Her coworkers were aware, however, that Jane was getting married, the rush nature of the wedding, and the possibility that Hal would be Hal. If Jane found two women she could trust, at least she wouldn’t have to explain the basics to them. She could also — in theory — raid their personnel files prior to asking them.
Jane started in Legal, as it was the smallest department and both employees were female.
The station’s lawyer, Virginia Jijon-Caamano, could be considered her friend; certainly they had fought battles together to clean up Hal’s messes. They shared “tall blonde” fist bumps when Virginia got Hal out of trouble — again. Jane was fairly sure that Virginia had been the one who told Dmitri about Jane getting married. Someone in Legal had because they were worried that Taggart was taking advantage of her. It fit into Virginia’s MO of seeing her coworkers as extended family. Although, Dmitri had added that Jane scared Legal. Jane was fairly sure that the only thing that scared Virginia was her kids getting bad grades.
“Jane!” Virginia greeted her with a warm smile. She was immaculately dressed as always in a freshly ironed white button-down blouse, a short black skirt that showed off her long legs, and a set of heels that closed her two-inch height difference with Jane. “What did Hal do now?”
“Hopefully, nothing, but it’s been a few minutes since I last saw him.” Jane paused and listened. No screaming. That was a good sign that the snake had been safely contained.
Virginia laughed, focusing back on what she had been doing, which was swapping out photographs of her children. They jumped forward in age by at least three or four years even as Jane looked on. The elementary school little kids became tall high school students. The last photograph was a group shot where Virginia’s two girls were as tall as their mother and her son towered over her by a full head.
“Wow, your kids grew up fast,” Jane said as she mentally adjusted Virginia’s age. She thought of the woman as “only slightly older than me” but obviously Virginia was closer to Jane’s mother’s age. “They were just little things when I started.”
Virginia laughed. “Yes, my husband and I had started the ‘where do we want to retire’ discussion. It’s all moot now.”
“You weren’t staying on Elfhome?” Jane asked with surprise.
“We couldn’t stay. We’re both on work visas. Once we retired, we would lose our visas. None of our children were born here. Once we retired, like it or not, the entire family would need to leave.”
Jane wanted to say that it was terrible to be forced to leave the only home that the children probably remembered. If Virginia’s kids were like Jane’s classmates, though, having both a home and a good job usually wasn’t possible in Pittsburgh. Jobs that required advanced degrees went to the best qualified, which were the people who went to Earth’s finest schools. Those were colleges that kids from Pittsburgh rarely could attend for various reasons, starting with money, but it boiled down to the fact that Pittsburgh simply didn’t have the resources to maintain a world-class high school.
“How can I help you today?” Virginia asked.
Jane’s mother might say “any woman” but Jane knew that her mother wouldn’t want a stranger as old as herself as part of the wedding party. The unspoken criteria included young, tall, and photogenic. Her mother might dream of possible daughter-in-law candidates as part of the mix but Jane wasn’t about to go down that road.
“I wanted to double-check,” Jane lied only slightly. “After the wedding, Taggart doesn’t need anything beyond his visa and the wedding license to finalize his citizenship with the EIA?”
“Yes. I’ve triple-checked for you, even though that’s all moot for now. If Taggart has any problems at all, he’s to call me. I’ll come down and mow through the red tape. They weeded out all the oni moles that made that department hell to work with, but the people left are all kind of clueless.”
Jane glanced into the cubbyhole office that belonged to Virginia’s paralegal assistant, Makayla Friedman. The girl was in her early twenties, reasonably tall, photogenic, and a fashion horse; Jane had never seen the girl in the same outfit twice. Makayla would be able to hold her own, surrounded by Jane and her statuesque family. Jane considered the girl annoyingly perky but she was good at keeping secrets. Her office, however, was empty. “Where is Makayla?”
Virginia sighed. “She’s probably in the restroom, fixing her makeup again.”
“Again?” Jane echoed. She had never seen the girl fiddle with her makeup while they were grinding through one of Hal’s messes; Makayla always looked so flawless that she seemed unreal.
Virginia pursed her lips, considering what to tell Jane before admitting, “Makayla’s not taking things well since the gate failed and stranded her in Pittsburgh. She had ambitions that this office was just a stepping-stone for her. It’s difficult to pour your life into one direction and suddenly — through events that you couldn’t possibly control — lose all of it. She’s spending her breaks in the restroom, crying as quietly as she can. Poor girl. She ends up looking like a raccoon. I suggested that she stop wearing so much eye makeup but she says putting it on calms her.”
What came out of the restroom was a far cry from perky. Makayla was holding a tissue to her nose as if it was still dripping. She hadn’t gotten all of the ruined mascara cleaned off; there was a faint dark mask around her eyes, which were red and moist with tears.
“Damn cheap drugstore makeup,” Makayla growled in greeting. “I was supposed to get an order of Urban Decay in August.”
Jane was fairly sure that the paralegal was talking about makeup, not the parts of Pittsburgh that were in disrepair. Urban Decay seemed an odd name for cosmetics. Jane wasn’t sure what to say in response — which was the normal problem she had with women that worked at WQED. They might be her gender but they came from another world. They’d been to college, flown in airplanes, seen mountains, oceans, and the great lakes. Most of them had never fired a gun, killed an animal, or seen a walking tree. The lack of common ground kept most conversations focused on work.
Makayla wore what was cutting fashion for Earth: a bold, pink paisley sleeveless blouse, a white pencil-skirt that could nearly classify as a miniskirt, and clunky, thick-soled platform shoes. It was stylish and good looking (except for the shoes, in Jane’s opinion) but anyone could identify Makayla at a glance as someone who hadn’t been born in Pittsburgh. It always made Jane feel slightly underdressed when she was at the office, even when she tried dressing up for a production meeting, like she was now.
Makayla clunked past Jane, heading for her desk. “I’m running out of everything! I used up my Kona coffee, my boba tea supplies, and my Dr. Jart cryo rubber face masks. I’m down to my last six-pack of San Pellegrino. My parents were supposed to mail me a care package last Shutdown for my — my — my birthday!” She covered her face with her carefully manicured hands. “My mother wanted me to come home for the summer! Now I’m never going to see my family ever again!”
“I doubt that very much,” Virginia said calmly. “WTAE reported that Princess Tinker had the EIA clear the Squirrel Hill Tunnel for her so she could build a land-based gate inside of them.”
“Chloe Polanski made that up!” Makayla wailed. “Polanski was an oni mole! Hannah called me in hysterics from WTAE’s legal department. She wanted to know if we had any job openings; she’s desperate to jump ship. Polanski lied about everything: she gave their HR a fake home address and emergency contact information. All the photos of ‘her family’ are off of Shutterstock. The EIA searched her desk and found it booby-trapped with enough C4 to take out the entire floor. HR is pointing fingers at Hannah’s department, saying that they thought Legal did a background check when they did Polanski’s visa paperwork. Hannah wasn’t even out of high school when that happened. When you go back and review Polanski’s news stories from this summer, you can see she planted misinformation all over the place. Who was behind Windwolf’s disappearance. What killed his bodyguard. How the shoot-out on Veterans Bridge started. Where the oni might be holding Princess Tinker. The Squirrel Hill Tunnel was just more of the same: the vicereine never talked about why she was at the tunnel during the interview; Polanski tacked that on afterward in her summation. No one questions a field reporter making educated guess; it’s assumed that time will tell if they’re right or wrong.”