?”

Hector had his arms crossed and was strumming his fingers on his elbow.

“Jane, don’t call her that. She’s just a friend, but she’s a good listener and—”

Jane snapped at Hector. “I am on the phone.”

“Sounds like a personal call.”

“Wow. You’re super perceptive.”

“You shouldn’t talk to me like that,” he said.

“Like what?”

“When you came in and told me to fuck off.”

“Oh, Hector, fuck off.”

“That’s what I mean, right there. It’s contrary to the office code of conduct.”

Jane spoke back into the phone. “Good-bye, Bryce.”

“Yeah, we’ll talk later, after you get—”

“No, good-bye, for good.” She ended the call and turned her glare back onto Hector. “The office code of conduct, and you can kiss my skinny, white ass. Was there something else you wanted?”

“There’s a woman in the lobby who wants to talk to you,” he said.

“About what? I hit her car or something?”

“She wants to hire you, bitch,” Hector said. “You know, for an ad campaign? The thing we do here?”

“Show her to the conference room. I’ll join her in a minute.”

“You know,” Hector said, leaning over the desk and whispering, “I’d complain to Mr. Anders about you, but my guess is, you’re blowing him.”

Jane batted her eyes twice and said, “Yeah, but he tells me I’m nowhere near as good as you.”

Hector scurried off. Jane gathered together a notepad and a fine-point pen, plus an iPad in its handsome black leather case. If this potential client wanted to see or hear any of the work Jane had done for others, she could show it to her on the tablet. She allowed a minute to make sure the client was already in the room. That way Jane could make an entrance. Always looked better than being the one sitting and waiting, like you had nothing else to do. Make the client think you’re doing her a favor, finding a spot in your busy day to talk to her.

The woman was there, sitting. Nice looking, black hair, small string of pearls around her neck. Big smile, good teeth.

“Hi,” she said, standing.

“Don’t get up,” Jane said, extending a hand. “A pleasure to meet you. I just had to finish up a call there.” All businesslike now, no more f-bombs.

Calm down, she told herself. Put the Bryce thing away. Lock it up in the box. You’ve always been good at this.

“No problem,” the woman said.

“I’m Jane Scavullo.” She presented the woman with a business card.

“I’m so glad to meet you. I’ve heard good things.”

Jane almost said, “Really?” Had to catch herself. Don’t act stunned when getting a compliment. What she did say was, “And you are?”

“I’m the best life coach in all of southern Connecticut,” she said.

“A who?”

“Life coach. I’ve been trying to raise my profile and I thought, maybe I need to advertise more, you know? I mean, I have the Web site, but people have to find the Web site, right? They have to know it’s out there.”

Jane was thinking, Steph? Bryce was out with Stephanie? That girl had nothing going on.

“What do you think?” the woman asked.

“I’m sorry?” Jane said.

“Do you think you could get my name out there, get me more clients?”

“Well, I guess the first place to start would be for you to tell me what your name is?”

“Oh!” The woman laughed and extended a hand. “My name’s Regina. But call me Reggie. Everybody does.”