“My husband’s outa work now, too,” Patty said, and started crying again. “How’re we s’posed to make the mortgage payments if we’re both collecting unemployment, huh? We’re neither one of us spring chickens any more. Gettin’ somethin’ new wouldn’t be easy even if times was good. When times’re this shitty, we’re screwed.”
That was the word, all right. Louise had enough trouble making payments as things were. She had no one to fall back on now. Two unemployment checks were bound to be better than one.
Her cell phone chose that moment to go off in her purse. She reached in to kill it. She’d get the voice mail later on—unless the power died again, which wouldn’t affect her phone but would affect the network’s ability to reach it and be reached. With power failures so frequent, the you-must-take-care-of-it-right-this-second-if-not-sooner fixation of the years before the eruption was fading. Later would do, because later often had to do.
“What about Steve and the other guards?” she asked. She was thinking What about me? but Patty’d already taken care of that.
“It is most unfortunate situation for all concerned,” Mr. Nobashi said, which meant the security guards were screwed along with everybody else.
Well, almost everybody else. “You’ve still got a job, Mr. Nobashi,” Patty said bluntly. “You may have to go back to Japan to do it now, but you’ve still got it.”
“Please excuse me.” Mr. Nobashi got out of there at top speed, perhaps to spread the good news to the rest of the building.
“That rotten, no-good pissant.” Patty usually talked loud. Now she had no reason on God’s green earth to care if Mr. Nobashi heard her. “I oughta pinch his little head off.”
“Tell me about it!” Louise said.
“I gave this lousy company the best years of my life,” Patty went on, as if she hadn’t spoken.
“Tell me about it!” Louise said again. Patty sounded the way she had herself when she talked about leaving Colin, substituting only company for man. It had been true for Louise, it was just as true for Patty, and it did neither of them one single, solitary goddamn bit of good.
“I oughta burn this stinking place down.” Patty shook her head. “Nah. If I do, the fucking noodle people’d collect insurance. They’d laugh. . . . Well, fuck ’em all.” She went back into the office that had been hers and soon would belong to nobody.
Fuck ’em all. The fired person’s motto all through history—and that did no one any good, either. Alone there in the hallway, Louise fished out her phone. Might as well see what the message was.
It was from Colin. Louise ground her teeth loud enough to make any dentist who heard her sure he’d be sending his kids to Harvard. Just what she needed right now! She almost deleted it without listening to it. Almost, but not quite. Shaking her head, she held the phone to her ear.
“Hello, Louise,” the familiar, once-loved voice said. “Wanted to let you know we found out for sure: Kelly’s pregnant. Sorry, but I’m afraid that means I won’t be able to keep sending you little bits and pieces for your kid any more. Way things are, and the way our bills will shoot through the roof, we’re gonna have to hang on to every nickel we’ve got. The ramen place doesn’t pay too bad, I bet, so you’ll be fine as long as you kinda watch it. Well, take care. ’Bye.”
“You son of a bitch!” Louise snarled. “You fucking son of a bitch!” That was what Colin was, all right. With a few quick, savage pokes, she did scrub the message. But she couldn’t get it out of her head so easily. You’ll be fine as long as you kinda watch it. Watch what? She had exactly nothing to watch now, here or from her ex-husband.
How long could she make nothing last? How much severance would she get? How soon could she start collecting unemployment? How much would it be? She had no idea. She’d have to find out, though, and in a hurry. She didn’t even know where the closest unemployment office was.
Well, as long as this crappy joint had power, she could Google that and find out. What would Mr. Nobashi do if he caught her? Fire her? Laughing a wild laugh, she hustled back to her computer.
XIII
Kelly broke a couple of eggs into a measuring cup. They were going to go into a meatloaf; the store had had ground beef for the first time in quite a while.
They sat there side by side in the bottom of the Pyrex cup. To Kelly, it looked as if they were two big, baleful eyes staring up at her. She gulped. Then she did more than gulp. She ran for the bathroom. She made it in the nick of time.