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Blue Moon 5.1

by Donna Lamb

Jo went up to the third floor on the elevator then pushed open the door of the office where she had worked for the last four years. Her heart pounded in her ears, she felt pins and needles all over and she gasped for breath.

Sandra Tillotson, the blonde receptionist, sat at the front desk, smiling up at her. "May I help you?" she asked.

"Sandy, it's m-m-m...."

"Oh, Melody!" Sandy interrupted. "What did you do to your hair?" Reflexively, she fluffed her own hair. She frowned. "I don't think it suits you, hon. Makes you look too much like a boy."

"M-m-m-" Jo struggled to speak, stunned.

"Barry's not here," Sandy said helpfully.

Annoyed -- she hated it when people tried to finish her sentences -- Jo glanced at the desk on the right hand wall. It looked dusty (also a little blurry). Someone had turned it ninety degrees from the angle she remembered it being set at so that a person sitting there would be facing a wall instead of the room. Too, plastic dust covers hid all the equipment on top of the desk and in place of the large 17" monitor Joel had bought in December, the smaller lump under the dust cover indicated that no one had replaced the old 14" one. The half-partition marking off Joel's old workspace had also migrated to include one of Joel's file cabinets in Sandy's area.

"Do I w-w-w-" Jo began.

"Sure, you can wait for Barry. He should be here soon. Go on into his office if you like," said Sandy. She leaned forward, almost whispering, "Alison isn't here yet, either."

Jo glanced at the other desk in the front room, at the left end next to the door to the break and copy room. Alison Mohr, the office manager, didn't like extra people in the office. Jo wanted to bite her lip. She looked again at her own empty desk and struggled not to cry. "M-m-my...."

Sandy said, "We all miss your brother very much." She looked very solemn while she said it.

"M-my b-b-b-b-" babbled Jo, feeling the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. She'd heard the expression, "someone walking on my grave" before but now she knew what it meant.

Sandy pointed at the door to the large corner office. "Go on in, hon. Is Barry expecting you?" The other smaller, inner office belonged to Laurence Dunveldt, the legislative assistant who traveled with Barry between Sacramento and Monrovia.

"N-no," said Jo, stuttering on a word she normally had no problem with. It had taken Joel six months to break Sandy of finishing his sentences and now.... Jo fled into Barry's private office to avoid screaming or crying. Joel's dead, I'm my own sister, and my name is Melody? Overwhelmed, she collapsed on the padded leather couch in front of the window.

After sitting for a several minutes trying to take it all in, she got up and sat behind Barry's desk to dial a number that she knew much better than the office number. After two rings, someone picked up.

"Messenger," said a familiar voice.

"M-mom?" Jo said.

"Melody, honey! Where are you? I've been worried sick!"

Before Jo -- or Melody -- could reply, the office door swung open and Barry Aronhaus rushed in with a briefcase in his hand. "For God's sake, Melody," he said, "what are you doing here? You're such a ditz!"

"Melody?" said the phone.

Six feet five of fifty-year-old, blond-but-slightly-balding, ex-quarterback strode across the room, blue eyes shining with alarm. Barry stepped around the desk, set down his briefcase, plucked the phone from Jo's hand and hung it up, practically all at once. "My wife's right behind me, sweetie," he said. Then he kissed her, with tongue, squeezed her ass in one large hand and hustled her toward a connecting door. "Hide in Larry's office till she's gone, would you, Cupcakes?"

He opened the door, patted her ass again and kissed her cheek, then pushed her through and shut and locked the door. Jo stood there, lips burning, breasts aching and with a peculiar warm, wet feeling in her crotch.

Larry, a slender older man entered his office and looked her over. "Barry's a son of a bitch, isn't he?" he said as if it were the beginning of a conversation he had had before. "I told him he couldn't keep his girlfriend and his wife in the same town. It's just asking for trouble."