Serendipity By Rocky

CHAPTER 10

'God I hate Mondays!' Linda thought as she leaned back on the counter in the coffee room. She rubbed at her eyes, wishing now that she had gone to bed rather than indulging herself in a favorite oldie on the "Late-late Show" last night. Finally the coffeemaker began to make the chugging-burping noise that indicated the brewing cycle was over. She poured one mug for herself and seeing Heidi's mug still hanging on its hook above the sink, she poured one for her as well.

"Is that for me?" Heidi asked as Linda turned the corner into the office space that they shared, taking her cup of coffee from the other secretary.

"Good Morning to you too!" Linda replied cracking a grin and walking over to her desk to boot up her computer. She knew Heidi was not going to truly wake up until at least half the mug in her hand was gone.

"Huh? Oh… Morning." Heidi answered distracted by the paper work she held in her hand. "Hey Linda, look at this." She dropped the forms on the desk in front of the redhead.

The standard comp forms weren't anything really new. Linda frowned, wondering what could be so special about these. "Why? What's so spec…? " She stopped cold when she saw the name on the form. "Holy Sheep Dip Heidi! How did she manage that!" Linda looked at the other secretary, her eyes wide with surprise. "I mean she was fine when we left."

"I know. It surprised the hell out of me when I found it on my desk this morning, but I think this sort of explains it." Heidi flipped the form over revealing a stick-it note that said. 'Please call maintenance, and get the lock on my damn doors fixed. …R'

Removing the note from the forms, Linda glanced up at the pair of oak doors in question, puzzled. "That's weird, I don't remember her ever locking her office." The secretary lifted her coffee to her lips. "Why would she be locking her office?" She wondered out loud. Then her own words echoed back from her memory. '…If I didn't know better I'd think you got laid.' She set the mug down with a thump without taking a drink. Linda looked over at Heidi and grinned. "Betty Ford, my ass!"

"What does Betty Ford have to do with Rory's door?" Heidi scrunched up her nose in confusion.

"Let me put it this way." Linda got up from her desk and walked over to the double doors to Rory's office. "Who do you think I would get from maintenance to fix these doors?"

Heidi was even more perplexed but she knew who Linda had her eye on for the past six months. "That's easy -- Lance the hunk." She smiled when the other secretary reddened slightly.

"Now just imagine that I got him to come up here and we were in the office alone except that Robert was just down the hall."

"Okay, you and a hunk alone in Rory's office… Gotcha. Slick fantasy, but I still don't see what this has to do with Betty Ford."

"I'm getting to that, now what do you think I'd do next?"

Heidi snickered, she didn't quite understand what Linda was getting at, but it was a pleasant diversion from the usual Monday morning drudgery. "Seeing as this is your fantasy… You'd lock the door and jump his bones."

"…And if the door won't lock?"

Heidi was sure that the redhead was completely off her nut by this time. "Isn't that why he's there in the first place? To fix the lock?"

Linda groaned and threw her hands up in the air. "Quit being so logical and go with me here." She reached out and grasped the knob of the door and gave it a good hard shake. "I'm mad at this door, it won't lock…" Holding up one hand when she knew what Heidi was about to say. "Lance can't fix it. I lose my temper and kick the door."

Heidi brightened. She was beginning to understand what Linda was getting at. "So you're saying that you think that Rory had some guy up in her office, and she broke her foot kicking the door because it wouldn't lock."

Moving back to her desk, Linda picked up her mug and smiled over the rim. "Umm… You're half-right. …Heidi, what did you think of Rory's friend Amy?"

The question caught Heidi by surprise. Linda obviously had not had enough coffee yet this morning. "What? …Well very nice I guess. She was prettier than I had imagined. Why?" Suddenly a bolt of clarity hit. "Oh my…!" She looked back to the half open doors, slack jawed, and then back at the other secretary who simply smiled and sipped her coffee.

Heidi was still mulling the whole idea over when Robert came into the office. "Good Morning Ladies!" He said cheerfully. "So do you have Rory's…" Spotting the paperwork on Linda's desk, he picked them up. "I thought I'd save you the trouble and process these personally." He turned to go.

"Oh Robert." Linda piped up. "Do you know how Rory broke her foot?"

The young man paused at the doorway looking back. "She told me she tripped in her office."

"So you weren't there then?"

"No it happened while I was in my office, her friend Amy took her to the hospital."

Linda sent a wry glance over to Heidi and then smiled warmly at Robert. "Thanks for taking care of the paper work, you're a sweetheart."

Grinning back, Robert saluted with the forms in his hand and carried on down the hall.

Heidi sat down on the edge of the red head's desk. "I still don't understand what all this has to do with Betty Ford?"

Linda laughed and leaned back in her chair. "Nothing really, It's just my new euphemism for the activity that's got our boss in such a good mood."

Amy took a running jump, trying to leap up and grab the knot at the end of a rope hanging down from the ceiling; she missed and caught herself on the railing at the top of the stairs.

"Honey, you're going to kill yourself if you keep that up." Rory said, still working her way up the stairs to join her lover on the top floor. She ruffled the blonde curly hair and looked up at the trap door. "Here, let me try." Leaning on one crutch, she managed to hop up and snag the knot and pull it down enough for Amy to step in and tug firmly. The panel swung down and after it slid a ladder allowing access to the attic.

The tall brunette eyed the small opening and frowned. "You sure that there's a steamer trunk up there? It looks like there's barely room to get a hat box through there."

"There's a big dormer window up here and a block and tackle in the eaves." Amy's voice carried down from where she had already scampered up into the attic." Shortly after her legs had disappeared, Rory could hear her walking above, followed by the sound of something heavy being dragged across the floor. "Found it!" Amy sang.

Impatiently waiting, Rory could the sounds of thumps and furious rattling. She heard the word, 'Damn!' filtering down after several little grunts and the sound of coughing. "What's the matter?" She called up into the hole in the roof.

Amy's face appeared at the opening. "It's locked." Her cheek and nose had a dark smudge making the look of frustration seem more comical than serious.

Rory hid a chuckle behind a bitten lower lip. "What does this trunk look like honey, especially the lock?"

Sitting in the opening with her legs hanging down, Amy looked over her shoulder at the object of her frustration. "It's blue, …it's about two, two and a half feet high and deep and about four or so feet wide. It has two wide straps with big brass buckles and a brass flap thingy with an old fashioned keyhole in the middle of it."

"You don't have any idea where the key would be?" Rory said to the pair of sneakers that swung above her head.

The feet stopped swinging for a moment. "No… This trunk has been up here forever." Amy's voice was filled with a pout that couldn't be seen. "I have no idea where to begin to look."

Slowly the big woman smiled. "If I can make it up there, I could probably open it for you."

A curly blonde head appeared between the small woman's knees. "How?"

"How can I get up there, or how can I unlock the trunk?" Rory teased.

"Both I guess." Amy responded, lowering herself to the ladder and climbing down.

"Well, if you can find me a crochet hook and a hair pin, and help me climb this ladder…" Rory said smiling and patting the rung in front of her. "I think I can pick that lock."

After Amy went on a quick scavenger hunt to find the crude lock picks, the two women tackled the task of getting Rory up the ladder. Clasping one rung at a time with her hands and letting Amy push her foot into place on the next step, they slowly ascended into the dusty attic.

Reaching up for the second last rung, Rory's hand slipped. She swung wildly for a second and then grabbed the rung securely with both hands. "Ow!" Came up from the ladder below her.

Rory closed her eyes fearing the worst and then a heartbeat later she looked down to the woman below her to see Amy holding one hand over her eye. "Are you okay honey?"

Amy looked up with one hand still over her left eye. "Fine." She answered through clenched teeth. "Just keep going."

One more rung and the tall woman pulled herself through the opening and scooted over to sit on the edge. Soon a pair of crutches appeared, followed by the blonde.

Rory gathered up the crutches and moved over beside the window. "Come here and let me see your eye." An angry looking bruise was just starting to appear on the young woman's face. Rory was mortified; tenderly she kissed the injury. "Oh honey, I'm so sorry! What happened?"

"When I saw you slip, I tried to catch your foot to put it back on the ladder. I missed and caught it with my eye instead." Amy started to giggle. "I'm fine really. I should have ducked."

"You better go put some ice on it, it's already beginning to turn color. You're going to have a doozie of a shiner."

"…But I want to see what's in Grammy's trunk."

The tall brunette shook her head and smiled. "It's going to take me a few minutes to get it open, and that's if the lock isn't seized shut. You go downstairs put some ice on that mouse and I'll call you the minute I've got the trunk open. Deal?"

Rory hobbled over and sat on the truck with her arms crossed, waiting until Amy finally acquiesced and headed back down the ladder.

Fishing the makeshift tools out of her hip pocket, Rory eased herself down beside the truck and peered at the ancient lock. 'Here goes nothing.' She thought, and spent several long moments feeling around for the dogs that had to be pressed out of way the before the mechanism would turn. The rewarding sound of "Chunk" was followed by a sharp "click" and Rory twisted the tools in the lock. The brass flap popped away from the body of the trunk. With a wide smile of satisfaction Rory leaned back against the trunk to wait for Amy's return.

She didn't have to wait long for her lover's head and shoulders to appear in the hole in the floor, just beyond her outstretched legs. "Great! You got it open." Amy said excitedly, placing the ice bag she carried with her, back on her eye after climbing the ladder. "Thank you!" She straddled Rory's knees and pulled her close with an one-armed hug followed by a congratulatory kiss.

"Don't thank me, thank Mepuss." Rory said with an evil teasing glint in her blue eyes.

Amy sat back on lap she was straddling. "What?!"

The brunette laughed and extended one finger to touch the tip of the nose in front of her. "Back when I was a super…"

"You're super now." Amy winked her good eye, though it was hard to tell with the ice bag over the other one.

Choosing to acknowledge the interruption with no more than a grimace, Rory continued. "Back when I was a super, there was a old English lady who lived down the hall from me named Mrs. Rose. She had the thickest cockney accent this side of the pond, and she had a cat that she called 'Mepuss'. At least I think that was its' name because when ever the cat went missing she would come asking. ''Ave ye seen Me puss?' and she and I would go looking for her mangy old tom cat."

"So how did Mrs. Rose's cat teach you to pick a lock?"

Rory reached down to cup Amy's bottom, pulling her onto a more comfortable position on her lap. "Well… One day Mepuss was missing and we couldn't find him anywhere. I had made it all the way down to the boiler room and no sign of the cat. Not wanting to tell that sweet old lady her cat was long gone; I even looked in the storage locker. When I turned on the light I heard this quiet little 'Mew?' coming from a locker at the back of the room behind a pile of boxes and furniture." The tall woman laughed. "To this day, I have no idea how he got in there but it took me the better part of an hour to dig my way in there and figure out how to pick the damn lock."

Amy looked upwards where she supposed 'Cat Heaven' might be, and said reverently. "Thank you Mepuss, where ever you are." She moved off of Rory's lap and knelt before the trunk and worked the straps on its' top open. This took some doing since the leather was stiff and cracked with age.

The lid was very stiff and heavy, opening with a squealing protest from the hinges. The rich scent of cedar rose up with the opening of the lid. Amy peered inside holding her breath in anticipation. The first thing she saw was a beautiful patchwork quilt neatly folded covering the rest of the contents of the deep trunk. "Now I know the last time this trunk was opened." Amy said quietly pilling the multicolored blanket into her arms as if to give it a hug. She looked over at Rory explaining. "This was on my Aunt and Uncle's bed right up until Uncle Paul died five years ago." She ran her cheek over the soft fabric. "I always wondered where it went."

Beneath where the blanket had been was a long covered tray. Rory reached in and pulled it out by the handle in its' center. She was surprised by its' weight and set on the floor with a grunt. The twin covers that met at the center of the tray fold open easily. Inside this was an old brief case, several photo albums, and easily a dozen hardbound books. "No wonder it was heavy!" Rory said pulling out a book to examine it. "Legend made Fact." She said reading out loud. "By M. Papa… Doppa… Some Greek guy." She finished and set the book aside.

"These books are all like that." The smaller woman agreed, scanning the titles as she set them aside. "They're all history texts from the University of Carolina… Go figure?"

Rory grinned. "Well, we know these aren't what your mother is after. Let's see what's in the bottom of the trunk."

"These must have belonged to your Grandmother." Rory said, pulling some neatly folded clothing from the trunk. This looks like a WAC's uniform. Was your 'Grammy' in the army?"

Amy ran her hands over the soft woolen garment. "I don't know. Nobody in the family ever talked about her, she could still be alive somewhere for all I know."

"Oh hey… look at this." Rory lifted out the last items in the trunk, an old leather jacket and a hatbox. She lifted the cover of the box to find a brown felt fedora and a coiled bullwhip. "I don't think your Grammy was a typical knitting circle type grandmother." She fingered the long whip and then put it back in the box. The sight of Amy wearing the hat made her grin from ear to ear.

"It fits!" The blonde woman exclaimed running her hand along the brim. "How do I look?"

Rory leaned back and tilted her head looking her lover over with an appraising eye. "It suits you." She said finally. "All you need is the jacket and the whip and you'd look like that fellow from the adventure movies… What was his name? …Oh yeah, 'Alabama Smith' or something like that."

Shrugging on the jacket, Amy was surprised to find that it too, fit like it was made for her. A warm feeling passed over her like a gentle hug, and then she sighed and took off the jacket and the hat, returning them to their proper places back in the trunk. "I wish I could have known what she was like. I got the feeling Aunt Christen would have told me about her eventually."

"Tell you what, after this whole will business is over, let's find out about this Grammy of yours." Rory said folding the uniform back up neatly and placing it back in the trunk as well. "I can't help but admit that now I'm curious too."

Grasping the handle of the tray, Rory went to heave it into the trunk forgetting how heavy it was. Because she was trying to shift the weight while standing on one leg, the edge caught and she over-balanced tripping backwards. The whole thing, tall brunette and all keeled over with a thump spilling the contents all around her.

"Baby! Are you okay?" Amy scrambled to remove the tray and scattered books that lay on the tall woman's chest.

Rory was chuckling at the worried look on Amy's face. "That was graceful." She sat up. "Yeah I'm fine, nothing injured but my pride."

Amy set the empty tray into the trunk and started to replace the books, while Rory sat sorting the papers that had fallen out of the brief case. She frowned when she found a large brown envelope with 'Amanda' written on it. "Amy, come here and look at this."

"What?" The younger woman asked, crouching down beside Rory.

"Is there anyone else in your family named 'Amanda'?"

"Not that I know of, why?"

"This has your name on it." Rory handed her the thick envelope.

Greta Heinz was a woman with a mission. She bulled her way through the office like a rhino in heat, forcing several stenos to flatten themselves to the wall as she passed them in the hallway to the western sales office.

Marching up to Linda's desk the large woman rapped quickly three times to get the redhead's attention. "She was here this weekend, wasn't she?!"

"Good Morning Ms. Heinz, did you have a nice weekend?" Linda asked being politely evasive.

'Ajax' pursed her lips and glared back sternly. "I have no time for pleasantries this morning… Was Mrs. Winters in town this weekend?"

Linda merely smiled sweetly and tipped her head ever so slightly to play the innocent. "Which Mrs. Winters would that be? I know that Mr. Winters is returning to work today, he came home on Friday and I spoke briefly to Carla on the weekend. Apparently they had the loveliest Honeymoon…"

"No! No! Your Boss, Rochelle Winters, did you or did you not see her this weekend."

"Oh yes, I did hear from her briefly, she's was going to extending her vacation. Was there something that I could help you with perhaps?"

"Yes, you can tell me where she is. She is not supposed to be on vacation, she is supposed to be in Boise, Idaho making a final presentation."

"Oh yes, I know about that, Jerry flew out last night. He is also going to Seattle on Wednesday to collect the other one."

The Exec-Admin worked her jaw, furrowing her brow as she processed this information. "So what you're telling me here is that the deals have been closed and the senior salesman is just going out to pick up the contracts?"

Linda widened her eyes at the big woman leaning over her desk. "Isn't that what I just said?"

"Um… Ah yes I just wanted to clarify that we were on the same page, so to speak." Greta stood and stepped away from the desk. "You do realize that if Mrs. Winters is on vacation I going to need all her expense account receipts for approval before they go to accounting."

'Bingo! Got her.' Linda thought grinning on the inside, sober as a judge on the outside. "As a matter of fact, Heidi just finished the expense report. She went down to the copy room to make copies for our files. She might even be done by now." Linda hadn't even finished the sentence and Ajax was already thundering down the hallway.

Heidi stood in the copy room doorway, waiting. From around the corner she heard the distinctive click clack of Ajax, and people scurrying to get out of her way. Running over to the copier she poked the big square green button; the copier roared to life. The paper had barely slid into the catch tray when the big woman entered the small copy room, filling the doorway.

"Oh good, Ms. Heinz, I was about to come see you. I have Mrs. Winters' expense report for your approval." The plump little secretary said opening the machine, pulling a receipt off of the glass and tucking it into the report folder in her hand.

"Yes, Ms. Jones said that you had it ready." Greta took the file and quickly scanned the contents. "Good… everything looks to be in order here. Good job." Greta smiled at the small woman. "So what do think about your boss taking off on holidays?" She asked conversationally.

Heidi looked out the door as if to see if there was anyone outside. She lowered her voice. "I don't think that she is just on holidays, Ms. Heinz, I saw a comp form on Linda's desk this morning and I can't say for sure, but I think it had Rory's name on it."

Ajax's eyebrows shot up. "Do tell?"

Leaning in closer to the big exec, Heidi was almost whispering. "…And before I could get a look at it Robert came in and picked it up saying that he was going to process it 'personally'."

"Heidi, isn't it? …Well Heidi, that's very interesting." Greta looked back over her shoulder. "What do you suppose is going on here?"

'Got her!" Heidi thought, wondering if this wasn't almost too easy. 'Now to reel her in.' "Ms. Heinz, …May I call you Greta?"

Greta smiled warmly at the young woman. "Why certainly Heidi, I think we are about to become very good friends. Now what were you going to say?"

"Greta… You remember last January when we suddenly moved to the new office, that nasty business with Laura."

"Yes I remember, are you saying this is related to that? How?" The big woman cocked her head in confusion."

"Rory was drinking a lot back then and there are liquor receipts in that file. …I think the stress is getting to her. She's started hitting the bottle too hard again and has gone some where to dry out."

"Someplace like 'Betty Ford'?" The evil glint in Ajax's eyes almost made Heidi want to look away.

"Yeah, I mean, what else could it be?"

Greta patted the small secretary on the shoulder. "Heidi, What are you doing for lunch?"

(c) 1999 S. Day

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