Cheating to Survive

Chapter 45 Victoria

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  Victoria sat in Jean's office and waited for her to acknowledge her. Jean pounded on the computer keyboard with her fist, ignoring Victoria. She had three patients to counsel before she went home and the clock ticked like a slow thud on a door. The three cases of diet coke stacked in the corner and the empty plastic bottles overflowing in the garbage pail, confirmed the amount of caffeine Jean consumed each day.

Jean swiveled in her hefty chair and glared at Victoria as if she had no conception why she sat before her. Jean leaned over and folded her hands into tight knots, inhaling one massive gulp of air. And held it. As Jean's face reddened, Victoria's patience ran out.

"Is there a reason you summoned me to your office?"

"Yes," Jean expelled. The smell of French fry grease zoomed up Victoria's nose. She winced and held her breath until clean air replaced the odor. "I need you to pick up equipment from my house tomorrow morning. My chefs and salad room staff need it for a last minute catering event but I have a conference to attend tomorrow and you live the closest to me."

Victoria stiffened, her mouth unable to form any conceivable words. Jean's residence churned repulsive images through her head. Filth, yard sale debris, dog hair, foul odors.

"Well?"

"I don't know your address."

"I'll give it to you obviously, you dimwit. Did you think you'd just drive around blindly? Sometimes I wonder about you, Victoria. You portray this air of intelligence but it may just be a smokescreen like those lavish suits of yours."

Victoria struggled upward with the slip of paper in her hand. A wet, brown stain curled the edge of the paper. She swallowed hard, her throat burned with blistering pain. She drifted out her door and into the hallway like an aimless ghost.

At least the conference would keep Jean out of work tomorrow. The week progressively deteriorated and a Friday conflict with Jean would put her over the edge. The three of them, at one point so euphoric, now funneled toward an ever-expanding hole of hell. When did it all go so horribly wrong?

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Victoria drove to Jean's house at seven o'clock the following morning. She parked along the street and contemplated whether to hike up the gravel driveway or the crumbling cobblestone walkway intertwined with weeds. The crabgrass lawn guaranteed a few hidden surprises for her.

Her heel wedged into one of the cracks but the eeriness remained in front of her. Shrubs donned with badly tossed fake spider webs, which appeared more like blobs of cotton on a string. Clumps of the polyester fiberfill garnished only the top of one bush and lay low across the bottom of a distant one. A small gravestone made from cardboard, smack dab in the middle of a burnt dirt lawn, had the word Died illegibly handwritten across it. One hospital latex glove, inflated and hung from a tree branch, blew in the wind. She neared the door and grimaced. To her left stood a rusted propane tank propped next to the stairs with a rotted pumpkin on top of it and a weathered picture of a lobster attached to it.

She rang the splintered doorbell and waited. The doors bond held tight, then released with a swoosh of air. A man in his late sixties wearing a faded grey sweat suit stood before her.

"Good morning. I'm Victoria, I came to pick up equipment for Jean."

"Yes, yes. Come in. Please do."

Victoria stepped in and the musty odor surrounded her instantly. She tried not to gawk but the yard sale décor jarred her memory of every decorating blunder she read about in her magazines.