“Marilyn, you’re my very best friend in the whole office, so if I tell you, you’ve got to promise -”
“My lips will be sealed as tightly as a vacuum-packed sack of Fuller fertilizer. Now come on, Shirley. You can trust me. Tell me what happened, already.”
“Well, Marilyn,” Shirley confessed in a very low voice, “the truth is I had this assignation in the storeroom.”
“In the storeroom? Where they keep the samples of shi—fertilizer? How could you, Shirley?”
“It’s not as bad as it sounds. We’re secretly engaged.”
“From the way that fertilizer smells, you won’t keep that secret long. You might as well make love on the floor of the john.”
“Don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it,” Clytemnestra hissed to Penny.
“My nose is starting to bleed,” Penny noticed. “I should throw my head back.”
“Well, you can’t. So just forget about it. It’s probably just psychosomatic anyway.”
“No, it’s not. I cut it shaving.”
“Your nose? How could you cut your nose shaving?”
“Just inexperienced, I guess.”
“Shh! They’ll hear you. Look, I’ll hold my finger under it and maybe that will help. Now just shush!”
“Marilyn, I don’t like your attitude. I don’t think I’m going to confide in you anymore.”
“Don’t be ridic, Shirley. Who else can you tell if not your best friend in the whole office. And how can I help you cook up a story to explain being caught with your girdle down by half the New York City Police Department if you don’t tell me how it happened. Now then, just who was this assignation with? Who’s the fella you’re secretly engaged to?”
“You promise not to tell, Marilyn?”
“I promise. I promise.”
“All right.” Shirley took a deep breath. “My affianced is none other than Mr. A. K. Fuller himself.” There was a note of pride in Shirley’s voice.
“The boss?” Marilyn sounded stunned.
Focusing upside-down eyes, Penny stared into the suddenly gnashing teeth of Clyternnestra.
“The boss.” Despite everything, Shirley sounded smug. “That sonofabitch!” Marilyn snarled.
“What’s the matter?”
“Didn’t you say you were secretly engaged to him?”
“That’s right.”
“And you have assignations with him in the storeroom?”
“Well . . . yes.” Shirley sounded puzzled at Marilyn’s attitude.
“I’ve got a flash for you, Shirl. You’ve been had.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean we’ve both been had. You see, Shirl, I’m secretly engaged to Mr. A. K. Fuller too, and we’ve been having assignations in his office during lunch hour.”
Penny wondered if vision was playing tricks. Could that actually be foam on Clytemnestra’s lips?
“In his office!” Shirley was enraged. “And he made me meet him in the storeroom with all that crap!”
“Well, at least you made it during working hours. I didn’t even get any time off,” Marilyn reminded her. “I haven’t eaten lunch in six weeks!”
Even upside-down Clytemnestra’s face resembled a lioness about to explode from an overdose of hashish. The fingers which had been stemming Penny’s nosebleed were now twisting the nose viciously. In vain Penny tried to pull away.
“What’s the matter?” Tears of pain blurred Penny’s vision. “What’s wrong?”
“That lousy bastard!” Clytemnestra spat. “I was supposed to be secretly engaged to him. We were making it in the broom closet every day during the four o’clock coffee break!”
“How does he get away with it?” Penny wondered in a whisper.
“He’s Fuller fertilizer! That’s how! Fuller fertilizer! He’s fulla crap! That’s what he is!” Clytemnestra fumed.
“But how could he keep it up? Three girls . . . Every day . . .”
“It must be all the fertilizer he eats!” Clytemnestra hissed bitterly. “Him and that fertilizer-eating grin of his! And when I think of how guilty I used to feel because of that bit of hanky-panky you and I had behind the water cooler!”
“Not to mention today,” Penny reminded her. “People in glass lavatories shouldn’t throw stones.”
“What gets me is that I’m his secretary!” Clytemnestra waved the reminder away. “And me he took to the broom closet while that bitch at least had the comfort of the couch in his office. I’m his secretary! I should have had the couch and he should have taken her to the broom closet.”
“But then you wouldn’t have become so adept at the vertical position,” Penny suggested.
“Ahh, shut up! You men are all alike!”
“That’s what you think,” Penny said a bit ruefully.
“Shush! I want to hear what they’re saying now.”
“. . . still don’t understand how you ended up with your girdle down in front of a bunch of cops.” Marilyn’s voice.
“What happened was he took me into the storeroom as usual,” Shirley explained. “He pulled my girdle down and my dress up and he was just about to—-you know-—when somebody started calling his name from outside. He whispered to me to keep quiet and lie still and he went outside to head them off before they could come into the storeroom and maybe find us there. The sonofabitch! I couldn’t have done anything but lie quiet even if I wanted to-—-not the way he had that girdle pulled down so my legs were pinned. And do you know what he did? Do you know what he did?” Shirley’s voice rose hysterically.
“No. What?”
“He actually threw some sacks of fertilizer over me so if anybody stuck their head in the storeroom they wouldn’t see me there! That’s what he did!”
“Oh, my! That’s awful! At least I had the couch!” Marilyn sounded just a little smug.
Clytemnestra gave Penny’s nose a particularly savage twist.
“Anyway,” Shirley continued, “after a while he came back, and that’s when he told me about Potter, the Comptroller, and the robbery. He was sure it was Potter because Potter was the only one besides him with the combination to the safe. He was puzzled about why Potter only took the ten thousand and left the rest though. He said he’d called the cops, and I’d better get back into my girdle. I was trying to explain to him how he’d have to help me when suddenly he snaps his fingers and says something about how he forgot and left the safe open. And he throws the fertilizer sacks back over me and runs out again. But I guess he never got back to lock the safe. It was only a minute or two when I hear all kinds of noise from outside and I realize the cops are there. I’ll say this for A. K. Fuller: he tried to keep them out of the storeroom. But they just brushed right past him and the next thing I knew they were all around me with their jaws hanging open and me trying to pull back into the girdle and not able even to walk away until you came along to help me, Marilyn. It was awful!” Shirley started sniffling again. “What am I going to say? How can I explain?”
“Tell them you had an itch and you had to get your girdle off to scratch it,” Marilyn suggested.
“But that’s so unfeminine!”
“What choice have you got? Either you’re an unfeminine ass-scratcher, or you’re pegged the office roundheels. Which is it going to be?”
“All right. I’ll say I went into the storeroom to scratch. All I hope is that A. K. Fuller at least worries it’s venereal.”
“That’s the ticket. Chin up, Shirley. Now let’s march out of here and face the fuzz!” The door to the ladies’ room squeaked shut behind them.
“Will you please let go of my nose now!” Penny pleaded.
“I’m sorry, darling.” Clytemnestra looked at him with her eyes brimming. “What’s the matter?” she asked solicitously.
“A crick in my back. I can’t straighten up. I may never straighten up again. I’ll have to go through life in the shape of a permanent question-mark.”