Chapter 2

She sipped the gin and tonic and nodded with satisfaction. She wandered around the room, mentally debating where to sit.

Glancing at one bookcase, she saw the leather bound book, ‘Tales from the Brothers Grimm’ and froze.

“Don’t, Ashley, don’t,” she chided herself out loud. “Do not think about them.”

She finally grabbed the remote control for the television and turned it on. It did not matter what channel was playing, so long as it provided background noise. Slipping her feet from her pumps, she sat on the couch and put her feet onto the large ottoman.

A commercial for Brick’s Pizzeria began to play and Ashley nearly screamed. Clearly, as if they were sitting, one next to her, the other either sprawled across the giant ottoman, laying on her belly, or sitting on the loveseat to her left, Ashley could hear them singing along with the jingle.

“Don’t, Ashley, don’t, oh God damn it, don’t,” Ashley said, but it was too late.

The sobs came, hard, deep racking sobs. The tears ran down her cheeks; Ashley could taste the salt in her tears.

“Oh,” Ashley moaned. “Oh dear Jesus, why?”

Almost two hours early, Ashley climbed the stairs. She pulled on her silk pajamas and crawled underneath the comforter on her bed. She remembered to turn her alarm clock on, remembered to arm the house alarm with her key fob, then lay, head buried underneath the sheet, blanket, and fluffy comforter.

She must have fallen asleep. She must have dozed off, even as memory after memory taunted her, punished her.

There was a ball of iron in her gut. Ashley selected one of her prettiest dresses, a soft cream colored dress and found a pair of stockings to wear with that. She selected her prettiest panties and matching bra and dressed for the day ahead.

But the pretty clothes, the pretty undergarments did not help. Ashley had that heavy ball of anger in her gut as she drove to work. She had that ball of anger as she beat out an attorney for a parking spot. That ball of bile was still there when the attorney got onto the elevator with her. Ashley’s facial expression must have alerted the attorney that he would not win any confrontation, so he gave her a polite nod of his head.

Seven fifty eight showed on her computer monitor as she clocked in and began her workday. By the time Nina was clocking in, Ashley was already on her second eviction proceedings.

“Oh holy shit!” Ashley heard Nina squeak.

Ashley looked up from Timothy Sullivan’s file and looked at Nina. Nina was looking to Ashley’s left, mouth open, so Ashley swiveled and looked.

Already, two coworkers were flanking Tiffany Powell. Nina got up from her chair and approached Tiffany as well.

Ashley studied the young blonde’s swollen eye and her split, bloody lip. Even with her headset on, Ashley could hear Tiffany telling their coworkers that her boyfriend had struck her.

“Well, you can’t go back there!” Nina stated firmly.

“But I got nowhere go,” Tiffany sniffled, her speech garbled by the bloody lip.

Ten minutes later, Nina turned to Ashley, who was now on her third eviction proceedings. Someone had gone to the fifth floor and improvised an ice pack for Tiffany’s left eye.

“Ashley, since Penny, uh, you got that other bedroom, don’t you?” Nina asked.

Ashley completed her call, slipped the headset from her head and swiveled in her chair.

“Has she filed a police report?” Ashley asked Nina, voice hard.

“Didn’t have time,” Tiffany mumbled, trying a loose tooth with her tongue.

“You’ve been here for ten minutes,” Ashley now addressed Tiffany directly. “When did you plan to get around to it?”

“God dam Ashley!” another coworker snapped at Ashley. “You got be such a bitch about everything?”

Ashley regarded the coworker, ice blue eyes cold and hard. She held the woman’s gaze even as the woman glared hatefully at Ashley.

“It is my home,” Ashley said, voice deliberate. “It is my sanctuary. Not a single one of you pays penny one for my mortgage, my light bill, my cable bill. I am not having her come invading my space, only to have her say ‘oh, he’s sorry, he said it’ll never happen again’ and leave. Do you have any idea how long it took me to get back to normal after Penny and the… Or worse yet, he decides he’s going come over to my house, my house, and take his pissy little boy attitude out on me. So, Tiffany doesn’t file a police report, report him for this? She doesn’t follow through, press charges? Then not just no, but FUCK no, she’s not coming anywhere near my house.”

With that, Ashley swiveled in her seat and put her headset on again. She tabbed to the next file, then remembered, she’d not finished the notes on the previous eviction.

“I uh, I seen them other day,” Nina said quietly, sitting down again.

“Don’t, Nina, please, don’t,” Ashley begged, a crack beginning to show in her shell.

Nina reached over and softly squeezed Ashley’s forearm. Ashley abruptly stood, flung her headset off and stormed out of the room.

“What the fuck’s up with the ice bitch?” a coworker asked.

“She was afraid she was about to smile,” another coworker quipped and a few other coworkers giggled.

“Enough,” Nina shrilled. “All right? That’s enough. None of y’all know shit about her.”

Sitting at her own cubicle, Tiffany picked up her cell phone and called the Oakleaf County Sheriff’s office. It was a phone number they were all familiar with, thanks to the nature of their job.

“Yes ma’am, I’d like to report…” Tiffany started, then burst into fresh tears. “He hit me! My momma said don’t move in with him and now look!”

A moment later, Ashley entered the room and sat down again. She listened as Tiffany tearfully relayed the information to the officer, and nodded her head once. Ashley then put her headset on again and finished the notes.

Penny Ninzelle, the assistant director of Human Resources entered the room a moment later. With a long glance toward Ashley, the mature woman came over to Tiffany’s cubicle. She murmured something to Tiffany, then assisted Tiffany to her feet. Tiffany slowly wobbled toward the hallway.

Penny turned and looked at Ashley’s back. She even took two steps toward Ashley.

Nina held up her hand and silently shook her head at the HR woman. Penny frowned, then nodded her head and left the room.

“Thank you,” Ashley said quietly.

“Damn, Ashley! Got eyes in the back of your head?” Nina asked.

Ashley did not tell Nina, but she did have a small mirror attached to the top of her monitor. That mirror had been placed there by the previous agent that had occupied this cubicle.

The mirror was there to remind that agent to smile when she spoke. A smile can often turn away anger, or so the agent had hoped.

In the small mirror, Ashley had watched her former lover, the poised, elegant, beautiful Penny Minzelle as she had spoken with Tiffany. Ashley had watched and had tensed up when Penny had begun to approach her. She had seen Penny’s head swivel slightly, then had watched as Penny turned and walked away.

“Oh. And you ever touch me again, I’ll file a harassment complaint with HR so fast your head will spin,” Ashley said.

“Oh, bull shit. You’d have to go to HR and we both know that ain’t going happen,” Nina said lightly.

“Bitch,” Ashley said lightly.

“Takes one to know one,” Nina said and the two women shared a smile.

Nina reached over and squeezed Ashley’s forearm again. Nina laughed out loud when Ashley tried to slap her hand.

That evening was better. Ashley ate her dinner, then stepped onto her small back patio. She sat, just listening to the sounds of the world around her. Someone, probably the Bergerons were in their hot tub. There was a third voice, but with the Bergerons, that was not unusual. Samantha Bergeron, a gorgeous strawberry blonde with a slender body had once invited Ashley to join her and Adam in their hot tub.

“Uh, yeah, no,” Ashley had said, as Adam had posed and preened standing behind his wife, skimpy Speedos barely containing his semi-erect cock at bay.

Nearby, probably the first house next to the complex of condominiums, someone was grilling. Ashley couldn’t smell what they were cooking, but she could smell the charcoal smoke.

A ‘whee!’ and an excited squeal and splash alerted Ashley that their swimming pool was being used. If she had wanted to, Ashley could swivel her head to the left, peer through the slats in her fence, see the swimming pool. But the voices told her it was Vince Davis, his beautiful wife Monica, and their three year old son Vinnie splashing around in the pool.

The blind man that lived in the condo at the end was playing his guitar again. The man was extremely talented; it was a shame that no one outside of this group of buildings would ever get to hear him as he played. The man was talented, but was a hopeless alcoholic. The only time he ever left his condominium was to stagger down the street to the Pack N Sack liquor store. Then, fifth of gin securely clutched in his left hand, the man would tap his way back home.

He must have had a good buzz already going; he was playing some Chicago style blues. He was being aggressive with the individual strings tonight.

With a jolt, Ashley realized that she’d fallen asleep in the comfortable chair. Darkness was fast approaching as she got to her feet.

The clock on the mantle told Ashley that it was eight forty. The air conditioning was blowing hard and a shiver ran through Ashley’s body.

“I’ll light a fire this weekend,” Ashley promised herself as she looked at her fireplace.

Front door and back door were securely locked. Then, with a sigh, Ashley went up the stairs.

Friday morning, Ashley arrived at the office at seven forty five. For a brief moment, she almost walked up to the fifth floor, almost went to grab one of the doughnuts Brad Prescott always brought in on Fridays. She almost went up to the lunch room for a cup of far too strong coffee, dumped far too much sugar into it, and enjoyed a still warm doughnut with her coworkers.

Instead, Ashley went to her computer and logged in. She actually pulled up ‘Solitaire’ on her computer and played a quick hand while she waited for the computer’s clock to reach seven fifty five, the earliest that she could clock in.

After clocking in, Ashley saw that the log’s background was now blue. The blue background signified that they were switching over from Prescott Properties to collecting for outside vendors. The first one on her log was for a past due bill for the Oakleaf Water & Sewage.

“Wonder how much shit Fiona Jefferson’s going give me?” Ashley quipped to herself.

Nina came in at eight oh four, glazed sugar still at the corners of her pretty mouth. Ashley wondered how the girl had managed to get her jeans on; they looked painted on. She smirked at the Dallas Cowboys tee shirt Nina wore. Most of the people in the building, hell, in the county were Houston Texans fans.

“And when they win a Super Bowl, I’ll wear one of their shirts,” Nina would always retort.

At eight twenty, Tiffany Powell entered the room. Tiffany was on the second tier; they worked from eight thirty to five thirty. Ashley had specifically requested first tier; having no desire to fight traffic at eight o’clock in the morning like most on the second tier did, or eight thirty traffic as most in the third tier did.

Ashley concluded her call and Tiffany reached out a tentative hand. Ashley jerked slightly at the contact.

“Sorry,” Tiffany said at Ashley’s jerk.

“Yes?” Ashley asked, not turning around.

“I uh, I just uh, just wanted say ‘thank you,'” Tiffany stammered.

“Thank… For what?” Ashley asked, now removing her headset and swiveling around.

Tiffany’s eye was still a hideous color. Her lip still looked puffy. There was also a slight discoloration on her cheek.

“You uh, kind of made me get off my butt and call the cops,” Tiffany admitted.

“Oh. Well, you’re welcome,” Ashley said and prepared to swivel back to her computer screen.

“Glen tried saying wasn’t him, but this?” Tiffany said, pointing to a space on her upper jaw, a space where a tooth should have been. “He had a fight bite that was still bleeding when the cops showed up.”

“Oh, I uh, you going get that fixed?” Ashley asked, not knowing what else to say.

“Yeah, going Dr. Ormond’s on Tuesday,” Tiffany said.

“Oh, well, that’s good,” Ashley said, faltering to find anything more to say.

“Yeah, I uh, I just wanted say ‘thanks,'” Tiffany said.

“I uh, you’re welcome,” Ashley said. “I uh, so, where you staying now?”

“My mom’s,” Tiffany said, battered face twisted in a grimace. “Course? Says she’s allergic to my cat, but I can’t get rid of my Lady, I just can’t.”

“Oh! I love cats,” Ashley heard herself saying.

“I call bull shit you love anything,” Elizabeth Herd sneered from her cubicle.

“What?” Ashley demanded, pretty face twisted in anger.

“Heard me, Bit… Dunn. Bull shit you love anything,” Elizabeth snapped.

“You don’t know a God damned thing about me. You hear? You don’t know anything about me,” Ashley screamed at the woman.

“Yes ma’am, Ashley uh Dunn and Elizabeth Herd,” another coworker stated into her headset.

A moment later, Shirley Dangelo, the director of Human Resources strode into the room, followed by Brad Prescott and Emily Ashford, the manager of the call center.

“Ms. Dunn, Ms. Herd, my office. Now,” Brad thundered before Shirley could say anything.

“Ma’am? I am switching you to Tiffany; she’s one of my coworkers,” Ashley said calmly and evenly into her headset. “Please hold on. Thank you.”

She then pressed a series of buttons on her telephone keypad. Tiffany’s phone rang a second later.

“Tiffany, please help me with file number six four six nine three seven zero. She’s trying to set up a payment plan,” Ashley said. “On uh, line four.”