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Khimairal's Style

False Identity
Barbara Davies

Hearing Things
T.J. Mindancer

Paige
Lori L. Lake

She Said, She Said
K. Simpson

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Alice Roosevelt Longworth may be best remembered for saying, "If you can't say something good about someone, sit right here by me."

There are two fatal questions in any relationship: "Do you know what your problem is?" and "Do you remember the day we met?" I know all the wrong answers to both of them. (I'm not too good at the if-your-mother-and-I-were-drowning-and-you-could-save-one-of-us question, either.)

But for sheer variety of ways to get into trouble, the second question is the bad one. Take what happens whenever Cassie brings it up with me.

She thinks I have convenient memory, just to spite her. But I remember everything. It was Monday morning, and it was raining . . .

Oh, great--she's starting this again. I don't know what gets into her sometimes. Why is it so hard for her to say, "You're right"? Or, even better, "I'm wrong"?

I'll tell you why: because she's stubborn. Stubborn and obstinate and muleheaded. No, make that pigheaded; she would outstubborn a mule. Do you know what she told me once? She told me she never had to eat broccoli when she was little. Her mom tried to make her sit at the table till she did, but that was just a mistake; Devvy said her personal record for sitting at the table not eating broccoli was two hours and seven minutes. She'd still be sitting there today if her dad hadn't made them quit.

Anyway, I'm Cassie, and I'll tell you how it really happened, because anything Devvy tells you is half a lie. She can't help it much; she's in advertising.

Monday Morning
Raining

It had been another of those terrible mornings, the kind that make you wish you did something else for a living--something practical like, say, scraping up roadkill. That would be honest work compared with writing ad copy. You could get outdoors once in a while, too. And you never, ever had customers who talked back.

I had every reason to be in a bad mood. For the past hour, I'd been locked up in a conference room with an associate creative director, an account exec, and three mouthy clients, all of whom I hoped would die soon. One of the clients once read an issue of Ad Age, which made her an expert. Another sucked his teeth when he didn't understand something, which was always. Those amateur tooth-sucking morons shot my presentation down, and Jack just sat there and let them, the treacherous bastard. The day he made creative director, I'd key his car and quit.

I was thinking about going ahead and keying his car anyway. But first, I needed coffee; maybe a cigarette. Preferably both. That meant taking the coffee outside, so I headed for the break room to fill a go cup. Unfortunately, my copywriting partner followed me; he wanted to show me his new tie.

Which lighted up and played his college fight song.

Was he out of his mind? He knew my reputation. Also, I wanted a cigarette. Bad things happened to people who stood between me and cigarettes.

I left him frantically trying to loosen the new knot I'd just put in his tie and went on into the break room, where another bad surprise was waiting: no coffee. Whoever took the last cup--a male; you could bet your life on it--hadn't made more.

Rat-bastard weasel. As soon as I felt better, I was going to find him and kill him dead.

It took a few minutes to find coffee, as opposed to decaf, and a few minutes more to rinse the black crud out of the carafe. Someday, I'd have to worry about all the coffee I'd had out of that carafe--and about my co-workers' idea of hygiene. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to get a tetanus shot.

Finally, I got the coffeemaker started and leaned against the wall to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

It was unbearable. There I was, in late-stage caffeine withdrawal, and that cheap appliance was taking forever to brew. Something had to be done. But what? Even if I'd had a gun, I couldn't shoot a coffeemaker; that would look bad.

Then my eye fell on a nearby table. Someone had been working there, putting together packets, and had left a stapler behind.

That would work. Checking first to make sure no one was around, I grabbed the stapler and whacked the coffeemaker--not hard; just enough to get its attention.

Nothing happened. Well, it was a small stapler. So I whacked a little harder. Still nothing. I was giving the coffeemaker one last tap--a small one--when the door opened, and she walked in.

For a long moment, we just looked at each other. Who knew what she was thinking? Then she smiled faintly.

"I hear you have to sneak up on them to kill them," she said.

See? I told you: lies. This is the truth.

Monday Morning
Not Raining Yet

It was my first day at J/J/G, and I was thinking I might have made a mistake. One advertising agency is about like any other, especially for account executives, but these people were even stranger than I was used to. Some copywriter was running around with a musical tie on, for one thing. And I got hit on by three other account execs before I even knew where the bathrooms were. They didn't even bother to take off their wedding rings first, the big jerks.

After a couple of hours of that, I was in kind of a bad mood. Somebody said there was coffee in the break room upstairs. I figured I could use it to take some aspirin; I was getting the worst headache.

So I went on up to the break room. And there she was--Satan's daughter, all dressed in black, trying to beat a coffeemaker to death with a stapler. Not just any stapler, but one of those industrial-size things that could staple moon rocks. And she looked serious about killing the coffee machine. Was she crazy? Was she dangerous?

Was she single? Because she was really, really cute.

There may have been some cool way out of that fix, but I couldn't think of one. All I could think of was how blue this woman's eyes were--a bad thing to be thinking about, because I was straight, for God's sake.

Trying to look casual about it, I pried the stapler off the coffeemaker. Somehow, it had stapled itself to the lid. "Sorry. I don't usually do this, but my doctor says I can't take coffee intravenously anymore."

"What a coincidence," she said lightly. "My doctor tells me the same thing about men."

Trouble, I thought, but held out a hand to her anyway. "Devlin Kerry. I'm a copywriter here."

She shook my hand, maybe holding on a fraction of a second too long, if you want to get technical about it. "Cassandra Wolfe, and I'm an account exec. Today's my first day."

"A fine welcome I gave you."

"Oh, I don't know. At least it was different. Violent, but original."

She smiled again. I wished she wouldn't do that.

"Not that original," I admitted. "You'll hear the stories sooner or later."

"Well, how about sooner? How about lunch? I'm free."

The stapler I'd forgotten I was still holding dropped to the floor. Dammit. That was cool of me, too.

That's not how it happened. For starters, she wasn't tapping the coffeemaker; she practically bashed the top in. It never worked right again. And that part about the handshake is a lie too; I'm the one who offered. But she pretended not to notice. Heaven forbid she should have touched me socially.

Or otherwise. I have to admit I was thinking about that, even though I was straight, because there was something about her right from the start. I remember thinking, If she's funny, I'm in trouble.

So naturally, she said, "My doctor won't let me take coffee intravenously anymore." That was funny enough.

I didn't let on, though. I just told her my doctor had told me the same thing about men.

That was the first time she smiled. She didn't want to, I could tell, but she did. It made her look a lot less evil. And the next thing I knew . . .

"Are you free for lunch?" I asked.

That seemed to surprise her. "Me?"

"I don't see anyone else here."

"That's not what I meant." She started looking crabby again. "I meant--"

"It's my first day. And you said yourself that you gave me a fine welcome." So far, so good; she didn't argue. I decided to see how far I could push. "I mean, honestly, Devlin--you don't want to leave me thinking you're crazy."

That time, she laughed. "You're not the least bit scared of me, are you?"

"Should I be?"

"Ask around."

"Maybe I will." I gave myself a mental note to do exactly that. "So have you decided about having lunch with me?"

"You're sure?"

What was with her, anyway? Didn't people have lunch where she came from? "Yes, I'm sure. But if you're going to keep being difficult, you're going to buy."

A tiny glint sneaked into her eyes--not quite a twinkle, but not far from one. "Then I'll buy."

"Good," I said, meaning it. "A woman after my own heart."

For some reason, she dropped that stupid stapler.

Things aren't too clear for a while after that. She must have talked me into lunch, but I don't remember how; I wasn't quite right the rest of the morning.

It was probably those damn clients. I'd played "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong" on my Discman a couple dozen times. I'd played with my stress toys. I'd even tried to strangle my copywriting partner again. Nothing had helped. Something was wrong.

How little I knew.

So I decided to walk to lunch, to try to work off that feeling of impending doom. The rain had stopped, the sun was back out, and Mezzaluna was only a few blocks.

Cassie was already there when I got to the restaurant; the guy at the front desk said she was waiting at our table on the terrace. The terrace? I didn't believe it. Getting a table out there was next to impossible, especially for walk-ins. How had she done that?

Halfway across the terrace, I got the answer. Cassie was sitting in the sun lighted up like a goddess, and there was no other word for it: She was gorgeous. It was like having lunch with Marilyn Monroe. When she smiled hello at me, every man in the place hated me on sight.

I tried not to feel smug about that. After all, I was straight.

She always makes such a big deal about that table on the terrace. I mean, really--it was just Mezzaluna. And it wasn't like I gave the maitre d' a look. I had on a perfectly respectable business suit.

OK, I might have unbuttoned the blouse a little much, but I was on my lunch hour, and there was no harm in getting some sun. I might have mentioned that to him. I might not have. Like I keep telling Devvy, it doesn't matter.

Anyway, the maitre d' gave us a nice table, and I went out to wait. She was a few minutes late; I was starting to wonder whether she'd forgotten.

Then I saw men's heads start to turn. But she didn't even notice. That should have told me something right away. Should have told her something, too. God, she was so clueless.

I had to smile, though. It was kind of cute.

Cassie gets bent out of shape about the details of that lunch, and I don't know why. What difference does it make who ordered what or what music was playing? It was just lunch. We probably had little salads and great big desserts. They probably played Muzak.

The light sticks in my mind, though. It did that goddess thing for her, and I couldn't get over how blue her eyes were. In direct sunlight, they were almost the color of a swimming pool--like the pool at the country club back home on a bright day in July, like the day that cute guy finally noticed me . . .

Well, never mind that. They were just eyes. And the cute guy lasted about a week. What I do remember is how the argument started.

We were trading horror stories, which is how people in advertising socialize, and she'd just told one that confirmed what I'd always suspected about a rival agency. "It just goes to show you that Darwin was wrong," she concluded.

I was beginning to like this woman; she was Marilyn Monroe channeling Alice Roosevelt Longworth. So I leaned back and smiled at her.

Then she had to ruin it all. Out of nowhere, she asked, "Do you always wear black?"

I stopped smiling. "Why?"

"You just look like you do." After a short, suspicious pause, she added, "You're not into Johnny Cash, are you?"

"Of course not," I said, offended.

Silence fell over the table. Cassie regarded me skeptically.

Finally, I couldn't stand it anymore. "What?"

"I asked around about you," she said.

"And . . . ?"

"There are two schools of thought. One: that you're the Devil. Two: that you're the Devil."

"That's the same school," I pointed out.

"It's in the way they said it. A lot of people like you." She left the "But . . ." implied.

Annoyed, I pushed my chair back. "Imagine that, when I'm the Devil. What do you suppose their liking me says about them? It mightÑ" I broke off, seeing the change in her expression. Madame was displeased about something. "Now what?"

"You're taking this the wrong way."

"You just criticized how I dress and called me the Devil. I don't know many other ways to take it. Are you speaking English or some strange Englishlike language?"

That might've been a fraction over the line, even though she'd asked for it. The blue in Cassie's eyes turned the color of gunmetal, and for the first time, I saw both lady and tiger.

"I'm not looking for trouble, Devlin," she said coldly. "And believe me, you don't want trouble with me."

"That cuts both ways, Cassandra."

"Cassie," she corrected.

"Cassandra."

"Knock it off, Devlin."

I gave her a poisonous smile. "Dev."

"This is a really stupid argument," she complained. "Couldn't we argue about something more interesting?"

"It's interesting enough for me."

"Well, then, I wonder what that says about you."

Rim shot. It echoed forever in the silence.

What's a crock. She never told me any of that goddess stuff before, and you know why? She didn't think it. Devvy was so clueless that she didn't even know I was a girl for the longest time, and if she was the least bit attracted, she didn't know that either. If it ever hit her that we were both girls . . . well, you can imagine the trouble back home at the Methodist church.

I swear, it took me years even to get her to say the word "sex" in a normal voice. She still won't say it very loud.

But never mind that right now. She has that lunch all wrong. For one thing, I wasn't trying to insult her. I was trying to pay her a compliment, and she flew off the handle. I never accused her of liking Johnny Cash. If she had just shut up and let me finish, I'd have told her why I brought up the clothes: She looked good in black. It worked with tall, dark, and evil.

And the fight? She started it, not me. You don't get all sarcastic with someone you've just met. Which just goes to prove that she was never thinking about swimming pools or my eyes, because people who are thinking sappy things about you try to charm you.

On top of that, I picked up the check. And she didn't mention that she was still mad when we left. I offered to give her a ride back to work, because it looked like rain, but no, she wanted to walk. I told you she's stubborn.

So how was it my fault that it started pouring a few minutes later? Or that she'd left her umbrella at the office? I never thought about it; I just assumed that an adult human being who wants to walk on a day when all the forecasts call for rain would take an umbrella.

The first lesson I learned about Devvy: Never assume.

I was going through paperwork at my desk a little while later when all of a sudden, people started running like Godzilla was coming. I'd already caught on that they were crazy, so I didn't pay much attention. It was the weird sucking noise that made me look up.

Devvy was heading toward me with fire in her eye, but the rest of her was soaking wet. And I mean soaking: hair, clothes, everything, not to mention the shoes, which were making the sucking sound. She wasn't quite tall enough to pass for Godzilla, but she did look like she'd just been in Tokyo Bay. Or a shower.

It probably wasn't a good idea to smile sweetly and ask if I could get her some soap.

I walked back to the office after lunch in lieu of finishing Cassie off. After all, I'd just met her; there was no telling whether she was always like that. Best to give her the benefit of the doubt just this once. Besides, we'd eaten everything but the tablecloth before the trouble started; walking back would burn some of it off.

So I walked. It seemed longer going than coming. And I thought the whole way.

I was about halfway back to the office and about halfway ready to forgive Cassie when the skies opened up, and it started to rain. Rain, hell--it was apres-moi-the-deluge weather; it was time to break out the ark. So of course my little folding umbrella from Brookstone blew inside-out. Why hadn't the weathertwits on morning TV warned me about this storm?

And what was that Cassandra person's damage that she hadn't even offered me a ride?

In retrospect, years later, I admit that the weather wasn't her fault. (Maybe.) But when you walk that far in rain like that, you're not in a mood for reason. By the time I got back to the office, I was way off Planet Reason and in a bad, bad mood.

Was it nice of me to wring out my coat over Cassie's desk? No. Was it nice to take off a shoe full of water and pour it over her head? No. But it felt good. Besides, she was lucky it hadn't been raining blood. Or locusts. I'd like to see her try to get that out of silk.

We both got sent home for the rest of the day for causing a misfeasance. That's what Mr. Jenner called it: a misfeasance. But I noticed that he wasn't upset; in fact, he was having big trouble not laughing. It was lucky we weren't working for a normal man.

I went straight home, dried off, and went downstairs to eat cookie dough in front of the TV. When the phone rang, I let it.

But voice mail didn't answer, and whoever was on the other end wouldn't give up. I figured it wouldn't kill me just to check Caller ID. After that, I could unplug the phone.

So I checked it. The readout said D KERRY. D Kerry?

Oh. I practically knocked the end table over grabbing for the phone. "Hello?"

"Cassandra? It's Devlin Kerry." There was a short pause. "I believe we've met?"

"Might have," I said, hoping I sounded normal. "How did you get this number?"

"Jenner's admin. She owes me a favor, so she weaseled it out of your boss."

That made sense. But I was a little disappointed anyway; I'd wanted to think my number was harder to get. "Well, now that we've cleared that up, was there something you wanted?"

"I thought maybe I ought to apologize. For that display at the office. I might have lost my temper a little."

A little? I bit my tongue. "Go on."

"And I shouldn't have taken it out on you. I don't even know you yet."

"You mean knowing me would have made a difference?" A few of the stories I'd heard that morning started running through my mind. At the time, I'd thought they were funny, but now I wasn't so sure. Maybe they were funny only when you weren't on the receiving end. "You mean you have ethics about going off on strangers? You only go after people you know?"

"That's not what I meant. I just--"

"Had a bad day, so you took it out on the first person you don't even know yet?"

The line was quiet for a long time. Finally, I heard a scritch on the other end. She was lighting a cigarette. I think I lost my mind just a little then, because the next words out of my mouth were . . .

"Put that out."

"What?"

"I said, put it out. Smoking is bad for you."

"I would think that would please you," she said coolly. "You should be happy that I'm standing here sucking up carbon monoxide and pesticides and--"

"Suppose you let me decide what makes me happy. And stop assuming that I want to kill you. If I wanted to kill you, I'd play Kathie Lee Gifford's Christmas album in your sleep."

I have no idea why I said that, but it must have been the right thing to say. As soon as Devvy got over coughing from trying to laugh and smoke at the same time, she put out the cigarette, and told me so.

"You're a piece of work, Cassandra," she said, sounding like she approved. "You're not as blonde as you look."

I should have resented that, but somehow, I didn't. "You're not the first person who's underestimated me. And call me Cassie."

"Cassie," she repeated. "Fine. I'm Dev. And I think we ought to be on the same side, because a lot of innocent people are going to get hurt if we aren't."

"A lot of innocent people are going to get hurt if we are." I thought about it for a second. "I don't have a problem with that."

"A woman after my own heart. Friends?"

Well, that would do. For now. "Can we still have these little fights?"

"I'd have to insist."

"Then I think this could be the start of a beautiful friendship."

"God help everyone else," she said.

And that's how it started. Cassie insulted me, left me to drown, and started a water fight before I'd known her four hours; beautiful friendships have been founded on less. I may not have met my match that day, exactly, but I did meet an irritating, headstrong, opinionated, sarcastic blonde. Just my luck that she would turn out to be my best friend.

Later, she turned out to be more . . . but that's another story.

The point is, I remember everything about the day we met. My version's right and hers is wrong, and she knows it; she was there. You'd think it would kill her to drop the subject. But nothing's that easy with Cassie. Every few weeks, she brings it up again--she does it to spite me--so we'll have this argument until one of us dies. And then the survivor will go to the decedent's grave and argue with her headstone. In an uncertain world, it's nice to have that kind of certainty.

Now, if I could only get her to stop asking whether I know what my problem is . . .

© 2005 Bedazzled Ink Publishing Company