Never Happened. Debra Webb
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to the max.
“It’s seven-oh-two but I’m here,” Alex said in acknowledgement of her silent chastisement. “Good morning to you, too.”
“Guten morgen, Alexis.”
Alex shifted her attention to the man lounging on the sofa and perusing today’s Miami Herald. “Same to you, Professor.” He liked showing off his command of various languages. So far she’d recognized six. She’d hired the Professor, aka Barton Winstead III, four years ago when he’d “defected,” as he called it, to Florida from his homeland of Boston. He’d left his career in anthropology behind, as well. To this day Alex had no idea at which university he’d taught or the reason for his decision to leave. He didn’t talk about it, she didn’t ask. She liked him. He had that distinguished look about him. Even his thinning gray hair added an air of dignity. But it was the extreme intelligence that radiated from those caring hazel eyes that she liked most.
“Marg hasn’t come in yet, and Madonna is waiting in your office.” Shannon glanced up from the computer monitor and peered knowingly at Alex over her reading glasses. “She’s not happy.”
“She’s never happy,” the Professor noted aloud, his regard remaining fixed on today’s headlines as if he hadn’t made the aside.
“Perfect.” Alex braced for battle and headed for her office. If she hadn’t been running behind herself this morning she might have noticed that Marg hadn’t left yet, either. Alex just loved starting her morning off with worries about Marg.
Never Happened was made up of only four rooms. Reception in front, which wasn’t that large, about sixteen by twenty, a narrow hall that led to Alex’s office, really small, an even dinkier lounge directly across the hall from her, which her mother used as a sort of office, and a huge storeroom which occupied the rest of the building and included an employee’s restroom and a side exit to the alley. The latter had been the key selling point for Alex. All her supplies were housed in that storeroom. The handy side exit leading to the alley allowed for easy loading and unloading of the necessary materials for any given assignment.
Unlike the neighbor’s less than considerate pet owners, most knew better than to park in front of an entrance or an exit. Especially since the city’s Dumpster sat right outside the door. Two days per week the south end of the alley remained clear all day; there wasn’t a Miami driver around who would dare challenge a garbage truck on pickup day.
The interior of Alex’s portion of the building was nothing to brag about. No fancy carpet or paint job. Just practical commercial tile on the floor and plain white walls with little or no decorating. The business license and various other permits hung on the wall above the front counter that separated Shannon’s desk from the sofa and two chairs that served as lobby seating. Shannon had donated the sofa and coordinating chairs the last time she’d redecorated her den. Alex had purchased the rest of the mismatched furnishings at garage sales and business closeouts.
She gulped another drink of her latte for courage and reached for the knob of her closed door. Might as well get this over with. Inside her ten-by-twelve space sat her only other employee, with the exception of her missing mother. Leslie Brown, perched rigidly in the only chair besides the one behind Alex’s desk, heaved an impatient breath as if the boss’s arrival was long overdue.
Brown wore a double-breasted black suit reminiscent of the one Madonna had donned in her Vogue music video. The platinum wig and heavy makeup, including blood-red lips and a black mole, completed the sultry image.
“Good morning, Brown.”
He cut Alex a withering look.
“Excuse me. Madonna,” Alex amended as she scooted around the corner of her desk and dropped her bag onto the only vacant spot on the floor near her chair. After grabbing a quick sip of her latte, she pushed aside a stack of papers and set the cup in the cleared spot. To say her office was cluttered would be a monumental understatement. Files, including incoming shipment invoices and outgoing payment receipts, were stacked on the corners of her desk, but it was the test products, many still in their boxes, sitting here and there around the room that made maneuvering the most difficult. Shannon hated it. Threatened Alex all the time about the chaos. But Alex knew where everything was. She rarely lost anything.
“So.” Giving Brown her undivided attention, Alex propped her elbows on her desk and laced her fingers. “What seems to be the problem this morning?”
Brown lifted his chin defiantly. “I need Friday off and Shannon refuses to okay my request.” The thick Latino intonation made his every word more resounding.
That was odd. Unless something came up, giving him a day off with advance notice wasn’t generally a problem. Unless Shannon knew something Alex didn’t, she didn’t see the problem. “I’ll see what I can do,” she promised. Didn’t sound like a big deal. She relaxed. This had certainly proven far easier than she’d expected. Generally if Brown had a problem, it was a little more daunting.
Unfortunately, judging by the look on Brown’s face and the fact that he made no move to leave her office, Alex had counted her chickens before they hatched.
He leaned forward and warned, “It’s because of the convention. She doesn’t want me to participate. She can’t do that.” He tapped his chest in the vicinity of what Alex could only imagine was a heavily padded bra providing the hill and valley effect of breasts. “I know my rights,” he warned.
Alex snapped her gaze back up to his irate expression; a bad feeling churned in her gut. “What convention?”
“The Ms. Miami convention. I’ve been signed up for weeks. Don’t you remember? You sponsored me. Friday is the first day. Registration and screening. I have to be there.”
Alex struggled to swallow back her first reaction. She vaguely remembered sponsoring him for some sort of convention, she just didn’t remember it was this particular convention. “Not—” she cleared her throat “—a problem. I’ll take care of it.”
“Fine.” Brown stood. Smoothed a hand over his elegant and decidedly feminine jacket. “I hope you’ll come to cheer me on.”
Alex managed a nod.
Brown hesitated at the door. “I’ll send Shannon in to see you so you can tell her right away.”
Alex felt her head move up and down again, the smile frozen on her lips.
Twisting his narrow hips with all he had, Brown flounced out of her office.
Alex took a breath, told herself she was cool with this. It was a free country after all. No reason Brown shouldn’t go after his heart’s desires. It wasn’t as if she was ashamed of him or had a problem with his alternative lifestyle.
Okay, that was a lie. She didn’t have a problem with it as long as he didn’t bring it to work in a way that would hamper business. There simply was no way to have him, without having his eccentricity—it was a package deal. But using his stint in the Ms. Miami pageant as a possible means of advertisement was definitely previously unexplored territory.
Shannon walked in, closed the door behind her. “He told you.”
Before Alex could stop the words, she demanded in something that should have been a whisper but came out more like a muffled shout, “Don’t you have to be a woman to enter that thing?”
Shannon shrugged her shoulders dramatically. “How the hell do I know? Should I call and ask?”
Alex shook her head adamantly. “We don’t want to draw any attention to him or us. Let’s just stay calm and pray someone notices at the registration and screening.”
Shannon’s head bobbed. “How could he win or even get in? I mean—” she lowered her voice to the whisper Alex had been aiming for “—I’ll admit that he makes a somewhat attractive woman, but this is a beauty pageant, right? With rules and judges?”
Alex did the bobbing this time. She told herself it wouldn’t matter that Brown had killer