What Phoebe Wants

“Fine.” He handed me a second form. “That’ll be eighty-nine, ninety-seven.”

“For what? You haven’t done anything.”

“Storage fees.”

“This is outrageous.”

“Don’t blame me because you bought an older car. You should have opted for one of our premium models.”

“This is not my fault,” I protested.

“What do you know about cars, Mrs. Frame?”

I glared at him, but didn’t answer.

He rose and patted me on the shoulder. “Do yourself a favor. Next time you go shopping for a car, bring a man along.”

I jerked open the door and stormed into the lobby once more. “I want to see the manager,” I told the receptionist.

Her eyes widened. “Mr. Adams is the manager.”

I turned and saw Frank smiling at me. Not the cheery grin with which he’d greeted me, but the look of a sly fox.

I wanted to rip that smile right off his face. I wanted to scream, to throw punches, to do something to make him quit looking at me as if I were a bug and he was about to squash me.

I didn’t have the strength to beat him up or the clout to make him afraid of me, so I did the only thing I knew to do. I gave him the haughtiest look I could manage. “This isn’t the end of this,” I announced, and stomped out the door.

I stalked down the sidewalk, my shoes slapping against the concrete, sending tremors up my legs. My stomach churned and my heart raced. I hated this feeling of helplessness. No matter what Frank said, Easy Motors had cheated me. But there was nothing I could do. They had my car. They had the six thousand dollars I had paid for the car. And unless I gave them more money, I wasn’t going to have the money or the car again.

“Aaaargh!” I yelled in frustration. A man on a bicycle stared at me and swerved across the street to avoid me. I didn’t care.

I took a deep breath and deliberately slowed my steps. “Don’t fall apart, Phoebe,” I muttered. “Think this through. There has to be something you can do.”

I started to feel a little better. I wasn’t going to let Frank Adams and Easy Motors get to me. If they were going to fight dirty, then I would fight dirty, too. I didn’t have much experience, but I was a fast learner.

MY MOOD HADN’T IMPROVED MUCH by the time I arrived at work, but my co-workers’ enthusiastic reaction to my new hair color made me feel a little better. Of course, there’s always a spoilsport in every bunch. Joan Lee made a face when she saw me. “I don’t think it suits you,” she said. “Too flamboyant.”

“I can be flamboyant,” I protested.

“Transcriptionists are not flamboyant,” Joan announced, as if this was a fact obvious to everyone but an idiot.

“Maybe red hair is just a start.” I tossed my head in what I hoped was a confident, flamboyant manner. “Maybe I’m thinking of changing careers.”

Joan shook her head and walked away. I could see my next job evaluation. Hair color not suited to job description.

I filled my coffee mug and headed toward my cubicle. Jeff met me in the hallway. He grinned. “I think there’s a flamboyant Phoebe underneath your mild-mannered guise as an ordinary transcriptionist,” he said.

The idea pleased me, but I wasn’t about to let him know it. I was still a little miffed about the way he’d walked away from me last night. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you eavesdropping will get you into trouble?”

He lifted one eyebrow in that sexy way of his. “Maybe I’m a man who likes trouble.”

I bit back a smile and hurried past him, to my office. He followed. “Did you get everything settled with your car?”

I tightened my grip on the coffee mug. “Not exactly.”

“Not exactly?” He intercepted me in the doorway. “What do you mean, not exactly?”

“The manager at Easy Motors says I don’t have a warranty. They want almost five hundred dollars to fix the car, or ninety dollars to release it so I can take it somewhere else.”

Jeff frowned. “Want me to go talk to them?”

“No!” Just what I needed, a man getting me out of this fix. “I’ll take care of it myself.”

He shrugged. “Just thought I’d offer.”

I pushed past him and sat at my desk. I dug the phone book out of the drawer and flipped through it. “What are you looking for?” Jeff asked.

“Are you always so nosy?” I punched in a number and waited while it rang.

“Houston Banner. Bringing you the news first.”

“Hi. I’d like to speak to your consumer affairs reporter.”

“I’ll transfer you to editorial.”

An elevator-music version of “Livin’ La Vida Loca” filled my ear. I swiveled my chair around and saw Jeff still watching me. After a moment a man’s voice barked, “News desk. Sanborn.”

“I’d like to speak to your consumer affairs reporter.”

“No such animal.”

I blinked. “Pardon me? What happened to Simon Saler, the Consumer’s Friend?”

“He quit. Said he wanted to be a sports reporter.” I heard a chair squeak and the rustle of papers. “He got tired of people writing in wanting to know where they could buy the last bottle of Coty perfume or complaining they saw a roach run across their table at Casa Lupe.”

“My aunt gets her Coty from a specialty store in Dallas. And how would you like it if a roach shared your lunch?”

“Well, why didn’t you say something while Simon was still here? Maybe he wouldn’t have run off to write about the latest fight on the basketball court.”

“But what am I supposed to do about the car dealer who sold me a lemon car?”

“You’re on your own, dearie.”

Fat lot of help he was. I slammed down the phone. “What are you going to do now?” Jeff asked.

“I’ll think of something. Right now, I’d better get started on these charts or Joan will make me clean bedpans or file appeals with insurance companies.”

“Go ahead and use your old software to get caught up,” he said. “But then I want to start teaching you the new program.”

I sat and scowled at the tower of folders beside my monitor, then glanced at the idle computer down the counter from mine. “Joan’s going to have to hire someone to help me if she expects me to keep up,” I said, and reached for my headphones.

Jeff sat on a stool and rolled it over next to me. “So, are you really contemplating a new career?”

I shrugged. “Maybe.” Actually, before that morning, the thought had never occurred to me. Not that I wouldn’t enjoy a more glamorous, better-paying job, but transcription was all I was trained for. “I think I’d better handle one life change at a time,” I said.

“I didn’t realize changing your hair color took that much out of you.”

I frowned at him. “I meant my divorce.”

“That was six months ago. Old news.”

“Which goes to show you’ve never been divorced.”

“I don’t intend to be, either.”

“What, you’re going to remain single all your life?” I slipped the headphones over my head and popped the first tape into the machine.

“No. But when I marry, it’s going to be for life.”

“That’s what I thought, too.” I switched on the tape and Dr. Patterson’s drawl filled my ears. I didn’t want to listen to Jeff’s naive pronouncements about the sanctity of marriage. I could have told him no one plans to bail out before “death do us part.” Sometimes you just don’t see it coming, like a headon collision. Most people survive, but it doesn’t mean you aren’t a more careful driver for a while.

He seemed to get the message and left me alone after that. He fiddled with the other computer for a while, then wandered off to some other part of the office. I worked faster once he’d left. There’s something disconcerting about listening to a description of an old Mr. Miller’s problems with impotence while a sexy stud sits three feet away.

Just before lunch, I finished up a stack of letters to referring physicians and set out to deliver them to the various offices in the building. I could have sent them out with the next batch of interoffice mail, but delivering them in person was one of the few legitimate excuses I had for escaping my cubbyhole.

The last of my letters went to the OB-GYN office on the second floor. Dozens of fruitful women in designer maternity wear kept three physicians and twice as many nurses and techs busy. I could never look at the “wall of fame” beside the reception desk, with its photos of smiling moms and dads with their newborns, without feeling a pang of sadness. I kept telling myself I still had plenty of time to have kids, but there was that pesky matter of needing someone to be the father. I wasn’t crazy about diving back into the whole relationship thing any time soon.

“Thanks, Phoebe,” the receptionist, Beverly, said when I handed her my letters. “I think I’ve got some for you, too.”

While Beverly went in search of the letters, I turned my back on the family photos and surveyed the waiting room. A trio of women in various stages of pregnancy sat reading copies of American Baby and Modern Maternity. The nurse came to the door and beckoned one woman and she levered herself out of the chair and waddled toward the exam room. There was something familiar about her long blond hair, her glowing skin….

I clutched the edge of the reception desk, overcome by the urge to scream or puke, I wasn’t sure which. The lovely Madonna waddling away from me was none other than Just-a-waitress Tami, the future Mrs. Steven Frame.

“Here are those letters. Thanks for waiting.” Beverly shoved a stack of envelopes toward me. She frowned. “Are you okay? You look a little pale.”

“I’m…fine,” I lied. In any case, there was no medical cure for what ailed me.

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