“Mrs. Carr is out sick,” he said brusquely, offering no apology.

Well, she’d probably made herself sick from all that stress of keeping schedules and whatnot, was what Vivian was thinking when the door behind her swung open and a large man entered. She turned to see he was holding his hat in his hand and seemed to be in a hurry.

“Please . . .” Vivian gestured for the man to go ahead of her, while she tried to think of what to do.

The young man behind the counter raised his eyebrows at Vivian and then shrugged, turning his attention to the large man holding the hat.

“How can I help you?”

The large man nodded at Vivian and stepped up, laying his hat on the counter.

“I need to register this deed for my property,” the large man said, pulling a crumpled envelope from his coat.

“Yes, sir,” the man behind the counter said. “Do you have an appointment?”

“Um . . .” The large man cleared his throat. “No.”

The younger man sighed again, and a smirk sneaked up around Vivian’s lips.

“Well, did you bring your identification?”

The large man began rummaging around his inside coat pockets and finally withdrew a black leather wallet.

Identification. Vivian’s smirk pulled into a frown as she looked down at the floor. She then very slowly turned on her heel and walked out the door to the office with her gloves in her hand, down the hallway, and out into the cold daylight. The fresh air would help her think, and the cigarette was something she should’ve had before she went in there. Her hands shook as she held the lighter up to the end of the cigarette balancing from the corner of her lips and she cursed under her breath. Goddammit.

She looked around for somewhere to sit. Why wasn’t there a stupid bench at this stupid place? She looked all around her at the stupid civic building, which was supposed to be there for the stupid citizens of the stupid place, wasn’t it? She leaned up against the beige bricks and tried to untangle the mess in her head. Mildred. Son. License. Jesus Christ almighty. Brucie. A black-and-white police car rolled by the building and her heartbeat sped up as she watched it pass. It took her seven minutes to smoke the Lucky Strike, and seven minutes to figure out a way around the identification problem.

She stomped the Lucky out under the toe of her nice new ankle boots, which did make her smile when she looked at them, and then walked back to her car, unlocked the door, and climbed into the driver’s seat. Vivian thought about the young man behind the counter, and her own job at Bell. She remembered those early days at the switchboard when she’d connect or disconnect callers based on her moods and whims, the day she’d stood and wiped out a dozen calls with one sweep of her arm.