Chapter Four
New H2O Restrictions, 20 Minutes is All You’ve Got!
Bottled Water Price Rise - $10 per Litre!
National Economy Collapses
Survivor TV series Planned for Sydney
30% Unemployed – Indigenous Tribes say Time to Go Walkabout
Esther was playing a lonely game of solo tennis against her garage door when Tuesday rode up on her public bicycle. Anthea Yialousis’ mansion was dark and quiet.
Esther beckoned Tuesday with a crook finger. “There’s no movement at the station.” She whispered. She was dressed in an adult’s raincoat that fell to her ankles and round sunglasses that covered the top half of her face, which were secured around her head with a piece of string. “The eagle has not landed. The wind is yet to change, my friend. The silver stallion -”
“Right. Thanks, Esther.”
“Shhhh! Don’t call me by my real name. I am Tonto.”
It was becoming clear to Tuesday just how much time Esther spent on her own.
“Do you have a code name for me then?”
“You are Heathen Barbie.”
“Heathen Barbie?”
“Pop Star Barbie, Housewife Barbie, Cowgirl Barbie, Roller Girl Barbie…” Esther looked Tuesday up and down. “…Heathen Barbie.”
“Hmmm. Well, me Heathen Barbie think Tonto stick out like a bloody sore thumb.”
But Tuesday had to hand it to her, Esther had come very well prepared. Along with Tuesday’s camera they now had a cardboard box full of private eye supplies including a pair of binoculars, 3-D x-ray glasses which Esther assured her could see through clothes, a pen and notebook to record important information, a pair of dog-chewed plastic walkie talkies, a book and newspaper to hide behind, a complete timetable of all nearby horse and camel transport, and a library card.
“What’s the library card for, Tonto?”
“Rendezvousing with the spanky chicken on a hot summer’s night.”
Tuesday had a feeling it was going to be a long day.
“Shhhh!” Esther sank to her knees behind the low brick wall and disappeared.
On the opposite side of the road a wheezing black stallion cantered up to Anthea’s driveway and stopped in front of the mansion. On it sat a slim woman with her brunette hair in a ponytail. Her face was hidden by a Gold Deluxe Mask. The street was so quiet, Tuesday could hear Anthea’s breath rasping from her filter.
Tuesday wore Louise’s spare Chador and held her grandmother’s waist-held Brownie box camera on her lap amongst the folds of cloth. The only part of Tuesday that was visible were her languid hazel eyes and these stared down through the camera lens. One photo. Two. Anthea pressed a remote control and the garage door rose. Horse and rider clip-clopped inside and the garage door purred down behind them.
Tuesday let out her breath. Well, it was a start. Esther was lying flat on her stomach beneath a bush and watching the house with the binoculars. She clasped a walkie talkie in her other hand. “The bird is in the sky. Repeat, the bird is in the sky.” She whispered.
In the cardboard box behind them, her crackling voice repeated itself.
“What are you doing?”
“Don’t look at me!” Esther hissed. “You’ll give us away!”
Tuesday yanked the binoculars away from Esther and handed her the pen and notebook. “Here, do something useful.” She glanced at her watch. “At 1420 hours, Anthea Yialousis arrived home by horse.” Tuesday dictated. “She appeared unflustered and had two pieces of luggage secured to the horse’s flanks. Full stop.”
Esther’s loopy black handwriting covered the page and she sat back up. “What do we do now?”
“We wait. Yep. You see, Tonto, being a private eye’s a waiting game –“
“Look!” Esther raised her face up to Anthea’s mansion. She gasped. “The cat has seen the rat’s tail!”
Anthea leant casually over her terrace railing, her head turned to the breeze. She waved at them.
Tuesday and Esther waved falteringly back.
“How’re you doing, Esther?” She called.
“Fine, Ms Yialousis.”
“She knows you?” Smiled Tuesday through clenched teeth. “She knows you?”
“Whatcha doin?”
“Uh. Playin’…private eye with my…new nanny?”
“Sounds wonderful. Make sure you keep an eye on my place, won’t you? I’m certain someone tried to break in last week.”
“Sure! Can we stake it out?”
Anthea laughed. “Oh, how cute. Sure you can stake it out, Esther. You can be my undercover P.I!”
A telephone rang from inside the house. Anthea waved and stepped back into the darkness of the tinted windows, sliding the ranch door behind her.
“Ha!” Esther folded her arms and gave Tuesday a knowing smile. “Never trust a kid, Heathen Barbie.” Her fingertips slipped out of her oversized sleeve and pushed her sunglasses back up her nose. “We’re professionals.”
Tuesday and Esther had been playing Monopoly in the front windows of Esther’s house for over an hour. Tuesday wiped out Esther’s hotels on Park Lane.
“You can’t do that!”
“Land claim.”
“That’s not in the rule book!”
Across the road Anthea’s roller door purred up and the black stallion was trotted out by Anthea again. Tuesday hurriedly removed her chador, revealing her Adidas navy tracksuit with the brand’s white stripe down the side. She felt very sleek in these. The top zipped up to a V above her breasts and the pants followed her svelte figure into sporty sneakers. They made her feel more like a rap artist than an athlete though and she always had the urge to hold splayed fingers above her head and shout ‘In the house!’
“What are you doing?”
Tuesday tightened her sneaker laces and watched Anthea out of the window. “Following her.”
Esther slumped back against the couch. “What about me?”
“Hey, Tonto, we’ve got to split the peas, man. You dig?”
Esther screwed up her nose. “Why are you talking like that?”
“Er. Never mind. What I mean is, your job is to stay here and watch the house. I might lose her. Or you heard what she said, someone might try to break in.”
“Oh, right!” Esther leapt over to her cardboard box. “I’ve got to set up my equipment! Here, Tuesday.” She tossed her a walkie talkie.
Tuesday smiled and shook her head but clipped it to her belt and threw her camera bag over her shoulder. In the white heat outside, Anthea Yialousis leapt onto her horse and snapped the reins. A briefcase was strapped to the horse’s rump.
Tuesday dashed to the door.
“May the force be with you, Heathen Barbie.” Esther saluted her solemnly.
Tuesday ducked back and grinned. “In the house!”
Anthea galloped down the hill and Tuesday pedalled furiously after her but it was hopeless. Anthea set a cracking pace and her jiggling bottom disappeared into the thick smash.
Tuesday struggled on resolutely in the heat. She checked the side streets but if Anthea had turned down them, she was long gone. Tuesday’s legs pedalled slower and slower until she was barely moving. Finally her front tire hit the gutter and Tuesday collapsed over the handle bars. Bloody hell! She was exhausted!
Surrounding her, a sea of people cycled, cantered, scootered, walked, and skateboarded past her towards the hidden city. An old man in an electric wheelchair trundled over her foot and cackled.
A horn boomed behind them both and the old man swerved hastily into the gutter. The L82 express four horse carriage streaked past, the sweat pouring off the horses’ flanks. Before Tuesday knew what she was doing she grabbed the brass railing at the back of the carriage with one hand as it careened past. Her shoulder was almost jerked out of its socket and her body torn from her seat but her other hand gripped the bicycle handlebars for dear life.
Her bicycle wobbled feverishly between the carriage wheels. Every time she hit a pot hole she flew up off her seat. They raced through the smash, Tuesday’s body bouncing up and down in the air stream, and soon enough in the distance Tuesday caught sight of the back of Anthea’s cantering stallion. She waited until she was just behind the horse’s galloping legs and then let go of the carriage rail, cycling furiously to stay ahead of the masses behind her.
At the Edgecliff Road lights ahead there was a bottleneck and the traffic moved to a gradual stop. Tuesday slowed and kept Anthea’s sedately walking horse in her vision. Anthea looked about her from time to time, her hand travelling now and again to her briefcase as if to reassure herself it was still there.
Tuesday dawdled behind her, her heart still racing. There was something not right about all this.
Anthea Yialousis was rich. And good-looking. She was a five star chick. Why would she work for someone one star like Mr Georgeopoulouissis? The next time she saw Mr G she intended asking him some pertinent questions. Like what kind of work exactly was it that Anthea did? And what kind of secrets could she sell?
Tuesday pedalled alongside a private horse and carriage as Anthea’s horse trotted lazily ahead of her. Glancing up casually she caught sight of a chubby face peering out of the velvet curtains at the gridlock ahead of him. A familiar bullet hole scar shone from the shadows. The face disappeared and from within the curtains he laughed. The sound was akin to the call of a Kookaburra but with an Italian accent.
Mr G!
Tuesday slipped into the carriage shade behind him.
Ahead of them Anthea turned the corner and stopped outside a building on Macquarie Street. She tied her stallion to a horse post. Tuesday pedalled away from Mr G, dumped her bike on the other side of the busy road, fixed a scarf over her head, and switched her mask to super dark tint.
Mr G’s carriage roared past with its red curtains billowing in the air. The driver’s top hat was pulled low over his face but Tuesday could swear his hung dog eyes darted at Tuesday as he passed.
Tuesday shivered. Was Mr G making sure Tuesday was doing her job?
Anthea strode into a sandstone building lined with vomiting gargoyles and Tuesday followed close behind. How funny, thought Tuesday. This is the building where Ginny works.
The foyer was empty and to Tuesday’s horror they were the only people waiting for a lift. Tuesday studied a map intently, peeking at Anthea out of the corner of her eye. Anthea nodded and smiled.
The lift pinged and the doors opened. Tuesday had nowhere to go but in.
Anthea held the doors open for her and pressed the button for level seventeen. “Which floor?”
“Um. Seventeen.”
“Really?” Anthea gave her a curious look.
Tuesday stared intently at her feet. What had she got herself into now?
“Toxic out today, isn’t it?” Anthea pushed her mask to the top of her head.
Tuesday looked up and gasped. Getting into the lift alone with Anthea Yialousis had been a very, very bad idea. If the idea of Mr G naked brought visions of meat cleavers and severed horse heads then the idea of Anthea Yialousis fully clothed brought the vision of blue skin, hissing snakes, shallow graves, and blood streaked fingernails.
Up close, Anthea Yialousis was not five star at all. She was no Vaucluse society lady, she was a thinly veiled impostor. Her distant attractiveness was brought into focus as mere fraudulence, as convincing as sheep’s wool over a hairy wolf. Her skin was an unhealthy grey, and as plastic and unreflective as a corpse’s.
Her pupils were glazed and unresponsive. Tuesday had seen the same sort of eyes in the post-mortem photo of the last man hanged in Australia. Anthea Yialousis could not even claim to have the air of a woman. She had the eyes of a dead man.
Up close Anthea’s breathing was laboured, her body terribly emancipated, and her hands covered in scratches. She blinked at Tuesday and her tongue flicked out and ran wetly around her pointed teeth as if she was thinking of eating her.
Tuesday did not want to follow Anthea Yialousis anymore. She did not want to photograph her. She did not want to know anything about her. She did not want to play with Esther on the street opposite her house. And mostly, above all else, she did not want to stand beside her in an elevator.
“You know this is a triple-rated air-conditioned building. You can remove your face filter if you like.” Anthea hissed.
Tuesday quivered and thumped her chest. “Asthma,” she squeaked. Her hand shook.
“Uh huh.”
Tuesday watched the levels pass her by. 11,12,13… All she had to do was stick her finger out and press a button. Tuesday swallowed and reached out for the panel.
Anthea’s steely cold claw gripped her hand. “I don’t think so.”
“Oh, I think so.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Oh, I think –“Anthea twisted Tuesday’s hand behind her back and slammed her body against the elevator wall. “Alright, maybe not.”
“Shut up!” Anthea screeched, the spit flying over Tuesday’s mask. She ripped it over Tuesday’s head, pinning Tuesday’s ear forward to her cheek.
“Ooh. That kinda hurts.”
“Leesen to me,” Anthea breathed, drooling on her shoulder. Her breath smelt of dead goanna, which for Tuesday brought back pleasant memories of childhood. “We’re going to take a leetle walk and I want you to be very kwai-it. If you make a sound…” Anthea drew a five centimetre manicured French tipped fingernail in Peach Blossom across Tuesday’s neck.
Death by fingernail. A common Mafia torture now that females ran all the Italian crime gangs. Tuesday shivered.
There was a pleasant ‘ping!’ and the elevator doors began to slide open, not onto level seventeen but onto level sixteen, where someone had pushed the button. What luck!
Or not. Anthea wrapped her bony arm around Tuesday, slipped her hand down the back of her Adidas pants and pinched Tuesday’s clitoris between her razor sharp finger blades. “One leetle move and the clit gets it.”
Tuesday froze. All her fond memories of orgasms flashed before her eyes.
Those lonely Wednesday evenings when there was nothing on television, the first one she’d ever had at sixteen with Goodie Murrurundi in the back of his Holden ute, the self-masturbatory feast when Ginny bought her the porn video, Wally’s Willy Wonderland, for her birthday, the way an orgasm sent her to sleep like a baby, the wondrous sound of a beaded vibrator – like hundreds of teeny butterfly wings in the moonlight on the French Riviera, the number of calories she’d lost over the years through spent vaginal fluids, and how a regular regime of Coochy Coochy Coo otherwise known as Whisking the Cream otherwise known as Beating the Bush had vastly improved her right hand volley shot in tennis.
The memories flitted past in the blink of an eye and when Tuesday next opened her eye there was Ginny.
What was she doing here on a Sunday?
Ginny did not even look up from her mobile phone conversation. “That’s what I said. And then Tuesday said you were all wankers! She said I’d changed. I know, it’s she who needs to be pulled out of the dark ages, get it? Dark ages!”
Tuesday not only had to suffer the indignity of her clitoris being stretched to breaking point but also the indignity of Ginny talking about her behind her back in front of her.
“Okay, byeeee. Kiss, kiss.”
Kiss, kiss? Tuesday rolled her eyes. The old, unimproved Ginny would never have uttered such a thing.
Ginny snapped her mobile shut and pushed the ground floor button several times. She peered at herself in the dark mirror walls and swept her hand through her hair. The lift continued up to level seventeen.
Look at me, Ginny, damn it! Look at me! LOOK AT ME! Tuesday bore her eyes into the back of Ginny’s head. Look into the fucking mirror at the people standing behind you!
And then it happened, their eyes clicked and Ginny’s hand paused in her hair. Her mouth dropped open. The lift went ‘ping!’ and opened onto level seventeen.
Okay, good – now, pretend you haven’t seen me!
“Tuesday?”
Anthea’s arm shot out and grabbed Ginny’s nose between her pincers. She dragged both of them out of the lift and threw them backwards onto the cream carpet of the top floor. Tuesday’s camera bag flew off her arm and out of her reach.
Around them was a cavernous space forty metres long with absolutely nothing in it. Floor to ceiling glass surrounded them and swirling against the panes was thick orange smash. Below them, the leafless trees of Hyde Park poked through the gloom. Now and again the edge of another building flickered through the smoke.
Anthea pushed the down button with a Peach Blossom fingertip and the lift doors closed behind them.
“Opp oo ink?” Ginny’s nose was stuck together but the gist of her confusion was clear. Her nostrils deflated with a pop.
Anthea ignored her, removed a handgun from her briefcase and pointed it at them with both hands steady.
“Ahhhhh!” Ginny and Tuesday screamed and clutched each other.
“Who sent you?” Anthea hissed. Her fingernail stroked the trigger.
Ginny couldn’t keep her eyes off Anthea’s gun. She shook Tuesday violently by the shoulders. “You heard the lady, Tuesday! WHO SENT YOU?”
Tuesday’s body jiggled back and forth. “Uhhhhhhhh…” The gun clicked. Tuesday and Ginny shrieked and squeezed their eyes shut.
Anthea laughed like a bleating sheep having its balls castrated. “Amateurs! It is Bogi, no?”
“No, it’s Mr Georgeopoulouissis. He’s paying me to follow you! He knows you’re selling secrets to the competition!” Tuesday opened one eye.
Anthea sighed. “My husband, how tiresome! Bogart Reginald Sophonias Olaf Marvin Stanley Georgeopoulouissis. Bogi for short.” Anthea licked the handle of her gun.
Tuesday and Ginny screwed up their noses.
Anthea bent and stroked Ginny’s cheek with her nails. “You silly ignorant fools. I’m not selling secrets to the competition, pussy cats, I’m sleeping with the competition. Poor Bogi, it does upset him so much. He’s even turned my progeny against me. My own two sons!”
Anthea smiled, showing all gums, a black hole, and four gold teeth. It was like looking into the face of the Grim Reaper and smelt as rotten. “My lover is a thousand times more dangerous than Bogi Georgeopoulouissis. He is a real man! So you tell Bogi our divorce is going to go ahead no matter what!”
“Tuesday, what have you got yourself into?” Ginny whispered.
Tuesday shook her head. So it was a simple love triangle. Mr G still had the hots for his wife who had presumably left him for the devil.
Anthea took hold of their chins and knocked their heads together until Tuesday’s pursed lips were dribbling over Ginny’s nose. “And if I ever catch you following me again you will suffer a fate much worse than the fire chute. Do you understand?”
The fire chute?
Ginny looked sideways at Tuesday. Her pupil was so close, it was just a blurry dark ball surrounded by a white blob but Tuesday thought she could still see a thin film of panic. Their heads nodded together as much as they could in the grip of Anthea’s talons.
“Now, get up!” Anthea roared, stepping back. She waved the gun at Tuesday’s face. “You – walk over there!” She pointed the gun towards the north end of the floor. “And you – follow her.” She jabbed the gun into the small of Ginny’s back and frog marched them both towards the back of the building.
“Um, excuse me, uh Madam…this fire chute,” Ginny gulped, “isn’t it like experimental, not fully tested, and um - still under construction?”
“What’s a fire chute?” Interrupted Tuesday.
“Shut up the pair of you!” Anthea screeched into their faces. “Has it escaped your attention I’m holding a gun!”
Tuesday wiped Anthea’s spit off her face. Anthea was as salivary as a rapid dog.
“That’s the trouble with modern execution methods,” Anthea muttered, “they don’t have any impact anymore! WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?” She screamed.
Tuesday and Ginny looked away.
“Open that door, goddammit!”
Anthea had marched them to the far north end of the building where there was a single door to the outside. The door did not appear to lead anywhere. They were seventeen floors up and outside the door the smash floated back and forth.
“What door?” Asked Ginny. “I don’t see a door! Tuesday, I think I’ve gone spontaneously blind! It must be the stress! Can you see a door?”
“Nope. What door? I can’t see a door. A door I cannot see. There is no door on this floor, on this floor there is no…”
Anthea raised her shaking hand to Ginny’s forehead. The muzzle of the gun pressed into the skin between Ginny’s eyes.
“Bang.” Anthea whispered.
“I can see!” Squeaked Ginny. “It’s a miracle!”
“Hallelujah!” Tuesday said.
“One….two….”
“Oh, you mean this door!” Tuesday smacked her forehead. “This one here. The one that says Fire Chute in big red letters. With the funny looking alarm above it. The one that says WARNING-EXTREME DANGER. This door.”
“Thr…”
Ginny and Tuesday pulled open the door at once and hovered in the doorway looking down. They were standing on the edge of the building. The door opened into a clear Perspex tube that curled below them into infinity. It looked like a giant fun park water slide without the water. Little ball bearings lined the tunnel joins.
“This is a fire chute,” said Ginny.
“- ee!”
Tuesday jumped and Ginny followed. Their screams echoed inside the chute and were especially muffled as Tuesday’s head was stuck underneath Ginny’s skirt between her legs.
“Get off me!”
“No, you get off me!”
“Where are we going, Ginny!”
Tuesday and Ginny slid down the curling tube at a face shuddering pace. The little ball bearings provided extra momentum and felt like fingertips pushing them forward. Tuesday’s legs stuck out in front of her as if she was riding a luge. She fought off Ginny’s skirt from her head.
The narrow Perspex tube curled past the side of the building like a snake dangling from fingertips. The outside of the tube was covered in thick smash and nothing of the outside world was visible. No sooner had Tuesday’s stomach settled at one gravitational point than it was hurled sideways to another. The ball bearings roared in their ears like a thunderous waterfall.
“Uhhhh, I think I’m going to throw up!” Complained Ginny.
They tumbled past huge fluorescent numbers painted at intervals on the inside of the tube, 15, 14, 13… At each level a separate tube became entwined with theirs.
Once you got used to hurtling downwards in a confined space and removed the legs of the person behind you from your head, thought Tuesday, it was quite a hoot. 6, 5, 4…
As they neared the ground floor Tuesday wondered how on earth they were going to stop. On a water slide you fell into a big pool of water. On a luge you waited until your luge ran out of steam. On a ski run your legs applied the brakes. What was especially disconcerting was that they appeared to be picking up speed. They turned 360 degrees in the tunnel and Ginny held onto her stomach.
“How do we stop?” Yelled Tuesday.
“I think that’s the experimental part!” Screamed Ginny.
“Water?”
“Too expensive! Level two kept using it to boil the kettle.”
“Maybe it’s a big air mattress!”
“No. It wasn’t fire proof!”
2, 1, G…
“Then how-?”
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
Tuesday held her breath and Ginny pinched her nose. The chute emptied into a huge concentric hall surrounded by chute exits and Tuesday and Ginny shot out feet first into the air of the great domed abyss.
Below them was a sea of creamy goo.
“Ahhhhhhh!” They scrunched their eyes closed.
Tuesday hit the liquid surface first and catapulted to the bottom. Her head came to stop a mere metre from the concrete floor and stayed there. She pursed her lips. She wiggled her fingertips. She didn’t seem to be floating to the surface.
Beside her Ginny’s body shot into the goo and stuck there too. Her fingers found Tuesday’s upside down head.
“Mm – mm?” (Tuesday?)
“Mm?”(Yes?)
Ginny blindly rubbed her hands all over Tuesday’s face with what Tuesday felt was a touch of vindictiveness.
“Mm-mm!” (Stop it!)
The goo was so thick they couldn’t open their eyes and they were running out of oxygen. Tuesday turned herself upright and it was like moving through whipped cream. She grabbed hold of Ginny’s flailing fingers and tugged and they floundered to the surface. They broke through to the stale air and gasped for breath.
“What the hell is this?” Choked Ginny.
Tuesday sniffed her fingers. “It smells funny. It smells like…breakfast.”
Tuesday looked around her curiously. Beside each chute exit were a fluorescent floor number and a steel ladder rising out of the goo. The ladders led to a concrete walkway which circled the hall.
“Come on.”
They wallowed and splashed to the wall (Ginny splashing Tuesday more than Tuesday felt was strictly necessary) and the liquid sucked and slurped and gulped around them. Tuesday clambered up the rungs with relief, the goo falling slickly off her body with a plop onto Ginny’s head behind her.
Ginny glared at her, wiped the goo from her forehead and slipped and slid up the ladder. She heaved herself over the side of the walkway and collapsed in a heap at Tuesday’s feet.
“Ah, Gin?” Tuesday bent down and shook her shoulder.
“Don’t touch me!” Ginny shrieked. She beat away Tuesday’s hand and stood up.
White goo smothered Ginny’s designer suit from head to toe and trickled from the end of her nose. Her matted hair fell in a curtain across her face. Her sheer stockings dangled in pieces from her legs. She’d lost a high heeled shoe. She opened her mouth and spat. Tuesday wiped the spit off her cheek.
It was difficult to see Ginny’s eyes beneath the gunk that was settling in clumps in her eyebrows but if Tuesday was not mistaken, Ginny had a particularly set look about her face. A look that, if Tuesday had not known her better, might appear to be homicidal rage.
“Come on, Ginny!” Tuesday gave her a friendly punch on the shoulder. “We’re alive! What a fantastic ride! Want to go again?”
There was an awkward silence and a peculiar darkening of Ginny’s pupils and Tuesday looked up and away as if she might find something of fascination on the wall. As it happened, there was something fascinating on the wall. Just above their heads was a crudely hand-written sign.
“Hey, look at this.”
Ginny jerked her head stiffly with more stiffness than Tuesday thought was absolutely required, even though the goo was setting on their bodies like concrete and indeed making their limbs very stiff.
The sign read ‘You are covered in Fire-Retardant Jelly Eggs Baked Beans Mashed Potato Porridge. Please proceed to the showers.
“Well! I’d say we got the best of the bunch!”
Ginny pummelled Tuesday with her fists.
“This is a Chanel suit!” She shouted. “Tweed! With…” She jerked open her jacket, flinging porridge over the walkway. “With ¼ rabbit fur and ¾ horse tail and 2/4 camel hair!” She shouted, reading from the label.
Tuesday rubbed the bruises on her arm.
Ginny twirled around and patted her oat-covered shoulders. “My handbag! Where’s my handbag! Where’s my iPhone 25!”
Below them the porridge burped. From the distant depths came Ginny’s familiar ring tone of A-Ha’s ‘Take on Me’. They waited in silence. Seconds later came the beep-beep-beep of a voicemail message.
Ginny glared at her. “And what about my schedule?” She leant in towards Tuesday and stabbed her pointedly in the chest. “I was on my way to a…” Ginny hesitated to search for the word that would accurately describe kneeling beneath the Marketing Director’s desk with her head between his legs while he groaned in the chair above her. She swallowed. “…mee