Chapter Fourteen
Pee Stick
It was with this “ah shucks” naivety that I walked upstairs the next day to the accounting floor of The Shop to see my sister, Sophie, at her desk.
Sophie had always been the true genius of our family. She was two years my elder and had graduated before me from the Big City University, also with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. She'd been my inspiration to follow that path – her ability with machines. When she was ten she had taken the family radio apart. Not a particularly unique feat, but she was actually able to put it back together again. At twelve, she had adapted an old automobile to run strictly on McTavish. She was amazing with anything mechanical.
She had graduated magna cum laude from University, within the top one hundred of her class, and had actually fielded offers for jobs in the engineering profession. But she had gotten married in her senior year, to a guy in her class named Alan, whose job prospects had not been as outstanding as her own. When our father had suggested they both return to Boot Hill, that he could find employment for both Sophie and Alan at The Shop, they'd taken him up on his offer. They'd settled down into the leisurely pace of Boot Hill and a small concrete bungalow not far from my father's.
They had been working together at The Shop the two years I had been away finishing my degree, Alan in transportation, where he'd made himself almost indispensable, and my sister in accounting, handling the books. If she found the work stimulating, I could scarcely imagine, but the pair, at least outwardly, appeared happy. My sister and I had always been close – after our mother had died, she'd stepped into the motherly role as best she could – but since returning to Boot Hill, we had hardly had a chance to see one another. Mitty's Plan had come up and Sophie had her household duties to see to on top of her normal work day.
Perhaps over the years we had drifted apart some. It was only natural. But that morning, when I stopped by her desk to enlist her help with my little Form 24-01 problem, I could have hardly anticipated her reaction:
“You're fucking kidding me?!” Sophie said loud enough that all the short-sleeved, tie-wearing accountants could hear her. She looked up from her balance sheet and gave me a look of disgusted horror.
“Will you keep your voice down?” I said through my teeth.
“I will not keep my fucking voice down!” She said. She wasn't. “Three fucking weeks on the job and already you've fucked it up. I cannot believe you, Andrew. You're like a fucking child! Running to me every time you made a mistake. Well not this time, Andrew. No!” She wheeled her chair away from her desk and pulled open a drawer. She started digging angrily around inside, still cursing. “You're a grown adult with a grown adult job. If you've forgot a fucking form, tough! There's numbers on those damn things for a reason, you pecker-head!”
The third drawer she tried, the one top right, had what she was looking for. A pack of Jefferson's and matches. She grabbed them, slammed the drawer shut and sprang to her feet. Without another word she stormed off across the accounting office, pulling a cigarette out of the pack and putting it in her mouth.
I followed after her, trying to make calming noises, but she strided determinedly ahead. She threw open a glass door and stepped out onto a high balcony looking down over The Shop's main yard. I followed. Blue-shirted workers moved below us.
Sophie lit her cigarette and took a long drag.
“Jesus, Sophie!” I said as the door closed, feeling free to talk in the breeze. “Who stuck a finger up your ass?”
“I'm just sick of it, Andy! Every time you make a mess it's me who has to clean it up!”
“It's just a stupid form...”
“Yes! A stupid fucking form you lost. It's your problem. Don't come crying to me.”
“Sophie...” I was trying to keep my temper.
“Fuck!” she yelled off the balcony. “It doesn't matter, anyway. There's fuck-all I can do to help you, regardless. I've been given my thirty days.”
Thirty days. Termination. The Ax.
“What?” I almost laughed. “They? Firing you?”
“No, no, not fired...” she said, suddenly calmer. “Maternity...” She took another drag on her cigarette.
“What?!” My eyes almost popped from their sockets. I was going to be an uncle! “Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” Sophie said unhappily, like the news was a death sentence. “I went to see Doctor Reese last week. He had me pee on a stick. I guess they can tell from that – the pee stick...”
“Have you told Dad?”
“No!” she snapped angrily. “And neither will you. I'll tell him when I'm ready.”
“But,” I began, looking back through the glass at the short-sleeved, tie-wearing accountants. “Thirty days? Doesn't it usually take nine months?”
Sophie had finished her cigarette and she snuffed it out in the sand ashtray beside the railing. “Dead men's boots,” she said. “And pregnant? You might as well be dead. You know there's a dozen guys just waiting to step into my job. And the thing about guys, you know? They don't get pregnant. I guess I shouldn't complain. They only gave me this job 'cause of Dad. Easy come... And Alan is still down in transportation. He'll be up for a promotion in a year...”
“But... but,” I tried to think of something clever, comforting to say.
“So you get an idea of how much I give a shit about your fucking form!” Sophie found her anger again, swinging back open the door. “We've all got problems, Andrew,” she said, stepping through.
I let the door close behind her, loitering on the balcony. I looked down at the yard below, at the people moving about.
I let the news sink in.
I was happy – I was going to an uncle – but my sister... it didn't seem right that she was going to lose her job because she was pregnant. I was a guy, I'd never have that problem, but if you were going to pick an employee to fire, between my sister and myself, you'd be a fool to keep me. Or Alan, for that matter. The tartarhead. Wasn't he sort of pregnant, too? Wasn't he expecting a kid? If they had an ounce of sense they'd fire him and keep Sophie on. But I guess that wasn't the way it worked.
Still, it seemed like a colossal waste. Sophie was a genius. A genuine one, not like me. She was going to make a great mom, but to make a mom all she was going to be...
It didn't really seem fair.