The Randy Romance Novelist(11)

“Oh, I told that old coot you couldn’t have this many cats in the office and not have the office cleaned nightly. Serves her right.”

Scanning the office, I tried to scout out my boss’s location, but the opacity of the drapes prevented it; I couldn’t see past them. “Where is everyone? Where’s Gladys?”

“Dead,” was all Susan said.

“What?!” I called out. “Gladys is dead?” My stomach revolted and I instantly felt ill.

Susan waved her hands in front of face, fending off her tears. “Not yet, but she will be when the office manager finds out the price it will cost to clean out all the air ducts in the building.”

I gripped my chest and took a deep breath, sighing with relief. “Jesus, Susan, you can’t go and say people have died when they really haven’t.”

“I didn’t say that,” Susan countered, lying to my face.

“Yes, you did. You said Gladys was dead.”

“Metaphorically, dear, honestly. Read the tone.”

Huffing and not wanting to fight with her any more, I asked, “Is Gladys here?”

Waving toward Gladys’s office, Susan responded with exasperation. “She’s out there.”

Blowing past the plastic drapes, I found my way to Gladys’s office, tripping over tubes, pipes, brooms, and cords the entire way.

“Gladys?” I called out, not really able to see from all the drapes hanging down. I pushed past them and dust floated down from the ceiling and onto my freshly lint-rolled pants. Perfect. “Gladys, are you in here?”

“Rosie, is that you?”

“Yes, where are you?” I coughed from the dust, trying to push past the drapes, using Gladys’s voice as a guide.

“Under my desk.” Her voice was weak, and I feared that she could possibly be crying.

I placed my purse on a chair and crawled on the floor until I found Gladys tucked under her desk, rocking back and forth, holding a stuffed cat to her chest.

“Gladys, what’s going on?”

She looked up at me, and just as I had guessed, she had tears streaming down her face. “They took them all.”

“Who took what all?” I asked, not making much sense to my own ears.

“The landlord, he took all the cats.” An ear piercing screech escaped her lips, sending chills down my spine. “They’re gone, Rosie. They’re all gone!”

The cats were gone. I couldn’t help the small shot of glee that shot through my body at the announcement of no more cats. No more fur balls in my soup. No more puke piles on my desk. No more stealing letters from my keyboard. No more death stares from the hallway.

AND NO MORE SIR LICKS-A-LOT!!!!!

Mentally, I did a happy dance, trying not to show Gladys how happy I was about this new information. Instead, I put on a somber look and patted Gladys on the shoulder.

“I’m so sorry to hear that; I know how much those cats meant to you.”

“You should have seen it, Rosie. What a disaster it all was. The incessant crying of the cats. My heart could barely handle it. Animal Control came in here and took all the cats, every single one of them. I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”

“Me either,” I sighed, pleased with my acting skills. “I’ll miss those furballs. If I could, I would have taken them all home.”

It was never a bad idea to suck up to your boss, to feel what they were feeling. Brownie points were always warranted in the workplace.

“You would have?” Gladys asked, hope and appreciation in her eyes.

“Yes, of course. They were like family to me.”

With cat-like reflexes, Gladys poked her head out from under the desk and looked around her office. Apparently satisfied with the vacancy, she ejected from the ground and ran to the closet that rested across from her desk. I watched her dance on her toes as she waved for me to join her.

Frightened about what was about to happen to me, and also curious, I joined her at the closet and waited for her next move.

“I need your help,” she whispered.

“With what?” I reciprocated the whisper, knowing full well no one is even within earshot of us.

As if she were Indiana Jones revealing a treasure from his man-purse, she opened her closet door and revealed a cat carrier. From a distance, it looked empty, which confused me greatly, since all the cats were confiscated by animal control.

“What’s that?” I asked, looking closer into the cat carrier, just in time for Sir Licks-a-Lot himself to leap to the front of the cage, hissing and spitting his mini kitty venom, scaring the cuticles right off of me. “Holy hell!” I screamed, turning in circles and waving my hands about.

“Shh, Rosie, they’ll hear you.”

My heart was pounding a mile a minute while Sir Licks-a-Lot was trying to entice me to come closer with his claw through the cage. Gladys had her lips against my ear, trying to soothe me by shushing loudly, as if I were a baby needing to be calmed. For some odd reason, it worked.

Steadying myself, I asked, “Who will hear me?”

“The owners.” Gladys looked around her office, paranoia evident in her appearance. “I think they bugged the place. They weren’t happy about the amount of furballs in the vents. It’s going to cost them a lot of money to clean everything out. Serves them right, though; I heard they donate money to places like the soup kitchen.”