Scissor Link Read online

  “I’m looking at a woman who is, like, unfairly sexy. She’s overloading my gay circuitry. My homosexuality is not rated for this level of hotness in a woman.”

  The most beautiful woman in the world made a minute adjustment to her wavy platinum hair. A chic short cut, side parted, with the fringe windswept. It reminded Wendy of the ropes on a cat o’ nine tails. Not because it was stringy or anything, just in that there was something coiled there, something with an edge of threat.

  “I think I just came,” Wendy said.

  “Wendy, doll, how much does this call cost after the first minute?”

  “You’re making light of a deeply spiritual experience I’m having with my gayness. I’m at the mecca of my homo right now.”

  “All right, take a picture, I need to see her.”

  “No! That would be creepy—”

  “You’re the one staring at her and wondering how her hair smells.”

  Wendy raised her hand to her mouth. “Oh God, I bet it smells amazing.”

  She had just been thinking that it was even more unfair that their elevators had come up together for so long, submitting her to more and more of the sight of the most beautiful woman in the world. It was like being forced to stare at the sun. But then Wendy’s car arrived at its destination, and the Khaleesi’s kept going: up and up and up, far out of sight behind the opaque ceiling of Wendy’s elevator.

  Then the doors of Wendy’s elevator started to close again, having apparently opened, and she got out. “So,” she said into the phone, “I’m just gonna…weep somewhere. Curl up on the floor. Pray for death. My heart’s broken. Business as usual.”

  “Wendy’s got a girlfriend, Wendy’s got a girlfriend—” Tina chanted, singsong.

  “Please don’t joke about that. It’s…too soon.”

  The food court in Savin Aerospace was about the size of a high school gymnasium. It boasted several restaurants in kiosk form: McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A, Popeyes, Starbucks, even a Dunkin’ Donuts and a recent strain of artisanal offerings. Wendy told the girl at Smooth Runnings, the smoothie place, to blend her something surprising and promised to drain the whole thing in fair trade for neglecting her StairMaster. Anything that tasted this bad had to be great for her.

  The food court was pocketed between the building’s atrium and exterior, wrapping around half of an entire floor. There were three big TVs in the room’s corners: one along the white walled expanse where the restaurant business hadn’t yet expanded (Wendy guessed they were trying to figure out how to park a food truck there), and the last corner of the room taken up by a Dairy Queen that only offered desserts.

  Each TV was tuned to something different, and the quadrants of the room formed factions as carefully chosen as a favorite Star Trek captain. At the northeast corner, opposite the empty one, the TV played MTV11—the MTV that still played music. At the northwest corner, the TV played the Game Show Network, which occasionally tempted Wendy when something from the seventies was on. And at the southwest corner, there was a TV showing films from the Silent Movie Channel.

  Trust a bunch of engineers to game the system. With their petition successful, they basked in the comparative quiet of orchestral music and either read their tablets or did incomprehensible things with their phones. One of this crowd was Elizabeth Smile. If someone had told Wendy that Elizabeth had worked out a way to go for a PhD on her smartphone, she would’ve believed them.

  With her chic ensemble and glamorous makeup, the executive assistant looked more like a model doing a 1950s-themed photoshoot in their office. And was so out of Wendy’s weight class that she felt abashed to look at her, as if she’d been caught doing something wrong like participating in the office sport of ‘Look At Elizabeth.’

  Nonetheless, Wendy pushed past it, sitting down across from Elizabeth. “I’m looking for a woman.”

  Elizabeth scantly looked away from her smartphone. “I like where this is headed. I can work with this.”

  “An older woman. Seems kinda dominating, tightly wound, position of power, but you just know she’s worn a strap-on? Like, you want her to sneer at you while she wears Gucci and shoves a file folder into your arms and says ‘Fix it!’ in a really tense voice?”

  “So, like a MILF?”

  Wendy scoffed. “I actually don’t like that acronym, that’s a straight man acronym, and lesbians were into older women before it was cool. And they totally diluted the brand anyway, because it used to be just cougar, if a lesbian were in charge, it would’ve stayed at that, but there are leopards and pumas and jaguars and black panthers. I would’ve had sex with Helen Mirren before I saw her in a bikini!”

  “So you’re looking for Helen Mirren?”

  “No, she’s a lot younger, forties, aging like a Spielberg movie. And, uh…” Wendy held circled fingers in front of her face. “Glasses.”

  “Oh, is that what glasses look like?” Elizabeth set down her phone. “Sounds like Janet Lace. You’ve heard of her?”

  Everyone had heard of her. Janet Lace was the rising star of the company’s production division, no pun intended. She’d flown jets, not just approved overhauls for them. She knew the product line inside and out, could take apart a turbine and put it back together. If Janet’s flight got delayed at the airport, she could probably get it working again with a thump of her fist.

  “That’s her?” Wendy boggled. “I thought she would be, you know…less like the teacher in a Van Halen video.”

  Elizabeth’s phone dinged and she picked it back up, instantly engrossed in something it displayed. “What do you want with her, anyway?”

  “I’m in love with her. I want her to quit playing these games and make me an honest woman.”

  “Is that even possible?” Elizabeth replied.

  “Tell me everything about her. How high are her heels? Where was she born? How many adopted kids does she want? Is she okay with friendly back massages—”

  “Would you like me to tape her sleeping, too?”

  “I’m not stalking her. I’m just making sure she’s not a serial killer or anything.”

  “Well, I don’t think she’d be too happy about me writing a Wikipedia article on her, given that she’s my—”

  “Hold up,” Wendy said.

  Donnie Parsons had just come through the door.

  Every time she saw him, he reminded Wendy of one of those yapping little dogs that were bred to fit into the purse, much the way rich people had to be bred not to find them annoying. He was a pretty normal boss—Wendy thought she could’ve met much the same if her job were delivering pizzas or serving up fries—but he wore his goatee in the Frank Zappa style. It was doing a lot to ruin a hairstyle that Wendy had previously found pretty inoffensive.

  “Duty calls,” Wendy said. “My lunch break’s almost over.”

  “Oh, come on, sit and gossip, this place could use an office romance to spice things up.”

  Wendy stood. “I’m in love with keeping my job.”

  “It’s an unhealthy relationship. Your job doesn’t pay you.”

  “It’s called an internship.”

  “It’s called slavery.”

  “Get out, it’s not like they whip me.”

  “They make you wear heels.”

  Wendy shrugged and hurried over to the line at Subway’s, where Donnie was looking at his watch. “Mr. Parsons, hi, one second of your time?”

  “Cedar,” he replied, managing to fit ‘you again’ between the letters. “It’s lunch. Eat something.”

  “I had a power bar,” she replied. “Listen, you remember telling me to submit the TCB report?”

  “I remember it still not being done.”

  “Yeah, that’s the thing, I still haven’t gotten the proper numbers back from R&D.” Wendy tried to diffuse her aggression with a slightly confused laugh. “I can’t submit a report about their findings without their findings, you know?”

  “You have their findings,” Donnie interrupted, shuffling forward in line. “I uploa
ded them all onto the cloud myself, and I know you have access—”

  Wendy had to dodge a stanchion to keep up with him. “I do, yes, but the findings aren’t…” Wendy struggled for the right word “…exhaustive. I really need more information for the TCB report.”

  “Just put the report through, they’ll clear it up somewhere above your pay grade, same as always.”

  “Yeah, but here at my pay grade, it’s my job to clear it up now—”

  “Cedar. It’s Friday,” Donnie interrupted. “Do you really want to hold everyone up and make a bunch of people, including us, work on the weekend just so we can dot a few I’s?”

  Wendy stopped moving to avoid colliding with the line to McDonald’s, formed on her side of the stanchion rope. “It’s not the weekend for three hours yet. I’m sure with your help, we can get what we need from R&D, finish the report—”

  “I’m a busy man, Cedar. I have better things to do than hold your hand while you do your job. Send the damn report before you cost us all our weekend. You don’t want that, do you?”

  “No, sir.”

  Donnie was at the front of his line. “Good. Now get out of here, I don’t know what to order.”

  “Sweet onion chicken teriyaki,” she told him, then hurried off to figure out why she’d said that.

  CHAPTER 2

  Wendy did not work on Sundays, but she’d been called in, and as an intern, she wasn’t expected to have a life. So, since her usual commute was only on weekdays, she hired an Uber, did her best to learn Greek to hold up her end of the conversation, and went into the deserted weekend workspace. Blank, flat monitors; some noisy grinding sort of janitorial work being done; and no one presenting themselves, no matter how many doors Wendy knocked on.

  This meant she had the kitchen all to herself, and Wendy thought to put on a pot of coffee for when the others arrived. She also thought to have a sip of fresh coffee, made the way she liked it, instead of the indignities to which her co-workers subjected the coffee beans. Selecting her favorite roast from the cupboard in the break room, she set about cajoling the coffee machine into doing her will. The machine, for its part, kept hectoring her to connect to it with an app on her presumed smartphone. This would tell her when her coffee was done if she forgot how to tell time.

  Wendy did not forget how to tell time. It was exactly seventeen minutes after she’d shown up when she heard the dogged footsteps of Donnie Parsons, along with a clearer, more intently pitched noise. Heels on linoleum, striking with a determined repetition. Like Wendy imagined a thief would use as he worked on a safe with a chisel. Click, click, click, click. Rapid succession, but not rushed. Purposeful.

  Donnie came in followed by Janet Lace, and if Wendy didn’t fall in love at first sight, or even at second sight, she was definitely ready to fall in love.

  “Wanda! Did you send a memo—” Donnie began, and his pinched voice was as shocking to Wendy as having a water cooler explode in her face.

  Janet silenced him with a wave of her hand. Her nails were quite short, black, neat little claws on slender fingers.

  Wendy stared at them and was very hopeful.

  “We apologize for our lateness.” Janet’s voice was clear, restrained, powerful. It seemed perfectly suited to that set of lips. “Traffic,” Janet concluded; not apologetic, but with a slight growl like a mine threatening to cave in. An expression of anger toward the obstacle that had robbed her of her punctuality. “You know who I am,” she stated by way of introduction.

  Wendy nodded, trying to keep phrases like “Mrs. Wendy Cedar-Lace” and its variations indoors rather than out.

  “It’s fine. The traffic. Not that the traffic is fine, I’m sure it’s very bad if it delayed you, but you being delayed by traffic is…” Wendy got through all that in one breath. Upon the next breath, she reconsidered. “Coffee?”

  “Wanda!” Donnie insisted, his voice pinching in harder than ever, one of those submersibles that went too deep and was imploded by the pressure.

  Janet strolled past him—she walked like a woman who did everything at a stroll—and wordlessly communicated to Wendy a question of where the mugs would be. Wendy gestured to a cupboard and Janet opened it up, fetching out a black mug with one sly finger.

  “Her name is Wendy,” Janet said. When her voice cooled, it was rich as chocolate. “It’s on the memo. Which you did send, yes?”

  “Yes.” Wendy nodded. Then she moved hurriedly out of the way as Janet went to the coffee machine behind her. “I assume—I mean, I pretty much know—yeah, you’re here about the TCB memo? To upper management?”

  “My memo!” Donnie said. He nearly squeaked. “To my upper management!”

  The sound of coffee cascading into a cup cut through him like a knife into butter. He seemed to sputter at every little mitosis in Janet’s cells, which was Wendy’s first real indication that Janet was as important as she assumed. Of course, she just was important to Wendy. Anything else would be like looking at the Pope and saying ‘what’s with the dumb hat?’

  “Donald, please.” Janet seemed infinitely concerned with the aroma of the coffee she was pouring, and not at all interested in the meeting she was attending. “If it’s anyone’s upper management, surely it’s mine. I am assistant vice president, after all.”

  “Yes, miss, ma’am, of course, you are, of course, I just mean—” Donnie stopped and cleared his throat. “It’s my office’s responsibility to send out all communiqués, with my express permission—” He eyed Wendy like she was something he’d stepped in, and he was wearing really nice shoes. “Not hers.”

  “Yet she does work in your office, yes?”

  “It was my project, yeah,” Wendy answered.

  Donnie took being cut out of the conversation as if it were his father’s will. “It was not your project, it was mine. I assigned it to you, you were supposed to bring it back to me.”

  “For a rubber stamp,” Wendy retorted.

  “For my approval. As your boss—”

  “This is very good coffee.” Janet had taken a sip. “You made it?”

  “Yes,” Wendy said, flustered by the recognition. It suddenly felt like a long time since anyone had really noticed her. “I’m glad you—”

  “Company beans?” Janet asked.

  Wendy tried her best not to preen. “I bring some from home.”

  “Tastes expensive.” She pursed her lips to underline the hint of approval.

  Wendy restricted herself to only quasi-preening motions. Her main imperative was not playing with her hair. “Well, everyone here works really hard, and no one likes the coffee you can make with the, uh, provided beans.”

  “So you buy coffee for everyone?” Janet asked.

  “Just the people who want to use it.” Which was everyone, Wendy thought, but also thinking that would sound too full of herself to say.

  Janet favored Donnie with a look. “How much does she make?”

  “She’s an intern.” Donnie managed to make it sound like something for which you could be deported to Australia.

  “That doesn’t answer my question,” Janet said, with another sip.

  Donnie took a breath. “We don’t pay our interns. Especially not when they take it on themselves to deny approval to multimillion-dollar contracts integral to this company’s—

  “I thought we suspended the unpaid internship program.” Janet set down her cup of coffee. “The Old Man himself wanted it done away with. Said that even if we just want someone to make paper airplanes, we should pay for the paper airplanes.”

  Donnie waved his hand as if some insidious smell was making an attempt on his nostrils. “That’s in the Chicago division, this is New York.”

  “Do people in New York not like money?” Janet asked. She pointed at Wendy. “Is this some kind of Amish woman, doing her work out of Christian charity?”

  “I really don’t need the money.” Wendy tried to smooth over the defensiveness she saw on Donnie’s face, the rampant disapproval she saw in
Janet’s eyes. “I’m doing this for the experience, to learn the trade—”

  “Well, I do need the money,” Donnie interrupted. “And I’d rather not be out of the job because this company has no new helicopters to produce!”

  “He does have a point about needing money. Ms. Cedar, please do tell us why you want to cost your company hundreds of millions of dollars?”

  “To save us billions in lawsuits!” Wendy gritted her teeth. She knew people would be mad, but after they saw the problem, how could anyone not take her side? She grabbed a stack of napkins and, taking a pen from her pocket, began to sketch out a diagram. “Look, this is the swash plate, right? Two plates connected to each other. The upper part moves with the rotors, spinning them, while the lower part is stationary and moves under the pilot’s control to direct the helicopter.”

  Wendy stopped drawing and blotted up the napkin. The diagram wasn’t really helping. She regretted not taking more art classes in college, if not the additional hundreds of thousands of dollars that would put on her tuition.

  Janet crossed her arms. “Please assume that the executives at a company that manufactures helicopters know how a helicopter works.”

  “Yeah, right, sorry—but this is very important. The scissor link connects the two, right?”

  “Ten seconds,” Janet said.

  “Scissor link connects the two, allows them to move somewhat so that the pilot can control it, but restrains excessive movement so that the helicopter doesn’t—well, worst-case scenario, crash.”

  Janet raised an eyebrow on the word ‘crash.’ “Ten more seconds.”

  “So the scissor link has to be about the most durable part of the helicopter, otherwise it won’t stay in the air. We have to know it’s rated to withstand the stresses the rest of the helicopter takes, if not more.”

  “And Mr. Parsons here assures me it will.”

  “The tests assure you it will,” Donnie said, seeming very pleased to correct her.

  Wendy threw her hands up. “Maybe! Here’s the—” She paused on the ‘fucking’ she so dearly wanted to say “—the thing, though.” Grabbing another napkin, Wendy wrote ‘20,500 feet’ in big letters. “That’s the service ceiling of our last chopper. Here’s the service ceiling for our new chopper.” She wrote ‘25,000 feet’, nearly taking up the entire napkin. “The air pressure at 20,000 feet is 13.74 inches of mercury. The air pressure at 25,000 feet is 11.10. Less air pressure means less resistance.”