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Spring 1986
Laura Martinelli sighed with frustration as the voice of her boss, Paul Bishop, filled the receiver of the brick sized mobile phone in her hand. Not that she didn't want to talk to the owner of the Greenwood Realty Corp, but she had really hoped to talk to him, and not his recorded voice on the office answering machine. At two-thirty in the afternoon, Paul should've been at his desk, or at least had Alicia Martinez, his secretary, covering the phones. But then Laura recalled that it was Friday afternoon, and Paul liked to take a long lunch on Friday afternoons, and more times than not, he would take Alicia along with him. That they always ate at Clemenza's, which just happened to be down the street from the All-Star Motel was, the thirty-four-year-old brunette knew, just a coincidence. Just like it was a coincidence that the sun rose in the East every morning.
That the fifty-nine-year-old Realtor was screwing his twenty-four-year-old secretary really wasn't any of Laura's concern, at least not beyond how it affected the way business was run. It certainly didn't seem to bother Mrs. Bishop, who seemed to know all about it. Having met the fifty-five-year-old, Laura had formed the opinion that, while she didn't voice it, Martha Bishop looked on her husband's infidelity as a godsend, allowing her to abandon conjugal duties that she had long ago lost interest in. Laura couldn't understand how any woman could lose interest in sex like that, and hoped she never had the opportunity to learn.
But little of that mattered in her current predicament, Laura thought, except to explain why this contraption wasn't worth the ridiculous sum of money that Paul had spent on it at the local Radio Shack. In theory, of course, having a portable phone where your agents in the field could contact you did sound like a good idea, but it was pretty much useless if no one was there to pick up on the other end. Resisting the urge to hurl the handset into the woods, Laura considered who else she might call.
"I'm just about done here, ma'am," the young man in the soiled corduroy overalls said as he walked up to her. "Have you managed to get anyone to come out and pick you up yet?"
Laura again sighed, looking past the tow truck mechanic to where her company issue Ford Pinto had been hooked up to the back of his rig. Only being the driver, he hadn't been able to say what exactly was wrong with it, that would fall to the mechanic back at the station. Still, just the way he was shaking his head when he'd examined the engine made Laura think that whatever repairs it needed, they were going to be expensive. So, again, she was thankful that it was a company car.
Standing next to the tow truck was the reason Laura needed to find a ride back to town, Salvatore Romano and his wife, Sophie. The real estate agent had brought them out to take one more look at the old Stevenson house, a white elephant that she had been trying to unload for the last six months. Initially, it had looked that she had the Romanos on the hook for it, but they insisted on one last ride out to it before deciding. Unlike the previous forays, Mrs. Romano now rarely left her husband's side, so Laura had been unable to flash her tits at him in distraction whenever he came across anything that might prove detrimental to the sale.
Laura didn't view doing so as unethical; after all, if God had blessed her with a pair of double D's, was it her fault that men couldn't keep their eyes off them? Unfortunately, they had the opposite effect on Mrs. Romano, who had been much less blessed, and had had enough of her husband paying them so much attention. They'd ended the inspection with a "we'll have to think about it a bit more," which Laura knew meant that they'd already decided not to buy it. In a day or so, she'd get a phone call saying just that.
"Ma'am?" the driver repeated, again drawing attention to the fact that he was ready to leave.
"Just give me one more minute," Laura asked as she considered her options.
There was just about enough room in the front cab of the tow truck for the driver and two passengers, which of course had to be the Romanos. Laura had tried calling the local car service, only to be told that since she was so far out of town, they'd have to charge for the trip out there as well - an expense that she was certain Paul wouldn't let her put on the company account. She said she'd call them back.
For a few fleeting moments, she had considered calling Rusty Myers, the television repairman she'd been seeing the last few months, but then decided against it. With little in common other than both being divorced, Laura was already becoming tired of the relationship, if you could really call it that, and had almost made up her mind to end it. It was a decision she needed to make soon, she reminded herself, because even the sex, which was really all that was keeping it going, had become rather routine, if not actually boring. Putting herself in Rusty's debt would only make that harder.
Nor was taking the offer of the driver, who's embroidered name tag identified him as "Rick," to come back to pick her up after he'd dropped off the Romanos and the car, pointing out that this was his last run of the day anyway. If the barely eighteen-year-old hadn't been practically drooling over her breasts when he'd made the offer, she might have taken it more seriously. Laura got the impression that the kid, and he really was just a kid, was thinking that his generosity was, somehow, going to get him a better look at her boobs. If that was the case, then he was going to be sorely disappointed, so better to do that to him now rather than later.
'A pity you're not ten years older, kid,' Laura had thought before moving onto one final option, 'you might've gotten more than just a better look.'
Which now left her with her younger sister, Marisa, with whom, even though they lived together, she was barely on speaking terms right now. A late in life surprise to their parents, there was a fourteen-year gap between her and Marisa, and over the last decade she'd been more mother than sister to the rambunctious twenty-year old. Their latest point of contention was Marisa's new boyfriend, Walsh Connors, who Laura didn't approve of.
'Well, I hope I find her in a good mood at least,' Laura said as she dialed the number of the diner where Marisa worked.
"Alexander's," a female voice said as the call connected.
"May I speak to Marisa Martinelli, please?" Laura said.
"I'm sorry, she's already left for the day," the woman on the other end said.
"Damn," Laura said under her breath, glancing at her watch to confirm that it was still not yet four, the time Marisa normally finished.
"Is this Laura?" the voice unexpectedly asked.
"Yes," she replied, caught off guard for a moment.
"I thought I recognized your voice. It's Janet Madison," she said.
"Oh, hello Janet," Laura said automatically, even as the image of the tall, red haired twenty-eight-year-old appeared in her head.
"Marisa and I switched shifts today because she and Walsh were going to his parents' place down by Blueridge Lake for the weekend," Janet explained. "Is there anything that I can help you with?"
"I don't think so," Laura said, giving an explanation of her own as to why she was calling.
"They're probably halfway there by now," Janet pointed out, "they left about one-thirty."
"I guess I'll just have to figure out something else then," Laura said, a slight but noticeable dejection in her tone. "Thank you, Janet."
Laura was about to press the button that would disconnect the call when she heard the younger woman call out her name once more. Curious, she put the receiver back to her ear.
"Janet?" she said.
"Good, you're still there," Janet said, the urgency of her tone reflecting that she hadn't expected to catch her before she hung up.
"Was there something else that you wanted to say?" Laura asked.
"Actually, yes," Janet said. "I'm just about done with my shift anyway, so why don't I come out and get you?"
The offer surprised Laura, especially since she'd been under the impression that the younger woman didn't even like her. Despite the age difference, Janet and Marisa had, at least from appearances, become good friends, but whenever the redhead had to interact with Laura, she always came across as a bit aloof, if not downright distant. Just last month, when Marisa had invited her co-worker to dinner, that detachment inexplicably escalated to hostility when, just as they were sitting down to the antipasto, Janet suddenly announced that she needed to go, leaving Laura at a loss at how to convince her younger sister that she hadn't said anything to upset her guest. If anything, Laura had insisted, she'd gone out of her way to be on her very best behavior.
"Oh, I couldn't ask you to do that," Laura said, even as, despite their previous encounters, she hoped that she would.
"You're not asking, I'm offering," Janet said, pointing out the difference. "Besides, I owe Marisa a few favors; this is a way to pay at least one of them back. I'm sure that if she was here, she'd already be on her way to pick you up."
Laura wasn't as certain of that as Janet seemed to be, but knew enough not to say so. Instead, she again professed a reluctance to take the younger woman up on her offer.
"I'm not going to take no for an answer," Janet said firmly, dismissing any further argument. "Just explain to me exactly how I get out there."
Having dutifully declined twice, and thankful that she had been ignored both times, Laura waited while Janet got a pencil and paper, then gave careful directions on how to get out to the Stevenson house. She then listened carefully as Janet read them back to her.
"If I don't get lost, I should be out there about five-thirty," Janet said once the directions had been confirmed.
"I'll be here," Laura had replied, thinking once she'd ended the call what a stupid thing that had been to say. Where the hell else would she be?
In saying goodbye to the Romanos, again apologizing for the car trouble, Laura maintained the fiction that they might still be interested in the house behind them. It was never smart to burn your bridges, she'd been taught, and even if they didn't want this one, the couple were still looking for a new home.
Then she turned to Rick and, once more verifying the contact information for the garage the car was being taken to, broke the bad news to him that she'd managed to arrange a ride home for herself after all. As she did so, she noticed his eyes drop downward for one last look at her bust, which she didn't begrudge him because that was as close as he was ever going to get to it.
After watching them pull away, Laura checked the battery charge on the phone because, once you started using it, it was only good for about ninety minutes, and even that, she'd learned, was problematic. Satisfied that she still had at least half that, Laura again dialed the office and, much to her surprise, this time Alicia answered.
Told that Paul had gone to get his hair cut after lunch, Laura dictated a note to him, adding the garage contact information to what she had left on the machine earlier. Alicia expressed indignation when Laura asked her to read the note back to her twice, the secretary having transposed one of the numbers the first time.
"What do you think I am, some sort of airhead?" Alicia had said after being asked to read it back again.
