Lion and the Black

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

For the third time that morning, Rachel hurriedly closed and locked the front door of her cozy house behind her. As usual, she was running late, and in her haste to get out the door quickly, she had left first her purse and then her keys locked inside the house — the second problem requiring some creative breaking and entering. Now, she sprinted to her car, swearing under her breath. "Late again," she chided herself, sliding behind the wheel of her green Jaguar. "I'll just have to put my makeup on as I drive.”

Every morning it seemed as though circumstances conspired to make her late for work. On Monday her cat Kido had upchucked her freshly eaten breakfast all over the carpet. Tuesday she'd had an early doctor's appointment, but the receptionist had assured her that she would have no trouble getting to work on time. That was before the screaming kid with the broken arm had been rushed in ahead of her.

This morning the culprit had been an unexpected phone call.

"Rachel." The words had been spoken softly, as though the caller were startled. "How are you?”

She had recognized the voice immediately, too shocked to reply at first. Finally finding her voice, she had stammered, "Michael. What a surprise." Hesitating, she had finally asked, "Should you be calling me?"

A low, husky, familiar chuckle had greeted her question. "To tell you the truth, I was hoping to get your answering machine. I thought you'd be at work by now."

"I don't go in until ten."

"Banker's hours. Nice."

"Not exactly," Rachel had retorted, "unless you know any bankers who work until eight. But don't evade the question. Why are you calling me and does Anita know?" Michael's sigh had been audible. "No, Anita doesn't know, nor does she want to know, would be my guess. That's why I'm calling, to tell you that Anita and I have divorced. But I was just going to leave a message. I wasn't ready to actually talk to you.”

"I'm sorry to hear that," Rachel had said, genuinely sympathetic.

"Sorry that I didn't want to talk to you?" His voice had held the hint of a smile.

"No, not that.” I Rachel had floundered, still unsettled by this unexpected call from the man she had almost married.

Michael had laughed at that and let her off the hook. "Just teasing you — like the old days." Then he had grown serious. "You know, it never worked for us, Anita and me. She always felt I was comparing her with you. And she was right."

Now as Rachel guided the Jag down the highway, she thought about the conversation, and about Michael. A good guy, a good catch, maybe she should give it another try?

At thirty-five, Rachel was a strikingly attractive woman, whose olive skin and black hair — the legacy of a Blackfoot Indian ancestor gave her beauty an exotic flavor. She was bright, possessed a playful, sometimes wicked sense of humor, and didn't think twice about unleashing a hot temper when it came to defending her principles. Her good looks and independent nature made her an intimidating figure to many men, and she had not yet found the man who could match her spirit.

Michael had come the closest. The owner of a lumberyard in the heart of timber country, he was wealthy and successful, with a self-confidence that comes from building one's own business from the ground up. She had admired him and genuinely cared for him but had always known in her heart that he wasn't "The One." Still, she had been jolted by his phone call this morning.

As her thoughts drifted back to their conversation, she reached into her purse and pulled out a floral makeup bag. Unzipping it, her fingers blindly searched for a tube of lipstick while she automatically checked the front, rear, and side of her car. No other cars were near her. She flipped down the driver-side visor, where a vanity mirror immediately lit up for her and, keeping one eye on the traffic and the other on her image, she slowly, carefully applied the lipstick, pursing her lips when done.

Next, her fingers felt for her hairbrush and she gave her long, straight, shiny black hair several strokes. Finally, dipping back into the small makeup bag, she pulled out the mascara, deftly unscrewed the top, and began to apply it to her already dark lashes, further accentuating her deep brown eyes. When satisfied, she flipped the visor back up and gave her full attention to her driving — just in time to see a pair of flashing red lights come up behind her.

"Great!" She groaned. "That's all I need this morning.”

She pulled over quickly and retrieved the necessary documents from the glove compartment. When she turned back to the window, she found an officer there, patiently waiting for her 'to roll down the window.

"Good morning," he said pleasantly. "Your driver’s license and registration, please.”

Rachel handed over both, along with a card showing proof of her auto insurance.

"Did I do something wrong, officer?" she asked, almost certain that she hadn't.

The policeman didn't answer right away, making her wait and wonder, his silence feeding the growing knot in her stomach. After scanning the documents, he looked up. "Ma'am, you shouldn't be putting on makeup while you're driving.”

"Oh," sighed Rachel, relieved. "I know, officer, but you see I'm late for work and I have this terrible boss — 1 mean he's really, really awful and he said if I was late

one more time I'd lose my job and I just can't let that happen because I'm a single mom supporting two kids ever since my husband ran off...”

Rachel paused for a breath, wondering what else she could say to persuade this guy to let her off.

The officer looked at her steadily. "Ma'am, I appreciate that you have a job to get to, but that does not excuse putting on your makeup in the car, that's a good way to cause an accident.” Then where would your two children be?"

Rachel lowered her gaze to the hands she had folded on her lap. "You're right, officer," she said contritely. "I hadn't thought of it that way." She looked up at him and, summoning all the sincerity she could muster, she promised, "I won't do it again.”

The policeman looked at her, amused. He was about forty-five and not bad looking. Rachel noticed that his hands were strong and tanned, although the yellowed fingernails on his right hand revealed that he was a smoker.

He handed the papers back to Rachel, but as she reached for them, he maintained his grasp. She lifted her eyes to his, questioning.

"I'm going to hold you to that promise," he said, "and I'm on this highway every day, so I'll be watching." His speech completed, he released his grip.

"I hear you," Rachel replied. And then she gave him a big smile, her brilliant white teeth shown off by the perfectly painted lips. "Thank you!"

By the time Rachel pulled into her reserved parking spot at The Evergreen News, it was ten-thirty. She was so late this morning she didn't pause as she usually did to admire the ancient and stately edifice, with its ornate molding, well-seasoned brick and lush green cover of climbing ivy. Instead, she pushed hurriedly through the lead-glass front doors and dashed up the stairs to her office, where her secretary, Ellen, was on the phone, trying to placate an irate caller. Seeing the forest of yellow post-it notes surrounding Ellen — sticking to her monitor, her calculator, her telephone — Rachel had a pretty good idea what kind of a day it was going to be. Motioning to Ellen that she'd be right back, Rachel grabbed her coffee cup and headed down the hall to the break room.

Miko, the receptionist in the front office, was just brewing a fresh pot of coffee. "Hi, Rachel," she said, her words softened pleasantly by a slight Asian accent. "You just getting here?”

"Don't start," Rachel warned her, but she rolled her eyes with such exaggeration that Miko laughed.

"Bad morning?”

"Got pulled over on the way here," Rachel admitted.

"For putting my makeup on in the car! Can you believe it?'

"Yes, I can believe it,” replied Miko, who didn't care much for policemen, having been unhappily married to one for several years. "Did you get a ticket?"

"No, I told him how I'd lose my job if I was late and then my fatherless children would starve.”

"You don't have any kids."

"Luckily, he didn't know that. Anyway, it worked, but I had to promise never to do it again. Now I have to get up ten minutes earlier every morning." She filled her cup with the steaming coffee and added some powdered creamer. "Mmmmm, nice and strong. Just what I need to face the mess waiting for me back in 'the hole.' See you later.”

Returning to her office, Rachel stopped to pick up her messages, then continued to what she lovingly called "the hole" where she took a seat behind her desk. As director of personnel, she rated an office with windows and a secretary of her own. The space was small and the furniture cheap, but Ellen was a jewel. When she had finished her phone call, the secretary joined Rachel in her office.

"Whew! What a morning! Is it time to go home yet?” she asked plaintively.

Rachel gave her a grimace. "I wish. I just bet today's going to be a bear. You'd better get another shot of caffeine," she suggested, raising her cup in mock salute. "Okay, what have you got?"

Ellen ran down the many crises, imagined and real, that had been routed to their department for remedy. Rachel took notes and together they plotted their strategy for the day.

Like every other newspaper, The Evergreen News suffered from a high rate of employee turnover, especially in the lower ranks of bundle-drop drivers and newspaper carriers. Although the district managers were the ones directly responsible for keeping these positions filled, invariably Rachel had to pick up the slack when one of the managers was out sick or on vacation or, as was becoming more frequent, let go and not replaced.

The Evergreen News was a small newspaper, filled with local news and advertising and delivered to 50,000 subscribers six days a week. But on Wednesday and Saturday, circulation exploded to include an additional 235,000 homes, thanks to the subsidy of area retailers whose advertisements were stuffed in the paper. This additional burden on the drivers and carriers invariably caused personnel problems, a sore point between Rachel and the tight-fisted management.

Typically, drivers and carriers signed on thinking their job would be an easy way to make money. Too late they found out that it was tedious work, especially on those two high-circulation days, often workers stayed on just long enough to collect their first paycheck and were never seen again.

Today was one of those days where Rachel had to scramble to fill all the open down-line jobs. By 3 P.M., when the drivers were supposed to be in the loading bay picking up their bundles, she had succeeded in filling every spot. She glanced at her watch and decided to wander down to the loading dock. Since some of her new hires would be struggling through their first afternoon of work, she could help direct traffic.

As she opened the door to the loading area, she was met by the familiar sounds of the manual-labor end of a newspaper: people bustling to and from, dollies and forklifts jockeying for position, engines idling and horns honking. "Hi, Rachel!" called an older woman who was already helping to load up her drivers. "You come down to slum with us workin' stiffs?"

As she walked passed the woman, Rachel gave her a quick hug.

"You just let me know when you want to trade jobs,

June!" Moving on, Rachel called over her shoulder, "Hi, Howard! Hi, Pookie!"

Pookie, June's Yorkshire terrier, anxiously supervised the proceedings from the passenger's side of a white van, where June's husband Howard sat, ready to roll. Rachel shook her head. What a family! Howard and June's daughter, Missy, had worked for The Evergreen News years ago and had persuaded her parents to help out one night when the drivers had gone on strike. Little did she know they would think it was fun. For the last seven years, Howard — an overweight smoker who was a heart attack waiting to happen had been a bundle driver and assistant to June, who had scored a job as district manager. They were good-hearted people and Rachel genuinely liked them, although she was afraid the job would kill them both.

Rachel strode to the far side of the loading dock where she could see several bundle-drop drivers loading their vans. She walked over to her two new hires, Bud and Jim, and gave them directions on what they needed to do. For the next thirty minutes, organized chaos reigned, until finally the bay was quiet, the drivers loaded and, on their way, to meet the hundreds of carriers around the city.

However, one large stack of papers remained, and Rachel knew exactly which driver they belonged to.

Rachel had known from the beginning that she shouldn't hire Sacha. He was tall, lean, and beautiful, his kinky caramel hair and aquamarine eyes betraying a mixed heritage, a philosopher who concerned himself with the more intangible and important questions of life. Rachel had predicted that the repetitions task of following the same route, day in-day out, would not be for him. The right thing to do would have been to reject his application, but the truth was that she had fallen prey to his charisma. Not that she imagined herself involved with him — but she did look forward to running into him down on the dock, listening to his gentle musings, drinking in his unusually spiritual persona.

But here it was, 3:40 P.M. on a Wednesday afternoon, 10,000 papers had to get out, and there was no Sacha, which meant that Rachel would have to quickly find someone to fill in for him.

For the second time that day, she swore.