Once a Good Girl
By Ann Kammerer
Good Looks
(publishing December 20th)
Long Face
(publishing December 21st)
Quittin’ Time
(publishing December 22nd)
Late Lunch
(publishing December 23rd)
Good Looks
I worked in an antique building with spalling brick and carved stone insets of flowers and fruit. The words “Andrew Lindell Law” arched on the glass door above the ghosted outlines of an ex-partner’s name, the sticky remnants of the press-on letters I had peeled away two months before.
I sat behind a counter that faced a squat window trimmed in dark wood. When I typed or answered phones, I wasn’t quite tall enough to see over the divider, having to rise in my rolling chair every time the door opened, or someone walked by.
Mr. Lindell liked to stand behind the counter before I got there each morning, drinking coffee and eating donut holes while he read the local news
“Good morning,” he’d say, the paper spread flat over the orange Formica. “Ready for another busy day?”
He’d smile and lick powdered sugar from his fingertips, then went back to the box scores and comics. Sometimes, he’d smack his lips.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m ready.”
I draped my coat on a brass hook shaped like a lion’s head, then squeezed past him, careful not to bump the pastoral landscape his wife painted and hung on the back wall.
“Well, glad to hear it.” Mr. Lindell took off his narrow plastic glasses. He clicked the bows open and shut.
“Read back my calendar for me, will you please?” he said. “When’s my first appointment?”
I flipped open a large black planner, paperclipped to the day.
“Looks like the Jacobiacks at 10,” I said. “Then you have a luncheon near the Capitol. Something with the Rotary.”
Mr. Lindell slurped coffee. He aligned his pale striped tie over a missing button on his oxford.
“And the afternoon?”
I sat and swiveled, tapping a pen.
“Mr. Bennett is coming,” I said. “Around 2. Then you’re taking your daughter to the bank. Around 3.”
Mr. Lindell yanked at his shirt cuffs bunched in the sleeves of his tweed jacket.
“Oh yes,” he said. “That’s because she can’t figure things out herself. Maybe you could teach her.”
Staring at his wife’s painting, he went on about his daughter, calling her Debbie, then Deborah. His face reddened and his temple pulsed.
“I’m not sure I could show her much,” I said. “I mean, actually, I think it’s kinda nice you help her. You know, with her finances.”
Mr. Lindell folded the paper. He slapped the counter.
“Well I suppose,” he said. “I always tell her she’s gotta do something, that you can’t make a living on just your good looks.”
##
Long Face
Mr. Lindell complained a lot about his daughter. He’d emerge from his office and stare out the window, raising up and down on his toes, his wingtips squeaking as he wiped his forehead with a handkerchief.
“I don’t get it,” he’d say. “She was such a good girl, never any trouble to me and her mom. But now, well, look at her.”
His daughter was tall and slender and had bouncy blonde hair. Her name was Deborah, but he called her Debbie except when he was mad. She drove a sleek silver car and wore tube tops, short skirts, and heels. Her boyfriend Len was slender, too, with a penchant for flared pants, leather vests, and medallions. Neither worked, although Debbie had been a dental assistant for six months, only to quit, saying the dentist was “touchy-feely.”
“I don’t know what to think,” Mr. Lindell would say. “’Cept that Len. He’s a bad influence.”
Debbie called the office at least twice a day, sometimes more.
“It’s Debbie,” she’d say. “Put me through to my Dad.
”I’d tell her he was in a meeting, or in court with a client, even though most times he was there, mouthing the words “take a message,” before changing his mind, grabbing the phone, asking what she wanted.
“Calm down,” he’d say. “Talk slower.”
I could hear Debbie, her voice a blur of sharp to sweet, him saying OK, don’t worry, I’ll fix it, I’ll take care of it, it’s fine.
Hanging up, he’d scurry out, walking to the bank three doors down. When he got back, he’d catch his breath and crack bad jokes, asking if I’d heard the one about a horse walking into a bar, the bartender asking ‘why the long face?,’ me laughing, even though he’d told it a million times.
“You’re a good egg,” he’d say. “Debbie. Well I love her. But she has no drive. No ‘get-up-and-go.’ Not like you.”
He held out a coffee cup. I poured him some, thinking about Debbie and her slim boyfriend, how Mr. Lindell said they ate out a lot and went to bars, buying clothes on credit in between.
“Damn if I shouldn’t make her pay down that Master Card sometime,” he’d say. “Maybe she’d think twice then.”
I looked at my watch. My bus came in 15 minutes. Mr. Lindell paced, his hands in his pockets jangling his change.
“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” I’d say. “Debbie I mean. Some people take a while. You know. To figure things out.”
Mr. Lindell’s hand shook. He pushed in his cheeks with his thumb and forefinger, then pinched his bottom lip.
“You’re probably right,” he’d say. “Go ahead and go. I’ll close things up.”
##
Quittin’ Time
I thought about Mr. Lindell and his daughter on the bus ride home, how he bought her things, gave her things, did most everything for her only to say he did too much, and she needed to do more for herself.
“Her Mom and me,” he said. “I guess we spoiled her. Don’t you think?”
Slipping on my coat, I said I didn’t know, that Debbie seemed like a lot of girls from my high school, the ones with letter-jacket boyfriends, shiny new cars, and snazzy clothes, their hair perfect, their make-up refined, their parents cheering them on for anything and everything, while my mom and dad yelled and screamed, picking fights after every Stroh’s or Jim Beam on ice.
“She’ll be fine,” I said. “Debbie I mean. You’ll see.”
Mr. Lindell tapped the counter and shook his head. He mumbled more about Debbie, about his day, about his clients—how they moaned, how they lied, how they showed up late or poorly-dressed, even when it was time to go to court.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Those clients. And Debbie. They’re all so aimless. Like nothing matters ‘cept what they can get or take, take, take.”
Mr. Lindell rubbed his five-o-clock-shadow. Peering out the window, he watched shopkeepers across the avenue flip door signs from ‘open’ to ‘close.’
“Well, I guess it is ’bout quittin’ time, isn’t it?” he said.
I told him it was, that I had to get going or I’d miss my 5:15 bus at Capital and Grand.
“Well let’s call it a day then.”
His face brightened as he loosened his tie. Clapping his hands, he said I did good work, that he was glad to have a girl like me, that he struck gold the day I walked in looking for a job.
“Thank you,” I said, not knowing what to say next, ‘cept I’d see him in the morning, and to not work too late.
“No chance of that,” he said. “The wife. She doesn’t like it when miss supper.”
He laughed a little, then opened the door, ushering me out with a half-bow, saying again he was grateful for everything I did.
The door locked behind me as I stepped into cool twilight. Turning up my coat collar,
I walked passed his office window, the blinds still open, the lights dimmed, seeing his silhouette as he pulled a bottle of gin and a single glass from the bottom drawer of his scratched wooden desk.
##
Late Lunch
Mr. Lindell was at lunch when his daughter got to the office. He called and asked me
to keep Debbie busy, to tell her he hadn’t forgotten, to let her know he’d be there soon, that he had run late in court.
“Yeah sure,” she said. “I’ve heard that before.” Debbie triangled an elbow on the counter. Her purse slipped off her bare shoulder, so she put it on the counter, too. She grabbed a Brach’s peppermint from a dusty candy dish and popped it in her mouth, sliding the candy in and out between her glossy pink lips.
“I knew he wouldn’t show,” she said. “He likes long lunches.” Debbie walked to the window, lifting her hair and sighing, her white heels catching in the worn carpet. She sat down
in the waiting area and crossed her legs, her blue skirt hiking over her tan thighs. Her blonde hair cascaded down her back as she looked up and pulled on the ends of her paisley scarf.
“Christ,” she wailed. “Where is he?”
I glanced at the clock, remembering how Mr. Lindell had said she’d be in around 2, that he’d be a tad late, but not by much.
“You know how it goes,” he had said. “That Jensen. He gets to talking.”
I had told him not to worry, that I’d be here, both of us knowing he’d be at Fitzpatrick’s drinking tonic and gin. I thought about how my dad had done the same, saying he’d be home but not showing, pulling in late, his tires crunching, his car door creaking, his feet scraping as he mumbled his way to the front door.
“Got any coffee?” Debbie uncrossed her legs. She tapped her feet.
“I can make some,” I said.
She twirled a sparkly bracelet and asked if she could smoke. I said that was fine and pulled a green glass ashtray from my desk.
“My dad,” she said. “He’s such a loser.”
I poured water into the Mr. Coffee, half-listening as she went on about how her dad was always late, that he never did what he said he would, that he’d get mad if she did the same.
“I don’t know,” I said. “He just sounds like a lot of dads.”
Debbie came to the counter. She dug deep into her purse.
“Here you go.” She gave me a Virginia Slim then struck the flint of a silver lighter engraved with her initials. We leaned in, lighting our smokes, our heads nearly touching, the smell of her Charlie perfume mingling with the butane of the gold-blue flame.
“Does he call you his girl?” she asked.
I nodded. Her eyes fluttered.
“I don’t know how you stand it,” she said. “I suppose he’s cute, in that old man way, but come on. Working here from some two-bit lawyer is pretty boring don’t you think?”
–END–
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January 12th, 2025 at 2:40 pm
This is a vivid, well told story, with believable characters.