Read Online No Footprints by Susan Dunlap - Free Book Online Page B

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    â€Ÿ She must’ve tried him, like, ten times before he picked up. I don’t know what the bastard said, but you ever see the air knocked out of anyone? I didn’t believe that was real, but if you’d seen her it was, like, amazing.”
    â€ŸThat’s all she did?”
    â€ŸShe didn’t get him till after noon, but, like, she’d try, get voicemail, look at the computer, then tell me to go get postal supplies, the kind we get delivered any other time. Then she’d call, check the computer, look at the phone like she was going to try again and then stop. She sent me out for sandwiches, told me to take my time, look around, like she wanted to talk to him alone, if she got him. But when I came back I heard her.”
    â€ŸHeard what?”
    â€ŸShe was begging him to reconsider. ‛Isn’t there another way?’ ‛I know I promised, but there’s got to be another way.’ It wasn’t like she had much hope, you could tell, but she had to try.” She took a sip of her appalling tea.
‟You know, like, I’m like half her age and I can tell the guy’s a real loser. But, like, girls don’t want to hear that until, like they want to hear it, you know?”
    I looked at her with new respect.
    â€ŸStill, you must’ve felt awful for her.”
    â€ŸI really did. She looked so drained. But what could I do? I mean, I’m just her assistant here. I just wished I was still out getting lunch. She said something like ‛yeah, okay, okay.’ At the end, though, she had one little burst of life. She actually smiled when she said, ‛I will enjoy it. I’ll be the first lady of enjoyment. And yeah, it’s still worth it. So don’t worry about me.’”
    â€ŸStrange. So, what’d she do when she got off the phone?”
    â€ŸTurned on the computer again. It was like she forgot I was there.” She sipped her tea, and in the gloom that encompassed us I would have been glad of something warming to comfort me, even that stuff.
    But the gloom was a bond of sorts. I said, ‟Kristi, let me ask you, what’s your take on Tessa?”
    She looked startled. ‟She’s better’n this place, that’s for sure. Better’n twenty bucks an hour. And dealing with the lawyers who’re freaking out, that’s like . . . she’s great. Takes no crap. Sometimes she even spots mistakes. I mean, she’s smart. She could’ve gone to law school, or something, anything better than this.”
    I nodded knowingly, as if this was a familiar trait in the woman I’d known for years. ‟What’s she doing now with the rest of her time? What’s she into these days?”
    â€ŸShe did that collage. She’s got a good eye, but, well, paper’s cheap. I mean she doesn’t make a fortune. But, it’s not like she’s stingy, I don’t mean that. Like, she always buys a Street Spirit , every day.”
    To give the homeless seller the buck.
    â€ŸLike, we had a mad rush a couple of months ago, huge, a mess, full of mistakes, motorcycle couriers back to the lawyer’s office three times. We
ran out of paper and, well, even she was crazed. At the end the lawyer gave her a big bonus, two hundred bucks. Know what she did? She insisted on one for me, fought for it. Got me a hundred bucks.”
    I nodded. But that red jacket of hers couldn’t have been cheap even in a secondhand store. And it sure hadn’t looked worn.
    Kristi was off on another tack. She lowered her voice, though there was no one around but us—‟Besides, no one’s going to hassle her on this job.”
    â€ŸHow come?”
    â€ŸA few weeks ago this client comes by to pick up his order. It’s a big one, a rush, some two-sided copying, some color. The thing was a bitch, and since it was a super rush job the bill was plenty. He squawks, squawks loud—highway robbery, he’s not going to