Chapter Thirty Three

As I got closer I could see the woman was a good friend of mine that had worked with me at the accounting firm of Foot, Carp, and Thor. She and I had our desks side by side in the "bullpen" there for several years. We were very close in a work kind of way. Every time one of our co-workers did something stupid or something mean, she would point out their flaws, secretly to me. Every time a manager would act like an ass, we would hate them together. We were an army of two. She and I would frequently eat lunch together and share our hopes and joys. It was a marriage without rings in our office without walls.

Once, when we were newly acquainted, a partner Mr. Carp, who was obviously gay, came up from behind me and started rubbing my shoulders. He began discussing my future with the company. He told me that he thought I was bright and a hard worker, and he handed me a cigar, patting me on the back as he walked away.

"Are you going to smoke that?" She asked.

"I think I sort of have to." just a little embarrassed that I had received the attention and not her.

"Lucky man." She said, looking down at her desk. "Lucky, lucky man."

"Why am I so lucky."

"Most of the men here have to lick his butt to get ahead."

"I don't think I'll be doing that." I sternly replied.

"If you put that cigar in your mouth you will."

I waited until I got outside to throw it in the trash.

Lynette had a coarser sense of humor than me, having grown up in a trailer in the hills of Muhlenberg County Kentucky. At first I found it a little off-putting, but after a few months I came to look forward to her brashness.

Cheryl, a very obese woman, worked in our section. She was very bad at her job, and frequently critical about the work of others. Part of Lynette's job was double checking Cheryl's work. Many times the information was so poorly done that she would end up doing the job from scratch, basically making Cheryl useless. Usually she would put the work back on Cheryl's desk without a word, knowing that any mention of her ridiculous performance would send Cheryl into a crazed rant, or what Lynette would call 'Mad cow disease."

In one instance, when Cheryl had done a particularly bad job, that could've cost a client their business had it gone unchecked, Lynette plopped the file down in Cheryl's abundant lap. "Do you ever eat at Chin's Garden?" She asked.

"Oh I used to." She replied hastily."But the portions are so small, and the servers are so rude, I won't go back there anymore. Why do you ask Hon?"

"I was just going to say, if this report got filed the way you did it, nobody would ever eat there again. As a matter of fact Mr. Chin would probably get deported after they let him out of prison." Lynette focused her steely green eyes into Cheryl's glazed over peeps.

Cheryl grabbed a compact from her purse and opened it. She used the tiny mirror to carefully place each perfectly aligned spit curl on her tight, brown, middle aged hairdo. This was her common reaction to conflict. Her fat little fingers worked like a machine, pulling out the already exacting follicles and placing them back in the same spot they were before, all the while muttering unflattering comments about her seldom vicious attacker. It was ironic that the bulk of her bulk was a mess. She wore terrible, ill fitting clothes that did little to flatter her horrible shape. She was strikingly lazy about trying to make herself healthy or attractive, but her hair was perfect.

Lynette spun on her heels and as she walked away said. "If you really wanna get somewhere, you should get a bigger mirror."

A few years before I had my brain damaged, Lynette was the victim of uterine cancer. It sneaked up on her and put my friend on her death bed, way before her time. I was at her side just before she passed away. She told me that when she got to heaven she would get the place straightened out so it would be perfect by the time I arrived. She also said that if she knew what was eventually going to happen to her Uterus she would have used it a lot more. Lynette went out as feisty as she came in.

Now she was standing at the base of the bridge, waving with one hand and holding a beer with the other. She was wearing a turquoise, jersey top, shorts, and flip flops. Her outfit answered one burning question I had about heaven. Is there a Wal-mart there?

She practically yanked me from the boat, hugged me, kissed me, put a fresh can of beer in my right hand and a cigarette in the left. "C'mon." She urged. "The band is about to play Free Bird." It was her favorite song. We jumped into her 1968 Plymouth Road Runner and she turned the roaring engine over. She opened the glove compartment and pulled out a foam rubber sleeve. "Put this around your beer...It'll keep it cold!"