Ray thought this temp job would be like all the others... until people started showing up to work dead. Agatha Christie meets The Office in the quirky mystery, GOSSIP KILLS. Read the first six chapters here...  

                                                                     

1

“It is so, so terrific to meet you, Ray. Please, call me Tabby.” Tabby - who, as far as her saccharine voice went, was identical to Dee Dee, the other temp agent Ray had met with this afternoon - settled into a chair across from his, crossing her legs as she glanced down at his resume. “So, Ray. You worked in a bike shop? Why don’t you tell me about that.”

“I worked at Gustave’s Bike Repair for four years. Mostly as a mechanic, but there were only a couple of us working there, so there was a lot to do.” Unfortunately, Ray explained, Gustave’s had closed three months ago after thirty-plus years of business; another independent shop driven to its death by the big chain-store competitors.

“Mmm.” Tabby nodded encouragingly. “So, tell me, Ray: what attracted you to temporary work?”

“I just wanted a change, I guess. I never thought I would work in a bike shop my whole life. I’m not really sure what I want to do in the long run, but my rent is due in a few weeks, and the unemployment check won’t cover it - not that I want to live off that.” He paused. “I’ve heard that office temping is a good way to try out different things.”

“Mmm. Absolutely. Yes. Well, I will tell you, Ray. Right after Dee Dee interviewed you she sent you right to me without delay. You did extremely well on your computer test, Ray.” Tabby ran a long fingernail down his resume, looking for something she’d missed. “There’s just one skill you don’t mention here, Ray. A skill that is very important for Ultiwork’s clients.”

“Yes?” He tried to remain confident, wondering what it could be, something no one had told him he needed to know. Ray had never worked in an office before.

Tabby blinked at him, concerned. “Do you know how to file?”

“File?”

She nodded.

“You mean . . . filing as in . . . using the alphabet to organize . . . folders and things?”

She nodded again.

“Yeah . . . yes. I can file,” said Ray.

Tabby’s face lit up. “Great. That’s great. Because I have got a job which I think you could excel at. I don’t know how much you know about the field of medical insurance, Ray, but I’m thinking you could really enjoy this position.”

“Great.”

“Wonderful. Wonderful, Ray. But before I go into any details I would love for you to watch this short video about being part of the Ultiwork team.”

“Great.”

Tabby pressed play on the VCR and left the room. As the music swelled up and outdated computer graphics spelled out the Ultiwork logo on the TV screen - “Welcome to the World of Ultiwork” - Ray took a deep breath and braced himself for his exciting new future as an office temp.

~

“They placed you fast.” Justin stuffed another bite of pasta into his mouth.

“I guess. I start Monday. It’s way out by the suburbs, too far to ride my bike. The last stop on the bus line.”

“That sucks. But how much are they paying?” Ray told him. “Not bad,” Justin said chewing, secure in the knowledge that he made twice as much.

“Did they tell you what you’re going to be doing?” Justin’s girlfriend Sophie sat with her chin resting on her hands, elbows on the table, watching Justin, who had already finished his own dinner, consume the rest of hers.

Ray shrugged. “Answering phones or data entry or something. Something to do with medical insurance.”

“Insurance.” Sophie, who worked for the same giant financial company as Justin, wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Yuck. My friend Roxanne had one temp job for a whole year where she just sat at a desk? She was supposed to answer the phone for this one executive, but it never rang, so all she did was read. Can you imagine? Being paid to read all day?” Sophie smiled dreamily.

“I guarantee you the job will be cushy,” Justin told Ray. “Definitely easy for someone like you. They never give temps any real responsibility. Just answering phones and filing, least in my office.”

His girlfriend nodded. “And photocopying and faxing.” Justin’s cell phone rang then and he took the call.

Ray looked in his cabinet, having realized, watching Justin and Sophie eat dinner, that he was hungry. He found only some old crackers. He needed to go to the grocery store badly and thought he might just have enough money to buy food for the week if he was careful. It was a relief that he had gotten this temp job; besides the imminent rent, Ray owed Justin three hundred dollars - more than that even, thanks to Justin’s habit of paying the phone and utility bills without comment. Ray knew he probably wasn’t going to like being an office temp very much, but he would do almost anything to not have to ask Justin for a loan to cover his half of the rent. Filled with determination, he bit into a stale cracker.

“We have more leftovers,” Sophie said, watching him.

“That’s all right. Thanks, though.”

Sophie had short hair, a perennially gentle expression on her face, and two masters degrees. Ray could understand how Justin had let go of his playboy lifestyle in order to go steady with her for the past two years. Of course playboy lifestyles were never as good as they sounded; this, anyway, was the conclusion Ray had come to from observing Justin’s. The two of them had been best friends since fourth grade. Justin had always gotten along with everyone even though he was smarter than them all; in school he’d excelled at soccer and all the girls had liked him. Ray had never resented being the less favored one. He simply wasn’t as outgoing or, he supposed, as good-looking.

Justin got off the phone and said, “Ray, you should come to this party tonight. This is your last weekend of freedom before you join the normal working world.”

“Sure,” Ray bit into another cracker. “You think there’ll be food there?”

~

A bell chimed, and the small plastic six lit up. The elevator doors opened and Ray stepped directly out into the reception area of Your Health Plan, his new temporary employer. He approached the desk and the blonde sitting there. “Hi, I’m Ray Keller. I’m from Ultiwork.”

“For?” She barely looked up at him, too busy sorting some stacks of paper on the desk that stretched around her work area.

“I’m supposed to ask for Karen.”

The girl punched some buttons and spoke into the telephone headset she was already wearing. “Karen, your temp is here . . . No, just one . . . Yep. Uh huh. Okay.” Finally she met Ray’s eyes with her own flat brown uninterested ones. “Karen says to wait ’til the other guy gets here.”

Without further direction, Ray crossed the lobby and sat down in one of a line of chairs. There were some magazines beside the fake plant, but they were all about something called managed care. The receptionist’s head was bent over her work importantly; he could hear her stapling.

Ray had slept badly and woken at dawn, had brought himself by bus to the far outskirts of the city. The office building had been easy enough to find. It rose up tall and bland amidst nothing much except some old industrial warehouses, a large bus depot and its two accompanying parking lots; the highway was close by, on the other side of a wooded area. Tabby had told him that it would be a good idea to arrive fifteen minutes early on his first day, but because of the schedule of the bus he took, the only way Ray could do this was by arriving forty minutes early. He had killed a quarter of an hour loitering at the depot, a huge place where the off-duty buses rested in rows. Now that he was finally here in the office Ray wanted to fall asleep, lulled by the humming of the fluorescent lights and the repetitive crunch of the receptionist’s stapler. He blinked, forced his eyes to remain open, fought to stay awake.

He must have nodded off for a second, because he was jerked back to consciousness when the phone buzzed and the blonde spoke into her headset. “Thank you for calling Your Health Plan . . . Um, hold on . . . No, I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t think he’s in yet. I’ll transfer you to his voice mail.” She passed a resentful glance in Ray’s direction and yawned before resuming her work with the stapler. Ray stifled a yawn of his own in response.

The elevator doors opened and a rush of tired-looking people streamed out, weighed down with coats and bags and cups of coffee. Most of them went through a set of heavy wooden double doors on Ray’s right. In the wake of this elevator tide a gawky-looking boy remained before the reception desk, shifting his weight from foot to foot. He carried a battered leather briefcase and his thick glasses were crooked on his head. When he told the receptionist he was a Temporary Associate from Ultiwork she pointed him wordlessly toward Ray; she could then be heard calling someone, Karen, telling her that both her temps were here. The boy sat down beside Ray, setting the briefcase at his feet. “Hi, I’m Dez.” He smiled hopefully.

“Ray.”

Dez had a limp handshake but his manner was eager. “So, so, so, you’re from Ultiwork too?”

“Yep.” Ray looked at his watch then at the wall clock: it was nine o’clock now. Office workers were passing back and forth across the lobby with cups of coffee, wishing each other good morning.

“So- so how do you like doing business with Ultiwork? Do you find them satisfactory?”

“This is actually my first assignment for them.”

“Oh. Ahh.” Dez pushed his glasses up against the bridge of his nose. “It’s my fifth. My fifth. I had . . . four other jobs for them. Yup, yes, four others, this is my fifth.”

As Ray wondered how to respond to this, the double doors swung open and a tall man strode up to the reception desk carrying two cans of soda. The blonde looked up. As soon as she saw him she smiled; it was an improvement.

“Hey, beautiful,” the man said and then, to Ray’s surprise, he leaned over the desk and kissed the receptionist on the mouth. Dez gawked. The man, showing no awareness of the two temps waiting there, reached out and held the girl’s hand across the desk. His voice was deep, and it carried across the lobby. “So, I have a surprise.”

“A surprise? For me?”

“No, for someone else,” he joked.

“Keith!”

“Silly. What are you doing this weekend?”

The phone buzzed and she had to answer it. Turning, the man noticed Ray and Dez for the first time, nodding to them with an easy smile on his face. When the receptionist was done with the call he leaned down and whispered to her until she jumped up out of her chair, ran around the desk and embraced him.

Her face was flushed with happiness as she peered up into his eyes. “Really? Really, Keith? You mean it?” The girl’s hair was long and straight, a flat, even blonde with dark roots; the man, Keith, had to be at least a decade older than her. The colorful spectacle this couple made seemed out of place in the long, blank, boring office lobby at nine-o-seven in the morning.

Keith was about to kiss the girl again when the swinging doors opened to reveal a slim woman of about forty wearing a sleeveless gray dress and very high heels. Her straight brown hair, shoulder-length, swung as she shook her head at the amorous couple. “Keith, really. Must you? You’re distracting Paige from her work.” Her tone of voice made it clear that she was in charge. “You’re done with that collating I asked you to do for me, Paige?”

“No,” admitted the girl. The buzzing phone saved her from further inquiry.

“Aw, Karen. Lighten up, you know it flatters you.” Keith put his arm around her shoulders.

Karen sighed. “Keith, don’t push me. It’s Monday morning. I just quit smoking.”

He smiled. “Again? That’s terrific, Karen. If you need any advice or someone to talk to, you know I’m always here. Well, gotta get to work. Monday morning. Work to do.” Keith left with his can of soda, crossing the room with a spring in his step, whistling as he disappeared through the swinging doors. The receptionist, though officially talking into her headset phone, watched his receding back intently.

Karen Cavalanche turned and introduced herself to Ray and Dez. Though her face was lined - she was a few years older than forty, up close - she was attractive in a thin, sharp-featured way, with dark lipstick and fingernails painted a red that was almost black; plus the femme fatale heels. “I am so happy you two could be here.” She smiled at the boys. “Thank you for coming. So, do either of you know anything about insurance claims? No? So you’ve never heard of Medical Pre-certification then?”

They looked at her blankly. “Pre-what?” asked Dez.

Karen sighed, and her smile seemed more forced. “Your Health Plan is an umbrella for a large network of insurance carriers. You will be working here in the Pre-certification department, which means that you will be authorizing insurance holders for hospital stays and outpatient surgical procedures based on medical necessity. Don’t worry, you will be assisted by a computer program as well as by our staff of nurses.”

A dim memory surfaced: Justin and Sophie assuring Ray of how easy his temp job would be.

The elevator chimed and the doors opened. Only one person stepped out this time, a cute young woman with dark eyes and a man’s black overcoat, which was too big for her. When she saw Karen she bit her lip, and her eyes went round with worry. She started to tiptoe past Karen’s back, but Paige caught her eye and beckoned urgently. The girl, with a glance at Karen and a gesture to keep it quick, leaned over the desk and listened to the receptionist’s happy whispers.

Karen was telling Ray and Dez that they would be receiving telephone calls from hospitals, doctor’s offices and the insurance holders themselves, when the receptionist’s giggling voice broke through. “He asked me to go away for the weekend with him. This weekend.”

“Really?” said the girl in the big black coat.

Karen sighed and turned to face them. “Paige? Genie?”

The girl, Genie, turned with big, innocent brown eyes. Karen looked pointedly at the clock and Genie launched into an explanation. “I’m sorry, I know, see I missed the bus and there’s not another one I can take - I mean, I missed it by one minute literally and then I had to wait almost half an hour for the next bus; it was the most frustrating thing. I got here as soon as I could.”

“Well now that you’re here, Genie,” said Karen with deliberate patience, “do you think you could get to work? It’s Monday morning and there are calls backed up. If you continue to be late I’ll have to call your temp agency.”

Genie’s gaze met Ray’s for half a second before she skipped off, leaving the heavy double doors swinging behind her. Paige, twice chastised now, had already resumed her stapling.

Karen smiled at the boys and told them that punctuality was very important. “So as I was saying, I know it sounds complicated, but you’ll really only be authorizing outpatient procedures and hospital stays, and the members’ coverage and benefits are dictated by your computer; any more complicated cases you will assign to the nurses on our medical staff for management. I’m a nurse myself, so I can also answer any questions you might have. So you understand so far? Good. Then let’s get started with your training.”

Dez stared at Karen, his mouth moving in mute panic. Ray hoped that this was all a nightmare and that any second his alarm would go off and it would be Monday morning and time to go to his new temp job.

2

It was just like Genie’s luck to be late on a Monday morning and then to have Karen catch her. At least it brought some drama to her life: it might be the negative sort, but any kind of drama was an alleviation of the boredom she knew was ahead of her, another dreaded week in the cubicle. Your Health Plan was so deadly boring that getting caught for being late was, for Genie, an adventure. As an added bonus there was the vicarious thrill of her sort-of-friend Paige’s romantic entanglements; and Genie knew she wasn’t alone in finding these entertaining. On the way to her cubicle she passed the brightly lit lunchroom, packed with people grouped around the coffee maker and the water cooler socializing, gossiping. And who could blame them?

Your Health Plan was so boring that Genie sometimes wished something unbelievable would happen there, anything to break up the monotony. But a cyclone wasn’t going to hit the office building, Genie wasn’t going to get kidnapped, and so far no one seemed to be a vampire or a spy in disguise. In some of the more high-tech skyscrapers she’d temped in, at least Genie could imagine herself doing important futuristic work in a space station, or maybe pretend she was the president of an international corporation. The Your Health Plan office was just dreary and depressing, cubicle life of the worst kind, constantly reminding Genie that she was just a lowly temp.

Since Karen had already caught her anyway, Genie thought it couldn’t hurt to pop in to her friend Lauren’s cubicle for a second. Lauren was talking into her phone headset, on a call already, but she sensed Genie behind her and turned in her seat to smile and wave; her hair was still in its messy morning ponytail, though on Lauren this looked stylish. Genie mouthed, “I’m late,” and kept on walking.

She jumped in fright as she passed Chris Tarnahan’s cubicle, but only because he’d chosen that moment to stand and shout something about a football game across to the guys in the Mental Health section. Chris was loud and big all over; when he stood, his cubicle walls barely reached his shoulders. Chris was also Paige’s ex; she had dated him before she’d started seeing Keith. Like Genie and Lauren, Paige was a temp who had been at this job a mere six months. Early on it was clear to everyone that Paige had her own ways of alleviating cubicle boredom; no one minded much, because they needed something to gossip about.

Genie’s cubicle was halfway between the lunchroom and the Mental Health section. Legend had it that at some time in the past all the workspaces at Your Health Plan had been filled to overflowing. This was not the case now. Though she could hear voices and phones ringing across the big room, the cubicles around hers were deserted. She took off her coat, turned on her computer and logged into the Your Health Plan network so that she would receive calls. Having been at this temp placement six months herself, she knew the ropes almost like it was her real job. Basically she talked on the telephone all day, with the main topics of conversation being death, disease and childbirth.

Her phone buzzed: the start of her workweek. She adjusted her headset. “Thank you for calling Your Health Plan, my name is Genie and this is a recorded call. How may I help you today?”

It was a billing person from a hospital in New Jersey, and Genie spent the next eleven minutes authorizing an emergency gallbladder removal that had actually taken place yesterday, on Sunday. When she was done she logged the call on a form, and was waiting for another one when she felt a breeze and looked behind her. “So,” Lauren started right in, “Trevin said that Keith asked Paige to go away with him this weekend.”

“Yeah, I know. I saw Paige when I came in. She made sure to tell me.”

They both glanced in the direction of the Mental Health section, where Keith and Trevin worked. “Well, well, well,” Lauren giggled. “Things are heating up. What did Paige say?”

“We didn’t get to talk too long because I was late and Karen was there. You know Paige, she’s making a big deal. She says she wants to talk to us about it at lunch. Obsess about it.”

The phone rang. Lauren rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I’d better get back too. Lunch, right?” She touched Genie’s shoulder and turned to leave the cubicle.

Genie hit a button. “Thank you for calling Your Health Plan, my name is Genie and this is a recorded call. How may I help you today?”

“My name is Barbara Pallanze, group number 092-” A patient, her voice already overflowing with hostility and suspicion. Genie accessed the woman's file and opened it on her screen. “I have been on the phone for an hour trying to straighten this out,” Mrs. Pallanze rasped. “You people have made a mistake. I have a letter here saying that I am not covered for the knee surgery I had back in June when I clearly-”

There was movement behind Genie and she turned in her chair to see Molly, Office Coordinator and Karen’s second-in-command, gesturing at her. “Excuse me, Ma’am?” Genie cut in. “Mrs. Pallanze? I’m sorry, but I have to put you on hold a second.”

“Oh, no, don’t you even dare-”

“One moment please.”

“Don’t you even-”

Genie put the call on hold and looked round at Molly, who said, “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news hon, but there’s two new temps starting today and Karen wants you and Lauren to train ’em. Yeah, I know. Just what you were hoping for.”

Genie groaned. “I just trained a new temp last week and then she left the job, it was a complete waste of time.”

“I know.” Molly grimaced. “If it makes you feel any better, Karen said she didn’t know what she would do without you two. Anyway, she wants you out in Reception right away.”

“I’m on a call.”

“Soon as you’re done then, log off and go see Karen in the lobby. So did you hear about Keith asking Paige to go to a bed and breakfast with him this weekend? Unbelievable.” She tut-tutted as she turned, her long hair bouncing behind her. Molly was an ordinary-looking woman with a frequent smile and dimple, who spent a lot of time on her hair; it was an artificial light auburn and always looked like it had been set with rollers.

Genie took her call off hold. “Sorry, Mrs. Pallanze, what can I do for you?”

The woman growled. “Oh, do I have to start all over again? Wonderful. Great. I was informed by a representative of your company in June, as was my doctor, that I was fully covered for this procedure, and-”

“Okay, but if your surgery took place last June and this is a billing issue, then I’m sorry but I think you need to talk to Claims-”

“You think? What do you mean you think? I was just talking to the Benefits department! The Benefits Department said they were transferring me to Claims, so-”

“But this isn’t Claims.”

Mrs. Pallanze screamed across phone lines, “I demand to speak to your supervisor!”

“Ma’am, I’m sorry, this is the Medical Pre-certification department, not Claims. If it’s about a surgery that took place last June then there’s nothing we can do- ”

Mrs. Pallanze shrieked in desperation. “Why won’t you listen to me? Why won’t any of you listen? I had knee surgery in June. I’m supposed to have medical coverage and now you’re saying you won’t pay for it over some goddamned technicality? Do you even know how much they’re billing me for?”

Genie raised her voice. “Ma’am, as I said, if it’s a Claims issue I am going to have to transfer you to Claims. You’ve reached the wrong-”

“What do you mean if it’s a claim issue?” shrieked Mrs. Pallanze. “First you put me on hold, make me wait-”

“I’m sorry, but-”

“No! Don’t transfer me! Don’t transfer me, young lady! No! They said-”

“I’m sorry but I’m transferring you to Claims now. Good luck.” Genie double-checked the numbers, hit some buttons and, with a deep breath, put the phone down.

This happened several times a day.

Calls were constantly mis-routed; callers were constantly ending up lost in an endless series of misdirected phone transfers. Genie didn’t know what state of the country the Claims department was in (or if it was even in this country), let alone if the numbers she had for it were the correct ones. In fact, sometimes Genie suspected that Your Health Plan had a malfunctioning phone system on purpose, anything so they wouldn’t have to pay for the things they had promised to cover.

Genie had no background in medical billing. She had figured out enough that she could work the phones, but that wasn’t quite the same thing as being qualified to do it. Yet for the past three months she and Lauren had been training new temps, most of whom had left the job within a few weeks anyway; it was implied that YHP couldn’t afford to waste the precious time of a regular employee on this pointless activity.

Genie strolled back toward the lobby, noticing as she passed that Lauren’s workspace was empty. The cubicle next to Lauren’s belonged to their supervisor - a plaque on her desk read Karen Cavalanche, RN - but she wasn’t there either; Genie was meeting them both in the lobby with the new temps. Karen wasn’t really in charge or she would have an actual office across the Reception lobby in the executive suite; she was just the nurse who oversaw the day-to-day workings of the Pre-certification department. Today a fancy paper sign had been tacked to the outside of Karen’s cubicle. In curly pink script with a border of flowers and lace, the sign said: Please Be Nice to Me, I Just Quit Smoking.

Chris Tarnahan was by the door to the lunchroom, complaining to Trevin in a whining voice, and as Genie walked by she distinctly heard Chris mention the names of Paige and Keith. It was safe to assume that he’d heard the gossip of the morning and wasn’t taking it very well. Though it had been two months since they’d broken up, Chris still wasn’t over Paige. Genie was convinced that Paige thrived on this attention and drama and enjoyed being the center of office gossip, but Lauren laughed this off like she did everything; Lauren was a flirt herself, though she never went as far as Paige.

Genie had seen two strange boys in the lobby earlier so she assumed that these were the new temps. One of them was actually kind of cute, and Genie would bet money that Lauren would be chosen to train that one; as she deserved to, she deserved good luck: in addition to being beautiful, Lauren was always happy and nice. While Genie grumbled about training, Lauren claimed not to mind, and this attitude rewarded her. Her natural good spirits were unaffected by anything, really, but then it was easy to be optimistic when you were graceful, tall and lovely with perfect teeth and posture.

Genie’s hand was raised to push the heavy swinging doors to the Reception lobby when they suddenly opened from the other side, coming at her so fast and hard that one of the doors hit her in the head and threw her backwards, knocking the breath out of her lungs. It happened so quickly that Genie barely realized anything had happened at all: only that there was a loud bang and a flash of light before everything went black.

3

Karen had introduced Ray and Dez to the office coordinator, Molly Warren - a woman in her thirties with long reddish hair - and to Lauren Elkes, a temp like themselves who would be training them.

Then they had stood in the lobby for several minutes, waiting for another person to come so that they could begin the training. Molly tried to explain the Your Health Plan phone lines to them. She seemed nice and laughed a lot, showing a dimple; but Ray couldn’t stop looking at the temp Lauren: her smile glowed and her skin glowed and she had the sweetest expression on her face, beautiful blue eyes and yellow-streaked hair, and the nose of a girl who would be on TV.

Finally Karen had sighed impatiently and said that they would have to head on in and catch up with Genie in her cubicle.

Though he couldn’t have known where they were going, Dez had followed Karen’s lead and jumped ahead to open the door for her; moved by his desire to be kind or chivalrous, he had pounced on the double doors and pushed them open much too quickly.

There was a loud thud like he had hit something hard on the other side. Dez stumbled as the door rocked back at him too fast, and Ray reached an arm around him to hold it open.

Karen, Molly and Lauren all screamed. On the other side of the doors, the girl Genie was lying on the ground.

She sat up, but seemed confused; she looked much smaller without her large coat on, and very pretty, with her long dark lashes blinking against the light. Lauren and Molly crouched down to attend to her, and Paige ran over from the reception desk.

Karen turned her outrage on Dez. “You pushed too hard on the doors, I saw that, Dez. You need to be more careful. People pass back and forth through these doors all day and this has never happened before.”

“Seriously,” emphasized Lauren, looking up at him while she stroked Genie’s head.

Dez was defensive. “I didn’t know. I- I didn’t hear her. How could I- I-”

“Just an accident of timing I suppose,” Karen sighed. “Genie, are you okay, honey? Let me take a look at you.”

Lauren, lovely and helpful, walked Genie over to one of the chairs and sat her down. Karen, not looking much like Ray’s idea of a nurse in her black stiletto heels and fingernails, touched Genie’s forehead and asked if she felt dizzy.

“I’ll go get an ice pack.” Molly bustled off through the double doors, and Paige had to run to her desk to answer the ringing phone.

Genie held a hand to her forehead and scowled at Dez. Karen said, “Lauren honey, why don’t you get started training Ray. We’ve wasted enough time this morning.”

Lauren looked at Genie anxiously. “Will you be okay, Genie sweetie?”

“Maybe.” Genie stared at Dez with big dark eyes.

Ray took a last look at the drama unfolding in the lobby then followed Lauren through the swinging doors into an enormous room filled, from walls to windows, with cubicles.

“This Pre-certification stuff, it’s pretty hard at first, so you can just, like, relax and observe today,” Lauren told him breezily. They passed a cafeteria or kitchen area which was separated from the sea of cubicles by a large plate glass window. A huge man with blue eyes was leaning in the doorway. “This is Chris,” Lauren said to Ray. “Ignore him.”

But Chris said, “Chris Tarnahan, nice to meet you.” Ray introduced himself and Chris gave his large hand to shake. “Nice to meet you. A new temp. You look like you might stick. He looks like he could stick. We’ve had temps that can’t even talk English,” Chris explained to him. “You got any questions or need anything, I’m the one to ask. I’ve worked here four years, and it’s my policy to treat the temps nice.”

Lauren rolled her eyes and kept walking. “Come on. I told you to ignore him.”

Her cubicle wasn’t far. Ray had never been in a real office cubicle before. There wasn’t much to look at. She got him an extra chair, but Ray had to turn his legs sideways so they both could fit. This wasn’t so bad. As soon as Lauren had arrived in the lobby, Your Health Plan had become more interesting for Ray. She was wearing a white shirt with blue pinstripes; the shirt looked nice against her skin or made her skin look nice against it, Ray wasn’t sure which. If Lauren couldn’t make Pre-certification interesting, he didn’t believe anyone could.

“I know it’s complicated at first, so like I said, just sit back and try to absorb it.” She handed Ray an extra telephone headset so he could listen to the calls. “Also it’s always super busy on Mondays because we have to authorize all the emergency surgeries that took place over the weekend.”

She went on to take a call for a kidney transplant, which she had to send to a nurse. Then there was a call for an emergency Cesarean delivery. Ray listened, tried to pay attention, but almost everything Lauren and the callers said seemed to be medical terminology and insurance code; it had been a long time since Ray had felt this dumb. Between the unintelligible lingo and his still powerful temptation to fall asleep, Ray felt like he was back in high school and hadn’t done his homework. He tried to console himself by reflecting that not only was he being paid, but in school he’d never had a teacher like Lauren.

~

Later in the morning, Genie came by the cubicle.

“Look at my bruise,” she demanded of Lauren, exhibiting her forehead.

“Oh, it’s not that bad,” her friend said. “It’s a little bulgy.”

“He almost killed me and now I have to train him. He won’t shut up, he picks his fingers. And he smells, not of b.o. exactly but like this weird mustiness kind of mixed with bad breath-” Genie stopped and narrowed her eyes at Ray. “You’re not friends with him, are you?”

“Met him this morning.”

“Poor Genie,” Lauren sympathized. “He did look kind of yucky.”

“Kind of yucky? Kind of? Have you seen him? He picks the skin on his fingers, peels it off and it’s falling all over my cubicle like, like finger dandruff. Did I mention he’s a mouth breather?”

When she’d gone, Lauren said to Ray, “Genie can be a little dramatic sometimes.”

~

Ray had watched Lauren and Genie go off together to meet their friend Paige for lunch. The only choice he could see available to him was to eat in the break room with everyone else. Though it was populated with adults representing a full spectrum of ages, the office lunch room reminded Ray painfully of a junior high school cafeteria: boisterous talking and laughing, people crowding around the tables in obvious cliques. Not knowing where or with whom to sit was awkward and made him feel like the new kid, which he was. When he saw an empty seat beside the giant Chris, he grabbed it - at least they had a previous acquaintance, however slight. He saw that Dez had found a spot across the same table.

Chris was teasing some guy, asking him if he’d gotten lucky over the weekend; while some other people at the table were enthusiastically discussing a television ad. “What do you mean?” demanded one woman. “I think that one’s so cute. I never change the channel during that commercial.”

Chris seemed more than happy to see Ray and proceeded to tell him a long and unsolicited tale of how he had dated the receptionist, Paige, for two months before she’d cheated on him with an older, married man named Keith who ran the Mental Health department. Everyone at the table except Ray and Dez smirked and rolled their eyes like they’d heard the story before, which didn’t seem to bother Chris. “I’m just telling you now ’cause I know you’re gonna hear gossip about me,” he declared a few times.

Ray didn’t know what to say. He nodded neutrally and concentrated on the sandwich he’d brought from home.

“’Course I’m still upset about it. I’m broken up.” There was a twinkle in his eye that led Ray to think Chris was enjoying himself despite his brave admissions of unhappiness. “Now I hear they’re going away for the weekend, of course I’m emotional. Just wanted to tell you, Ray, so you’d hear it from me first. Keith is my friend. I don’t blame Keith. I’m telling you, Paige is just a stupid hussy temp, and if she doesn’t watch out she’s gonna get herself in trouble.”

4

“Away for the weekend. It’s so romantic isn’t it?” Paige bit a french fry dreamily. “The most romantic thing ever. I can’t even wait until Friday.” They were in Lauren’s car eating lunch. Genie, in the back seat, was trying not to think about Dez while she ate.

Lauren said, “What are you going to tell your mother?”

Paige considered this, still chewing. “I don’t know. Can I tell her I’m going to your house for the weekend?”

“Paige. You’re twenty-two.”

“That’s the problem. Keith is thirty-seven.”

“You think she’d mind?”

“Um, yeah. My mom is only, like, six years older than him. I’ll think of something to tell her.”

“I can’t believe I have to go back and train Dez more,” Genie moaned. “My head hurts. I could have a concussion. And I think I have whiplash. Its all his fault.”

“My temp’s not so bad,” mused Lauren. “Ray. He’s kind of cute, don’t you think?”

“Oh my God, isn’t it just like the most romantic thing? Away for the weekend,” Paige swooned at the sound of it. “I love Keith. I want to do something for him, sexy, you know? Should I buy some new underwear or something, like, lingerie?”

Lauren turned and gave Genie in the back-seat a sideways glance: not everyone agreed that it was the most romantic, wonderful thing in the world that Keith had recently left his wife of several years for Paige.

~

After lunch Genie had to squeeze back into her tiny little cubicle with Dez. The phones, since it was Monday, were still busy. Dez kept kicking her seat as she worked, shoving Genie into her desk, apologizing just as awkwardly and insincerely as he had when he’d hit her in the head with the door. Genie felt trapped between Dez and her computer, and barely able to breathe. Dez’ hair was greasy and his glasses were dirty and, for some strange reason, he was carrying a briefcase.

All afternoon Dez listened, on an extra headset, to Genie’s calls. When the phones slowed down, as they always did during the last hour or two of the day, he told her that he had a question.

“Okay.” Genie looked at him.

“What exactly is a Pre-cert anyway?”

She continued to look at him.

“What, what I mean,” he fumbled for words. “Is what exactly are we doing . . . exactly?”

“Didn’t Karen explain?”

“I was confused.”

Genie took a deep breath; she didn’t feel like talking to him, but she supposed it was her duty as a trainer to educate. “Okay. So you know how the insurance company is supposed to pay for people’s medical care?” Dez nodded. “Well, they don’t want to. They want to take the people’s money and then pay for as little as they possibly can. So they put this extra step in the process so that, even if a person is like dying of a heart attack and a doctor saves them, if no one remembers to call us and get a Pre-certification within three days of the hospital admission, then Your Health Plan won’t pay for it. Get it?”

“Oh,” said Dez, nodding like it was coming clear for him now.

Genie smiled, satisfied. “Emergency Room visits are a totally different procedure than Admissions though,” she said, and Dez looked confused again.

“Do a lot of people forget to call?” His brow was wrinkled in concern.

“It depends. Usually the doctor’s office or the hospital calls. They have whole departments there. They have to make sure they’re getting paid.”

“What a bunch of crap,” said Dez out of the blue. “But I still don’t get it.”

Normally, between calls, Genie could read or even doze off. Today she was at the end of a good book that she had looked forward to finishing during the slow period; but with Dez sharing her cubicle, it would be rude to read. She was forced to be sociable with him, to make small talk. He kept turning the discussion to the Ultiwork temp agency, probably because it was the only thing they had in common. Genie tapped her fingernails on the desk, wishing that a call would come in, anything to distract her. Finally, out of desperation, she told Dez that she was taking her afternoon break.

“Wh- where are you going?”

“Nowhere. You can go to the break room. There’s coffee and stuff there. Come back in ten minutes. Go,” she repeated when he hesitated. Dez obeyed, and she watched him hurry off down the aisle, briefcase swaying at his side.

Genie seized her book and read a few pages, but it was difficult to concentrate. Her own thoughts kept interrupting, and soon she put the book down. She felt that the whole Dez situation was unjust. How could Karen make Genie train him after what he’d done to her? Of course Lauren had the other new temp, Ray, who wasn’t half as annoying as Dez. At first, Genie had to admit, she had thought that Ray seemed interesting. But the more she’d seen of him, throughout the day, the more she’d come to dislike him: he smiled goofily at Lauren and then stared at Genie like he was trying not to laugh at her. Still, she would rather share her cubicle with him then Dez any day.

As if in answer to her prayers, Dez didn’t return from his break at the designated time. Genie waited a few minutes then got up and went to the lunchroom for some water. Though she was fully expecting to find Dez there annoying someone, the only occupant was an elderly woman who worked across the lobby in the executive section. She had white hair and was wearing a purple sweater with shiny brass buttons. Genie smiled politely and went to the water cooler where she filled a paper cup. The fluorescent lights and the cooler hummed in unison. The old woman was brewing a cup of tea; it sat on the counter in a flowered mug, the tea bag string dangling out. Where was Dez?

Genie went back to her own cubicle, assuming by now that she and Dez had missed each other, but he wasn’t there waiting for her. Alarmed, Genie decided to report to Karen, but she found Karen immersed in a telephone conversation. When Genie returned to the lunchroom the old lady had left and it was empty. The bathrooms were near the lunchroom, off a small corridor, which connected to the lobby on its other end, by the Reception desk. This corridor was empty, and Genie didn’t dare go into the men's room, so she crossed through to Reception.

Paige was obviously taking her own afternoon break, because her replacement, Freda, sat at the desk. When she wasn’t covering Reception breaks, Freda was one of the regular Pre-certers. She was about Genie’s age with dark frizzy hair, pale, patchy skin, and cold eyes. These were closed when Genie walked in. Freda opened them long enough to announce to Genie that she didn’t know where Paige was, then they closed again. It seemed safe to assume she hadn’t seen Dez.

Genie did another circuit: bathroom corridor, lunchroom, her own cubicle. Dez was nowhere to be seen. He must be looking for her, she thought as she trotted back around, surely they both just kept missing each other and going in circles. Finally she crossed paths with Paige, who was on her way back to Reception. All Paige knew was that Dez wasn’t in the Mental Health section or in Lauren’s cubicle, because she’d just been to those places. At a loss, Genie went back to her own cubicle and waited a full two minutes by the clock on her computer screen. Still there was no sign of him. As much as she would really like to ignore his disappearance and continue her workday without him, Genie was afraid she’d get in some kind of trouble for losing her trainee, so she got up and went to see if Karen was still on the phone. This time her supervisor’s chair was empty.

Lauren was just a cubicle away. Genie could hear Trevin there, whispering loudly to Lauren and the new temp, and she was drawn by the comforting sounds of gossip.

“Alva says that Keith’s wife wanted to work it out in counseling, except Keith refused to give up Paige. Don’t get me wrong, Keith’s a good guy. He’s my friend. I’m just saying.” Trevin looked as stylish today as he always did, arms crossed in a plum-colored shirt, leaning casually against the entrance of Lauren’s cubicle. Trev was not a temp, but a genuine employee in the Mental Health Pre-certs, though he was only in his mid twenties. Keith was his supervisor there, head of Mental Health. Both men had befriended Lauren, of course, as soon as she’d started there. Everyone liked Lauren; Genie wondered sometimes, all the time, why Lauren liked her.

“So Keith fell in love with Paige, so his wife left him. Whatever. It makes sense.” Lauren shrugged and lowered her voice dramatically. “Paige is the one who’s sort of a slut - I mean, don’t tell her I said that, she’s my friend. Sorry,” Lauren said to Ray. “It’s all anyone ever talks about around this place.”

Ray was just sitting there, taking this all in with his eyebrows slightly raised.

“We deserve something to talk about, don’t we?” Trevin challenged her.

Genie chose this moment to cut in. “I have a problem. I lost Dez.”

“What?”

“I lost Dez.”

“Who the hell is Dez?” asked Trevin.

Before Genie could answer him all of Your Health Plan, if not the entire office building, was consumed with the sound of several piercing, increasingly hysterical screams. Trevin ran out in the aisle, propelling Genie with him. Lauren and Ray, who were sitting, jumped to their feet. Many other people had also stood up in their cubicles, and were looking around in confusion. Another loud shriek was followed by some shouting; and it sounded more and more like it was coming from their own Reception lobby. Karen hurried by in that direction, wondering aloud, “What is going on today? Are we cursed?” Molly was right behind her. Genie, Trevin, Lauren and Ray followed, along with other curious people.

“Is it a fire?” someone asked.

“Maybe it’s a mouse. Remember three years ago when we had mice?”

The group surged through the swinging doors. Freda was there, staring at Paige, her face more pale and pinched than usual. Paige stood in front of her desk, sobbing.

“What happened?” demanded Karen.

“I didn’t see it when I was covering her break,” Freda insisted. “I don’t know how it could have gotten there.”

“My desk! It’s on my desk!” Paige pointed frantically.

Everyone inched closer to the Reception desk. Genie couldn’t quite see, because she was short and it was crowded, so she heard the collective gasp first. She craned her neck for a better look, gripped Lauren’s arm so that she could balance on tippy toe. Then she saw what they were looking at. Beside the phone switchboard, next to Paige’s diet soda, was a dead bird, its feathers matted and dirty. The bird was displayed atop a piece of paper - one useless little eye stared off at the ceiling - with a note printed out on it. The computer font letters read: “Cunt: in less you want to be as dead as this bird is, stay away from other people’s husbands.”

There was a hushed shock, until Genie pointed out that whoever wrote the note had spelled ‘unless’ wrong. No one else seemed to think this was a very interesting point. Karen was tense and disturbed. “What is this?” She exchanged a look with Molly. “Paige? What happened?”

“That was not there before my break,” said Paige with conviction.

“Freda?” Karen looked at her.

Freda huffed, “I was just covering her afternoon break, as usual. No one came to the desk except Genie. I didn’t see anyone else. That thing had to have already been there.”

“Okay, Freda. No one’s blaming you for anything. Genie? When were you at the desk?”

“I wasn’t at the desk. I just popped in here, looking for Dez - who I still haven’t found, by the way.”

Freda turned to her with accusation burning in her pale eyes. “You didn’t say you were looking for Dez. Whoever that is. You said you were looking for Paige.”

“I did not say I was looking for Paige, you assumed I was so you volunteered that you didn’t know where she was. I never-”

“Girls, girls,” Karen frowned at them. “Freda? What else?”

“Nothing. Paige got back from her break and I started back to Pre-certs, and then out of nowhere she’s screaming her head off, so I run back over. She told me she went to take a sip of her soda, and this was there, like behind it, this piece of paper with her name on it. The paper is here, too, she dropped it. When she picked up the paper, the bird was under it. I swear, I don’t know anything about that. It must have already been there.”

Keith burst in from Pre-certs and put his arm around Paige. Troubled, he looked at the evidence on the desk. He scanned the faces of his coworkers and his challenging gaze rested on one person. “Chris. I don’t suppose you would know anything about this, Chris?”

Chris actually looked surprised. “Dude? What? No, I do not! I have never seen anything like that before in my life. That’s gross,” he bellowed, gesturing at the bird corpse. “Disgusting. Who would do something like that? It’s nasty. You know I’d never do anything like that to you. I thought we were friends. ’Course maybe if Paige didn’t go around with married men, she wouldn’t be asking for-”

“Chris. That’s enough,” Karen commanded, and he shut up. Paige cried harder in Keith’s arms, and Karen sighed heavily, as if this latest provocation might put her over the edge. “Now. I want you all to go back to your desks. I will bring this to Dr. Von Houghton’s attention. For the time being, everyone please get back to your work. Now.”

Lauren raised an eyebrow at Genie as they all filed back into the Pre-cert department. There was a slight sense of anticlimax; most compensated for this by immediately telling everyone who hadn’t been there every single detail about the dead bird and the threatening note. While Genie was sitting in her cubicle, listening to the loud, thrilled gasps of people just hearing the news, Dez strolled up. Casually, with his stupid briefcase. “Wh- what happened?” he demanded.

“Where were you?”

“I was lost. This place is confusing. Everything here is confusing. How come someone put a dead bird on the secretary’s desk?”

“Never mind,” said Genie. “It’s my friend’s private business.”

~

By the time Your Health Plan closed that evening, the tale of Paige’s ridiculous “death threat” had spread to everyone in the office. The bus stop, while they stood waiting to go home, buzzed with morbid excitement. Ray was there waiting, so apparently he didn’t have a car either; Genie thought that he noticed her looking at him, so she looked away and made sure not to glance at him again for the whole bus ride.

Genie lived in a nondescript neighborhood that was neither city nor full suburbia. Half a mile’s walk from her bus stop brought her down a busy street with run-down businesses, past some run-down apartment houses, to the Laundromat and the convenience store where her turn was. There was a church across from the Laundromat that she liked to look at as she passed by because of its blue and red windows and graceful statue of the Virgin Mary. A quarter mile beyond the church and she came to her house. It was her father’s house really; but her father, Eugene Havers, had died seven years ago. Genie lived there now with her brother Hugh.

She climbed the stairs to the second floor and her kitchen. The sound of a television drew her toward the dining room, which hadn’t actually been used as the dining room in years. Genie’s brother Hugh sat at the table with his tools and electronic things spread before him. There were two TVs on, one turned to a police show, the other, with the sound mercifully down, showing an advertisement; her brother didn’t appear to be watching either. Hugh spent all his time trying to fix things that he’d found in the trash. He had always sustained the fantasy that he could be a successful appliance repairman. Very occasionally his dreams came true and he would be able to sell an electronic device he’d saved or, more often, use it himself. Other items, still broken, crowded the former dining room awaiting further inspiration. Hugh’s perennial passion was television sets, so the pile of toaster ovens was being ignored, but they did have at least one TV in every room of the house now. Tonight Genie informed Hugh that someone had discarded a VCR on the corner of Grove, and then went to eat some dinner in the kitchen, happy that at last she could finish her book.

~

On Tuesday Dez followed Genie everywhere - to the break room, to the fax machine, to Lauren’s cubicle. He was determined to fill every second of her day with conversation, and if he didn’t have anything to say he would repeat himself to fill the space. Only once Tuesday morning did she successfully shake Dez off, and it was when she went to the ladies room. When she was done she thought she’d just pop into Reception to see how Paige was; the receptionist was never supposed to leave the desk, and Genie pictured Paige sitting alone, scared of a mysterious stalker with more animal corpses.

Paige was at her desk but in no way alone: the lobby was practically as crowded as it had been yesterday when the threat had been discovered. Trevin and Molly were there, another temp named Shanice, and Alva, a middle aged woman who worked over in Mental Health Pre-certs with Keith and Trevin. Alva was a psychiatric nurse who was always passionately curious about other people; she was large, had a loud voice and laughed a lot. “Aren’t you afraid they might call again?” she was bellowing at the moment.

Paige nodded. “I have no idea what to tell my mother.”

Genie waved and turned to go back into Pre-certs but Paige, having seen her friend, got up from her chair. “Molly could you cover the phones for just one second? Please, please? Genie, wait.” Paige followed her into the bathroom corridor

They were alone in the little hallway. “I was just stopping by to see if you were okay,” Genie said.

“I’m fine. No, I’m fine. Except did you hear about my prank calls?”

“What? No.”

Paige nodded, her face grave. “Last night. I got two heavy breathers and my mom got a hang up, so. . .”

“Who do you think it is? Aren’t you scared?”

“Terrified.” To Genie’s mind, Paige looked fairly content. She looked nice today, yellow hair bright against an aqua sweater set; in the lighting of the bathroom corridor you could barely even see the split ends from her bad dye job. “Keith insists that it’s not his wife. He won’t even tell me how he can be so sure that it not her. And I’m like, isn’t it her? I mean if it’s not Chris. Genie, what should I do?”

Genie began to feel more charitable toward Paige; she always liked having her opinion sought. “Is that a new sweater set?” she asked.

“Yeah. It was on sale. I got a pink one too.”

“It looks good. Are you sure the prank phone calls were related? It could be a coincidence.”

“True,” said Paige doubtfully.

“Well what does Keith say about it? I mean, if he knows it’s not his wife, then who does he think did it?”

“He thinks it’s just a joke. He said maybe it’s directed at him, like a prank one of the guys in the office is pulling on him. But Trevin totally denies it.”

“Keith doesn’t think it’s Chris? I thought-”

“Not really. I’m not sure why. He seemed to think it was Chris yesterday but I think maybe he just wanted to seem macho for me. Guess what? I got some lingerie for the romantic weekend.”

Shanice came in then, and looked at Paige. “Molly says you better get your ass back to the switchboard unless you want to compile her call volume reports for her,” she said before pushing through the door into the ladies room.

“Whatever,” said Paige to the swinging door, then to Genie, “Anyway, I’m so scared, I really want to talk to you and Lauren.”

“Okay.”

“Maybe after work, we could get dinner some night. I’m spending tonight with Keith; maybe tomorrow, or - well, no, I’ve got a pedicure, and Thursday, well . . . Friday Keith and I are going away. I’m so excited. But on Monday or Tuesday, definitely.”

“Any day’s fine for me,” Genie told her.

~

That night Genie cried herself to sleep. She told herself it was the frustration of having to train Dez all day and deal with irate callers, compounded by the stress of the threats against Paige. But the real reason Genie fell asleep on a tear-soaked pillow had little to do with any of these office melodramas. She was being pathetic and self-pitying just because she was lonely and maybe a little jealous. It seemed unfair that Lauren and Paige were surrounded by men who wanted them and Genie had only ever had one boyfriend, one who had broken up with her, and that was almost three years ago now. She knew that it was wrong to feel sorry for herself for something so insignificant, but sometimes it was hard not to.

And when she finally did fall asleep that night she had restless, scattered dreams about work. Some of them were the boring kind of dream where everything is banal and not at all surreal, and you find yourself going about your regular work in real time and dimension. Others were less coherent. She had one dream, a nightmare really, about training Dez: he was puffed up like a grotesque balloon that took up all her cubicle, his glasses wildly crooked. Genie wanted to move but she couldn’t fit around him, she was trapped beneath him and then she couldn’t breathe.

~

She woke up late Wednesday, missed her bus and was forced to take the later one which wouldn’t get her to the office on time; Monday morning all over again. She really hoped Karen didn’t catch her this time and so, almost thirty minutes late, she crossed the Reception lobby with only a hurried wave to Paige, who always looked hurt if Genie walked by without stopping. Cautiously Genie crossed the Pre-cert aisles, hoping that no one would notice her, until she realized that her anxiety was pointless: Dez would be in her cubicle waiting to be trained, having probably already complained to Karen about Genie’s tardiness. She took a deep breath to quell the bile that rose when she thought of having to spend yet another day squeezed into the tiny space with him.

But when Genie got to her cubicle, Dez wasn’t there. The other new temp, Ray, was sitting in the extra chair instead, looking thoughtfully at the informative pieces of paper tacked to her fake walls. She stared at him. “What are you doing here?”

Ray looked at her fully and blinked before he spoke; an arrogant blink, she thought, sizing her up. “I guess Karen wanted to switch things around today. You were kind of complaining about Dez a lot.”

“Where is he? Is he gone?” Genie had to maneuver by Ray to get into her cubicle, stepping over his long legs. She’d had taken her coat off in the elevator, to make her late arrival less conspicuous; now she crammed it into a corner of the desk.

“Dez? He’s with Lauren, I think. Do you always come in at nine-twenty-five?”

Genie gave him a mean look and, falling into her chair, unlocked her drawer. “Sometimes. Why?”

“No matter, don’t worry. Karen asked me where you were twice and I said you were in the bathroom. She believed me.”

“Thanks.” Genie went to turn her computer on and noticed that it was obviously already on. And logged in. “How . . . ?” She looked at Ray.

“If you weren’t logged in, Karen might have figured out you weren’t here,” he pointed out reasonably.

“But. . .”

He nodded at the cubicle wall. “Your passwords are right there.”

“Oh. Thanks.” Either Ray caught on to things faster than Dez did, or Lauren was a better trainer than she was. Genie switched the setting so that calls would come through, placed her medical dictionary and her other book where she liked them, and waited for the phone to ring.

Unfortunately no calls came. Normally she’d be happy about this first thing in the morning, but right now she longed for the distraction. She could hear Trevin laughing, four or five cubicles over in the Mental Health department. She said to Ray. “Wednesday’s usually busy. Especially Wednesday morning. I’m sure there will be calls any minute.”

As if he were reading her mind, he said, “So. I hope I’m not as intolerable as Dez. Just tell me if I am. I’ll try not to breathe on you.”

She shrugged. “You’re not.” That was just the problem. He wasn’t a jerk like she’d told herself he was. He irritated her because, despite herself, she liked him. Ray wasn’t exactly conventionally handsome, but Lauren had said he was cute, so there must be something about him; he was tall with light brown hair, but it was his eyes and mouth that Genie liked, because they seemed intelligent.

The phone rang.

“Oh.” Genie swiveled back around in her seat and adjusted her headset. She found she had to take a deep breath before answering. “Thank you for calling Your Health Plan, my name is Genie and this is a recorded call. How may I help you today?”

5

“It’s just a joke, don’t you guys think? It’s just a terrible, mean joke. I hate to say it, but it was probably Chris. I’m sure he was behind it; he’s so immature.” Lauren glanced at Ray in the rearview mirror. “You know Chris went out with Paige, right?”

“Yeah. He told me.” Ray was happy to be in the back seat of Lauren’s car taken away from the office building for lunch. From where he was sitting he had a good view of her perfect profile and the graceful way her hands lay on the steering wheel. He leaned forward so he could hear what Genie, in front of him, was saying.

“But a death threat? As a joke?”

“I know,” said Lauren. “It’s sick. Sick. But some people are sick. Maybe it wasn’t Chris. It probably wasn’t. I shouldn’t say things like that. Don’t tell him. But Chris totally has violence issues,” Lauren looked at Ray again. “I was with Paige the night she got together with Keith. We were at this bar and Keith was there and then Chris passes out, and you know Keith is so charming-”

“I know you think so,” said Genie. “He’s never that charming to me.”

“So Keith and Paige were drunk and, you know; then Chris flips out like it’s some big betrayal that his girlfriend left him, when it was totally his own fault for having passed out. He cried at work on multiple occasions.” Lauren slowed down and pulled into the fast food restaurant. Ray leaned back in his seat. It wasn’t that he minded discussing the extremely messy love life of these people he’d barely met, it was more that, at this point, he was starting to get bored of it.

There were several cars waiting for the take out window, and Lauren pulled into the end of the line. “And then, after everyone in the office knew that Paige had hooked up with Keith, Chris freaks out, like, big time. He started yelling and then he punched his own computer screen? It had one of those glare shields on it, and that shattered. He had to get stitches on his hand.”

The car behind them beeped and Lauren pulled up as the line moved forward a few feet. Genie turned toward Ray and continued the narrative. “We peeked in Chris’ cubicle after and there were shards of glass everywhere and blood.”

“There wasn’t that much blood,” said Lauren. “It was just a couple stitches. Karen said they mostly had to remove some glass from his knuckles.”

“I saw blood,” Genie insisted. “But still, I just don’t think Chris left the dead bird. He would do something more spontaneous. Not so thought out.”

“Good point.” Lauren shrugged. “More violent, like.”

“You know,” said Genie. “I feel bad for Paige. Getting those prank calls after that freaky death threat. But as much as she’s scared - don’t tell her I said this, you won’t, right? - in some ways I think that Paige is enjoying this. Lauren, you know Paige likes the attention. You didn’t see her yesterday, or in the break room earlier today. All the nurses hanging on her every word. Paige loves being the center of things.”

Lauren frowned at her friend. “Are you saying Paige-”

“No, I’m not saying she put the dead bird there herself.” The car behind them in line beeped, leaning on the horn for ten seconds this time, fed up. Lauren looked hurt and pulled forward again. “However,” Genie looked back and forth from Lauren to Ray and said, “Do you think it’s possible that it could have been Dez?”

“That what could have been Dez?” Lauren tapped her fingers on the wheel. There were two cars ahead of them in line, and they could hear the driver in front of them ordering, the crackling voice responding from the box.

“That it might be Dez who left the threat. I know it sounds crazy, but listen: remember how he was missing Monday, how I was looking for him? Remember? That was right before Paige found the dead bird, and Dez didn’t turn up again until after that, when I was back at my cubicle. Remember?”

“But Dez doesn’t know Paige,” objected Lauren. “He just started that day, how could he have known? I mean, the note had to be written by someone who knew her because it said something about sleeping with other people’s husbands.”

“Stay away from other people’s husbands,” Genie quoted.

“Lauren’s got a point,” said Ray. “How would Dez have known about Paige and Keith? He just started there that morning.” Even as he spoke, Ray recalled Monday morning, waiting in the lobby with Dez: Keith had been there, and he had kissed Paige in front of them; Karen had come in, and she had disapproved, but she hadn’t said that Keith was married or mentioned that there was anything illicit in the relationship. No, but Chris had, hadn’t he? Chris had talked about it extensively that very day at lunch, and Dez had been at the table with them, listening.

“Genie,” laughed Lauren. “You scare me sometimes. Dez? That’s insane. It was just a joke, a sick joke. Keith said so. He said it’s probably just a practical joke directed at him.” Lauren smiled at her friend. “You just don’t like Dez because he hit you with the door. He didn’t do it on purpose. I’ve been training Dez all morning. You are right about his weird musty smell; but he’s not some psycho, he’s just a fool.”

The line of cars moved forward again and, as they finally approached the menu board, the subject was changed to what they wanted to eat.

~

Genie authorized an outpatient excision of a lipoma which, she explained to Ray when the call ended, was a common nonmalignant fatty skin tumor. Ray asked Genie why Your Health Plan had temps doing this work, since it seemed kind of complicated and serious.

“Because this office is moving to Pennsylvania. They already opened there, I guess, and they start taking calls next week. We’re supposed to stay open here for two more months though, for the transition and stuff? But half of the employees have already left for new jobs. They can’t hire new permanent people ’cause they’d have to pay them severance and insurance and whatnot; so they have to use temps. It’s like a dying office.”

Genie, apparently, was fond of looking up unknown diagnoses in her medical dictionary. All day she had been training Ray between calls, giving little lectures on the unpleasant world of Medical Pre-certification. By the late afternoon his head was reeling. Genie was fidgeting in her swivel chair as she talked. “There are endoscopies, colonoscopies, other oscopies - they have different names depending on where you stick the tube. Then there’s-” Genie swiveled her chair around too fast and her leg hit Ray’s. “Sorry.”

Ray grabbed the seat of her chair to stop it from moving again. “How about a break?” She just nodded, staring at him with one of those funny looks of hers.

Ray went to the lunchroom on his own, in search of some caffeine. Trevin and Keith were sitting at one of the lunch tables. Ray nodded at them and went to examine the half-full carafe in the coffee maker. He felt a little uncomfortable being near Keith, since he’d had never actually talked to the man but at this point had heard as much gossip and speculation about him as any fallen tabloid superstar. Ray reached for the coffeepot.

“Oh, no,” Keith said. “You’re not actually thinking about drinking that stuff are you?”

“I was considering it.”

“Oh, no. Don’t do it.” Keith shook his head, a twinkle in his eye. “Take my advice, I’m a psychologist.”

Trevin agreed. “You will regret it. The coffee here is not good. And there’s only powdered creamer. Stuff is nasty.”

“What are you guys drinking?” Ray looked at the Styrofoam cups in their hands, identical to those stacked on the counter.

“Coffee,” said Keith.

“It’s Ray, right?” Trevin asked him. “You know each other? This is Keith.”

“Nice to meet you.” Ray poured himself a cup of the coffee and sipped, then added sugar and some of the dehydrated milk substance, which helped slightly.

“This is your first week? So how do you like working here?” Keith asked. “Sorry that it’s been so boring; usually it’s much more exciting around here.” Keith grinned with self-awareness and Trevin laughed; Ray could understand a little why Lauren spoke of Keith’s charm like it was universally acknowledged.

“Seriously, how much do you hate it here?” Trevin inquired.

“Well, on Monday I didn’t think I’d make it through the week, at least not without falling asleep. But Genie says I’m almost ready to do Pre-certs on my own.”

“Ah, yes,” said Trevin. “Colonoscopies and child birth, right? I’m so happy that I work in Mental Health. Normal for us is suicide and drug addiction. It’s much more fun. Already today I’ve had two admissions for cocaine abuse.”

“Sorry, no temps in Mental Health,” Keith winked at Ray. “We’re all staying for our severance bonuses.”

“He’s referring to those of us who don’t get fired for screwing the secretaries,” quipped Trevin.

Keith shook his head. “Come on, admit it Trevin, you left the nasty note.” Keith looked at Ray. “He left the note.”

“I did not, I would not,” Trevin protested. “I would never touch a dead bird. That is unhygienic. You know me better then that.”

They were still discussing it as Ray left with his coffee.

~

Justin handed Ray a beer and reached for the remote. “I still don’t understand what you do at your temp job.”

“Don’t you have insurance?”

“Of course, but I never have to use it.” Justin found hockey and tossed the remote back on the coffee table.

“All it is is authorizing people for surgeries and hospital visits.”

“Yes, I know, that’s what you said, but I still don’t get how you do that. Excuse me if I’m wrong, but you don’t know shit about that stuff.”

Ray could tell Justin was genuinely slightly interested, despite a sarcastic tone and eyes glued on the game.

“Yeah, and you told me it would be cushy.” Ray sipped his beer and explained, as best he could, about the callers and the computer program and the nurses. “Anyway, the company’s moving so they’re losing all their regular staff. The place is nuts, and I’m not just talking about the surgery and stuff. I wasn’t expecting it to be so-” Ray struggled to find an expression. “Let’s just say I haven’t been reminded so much of high school since high school. There’s cliques and bullies and a cafeteria and, oh yeah, slutty girls. I haven’t even told you the freakiest part.”

“Why not?” demanded Justin. “Tell me now.”

“Well, there’s this one girl, she’s the receptionist, though she’s a temp too, and she’s sleeping with this married guy-”

“She cute?”

“I don’t know. Cute enough. Blonde.”

“That sort of stuff goes on everywhere. At my office-”

“But wait - listen. So Monday someone left a dead bird on the girl’s desk with a death threat. Trying to scare her, because of the affair.”

“A death threat?” Now Justin looked away from the television - though, to be fair, a laxative advertisement was showing.

“An actual death threat. Said to stay away from other people’s husbands or she’d be as dead as the bird.”

“How did it die?”

“The bird? I don’t know. I heard someone saying that it could've crashed into one of the windows of the office building; apparently that has been known to happen after the window washer comes.”

“Sounds like your job’s not too boring, anyway. That’s the most you can really ask for at the end of the day.” A car commercial and Justin’s eyes were back on the TV.

“It’s boring anyway,” Ray told him. “Believe me. Though there is actually a really cute girl there.”

“At your job? Who is she?”

“Just another temp.”

“Is she single?”

“I don’t know. Probably not, she looks like a model.”

“If she looks like a model what’s she doing office temping?”

Ray smiled. “She said her parents want her to get a masters in business management and she’s trying to decide what to do.”

“I’m just saying, if she really looked like a model, wouldn’t she be a model? Because isn’t that basically the only job requirement?”

“She’s really pretty, Justin.”

“So ask her out.”

“Yeah, I don’t know.”

“If she had a boyfriend she would’ve mentioned it. They know how to slip it into the conversation. Ask her out.”

“Yeah, maybe. I don’t know.”

“But she’s not the same girl that got the death threat, right?”

“No, that’s Paige.”

“How about this?” Justin’s eyes flashed. “Maybe Paige did it herself, for attention. Because if she’s the center of office gossip, sleeping with a married man then, I guarantee you, she craves attention.” Ray laughed and Justin looked a little embarrassed. “Sorry. Sophie’s rubbing off on me,” he muttered. “Analyzing everything . . .”

“No, it’s funny actually, because Genie said something at lunch about Paige - that she wanted attention. Apparently Paige was telling everyone how she’s been getting prank calls or something and she’s all freaked out.”

“Is Genie the girl you like?”

“What? No, she’s- she’s the friend of the girl actually.”

“Seems like there’s a lot of girls at your work,” said Justin. “That’s good, anyway.”

~

“-indefinite length of inpatient stay,” a nurse from Delaware was saying flatly. “Extensive observation required for sub-arachnoid hemorrhage. All honesty? They don’t think he’s going to make it. But don’t tell your bosses that, huh?” The far-off nurse laughed, and Genie made selections on her computer program, too fast for Ray to understand everything; though things had begun to make sense to him, sitting there, listening in on a headset.

“I can authorize a length of stay of two nights,” Genie chose some final buttons on the computer program. “Beyond that I have to pend and refer it to a case manager. Sorry. Hold on. Okay, here: Mr. Wing is authorized for a length of stay of two nights, inpatient. Case referred to Rosa for management, she’s at extension three-twelve.”

The nurse from Delaware, perfectly content a moment ago, now turned on Genie, annoyed. “Fine. But I just hope they authorize a continued length of stay, because if he makes it through the surgery he’s going to need-”

“You’ll have to talk to Rosa about that. Extension three-twelve.”

When she hung up the phone Genie turned to look at Ray. “Sub-arachnoid hemorrhage. Know what that is? Bleeding in the brain. Do you ever feel like something bad is going to happen?”

“You mean do I right now?” Ray thought about it and said, “Not exactly. Why, do you?”
She shrugged.

He said, “I bet it’s pretty normal to have those kinds of thoughts after someone gets a death threat.”

“True.” She shrugged again.

“Having to deal with sub-arachnoid hemorrhages probably doesn’t help much,” Ray added.

Genie swiveled back around to jot notes on her call log sheet; despite the reliance on computers, they were still required to keep a pen-and-paper record of each call. Ray thought about poor Mr. Wing’s brain and then wondered how he himself had made it through to Thursday at Your Health Plan.

~

The next morning he asked Genie, “Why is everyone bringing food in today?”

“Um, Rodney, Dave and Lara, I think.”

Ray stared at her.

“Oh. Right, it’s your first Friday. Well you know how everyone who works at Your Health Plan is leaving the job? Because of the moving to Pennsylvania thing? Well because of that we have going away parties most every week."

“Oh.”

She told him that Friday was always the slowest day of the week and, as it progressed, Ray discovered firsthand that she was right. There were hardly any calls in the morning, and even less in the afternoon. The going away party was planned for four p.m., but by three some snacking on the food had already begun. Ray and Genie watched from her cubicle; Genie kneeling on the desktop so she could see over the partition.

“It’s just an excuse to bring food in,” she said. “Mostly they make us temps cover the phones while the regular staff eats and gets all mushy and emotional.”

By three-thirty a full hour had passed since they’d had a single call. Genie suggested that, since there was no work to do, Ray could go get some of the food before it was all gone. To Ray’s surprise there was a spread of food over by the fax machines. The big woman with the loud voice from Mental Health, her name was Alva, was standing there with a woman Ray thought was one of the nurses. “If all the food is in the break room we get a bottleneck effect, see,” the loud one was explaining. “It would get suffocating. We find that when we put half the food over here by the faxes it creates a natural flow through the room of bodies and air.”

Ray passed Molly Warren balancing two trays of cold cuts. “Need help with that?”

“Oh, please, thank you.” She smiled gratefully.

Ray took one of the trays and set it down where there was free counter space by one of the faxes.

“So, I hear you’re a fast learner,” Molly said, pushing a few strands of her pale-red hair back behind her ears. Ray blinked at her and she chuckled. “I mean in Pre-certs. Karen said you were moving along real quick.”

Ray blushed and shrugged.

“Hey, Mol,” said Alva, coming up to them. “You got turkey, right? Dave specifically asked for turkey. What kind of rolls did you get? So,” she lowered her voice when she was close. “Paige told me that she hasn't told her mother about Keith at all, let alone that he’s married. Can you believe it? The poor woman has no idea what’s going on in her daughter's life. Karen thinks it was Keith’s wife left that note. I told her she’s nuts, I know Jessica, I’m her friend, and she would never do anything like that.”

“How is Jessica?” asked Molly sympathetically.

“Oh, I haven’t been able to get a hold of her in weeks. Not since she first left Keith and was staying at her sister’s.”

Molly murmured, “Poor Keith. I just hope that I didn’t cause any trouble.”

Alva turned to Ray, who was trying to politely slink away. “Molly feels guilty,” she explained. “Because her gossiping partially led to Keith’s wife Jessica leaving him.”

“It’s so embarrassing. But I’m trying to be better.”

Alva patted her arm. “Well, honey, if gossip’s a sin, you’re not the only one guilty of it.”

“That’s true.” Molly looked at Ray. “What happened was I sent an e-mail to some of the nurses - we’d been joking about Keith’s affair with Paige, of course. We forward these chatty things all over the office, but the thing was someone forwarded one of my e-mails to Keith’s wife. We don’t know who, but Keith got kind of mad at me.”

“Oh, please,” Alva waved this off. “Keith says that’s why she left him, but Jessica would have found out before long, trust me. I’m loyal to Keith, but I had already told him that if he didn’t end the affair I was going to tell Jessica myself. Well, didn’t matter, did it? I guess that’s love for you.”

Just a few cubicles away from where they were standing, Keith stood up; he was tall enough to lean an arm across the top the partition. “I can hear you guys talking about me.”

“You would prefer we talk behind your back?” shrugged Alva.

Keith grinned. “Frankly I wouldn’t mind listening in, but I’m trying to finish some paperwork before the party and I find it’s distracting to hear myself discussed.” He ducked back down.

Molly became silent, blushing deeply, but Alva had no problem changing the subject. As Ray walked away she was asking, "What kind of rolls did you get? Can I see?"

Ray headed toward the lunchroom, knowing that there would be food there. There was, but there was also Karen, hugging one of the departing Pre-certers and crying, “I’m sorry I’m so emotional, sorry, but I just quit cigarettes.”

As Ray hurried away from this sight he felt a strong grip on his shoulder. He jumped, but it was just Chris. “Hey, what’s going on in there?” Chris gestured toward the lunchroom.

“What, the going away party?”

“I mean whose in there now?”

“Karen and I think Rodney.”

Chris nodded once, heavily, then his expression seemed to brighten. “Hey, Ray. Ray, Ray. C’mere to my cube for a second, I want to talk to you.”

Though he couldn't help but be skeptical, Ray had nothing else to do, so he followed him. The walls of Chris’ cubicle were covered with pictures of cars, football players, and girls in partially-torn-off t-shirts; it reminded Ray of a fifteen-year-old’s bedroom. “Nice,” he said, looking around.

“You like?” Chris asked proudly. “Hey, dude, you heard anything about me, from the girls or Trevin?”

“What?” Ray didn’t like this. “What do you mean.”

“I know you’ve been hanging out with Lauren. I saw you at lunch.”

“Yeah,” said Ray.

“All I wanna know is if Paige thinks I’m responsible for that heinous act with the dead bird.”

“I don’t know. I’ve never even talked to Paige.”

Chris’ beefy neck seemed to swell. “She was the one brought it on herself. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but that quote-un-quote threat didn’t even slow Paige and Keith down for a second. I mean they were making out in his car at lunch today, you see that? In the parking lot?” Ray shook his head. Chris cleared his throat and continued. “Well, I don’t want you to get me wrong, think it was me that threatened her. It wasn't. I’m just saying, you get a message like that, maybe it’s wise to think it over. If someone’s trying to tell you something, maybe you shouldn’t be ignoring it, am I wrong? Aw, well. Wanna see something?” He unlocked his metal file drawer and removed a brown folder inside of which was another folder, plain manilla. “I’ve been saving these,” he said, exhibiting the contents.

All Ray saw was a stack of papers, a fax on top. “What are they?”

“These here are the proofs of medical necessity that the doctors fax in. This little collection is all requests for one particular procedure: breast reduction. Have a look.” Chris handed the manilla file to Ray, who glanced at the top page: a typed, faxed-then-photocopied letter from a doctor’s office. The patient was a twenty-eight year old female, 5’5, 180 pounds, bra size 38D: her name was Leanna Marcello and her address and social security number were there as well, nice and clear. Another page was stapled to it: a blurry photograph, it's distinction lost in the multiple reproductions, of Miss Marcello’s very large hanging breasts.

Chris wiggled his brows and said, “Eh?”

Ray flipped through fifteen similar requests, all alike with their data and darkened, grotesque images of isolated torsos and dangling flesh.

“Been collecting these the whole time I worked here,” bragged Chris.

Ray read some of the doctor’s letters explaining why the procedures were necessary. Chronic neck, back, breast, joint and shoulder pain. Grooving associated with her extremely large pendulous breast hypertrophy and macromastia. “This is disgusting,” said Ray.

“Disgusting? I could make money on this stuff. Listen to this-” Chris grabbed one of the letters and - in a mocking voice - read: “The patient does indeed have large pendulous breasts.” He snickered.

Ray read, not out loud, approximately 535 grams removed from each breast, operating time six hours. “Interesting,” he said. “Well, I’d better get back.”

“Wait,” said Chris. “So I was wondering: you gonna ask Lauren out?”

Ray walked away, pretending not to hear him.

6

Ten minutes past four and the people in the office were eating the cold cuts and cake, socializing and drinking their soft drinks. Karen came by Genie’s cubicle and, not even asking where her trainee Ray was, gave her permission to enjoy the office party.

Genie looked through the plate glass window into the lunchroom, where people were crowded around the food trays, faces she had grown to recognize during her time at this office. A bakery cake, uncut, sat on one of the tables. Genie watched Dez trying to squeeze unsuccessfully into a conversation commanded by Trevin. She saw Keith making a group of nurses crack up in laughter. Shanice came by and pushed her way into the doorway. “Hey, Molly,” she called. “Molly. Freda’s looking for you out in Reception.” Molly moved toward the door and, behind where she’d been standing, near the fridge, Genie saw Ray and Lauren talking.

Lauren was tall, but Ray was much taller. Genie watched Ray looking down at Lauren, a smile in his annoyingly nice eyes; saw Lauren laughing in response to whatever he’d said. For just a moment Genie allowed herself to feel the familiar jealousy of her friend. Lauren was gorgeous and tall and thin, and had a laugh like silver bells, but it wasn’t even these things that Genie felt envious of. It drove her crazy that Lauren was so nice and positive all the time: who would ever notice short, warped, negative, critical Genie when there was someone like Lauren around?

Genie turned toward the bathroom hallway. She told herself that she was not developing a crush on Ray; it was simply that he was so much more tolerable than any of the other temps she’d ever had to train.

In the ladies room Karen and one of the other nurses, Bridget, were standing in front of the sinks. They had the air of having stopped their conversation mid-exchange on Genie’s account, and she wondered what they’d been talking about. Karen, who was always fussing with her looks, finished touching up her eye makeup. Bridget dried her hands on a paper towel and smiled blandly at Genie in the mirror. Pretending to be concerned, Karen asked Genie if she’d gotten something to eat at the party; then the two nurses left.

The first couple stalls were flushing a little, so Genie assumed they had been used just now. Sometimes things like this could disgust Genie; if she didn’t think about it, she would be fine, but she couldn’t let herself ponder the fact that public toilets were public; and she’d prefer to use a toilet which she didn’t know for a fact had been used less then a minute earlier.

Genie headed for the last of the six stalls, the end of the line. But as she reached for the door of the last stall she jumped: someone was in there. Genie opened her mouth to apologize but didn’t get very far, because she noticed that the person in the stall was lying face down with their head in the toilet. At first Genie thought that the girl was vomiting, except that she wasn’t moving.

A small hand was very still on the bathroom floor, and the hand was familiar.

Genie took a shallow breath in shock as she reached out. She lurched at the girl, pulled at the back of the girl’s pink sweater, but couldn’t budge her. The girl was dead, strands of her long, dyed-blonde hair hanging out of the toilet bowl that her head was submerged in.

Genie screamed and let loose her clutch on the sweater, screamed and ran from the bathroom into the hall, where she screamed and ran right into Ray, who caught her.

“Paige!” she screamed at him, and pointed frantically toward the ladies room before breaking down in tears.