Chapter 6

"Young lady... young lady! It's thirty-nine, not fifty-nine, it's marked down! Don't you know the prices? If not, then get me a checker who does!" Peggy Davis shook the dazedness from her eyes and drifted back to the reality of her position behind register number four at the Super- Save Market.

"Oh... I'm so sorry, Ma'am!" she blurted when she had realized her error. Misreading numbers was something she just never did! Maybe back when she had first started, but not now! "I really apologize, Ma'am! That just never happens!"

The elderly woman gave her a look that would have curdled milk and snorted through her upturned lip. "Hmf! I'll bet it never happens. See here, I've been shopping here for years, but if this is the sort of thing that is going on, I'll take my business elsewhere!" Her voice was becoming increasingly shrill with every word and Peggy could see the floor manager, Mr. Hardison, coming from his glassed-in cubbyhole overlooking the rows of checkers. "Why, a twenty cent error is just not excusable! Maybe twenty cents doesn't mean much to your generation, young lady, but I can remember when a man worked half a day for that kind of money and..."

"What seems to be the problem, Madam?" Hardison's voice was appropriately obsequious, in the manner of shoe clerks and floor managers, but still retaining the necessary thread of authority. "Could I be of assistance?"

"I'll say you could my good man!" she spluttered stuffily. "I caught this young woman in the very act of overcharging me and I feel I am owed an apology!"

Peggy looked at the balding floor manager beseechingly. "Mr. Hardison, I did apologize! It was an oversight and I told her I was sorry!"

He gave the overdressed elderly woman a quick glance and then winked on the side away from her and cleared his throat. "Madam, I will see to it that this matter gets all the attention it justly deserves. Please accept the store's deepest apologies and if you will be kind enough to leave your name with the checker, Mrs. Davis, we will send you a certificate good for five dollars free purchases as a small token of our sincerity." He then turned to Peggy without waiting for the woman to reply. "Mrs. Davis, I would like to see you in my office when you have finished here!"

"Mr. Hardison, please, give me a chance to explain! I know I shouldn't have missed that sale item, but I did and I apologized and then she..."

"Mrs. Davis..."

"... went on and on and she kept getting louder and I know everybody in the store must have heard her and..."

"Mrs. Davis! Please! May I get a word in here somewhere?"

"Oh... yes sir, I'm sorry," Peggy replied meekly, but she noticed he was smiling. No not really smiling... almost laughing!

"I only told you to come in here so she would assume you were getting the punishment she seemed so certain you deserved. She probably thinks I'm firing you right now. Isn't that a laugh? Me firing a good cashier over a squabble with Mildred Rose!"

"M-Mildred Rose? You mean you know that woman? She looked like she had a lot of money. I mean she was dressed well and all."

"That old biddy!? Why, she hasn't got a hundred dollars to her name! Listen, I know her all right. If you'd spent as much time as I have chasing her down to collect on her bum checks, you'd know her pretty darn well yourself!"

"Bum checks?" Peggy was genuinely confused now and she showed it. "She seemed like such an important woman. Like maybe she was a doctor or lawyer's wife or something. I just didn't want to get her upset and make a lot of trouble for the store."

"Trouble! She couldn't make trouble for a hot dog vender, much less for this supermarket chain. Mrs. Davis, that woman is a fraud and a thief and I would have stood behind you if you had dumped all her groceries right on her head!"

Peggy laughed, visibly relieved now that the tension had cleared. Ever since the floor manager had come out to her station, she had thought of nothing but losing her job... God, what would she and Bob do without it!

"So you see, I had to make a little show for her benefit just to shut her up. But as far as I'm concerned, it's all forgotten. It was forgotten before I ever went out there, to tell the truth."

"Thank you, Mr. Hardison. I-I guess she just upset me, that's all. I don't usually make mistakes and I guess her nastiness sort of got me flustered."

"I understand. You're practically the finest checker we have here and I wouldn't want to lose you over someone like that old broad. Listen, you look a little shaken, like maybe you're not feeling well. Why don't you take the afternoon off. I'll square it with the boys upstairs if anything is said. But I doubt they'll mention it... they know a good worker when they see one."

"Oh, I couldn't do that, Mr. Hardison. There's no one to take my station!"

He lifted his hand and made a shooing motion. "Go on, I'll worry about that. See you in the morning, okay?"

"Well, yes sir, if you say it's all fight. Thank you again!"

Peggy nervously maneuvered her small car through the early afternoon highway traffic, her mind a mixed-up jigsaw puzzle of confused thoughts and nagging emotions. Feelings and desires she had never before experienced were buzzing in her brain... and a knowledge whose weight was so great she could scarcely beat it. That was why she had made the mistake at the cash register... and that nasty little incident had been the straw that broke her back. Or her spirits at least. Her mind was in a dozen different places at once. Across the Atlantic on board a ship somewhere on the Mediterranean with her darling husband Bob. And a few miles from here in an air-conditioned house trailer... with a magnificent Doberman pinscher named Hero!

God, she thought, I'm so confused! Nothing seems to be what it seems! First Hero... coming into my life as a watch dog and companion but what is he now... my lover? Oh, it's just too much to cope with at once! That awful woman with her screeching voice and her fancy clothes and jewelry... and she turns out to be just another common criminal! A bad check artist and I thought she was a society lady! And myself... just another Navy wife, I always thought, nothing special. But a good wife... and a loyal one!

And now... just what am I now? A big screaming piece of my soul feels so ashamed, so smothered in lewdness that I'll never be able to scrub it clean. When that part of me fills my head with its vile words, I know what I am... a dog-fucking bitch! A sex pervert! And I could just go away somewhere and crawl into a hole and die from my shame!

But there's another part and it's every bit as persuasive and powerful as the first. Over and over it tells me I've done nothing wrong... that what happened was meant to happen. That I intended nothing evil, therefore what I did could not have been wrong. And I want to believe, I really do! I love Hero and I know it with my very heart and mind, but that doesn't mean I don't love Bob! It only means... Oh, dear God, what does it mean!? I don't know anymore, I just don't know!

Peggy saw the taillights flash on ahead of her and she stomped on the power brake as hard as she could, bringing the sedan to a rubber-scorching halt hardly a foot from the car in front. She tried to ignore the scowling countenance in the rear view mirror ahead, his lips mouthing a dozen obscenities.

Leaning out of the open window, she could see an almost endless line of stopped cars, some with their drivers standing limply outside in the scorching summer heat. And far down the line, flashing red lights and the mammoth hulk of a jack-knifed truck stretched across all four lanes like a beached whale. Oh no! I don't believe it!

What else could possibly happen!? What else!

Dottie Mangum decided to try a paperback, but that was as useless as watching television had been. And gardening. And sunbathing with the morning radio programs in her ear before that. Nothing seemed to help! As long as that mobile home was parked there next door, there would be only one thing on her mind... Peggy Davis' truly lovable new pet!

Sunday had been a bit easier as she had slept until shortly after noon and then she and Eddie went for a ride down along the coast at Virginia Beach, followed by a couple of hours in the sun there with the thousands of others, a quick seafood supper down at the beach and a pair of second-run movies at the drive-in with the top down on Eddie's tiny sports car, one of those little Italian Fiats that only seat two. That busy schedule had managed to keep the lid on her probing thoughts, though she and Eddie had talked about it often enough throughout the day. She had awakened with the lascivious image graven in her mind and she had to immediately rush into the living room where Eddie was going over some papers for the office and asked him again if it was all on the level. "You didn't make it all up, Eddie? I mean, just for a joke or something?" she had asked skeptically, and part of her actually hoped it had been a lie. That way she could just erase it from her thoughts and go on about her business as if nothing ever happened. Christ, she had even dreamed about her young blonde neighbor with that magnificent male animal! But no, Eddie was not going to let her off so easily... it was indeed true! Every lewd and obscene second of it and he used it like a sharp nail to get under her skin... now he could see what it was doing to her and he loved teasing her that way! Dottie Mangum, ol' hot pants herself, outdone by mousy little Peggy Davis! Oh, how he rubbed it in along with the suntan oil when they were stretched out on their blanket at the beach!

Ooooh, he was right, the bastard! It was driving her buggy! This image had somehow become implanted in her brain and she could not exorcise it no matter how hard she tried! She had not seen Peggy since Saturday, except for a moment as she left this morning for work. She glimpsed the young blonde from their living room window and she caught herself enviously eyeing her married neighbor as if she expected some drastic physical change to be apparent. Peggy had spotted her standing there and she waved in a friendly manner like nothing had ever happened! Oh, how could she! I've just got to know what it was like, I've got to! But I can't just go over and ask her over a cup of coffee. "Hi, Peggy, heard you fucked your dog this weekend. How'd it go?" No, damn it, I will just stop thinking about it! She flipped the television set back on and watched blankly as a quiz program rolled a few times and then came slowly into focus. The volume was turned off and she did not bother to change it... the show was a complete loss and she cared not at all to hear it as well.

With nothing more than the sheer strength of will, she blocked the whole incident out of her thoughts, forcing herself to think of different things, like an insomniac thinks of sheep. Slowly, like the picture that appeared on her television screen, she began to wearily think of the month's bills... this much for the doctors. A car payment due in before the sixth. Oh, and the pharmacist for Eddie's liniment prescription. It was working! She was finally getting that lewd image out of her head! She glanced up again at the television screen in time for a commercial break... Oh shit! I don't believe it! I just don't believe it!

She was laughing so hard that tears were streaming down her cheeks and she wanted more than anything to tell somebody, anybody. Still convulsing with laughter she reached for the telephone and dialed Eddie's office number... it was a dog food commercial! And there, right there on her living room TV was a big manly Doberman pinscher that could have been Hero's twin brother!

"Mr. Mangum, Mr. Randolph would like to see you in his office if it is convenient." Eddie's feet fell from the desk top to the floor in a resounding crash that he was immediately certain could be heard throughout the whole floor of offices and his hand went for the intercom button so nervously that he nearly knocked the intercom box from his desk.

"Yes, Miss Brooks, please tell him I'll be right there!" He was on his feet with the same blinding speed, checking his tie in the mirror- image of his glass door, nervously looking over his suit for spots or noticeable wrinkles. If it is convenient! Christ, it would be convenient at four in the morning on Christmas Eve if D. B. Randolph wanted to see him! Randolph was the big boss. The really big boss! Technically, he was chairman of the board of Randolph and Phitts, with ol' J. R. Phitts running the offices. He was in to see J. R. practically every day and they were as close to being friends as any top executive could be with one of his account men, but D. B. Randolph was something else again! He'd seen the top man only once, the day he came to work here and he was taken in like a new kid in school and introduced to the dour-faced senior officer who gave him something resembling a smile and a lukewarm handshake followed by a snorting grunt and that was it.

And now he was being summoned to the ol' boy's suite! Around here that had to mean one of two things... the boot or a promotion. Nobody ever saw Randolph for any other reason!

He tossed the account men's shared secretary, Linda Brooks, a wan smile as he hurried out the door of his tiny office and turned down the long paneled corridor that led to the executive suites.

"Good luck, Eddie," the pretty redhead offered and held up her hand to show that her fingers were crossed.

"Thanks... I hope I don't need it." Man, that little girl got better looking every day! He could remember when she had first taken the job -- pudgy with baby-fat and her hair all teased and covered in a mist of hair spray. But somebody must have given her a few pointers! That rich red hair spilled over her shoulders and she had lost at least ten pounds. He cast her a quick appraising look as he rounded the corner -- maybe she didn't lose it at all... she just shifted it around!

But there was no time for that now. He had to get himself in the right frame of mind for D. B. Randolph. The old man was a real pro, hell, he practically invented public relations, but he was serious about his work. That much he knew from talking to people who had met with him in the past... those who were still on the staff after their meetings, that is.

He was almost there now, a few feet from the private office door of Randolph's secretary, a gray-haired spinster who, rumor had it, had once been the ol' boy's mistress back in his spryer days. It was hard to imagine, as heaven never created a homelier woman. She was nearly bald with age like a man, but refused to wear a wig or even to style her hair so that the thinned-out spots would not show. And she sported a thin smear of a mustache that looked like some teenager's first attempt at being continental.

"Mr. Randolph will see you in a moment," she said dryly, without even looking up from her typing.

"Yes, Miss Guralnik," he answered and took his seat unobtrusively in the plush reception office. It could best be described as turn-of-the- century posh. Everything had the look of opulence, but it was well-worn richness, rather like the interior of a distinguished London men's club. Or at least how he imagined the interior would look, as he'd never seen one. Not even the exterior.

He could not escape the nagging feeling that he was a school boy back in elementary school and he had been summoned to see the principal for some dastardly act. Like fighting at recess. Or hitting Johnny Bowers with a spitball when the teacher's back was turned. That was just the way this office affected him and he suspected he was not the first to have such thoughts.

Randolph and Phitts was certainly a bit of a shock after the outfit he had worked for in California, but they were reputable and long- established on the east coast and that was why he had taken the job. That stint with Modern Pacific Promotions had left a bit of a blemish on his otherwise spotless record and he needed a couple of years at least with a good conservative firm like R&P to smooth it over. Not that it had been his fault that Modern Pacific folded after less than three years; it developed at the bankruptcy hearings that the treasurer of the corporation, a hot-shot Harvard MBA sort, had dipped his sticky fingers into the till on a number of occasions, and more scandalously, apparently with the full knowledge and encouragement of the president's wife, an overtly amorous sort with a more-than-business interest in the young treasurer. It seemed that they had plans to take off for the south of France or somewhere together, but only after he had squirreled enough away to assure them the sort of life that people usually aspire to in that special part of the Mediterranean. But as luck would have it, Modern Pacific ran out of money before they were satisfied that they had enough and, well, like they say, the shit really hit the fan!

Luckily, Eddie had seen the handwriting on the wall in time and was clear of the whole shaky operation before it collapsed like a house of cards in a windstorm, but just the mention of Modern Pacific now caused eyebrows to arch and tongues to wag in the public relations world.

And to top it all off, like rubbing salt in a still-smarting wound, this company change had been forced on him smack in the middle of the Seventy-Seventy One drought in the advertising and public relations business. That was the bottoming out period that followed the booming late Sixties and, as always, luxuries like advertising and promotion were the first items axed on the corporate budget requests when the going got rough. He could have taken his pick of a dozen jobs a couple of years earlier, but as luck would have it, he found himself up against the wall... a dying, scandal-ridden job on one side and the ceaseless perils of unemployment on the other. So it had really been a bit of unaccustomed good luck to stumble across this opening, even if it meant a three- thousand mile transcontinental move and selling their almost-new suburban home in a depressed market. Eddie had just about given up on finding anything decent and was nearly reconciled to Joining the ranks of the almost-unemployed... those in the profession who listed themselves on job applications as "free-lancer" or "consultant".