THE LAST DAYS OF JOANNA BROADHURST
by
Stephen M. Larson
FRIDAY, MARCH 16
The weekend began with an auspicious and well-timed thud when Russell McAllister (of New Concepts Advertising – formerly McAllister, Dunleavey, Van Cleave and Ott, until Dunleavey, Van Cleave and Ott left to start a Japanese-Norwegian catering service; but that's another story) carefully placed the immaculate rear of his artistically faded $135 ice-washed designer denims on the near corner of Joanna Broadhurst's desk, lit his 1000-candlepower boyishly charming grin, and announced, "The Volocek account is waving little red distress flags as it goes down the toilet."
Joanna, who had long ago learned to see the viper behind Russell McAllister's boyishly charming grins, shrugged with a heart that sank as fast as the account. "Russell," she said carefully, "that's precisely where that account belongs."
Russell shook his head. "Jo, you don't really mean that. I know you don't."
Joanna sighed. "You can take compost and make it look like top sirloin, but no matter how nicely you garnish it, it still tastes like something the puppy left on the floor over night."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning that the Proteus II is a pile of pigeon droppings, fit to be driven only to the nearest dump."
"You're mixing your species."
"And my metaphors, no doubt. Look, Russell, every automotive reviewer in the country considers the Proteus II a running gag. When it runs!"
"Which is why we were hired. To restyle its image."
"Russell! The car is junk! How do you 'restyle' junk?"
"Ah, that's the kind of challenge that makes this more than a job, it's an adventure!" He stood. "And the adventure continues tonight."
"Russell! I've got Matt coming over! He's cooking me dinner!"
"I can give you the number of a nice little Japanese-Norwegian catering service. Get your team together before they leave. I need a new concept by Monday. First thing. Eric!" He tossed his grin to the other side of the room and followed it over.
Joanna spent about fifteen seconds being stunned, then seized her phone. "Denny? Grab the team. We're pulling a late-nighter. Orders from God." Then she dialed an outside line. When the voicemail picked up she said, "Matt, it's me. Russell wants the Volocek team to stay over tonight. Let yourself in and keep it warm. I don't know when I'll get in, but I'll make it up to you. Don't bother returning the call; we'll be incommunicado. See you later. Love!"
When she left the office, it was nearly
SATURDAY, MARCH 17
She spent the day in the office with the Volocek team, wrenching out a campaign that wouldn't do too much damage to their ethics and credibility. The highlight of the day came at about three in the afternoon when, slightly crazed by a creativity overload and too much caffeine, they all tried to think of other uses for the Proteus II. The suggestions ranged from a planter for the
She tried several times to call Matt, but after the third time she tired of hanging up on his voicemail. Consequently, she didn’t know he’d changed his outgoing message until nearly seven, after the team had finally put together a campaign that left them at least a little self-respect.
Joanna was hoping to patch things up with a St. Patrick’s Day night on the town. She had composed and jotted down a conciliatory speech during their last exhaustion break and was mentally rehearsing it, so she almost didn't didn’t notice his new greeting. Almost.
"Hello, this is Matt DelBianco," murmured the silky baritone that had won its owner dozens of lucrative radio and television voice-overs and brought him into her life. "Leave me a message and I’ll get back to you. Unless you're Joanna Broadhurst. Then you needn't bother because frankly, Jo, I'm tired of it all. I'm tired of being put on hold every time Russell wants you to jump through hoops for him. You're a beautiful woman and dynamite in bed, but I need and deserve a little more than that. Goodbye and good luck, Jo. Everyone else, here's the beep."
Joanna was so shocked that Matt could be so classless that she hung up very quietly and gently. Then she almost called back to slam the receiver down, but that would give him too much –
"Got any plans tonight?"
"Huh?" She blinked, momentarily disoriented.
"Are you going anywhere tonight?" Denny repeated.
"Uh –" She flushed, fumbled for words. "Uh, no, no, I guess not."
"You all right?"
"Uh – yeah. Fine. What did you have in mind?"
"Just a few green beers. We're all going out and thought you and Matt might want to come along. Unless you guys have other plans?"
"That slimebag is history."
"Great! I mean, I'm sorry. I mean – does this mean I have a chance?"
"Sure." She rose, gathered her coat, her purse, and her composure, and brushed her fingers lightly across his cheek. "Just as soon as Motor Trend names the Proteus II 'Car of the Year'." She headed for the door.
"Hey, as long as there's hope!" Denny called out, and then hurried to catch up with her.
SUNDAY, MARCH 18
Joanna woke with a groan, and then spent a few minutes with her eyes closed, restructuring the previous night. It had gotten somewhat misty after the fourth or fifth beer, but she did remember them running into Russell McAllister, who had switched ancestry from Scottish to Irish for the evening. She also remembered, a couple of beers later, that Russell had shown the bartender how to make a – what was it? – an Emerald Isle, a clear, delightfully green, subtly potent mixture of his own creation. He bought them – what? – two, three rounds? – and then she remembered looking at him and thinking how incredibly attractive he really was and how surprised she was later that he actually wore clothes that hid his lean, muscular –
She froze, turned her head carefully, and opened her eyes. The sunlight on the sheets sent pain stabbing through her head, but she hardly noticed, so relieved was she to find herself alone. He had apparently let himself out afterward. Unless he was lurking elsewhere in the apartment.
She swung her feet over the side of the bed, and a wave of nausea sent her stumbling into the bathroom. She had done more drinking than eating since yesterday's lunch, so very little came up. When she was done and had rinsed her mouth, she stared at herself in the mirror. She had been drunk to sickness before, but this felt somehow – different. She carefully walked back to her bedroom, opened the nightstand drawer, and (with some hesitancy), withdrew a home pregnancy test she had bought New Year's Day in a moment of false panic.
While she waited for the results, Joanna made certain that Russell had, indeed, left, and then gagged down three acetaminophens in the futile hope of subduing the firestorm behind her eyeballs. By the time she was reasonably certain the capsules were going to stay down, the test was finished. She stared at the unmistakable brown ring and felt a momentary fear that Russell was an overachiever outside the office as well. She shook her head (an action she paid for with tears). She must still be a little drunk. It was obviously Matt's. She put six CD's of contemplative guitar and piano music on the changer and went back to bed.
MONDAY, MARCH 19
Joanna walked into New Concepts as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened over the weekend. She was momentarily shaken when she saw the members of the Volocek team; she couldn't remember whether they had parted company before or after she had invited Russell to her place. But even Denny greeted her in his usual manner, so she was able to focus completely on gathering up the Volocek files, walking to Russell McAllister's office, and knocking on the doorframe.
"Come," he called.
He was sitting at his computer terminal, his back to the door. She waited for him to turn around, then, when he didn't, announced, "The Volocek account."
He waved his hand vaguely in her direction. "On the desk, Jo. Thanks. You were great. Take the day off."
Joanna wanted to bludgeon him with his nameplate, but as she had already planned on telling him she was taking the day off, she simply said "Thank you" through gritted teeth to the back of his head and left. It wasn't until she was out of the building and halfway down the street that she realized that he hadn’t been speaking of the Volocek account.
It took three art galleries, lunch at the Russian Tea Room, a new Mykel hairstyle, and an $800 Roland Mouret outfit to calm down, but Joanna decided that it was worth the strain on her bank account. As she walked down the street she was rewarded with appreciative glances every few yards, punctuated by an occasional frank stare. By the time she was more than halfway to her apartment, she knew that she was radiating confidence and self-assurance, and that her whole manner announced to all of
And then it began to rain. Not a stray drop here and there, not a sprinkle, not even a light shower; but a downpour, a cold deluge from a cloud that had not yet even touched the setting sun. She ran to the curb to command a cab, but all were suddenly unavailable. Two minutes later, she, Mykel and Roland were all drenched anyway. She turned and splashed the rest of the way home.
TUESDAY, MARCH 20
Joanna twisted her ankle on the wet pavement as she entered the
"How's it going?" asked Heather as she set Joanna's usual bagel and chamomile tea on the counter.
"Don't ask," winced Joanna.
Heather nodded. "I know how it is."
"Somehow, I doubt it."
"No, I mean it. Honey, I don't know a whole lot you can go through that me or one of the other girls hasn't seen. Oh, our problems aren’t as upscale as yours, but hey, if my '68 Chevy gets crunched, it takes as big a chunk of my salary as if your Beemer got crunched."
"I don't own a car," snapped Joanna.
Heather was called away. When she came back, she said, "I'm sorry, Ms. Broadhurst. I didn't mean to offend you or suggest you were shallow. I was just saying, we’re not as different as it looks sometimes."
Joanna sighed. "That's all right. I think I understand."
"There’s this song, by Switchfoot, you know? It goes, ‘This is your life, are you who you want to be?’ I mean, there are lots of times I feel like I should have done something else. Sometimes I think I oughta quit here and follow my dreams, and sometimes I think I oughta just give up and – well, you know. What about you, Ms. Broadhurst? You got any dreams?"
"Years ago," Joanna mused, "before I graduated, I wanted to live in the
Heather nodded. "I wanted to be an actress. On Broadway. I still do. Sometimes that's all that keeps me from – you know. A few extra sleeping pills, or whatever."
Joanna shook her head. "See, that's where we differ. You can still go out and make your dream come true. If your life here falls apart, you have an alternative to your pills. I don't."
"I don't believe that. Everybody's got a way to escape, make their dreams come true. Even you."
Joanna shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe not. I just hope I don't ever have to make that decision. I'm afraid my dreams aren't strong enough. Oh, my Lord!" She looked at her watch. "I'm going to be late!"
"Ms. Broadhurst!" Heather called out after her. "The elevators are out! You'll have to take the stairs!"
It took Joanna nearly fifteen minutes to hobble up to the twelfth floor. Her ankle screamed every step of the way.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21
Joanna overslept and awoke with a monumental cold to go along with her morning sickness. Her ankle was still stiff and sore, and she feared that the gossip mill had finally gotten a hold of last Saturday night's indiscretion. She felt worse than she ever had before, physically and emotionally, and was considering calling in sick when the phone rang. Her machine took the message while she listened.
"Hello, Joanna. My name's Chris. I just heard how Matt dumped you, and I think it sucks. I know how you must be feeling. You sound like someone who deserves much better, and I'd like a chance to show you that not everyone is scum. We could get together tonight at the Lotus Eaters; I have a quiet table on reserve at all times on the upper level, by the fountain. Meet me at seven. I really think we'd be good for each other."
Joanna sighed. This made – let's see – twenty-three since Saturday. At least the other twenty-two had been men. This decided it, though. If they were going to begin calling during the day now, she'd rather take her chances with Russell. And she would have to go out anyway. She’d never been fond of cell phones and had held on to her landline; now it seemed she’d be forced to make the change. As she left, the phone rang again, and she thought, Thanks, Matt, this is another one I owe you!
The elevators were still out, and now the gaping shafts exhaled a stale, wet, mildewed odor. The
By mid-afternoon, after a trip to the bank on her lunch-hour and a brief phone call to set up an appointment at a clinic for April 6, Joanna felt she had things at least somewhat under control. She was able to accept Denny's disquieting sidelong glances and Russell's occasional leer with complete serenity. Of course, the half-dozen borrowed antibiotics floating about in her system may have had a lot to do with it. Still, whatever the reason, she was actually feeling nearly human when she left the office to visit the twelfth floor rest room.
It was quite a testimony to at least one of the decongestants that Joanna's first warning came via her nose. She had just identified the smell as insecticide when the drain in the center of the floor began to seethe. She caught sight of it in the mirror and her eyes widened. Before she could do more than gasp and cover her mouth, the drain boiled over with scores of shiny, brown cockroaches. Several generations were being forced up and out of this one forgotten escape hatch by massive fumigation efforts far below. The creatures had clearly had fertile feeding and breeding territory; the smallest was no less than an inch and a quarter long, and many were easily twice that.
Fascination and disgust rooted Joanna to the floor as she watched wave upon wave scuttle over the tiles in a frantic effort to find safety. She felt as if she had suddenly been dropped onto the set of a horror film. She had never before experienced such concentrated revulsion, and the pure novelty of the situation kept her in place much longer than she would have thought possible. Then they began to fly.
That did it. She swatted and ducked, then grabbed her purse and ran, hearing and feeling her shoes crunch. Her stomach convulsed, but she fought back successfully, knowing that the alternative was to return to the toilets. She dashed out of the restroom and down the hall, stopping at the New Concepts door to catch her breath and still her trembling. Then she strode in as firmly as she could on her newly-throbbing ankle, straightened her desk, gathered her things, informed Russell that she did not feel well, and left. Both elevators gaped wide with ropes across their openings and no promise yet of repair. As the stairway door closed behind her, Joanna could hear a shriek from the bathroom at the other end of the hall. However, she was able to keep a tight grip on her emotions until much later when, in her apartment, she removed a tissue from her purse and found two of the largest roaches clinging to it. Then she indulged herself in a very satisfying fit of hysterics.
THURSDAY, MARCH 22
The day began on a note of hope. The super had agreed to an emergency spraying in her apartment; something in her voice had warned him not to argue. She had cancelled her landline and gotten a good deal on a cell phone on her way to work. It was still raining steadily and that smell from the shafts had grown stronger, but at least one of the elevators was back in operation. And although Denny was still acting a little funny, Russell had finally struck a balance between smirking at her and ignoring her. Even her cold and her twisted ankle had improved.
Joanna put in a satisfying day's work. Then, shortly before leaving, she went to the restroom. They had been assured that every little visitor had been mercilessly eradicated and the twelfth floor facilities disinfected to hospital standards, but the first time Joanna had stepped through the door, the simple sight of the drain had sent her one floor down, to Accounting. She was now there in one of the stalls when two women from the eleventh floor came in. Joanna ignored their chatter until one suddenly changed topics.
"So, what's this I hear about Russell? Did he really score with Broadhurst, upstairs?"
"Last Saturday night."
"Who won the pool?"
"Donna, in Payroll."
"That pretty much takes care of all of 'em up there, doesn't it?"
"Not quite. There's a new girl in the art department, Deirdre Something-or-other, he hasn't done yet. I'm collecting the bets on her."
"How old is she?"
"Twenty-five, same as him."
"Pretty?"
"A knockout."
"Has tomorrow been taken? What about tonight? Put me down for tonight, then."
Joanna waited a few minutes after they had gone before she left the stall and the restroom. She was furious – at them, at Russell, at herself. She spoke to no one as she gathered her coat and purse and left. At the elevator, she waited in silence. Several of her coworkers noticed her staring at the open shaft next to them.
When she got to her apartment, the smell of the insecticide finished what the overheard conversation had begun. She barely made it to the kitchen sink before she was violently ill. Then, in her living room, she noticed that her cat had eaten half of her favourite plant, insecticide and all. The plant would survive. The cat hadn't.
She spent most of the night crying.
FRIDAY, MARCH 23
Although Joanna spent the day at her desk, she did little work. Most of the time she spent staring at her papers and drawing table, her mind lost in a miasma of depression and anger. She wanted nothing to do with New Concepts or with Russell the boy genius and walking hormone; she wanted nothing to do with Matt and his bastard; she wanted nothing to do with Denny and Deirdre and all the rest of the counterfeit humans in this building who should have been destroyed with the rest of the roaches; and she mostly wanted nothing to do with Joanna Broadhurst, fool, laughingstock, desperately old at thirty-five.
"Guess what," said Russell as he planted his designer posterior on the edge of Joanna's desk midway between her and the far corner. "The Volocek account exploded on launch."
She stared at him, silent.
His grin never faltered. "Yeah, I thought it was brilliant, but their brass thought it was too whimsical, or some such crap."
She didn’t stir.
"So you're going to have to pull another weekender, Jo. But this time, don't bother calling in the team. I'm going to tackle this one with you."
"What's the matter? Deirdre didn't give you a tumble last night?" Joanna spoke more loudly than she intended, and the muffled hum of the office, which had already softened with Russell's approach, now ceased altogether.
Russell's grin, without lessening, chilled several degrees. "I beg your pardon?" he said quietly.
"No!" snapped Joanna. "You got my sweat, my soul, and – yes, damn you – my body. My pardon you will never get! And I will not work with you tonight or any other night, on the Volocek account or any other little project you might have in mind!"
"Then you no longer work here at all." He strode back to his office. In the silence, a pencil fell to the carpet somewhere. It made a very loud noise.
Joanna emptied her desk. Denny started forward to help, but she waved him back. When she was finished, she looked around and smiled. Several later described a strange chill that accompanied that smile. Then she picked up the small pile of her belongings and walked out the door. That was the last time any of them ever saw her.
They found a few of Joanna's possessions a half-hour later, on the floor just outside the open elevator shaft, but thought little of it. Over the weekend, Denny tried to contact her several times, going to her door in person since Personnel had not yet been given her new cell number. A neighbor finally told him Sunday night that she had not been seen all weekend. So on Monday morning, on a hunch, he took a flashlight to the basement of the
Rumors, of course, spread like the latest disease. What emerged, stripped of speculation, was actually very little. Joanna Broadhurst had vanished, leaving behind everything but her bank account, which had been emptied the previous Wednesday. Investigators turned up an April 6th appointment at an abortion clinic, also made that Wednesday. No one was surprised when the appointment was neither kept nor cancelled. They had, after all, found her briefcase, her papers, and everything from her desk, piled at the bottom of the elevator shaft. They also found bloodstains on and around the briefcase. That forensic experts had identified the blood as rodent made little difference. That they had found no body made even less. What they did find, in addition to Joanna's property, was a recently opened fissure, a crack just wide enough for a woman to squeeze through, caused apparently by the settling of the building in earth saturated with week-long rains. The crack opened directly into the storm sewer, the source of the odd smell that had been percolating through the building. It also became the source of the popular explanation, which eventually became official – that Joanna Broadhurst, despondent over the double collapse of her personal life and her career, had thrown herself down the elevator shaft. The fall had injured but not killed her; disoriented, she had found and squeezed through the fault into the storm sewer, where the flood waters had drowned her and swept her body into the river, which, in turn, had dumped it into the harbor and, eventually, into the sea and beyond all human ken.
Russell McAllister delivered a beautiful and eloquent eulogy to the staff of New Concepts, praising Joanna's character and abilities with the same deftness and imagery that had won him a half-dozen Clios. Then he announced a series of promotions, culminating with Deirdre Clark. His hand on her shoulder would later alert the eleventh floor pool that they had a winner. The Volocek team held a wake to which they quietly forgot to invite Russell, and at which Denny was absent. He spoke to no one at New Concepts about Joanna, and no one bothered to ask why he spent a half-hour every morning in the basement, or why he quit New Concepts a month later to join the Land of the Midnight Sushi Japanese-Norwegian Catering Service. And Matt DelBianco showed up at Joanna's apartment as it was being cleared out to claim several items as his, and then vanished again.
For the next six months, March 23 was known in the
Joanna Broadhurst, however, was not entirely forgotten. A postcard, addressed simply to Heather in the Randolph Building Coffee Shop, arrived about eighteen months after Joanna's disappearance. Devoid of any written message or return address beyond a
THE END
Copyright ©2001 by Stephen M. Larson