Six, p.1
Six, page 1
SIX
R. E. CARR
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
About the Author
Also by R. E. Carr
Acknowledgments
© 2016 R E Carr
All rights reserved.
Originally published by Kindle Press
To the one who inspired me every day to fight the good fight with dignity and grace, I give you this dedication and one final thought . . .
Hugh Jackman, shirtless, on a beach . . .
1
“Today will be the day, Paige. Today will be the day where you will march right into that office and tell him exactly where he can shove his ninety-day-old expense report.”
She leaned over the sink and narrowed her oversize baby-brown eyes into the most stern and serious glare she could muster. She gritted her teeth and set her lips into a firm and ferocious sneer before giving one more nod of approval to the mirror.
“Today is the day that Paige Presley Carmichael is no longer the official doormat of the admin team,” she declared to her reflection. Her determination crumbled quickly as she heard a desperate knock on the bathroom door.
“You gonna be long?” a frantic voice called from beyond the door.
She scrambled to grab her purse and fumble for the knob. She was greeted by an overstuffed and green-faced coworker from Accounting who grimaced as he decided to overshare and declare, “I shouldn’t have eaten that second burrito,” before shoving past her and slamming the door shut.
Paige let out a quiet sigh of relief that her allergy meds had not yet conquered her stuffed-up nose during the height of pollen season and proceeded to square her shoulders as she marched right back to the pack of cubicles planted smack-dab in the middle of the office. She looked at the twin rows of gray-speckled fabric and putty-toned metal and took a quick note of just how many of the screens showed March Madness brackets rather than spreadsheets. In one corner all of Accounts Payable crowded around a single personal laptop, biting their collective lips and holding their breath as someone attempted free throws in overtime.
Still, she kept her stiff upper lip as she marched past the biller eating popcorn with her mouth open and their payroll clerk checking Facebook on her phone. Her sensible little pumps dug into the ground, and her head remained nearly high enough to see over the top rim of the last cubicle, her final destination on this journey of triumph.
However, her proud trek ended with a bright yellow note stuck on a blackened monitor. “Out till Monday. Go, Tigers!” She looked to the office behind the cube, and it too had gone dark for an early weekend.
“Oh well,” she sighed as she slunk back to her own little corner of the office to hide behind pile upon pile of receipts and forms. One by one she clicked and snipped, saved and scanned, sliding one sheet at a time into the greedy machine on her desk. Click. Whoosh. Rinse. Repeat. Over and over again she stitched together the history of the more exciting lives of salespeople traveling to such exotic locales as Milwaukee and Wichita.
Just as she finally lost herself deep within the ebb and flow of her musical machine, her Zen came crashing down, literally, as an arm came plowing through the top of her in-box to grab for the sole survivor of her bowl of peppermint candies. As the papers crashed into a fantastic splatter of white and yellow, the owner of the arm merely shrugged and offered up a halfhearted, “Sorry,” before hurrying back to join the crowd around the laptop.
Paige opened her mouth but words failed her. No one noticed her drop to her knees to start picking up the pieces over the din of a last-minute three-point shot. She surveyed slips of paper that had escaped their paper clips, a pure jumble of gasoline purchases and wayward food—some from Alabama, some for Alaska—and found a lump growing in her throat. It was at this very moment that an inconvenient shadow loomed over her head.
“Really, Paige?” a terribly disappointed voice said. “How many times did I tell you to staple?”
She hopped to her feet but kept her head lowered. “I’m sorry, Mr. Roche—”
“You aren’t leaving until this is cleaned up,” he said with a wave of his hand. “You know we are going to have a talk about your performance if you keep this up. I don’t want another e-mail from Eric about not getting paid—”
“But how can he be processed for payment if he hasn’t turned in his expense reports for three months?” she asked.
Mr. Roche just snorted, “Are you sure it’s not in this mess, young lady? Like I said, I want this fixed before you leave.”
He stared expectantly at the young administrator, his arms folded over his expansive belly, but no matter how red she got, she didn’t snap back. Instead Paige took a deep breath and pulled her bright orange stapler out from behind her phone.
“I’ll get right on that, sir,” she said softly while keeping her eyes down.
“That’s what I want to hear. Also, Marcy has already put in for next week, so I’m going to need you to cover the billing line as well.”
“But it’s month end,” she protested weakly.
Mr. Roche raised a brow over the top of his stylish gold glasses. The extended black and gray hairs conjured images of a caterpillar on a fall leaf, as his skin still bore the traces of his latest sunburn. After a few moments of awkward silence, he waved his hand and turned to his phone. “Well, I have to get going if I’m going to make happy hour. Remember, Paige, I want this fixed. Don’t let me down!”
She smiled weakly. “Yes, sir,” she said before starting back on the pile. Her purse vibrated from time to time, but she didn’t dare slip her phone out to check until she had at least gathered up all the papers around her chair. In the cube next door, she could hear her coworker planning her next cruise, while across the way the last of the secretarial pool had already snuck out while the boss was focused on young Miss Carmichael.
Once more the dance began, but this time Paige stopped and stapled the receipts to each report as she matched them, muttering under her breath as she stared at the scanner that could only feed a single sheet of paper at a time. The minutes stretched to hours, and by the time she finally came up for air, the only sound in the building was the roar of a vacuum cleaner at the end of the hall.
“Oh no!” she cried as she looked at the little clock in the corner of her screen. She finally yanked out her phone and grimaced at the list of missed calls. She fumbled to switch over to texting as her thumbs creaked in protest.
“Want dinner sometime tonight maybe,” was the latest in a long string of unanswered messages from Calvin.
“Worked late. OMW,” she replied as she frantically shut down her machine and scooped up her purse. She had made it halfway to the door before she had to whirl back around and snatch her keys out of her pencil cup.
As she waved and gave a quick “Adios” to the cleaning guy, her phone vibrated again. This time the message was the brilliantly phrased, “Pickup soda were out.”
With a deep sigh she finally made it out of the hallowed halls of Schuler Sani-Tech, purveyor of fine waste management technologies all around the United States of America and three Canadian provinces. The sudden change from subarctic air-conditioning to a muggy Memphis night made the poor girl’s stomach turn as she wandered her way toward one of two trucks left in the back parking lot. She swatted at one of the multitude of ravenous mosquitoes looking for dinner and tried to relax to the soothing sounds of the cicadas at sunset.
She clambered into the cab of her oversize Dodge Ram, a beast of a machine in jet-black, with a gun rack and toolbox strapped to the bed. She had to crane a bit to get a good view as she reversed out—as a double-barreled drum smoker was still strapped behind the driver’s side.
She took a few deep breaths as the monster roared to life, and smiled as her MP3 player picked up right in the midst of something ethereal and trancelike. For the few blissful minutes of puttering from parking lot to side road, all was well with the world—until the stark, post-apocalyptic reality of Tennessee highway traffic jolted Paige out of her bliss.
She grabbed the steering wheel with a death grip as she tried to maneuver her truck into any lane of traffic that actually moved on I-40. Each time she tried to move left, something smaller and zippier would cut her off, while the champagne sedan in front of her refused to acknowledge that speed limits had increased to sixty-five miles per hour. She let a few expletives slip as a Honda driver that thought turn signals were completely optional forced her to slam on the brakes, while simultaneously praying that the van behind her wouldn’t further dent her beleaguered bumper.
The staccato lurch of traffic continued for the next forty-five minutes before she finally managed t
She struggled with two bottles of fizzy, sugary goodness before her phone buzzed again. “Ordered pizza, all good,” this text read.
At this point she looked at all the lines full of harried shoppers and nearly put the two liters on the magazine rack, but changed her mind at the last minute as she saw an express lane open up. She burst into a huge grin as she darted ahead of those with slower reflexes and plopped her drinks on the conveyor belt with glee.
The young guy at the register smiled. “Dang, you move fast,” he said appreciatively. “You got a Kroger card?”
“Four years of track are good for something, eh?” she said as she scanned her keys.
Her brief bit of good fortune put a spring in her step as she pranced back to the far end of the lot. Somehow in the five minutes she had been inside, another truck had pulled up beside her so close and crooked that she couldn’t even open the driver’s side door.
“Seriously?” she muttered as this F-150 had to ignore the ten other spaces in the back row.
She popped open the passenger side and dragged her bum across the front row seats. However, in the slide, her new hose managed to snag on a rogue bit of plastic and split into a horrendous run. “TGIF, Paige, TGIF,” she muttered as she finally began the home stretch.
She groaned as she crossed the threshold of her first floor apartment at nearly half past nine. As she kicked off her heels and plopped down the grocery bag, an overwhelming smell of pepperoni and burned popcorn assaulted her nose. All of her stomach growling ceased immediately upon taking in the distinctly toxic aroma of artificial oils wafting from the microwave that was so thoughtfully left open.
“Cal?” she called out. She was rewarded by the overbearingly loud clattering of virtual gunfire coming from each and every speaker of their new surround sound speakers. “Cal!” she said again a little louder.
She gave up and walked around the counter and into their narrow yet functional little apartment kitchen. As she reached through the opening to grab the soda, she discovered a mountain of prep bowls, cutting boards, and utensils filling up the sink. Finally, she swung open the fridge to discover that her boyfriend had left three quarter-full bottles of cola in the fridge. She yanked them out and put in the fresh. The first one didn’t make the slightest noise as she twisted the cap.
“Cal! Hey, are you saving these for sauce?” she yelled toward the living room. Once more, only virtual gunfire answered her.
Finally, she just gave up and pulled out the funnel so she could deftly combine three bottles into one and make space in the jammed fridge. Reused spaghetti sauce jars and take-out containers were packed full of syrupy red liquids, while zipper bags stuffed with soaking meat completely filled the bottom shelf.
An explosion sent the speakers into a tizzy, enough to drown out the sounds of the water and the garbage disposal as Paige set to work reclaiming her sink. She grabbed the natty old brush behind the faucet and grinned wickedly as she jammed the end of it over and over again into the pile of onion skins and carrot peels that fought valiantly against the tide of water. Next, she grabbed steel wool and scrubbed furiously at burned sugar, grunting and sneering at the blackened little bits. She wiped her bright pink cheeks with the back of her hand, leaving an adorable tuft of white foam on her nose.
Her next mission involved a bowl of vinegar water being shoved into the stinky abyss that was once a serviceable small appliance. She crossed her fingers as she waited for it to bubble away in the microwave and hopefully drive away the ghost of popcorn past. As it beeped and ended, she finally saw just what time it really was. She rubbed her eyes and groaned as a ten and a fifteen taunted her in blocky green font.
“Oh hey, baby, when did you sneak in here?”
The voice made her jump as there was clearly still gunfire blaring over the speakers. She spun around to see all six feet two inches of her oversize boyfriend setting his plate on the breakfast bar. He rubbed his eyes a few times behind his glasses and made a yeti-like noise as he stretched his massive hands toward the ceiling. The stretch put Paige at eye level to see his dingy black T-shirt crawl upward and show off his dashingly hairy belly.
“Is someone here?” she asked as she heard a cheer from the living room.
“Oh yeah; didn’t know when you’d be home so Dave and Bobby came over for a little Call of Duty and strategy session.”
“It looks like your strategy involved a lot of onions.” She laughed as she dried off her hands.
He lumbered around the counter and picked Paige up with one arm and gave her a quick kiss. She wrinkled her nose at the mix of syrupy sweetness and leftover pork. The scruff of his goatee tickled her lip, but she had to smile as he swung her around and gave her a proper King Kong hug. He then opened the fridge and pulled out a jar of particularly bright orange paste.
Her eyes lit up as he twisted it open. A potent blend of sweet and sour filled the kitchen. “Peruvian aji peppers, caramelized onion, orange, and lime,” he said proudly. “Gonna try that on both chicken and turkey tomorrow.”
“What is a Peruvian aji pepper?” she asked as he grabbed a spoon for her.
The yeti began to giggle. “Bobby’s mom bought all sorts of mail-order spices this year. I’m guessing that they were originally from Peru, but these came from the Internet.”
Paige took a tiny taste and turned brighter pink. She dove in the fridge for a bottle of water. “Woof,” she gasped as she had to gulp down half of it before she could articulate again.
“It’s a real kick in the ass, right?” Cal said, beaming. “But you have to make it superhot because once it hits the heat, you start to lose the fire. How ironic is that?”
“All you, babe,” Paige said as she started washing the newly dirtied spoon and his plate. “But it does have a nice sweetness; I’ll give you that. Tastes like the one you did last week but more, um, fruity.”
Cal nodded and started rooting around in the freezer this time until he fished out a bright blue Popsicle from the jumbo box in the back. “You eaten?” he asked as he continued to root around.
“There any pizza left?” she asked weakly.
“Um, maybe,” Cal said weakly in return.
The pair padded toward the living room area, where two other bears in human form sprawled over the sectional, each one staring intently at the rush of pixels on Paige’s fifty-inch flat-screen. The one on the left grunted a bit as he furiously pounded the buttons, giggling like a girl as he fired off a headshot, while the one on the right at least nodded to acknowledge that someone new had entered the room.
Paige didn’t dare intrude upon the overflowing well of testosterone and instead perched on the edge of the recliner as Cal settled in to grab a controller again. Four cardboard boxes soaked in grease littered her coffee table, along with a mountain of beer cans and red plastic cups. She waited for the guys to finish the death match before she dared dart over and forage for food. Three of the four boxes turned up empty, while a single slice of cold pepperoni greeted her in the last box.
She made do with her scrap and hunted up a napkin to serve as a makeshift plate. The guys continued to play obliviously as she nibbled away until she finally sighed and spirited away as much of the refuse as possible back to the kitchen. She watched the three guys stare blankly at the screen for another few minutes before she finally decided to chuck the boxes in her recycling bin and wander off toward the bedroom.
