Chapter 3

Friday, mid morning, August 10th {Bob}

June, the Boss's secretary, had to call my name twice before I looked up at her. My drafting pencil was poised, and I'm sure it looked like I was thinking about where the next line would go, and how important it was for it to be perfect.

In actuality, I had been thinking of my dream woman. I had been thinking, specifically, about what could be done with fresh strawberries, in terms of eating them, not from a plate, and not with a fork, or fingers. She'd been pretty specific in her list and I was dreaming about how I'd push my lips into her sex, to latch onto a strawberry. I was wondering what the mixture of tastes would be like. I didn't know what horny pussy tasted like, but I was pretty sure it didn't taste like strawberries. If it did, that was the kind of thing that would make the rounds of the rumor mill in third grade.

I had moved on from strawberries to maraschino cherries, perched in a bed of whipped cream, on mountains of flesh, when June started calling my name.

I looked up.

"Jasper wants to see you," she said, frowning slightly.

Jasper was what she called Mr. Thornbill, who owned the company, though he liked to call himself the CEO, instead of the owner. Nobody was allowed to call him Jasper, except June, who called herself an executive secretary, instead of just a secretary. I doubt his wife even called Mr. Thornbill Jasper, assuming she was allowed to speak to him at all. He was kind of impressed with himself, even though he couldn't draw a straight line with the help of a ruler.

I walked along the wall, following June. I knew the deal, though, and waited until she went around her desk and sat down. She checked papers on her desk, like I wasn't there, and then picked up the phone and punched a button.

"Mr. Randall is here, Sir," she said sweetly.

She put the phone down and said "You can go in now."

I went in and assumed the position of parade rest, which was what they called it when they showed me how to report to Mr. Thornbill. I knew it was some kind of military term, which seemed odd, since Jasper Thornbill had never been in the military. I'd heard a rumor that, during the Viet Nam situation, he'd been a divinity student, which meant he had a 4F exemption from the draft. I guess as soon as that war was over, though, he decided - quite rightly, if you ask me - that he wasn't cut from the cloth of a ... man of the cloth. So, when he got his inheritance of some odd millions of dollars, he opened an architectural firm. He wasn't cut from that cloth either, but he hired people who were, and his some odd millions turned into bunches of millions.

Mr. Thornbill's head was down, like he was reading something important. He looked up from the completely bare, polished surface of his desk, which comprised possibly a quarter of an acre. It was built of some exotic, heavy wood from the rain forests and had actually taken a crane to move into his office. It was too big to fit in the elevators, and there was no way anybody could get it up a stairwell. So he had a bank of windows removed, and a crane hoisted the thing up, where it was pulled through the empty window area, after which the windows were re-installed. He spent more getting that desk in his office than he paid me in two years.

"I got a call from the Mayor yesterday," Jasper said, without preamble. "He wanted to know how the museum project was coming." He smiled, which meant I was in terrible jeopardy. "I told him everything was up to snuff, and might even be done early."

I didn't tell him I was already a week ahead of the schedule I'd been given by the architects. I did that pretty routinely, so that when they threw in all those last minute changes, it was easier to incorporate them into the original design. The only thing changes meant, to me, were new lines, and the erasing of some of the previously drawn lines. The architects saw it differently, of course. They were worried about stress loads, and torsion values and all that stuff. The other reason I routinely got ahead of schedule, was because if I had to erase lines, that paid differently than simply drawing new ones in blank spaces.

"Yes, Sir," I said. "We are right on schedule, and it is possible it could be done early."

"How early?" he asked.

"I'd hazard it could be as much as two or three days, Sir," I said.

"That much?" He was obviously impressed. Nobody else in the company ever got anything done on time.

"If there aren't too many late-stage alterations, Sir," I said.

"Excellent!" he said, expansively. "I knew I could count on you, Grindell!"

I decided not to remind him my name was Randall. He was happy, and that meant I'd stay employed, and happy too.

What's in a name, anyway?

Friday evening, August 10th [Chris]

When the rain started pouring at the same time my tire decided to go flat, Lady and I discussed turning around and taking our butts back home to hide under the bed. Family loyalty won out, though, and we arrived at Dad's fifteen minutes before dinner was scheduled to be served.

I was such a mess from changing the tire, Lady and I went in the back door, which lets into the mud-room. Lady promptly shook herself and touched noses with Mac, the blind four-year-old Retriever Dad keeps in the house. He was wagging his tail a mile a minute and smiling at us.

"Hey, Mac" I said, scratching his ears. "Good thing I'm not a burglar, huh?"

His tail still wagging, he turned and led us through the kitchen which smelled like roasted chicken, and up the back stairs to our room.

Twenty minutes later, wearing the requested black dress, which hangs just below my knees, and with a different hairdo than I left home with, I entered the living room and immediately felt like an actor who walks on stage into the wrong play.

For starters, I was the only one "dressed" for dinner. Then I noticed I was the only female in a room of five men -- one of whom was my father, looking as if he'd just destroyed every flea known to mankind.

Wondering if my male parent had finally taken complete leave of his senses without any of us being aware of his problem, I greeted Paul, Jerry, Dan and Evan as I was introduced to them. I noted their hair color -- gold, mahogany, gray and red -- so I could keep their names straight. Dad explained I would be hostess for the weekend since his wife had gone to visit her mother.

"So what do ya' think?" Dad asked when we were alone in the kitchen to get the food ready to serve. "Enough variety for ya'?"

"Are you feelin' okay, Dad?" I asked, touching his forehead. "Maybe I should give Doc Ben a call."

Laughing, he pushed my hand away. "There's nothing wrong with me, Sprig. I just decided we were going about things all wrong. A little healthy competition never hurts when it comes to mating."

Before I could wrap my head around this to respond, he'd blitzed out of the room and called for the men to come help themselves to the buffet.

Friday evening, August 10th {Bob}

When I got home Friday night, Bandit practiced his ambush technique on me. When he heard an intruder picking the lock, which was, in reality, me using my key, he hid behind the chair I watched TV in and waited until the unlucky burglar, which in this case was me, came in and closed off all avenue of rapid escape.

I realized his plan, when his teeth latched onto my calf and he gave a ferocious, if somewhat muffled growl.

"OW!" I screamed. "You stupid dog!"

He let go, and sat, wagging his tail and waiting for praise for defending the house.

I limped to the table where I put my keys, wallet, pocket knife and pocket protector in a basket I used for that stuff, while Bandit sulked at the fact that I didn't praise him. I did, however, say a few things.

"You're supposed to have a sense of smell that's ten thousand times better than mine," I snarled at him. "Or something like that," I added, in case I was off by a few thousand. "You're supposed to be able to sense it's me when I'm clear out at the car! Are you retarded or something?" I limped to the kitchen. "No wonder somebody dumped you! You think about that, Mister!"

He went and walked around by the door, like he was looking for a good place to take a dump, and I scurried over to let him out. He ran into the yard, barking like crazy, scaring off all the other dogs that weren't there, and that he didn't smell. Then he rooted around in the forsythia bush and brought me one of the shoes I didn't know he'd smuggled out. The toe was eaten off already, and he wanted to play fetch.

When you play fetch with Bandit, it isn't like playing fetch with a real retriever. What happens is you throw the shoe, or ball, or whatever, and he chases it and kills it. Then he runs back to you and sits, leaving the dead object in the grass. The only way you can get him to go get it and bring it back is to act like you're going inside, and aren't going to play any more. What he actually wants is for YOU to do the fetching part. He just does the killing part, and then it's your job to go get the dead thing, bring it back to life, and throw it again, so he can kill it one more time.