Nadirah sat in the lab, heart beating a little quicker than usual in anticipation of meeting Joni. Concentrating on her work had been a real challenge, and the morning seemed to drag on and on forever. Nadirah kept wondering if Joni would recognize her and how she would react if she did.
The door to the laboratory room finally opened, and in walked Joni.
“Hi,” said the girl in a friendly voice.
“Hi,” Nadirah said flatly as Joni turned to shut the door.
With the door shut, Joni turned to face Nadirah, who stood perhaps five or six feet away from her. Joni’s mossy green eyes locked with Nadirah’s brown ones. And much to Nadirah’s dismay, she could see instant recognition flick across Joni’s face like a light switch.
“You!” Joni hissed.
“Yeah, me,” Nadirah said with a matter-of-fact nod. “Get used to it.”
“You!” Joni now screamed. “Get used to it, my ass!”
Nadirah’s eyes bulged with shock as Joni suddenly went to lunge for her.
“You mean spiteful bitch!” Joni screamed loudly as she shoved Nadirah into a metal cart. Glass slides, small bottles, and other items went crashing to the floor. The sound of glass shattering and metal clanking echoed loudly off the walls.
Nadirah caught the edge of a table, trying to keep her balance on the now slippery floor, and from getting cut on broken glass as well.
“You bitch!” Joni raged on, long tresses flying madly around her. “Did you think I wouldn’t remember you?”
She went at Nadirah a second time. But Nadirah was ready for her this time around and was able to catch Joni’s flailing wrists before she could do any more damage.
“My mommy baked the best damn apple pie in town, bitch! The rabbi said so! He did! I swear he did. He really said so!”
Upon hearing the commotion, two male colleagues of Nadirah’s ran into the lab and restrained Joni.
“You okay?” one of them asked Nadirah.
“Yeah, I’m fine. She just made a mess, is all, but she’s harmless. Crazy, but harmless.”
Nadirah’s coworkers started to drag Joni out of the room.
“I’ll getcha next time!” Joni promised, teeth bared menacingly.
“No, you won’t,” Nadirah said calmly, not at all scared by Joni’s threats. “I’m stronger than you.”
“Fuck you!”
“Why are you doing this, Joni?”
Joni seemed caught off guard by the question, in which the colleagues stopped pulling her back long enough to allow her to answer. She shook her overly long hair, which was the color of red wine, out of her face and said, “I took a walk down the moonlit path of your imagination last night.”
Nadirah’s dark eyes studied Joni’s one last time. Then she shook her head sadly and said in a soft voice, “Get her out of here. Just get her out of here.”
Nadirah awoke from the dream with a start, just as Joni was once again screaming at her and assuring her that payback would be a real bitch.
She yawned and rubbed her eyes, hoping her day wouldn’t be nearly as wild as her dreams had been.
She hadn’t seen Joni yesterday, other than the time she passed by with the others who had come to help with various projects that they didn’t normally have going on. Joni had been on a different job in a different department, which had taken longer than expected, so she had been rescheduled to train her later today.
Nadirah went through her usual morning ritual. She fed the cat, she showered, she had coffee, and then she burned her breakfast. Pulling the charred toast from the toaster, she said to her cat in annoyance, “Another reason I get sick of being alone at times.”
The green-eyed cat meowed at her.
“Yeah, I know, I know. I’m safer this way. Don’t worry, buddy. I intend to stay this way even if it means growing old and dying all alone.”
Nadirah looked at the clock and saw that she was running late. Having to settle for a donut, she ate it quickly, washed it down with her remaining coffee, and then got dressed. Checking to make sure the cat had enough water and dry food out back, she let him out for the day. “Be around when I get back,” she told him, and then she left.
Joni left the hotel room in pain. It wasn’t until she’d reached the Institute of Forensic Sciences that the pain pills had finally kicked in and taken her headache away. She needed to get to a specialist, and she knew it. The only problem was that she was uninsured. She only worked part-time, and so she wasn’t eligible for benefits. Therefore, she was going to have to think of something drastic because she didn’t have time to get qualified.
Once at the Institute, she was led into a large office with other temps who were there to do special jobs as well. A woman who appeared to be in her late thirties divided them up and sent them to where they were to carry out their individual assignments.
“Just go straight down the hall, through the door,s and hang a right,” the conservatively dressed woman told Joni. “It’s the first door on the left.”
“Okay, thank you,” Joni said, heading that way, a satchel slung over her shoulder. She walked through the hospital-like corridors and pushed open the swinging door to the laboratory she was told to go to just as a man and a woman were debating the meaning and origin of a name.
“Your entire name, first, middle, and last, has got to be of Arabic origin. Come on, come on, I should know this… what does Nadirah mean?” said the man, struggling to come up with the meaning.
“It means rare or precious, though it’s actually of Farsi origin,” said Joni. “It’s from the Indo-Iranian language family.”
Both heads turned her way.
“Sorry, but I couldn’t help overhearing as I was coming in.”
Joni quickly sized them up. The man was tall and wiry with a voice and mannerisms that suggested he may be gay. He had sandy brown curly hair and metal-rimmed glasses. Dimples appeared on his cheeks when he smiled.
The woman, who was petite, had a more serious air about her and a neutral expression. Joni found her to be simple yet pleasant-looking with brown eyes and brown shoulder-length wavy hair swept to the side.
“Oh, that’s okay,” said the guy, who extended his hand in a friendly manner. “I’m Gifford.”
“I’m Joni.”
“And this here, as you’ve probably figured, is Nadirah.”
“Yeah, I figured as much,” she said with a smile of her own.
Joni and Nadirah’s eyes met.
“Hi,” Nadirah said curtly.
Joni smiled.
Nadirah did not.
“Are you familiar with Arabic or Farsi?” Gifford asked.
“No, not really.”
“We heard you speak lots of languages,” he said.
“I understand lots of languages. But right now I only speak four, and just barely.”
“And what are your languages?” He asked.
“I’m fluent in sign language and Spanish, knowledgeable in Italian and German, and able to read a few other languages.”
“So what is your job here? Will it be something good?” Gifford asked, seeming to play dumb.
“Well,” Joni said, placing the satchel down on a bare spot upon a large table, “if you like change, I’m a blessing in disguise. If you don’t, then I’m probably your worst nightmare come to life.”
Gifford laughed heartily, but Nadirah smiled almost sarcastically and didn’t seem at all amused.
What was it with this woman? Joni wondered. Was she always like this?
“Okay, then,” Gifford said, rubbing his hands together in impatient anticipation. “I’ve got to run now, so I’ll let you two get started.”
“Okay,” Joni said, pulling some things from the satchel.
Gifford and Nadirah exchanged looks that Joni couldn’t quite comprehend, and then he said, “It was nice meeting you, Joni.”
“You too,” Joni said as Gifford left the room.
She turned to face Nadirah, who stood to stare at her, arms folded in front of her.
“On with business, I guess,” Joni said with a shrug. “Where’s your main computer?”
Joni was just about to wonder if the woman was going to say anything when she tossed a thumb over her shoulder. “Back there.”
“Oh, okay. Just save anything you might have unsaved, then step on out of the way.”
Moving in a sort of reluctant, even offended manner, Nadirah strode over to the computer, tapped out a few keystrokes, and stepped aside. Then she motioned for Joni to take over with the sweep of an arm.
No, I’m not imagining it, Joni thought to herself. This woman really does have a problem with me being here. Well, tough shit!
Trying to brighten the cold atmosphere, Joni smiled with assurance and said, “Shouldn’t take long. It actually takes longer to load the software and set it up than it will for me to teach you how to use it. So you should only have to deal with my intrusive presence for about an hour.”
Nadirah simply shrugged as she watched Joni, long hair bound in a braid that covered her entire back, do her thing.
Joni loaded up the software under the woman’s watchful eye. She was beginning to feel a bit uncomfortable, but after a few minutes, the woman moved about the room and focused more on other things than on what she was doing. Fifteen minutes later, however, she made her way back over to where she worked and stood beside her.
Joni glanced up at her and said, “Thank God they make these things as fast as they do these days. You probably wouldn’t remember this, but nearly twenty years ago, computers weren’t nearly as fast.”
“Why wouldn’t I remember?” Nadirah asked, surprising Joni.
Oh, so you’re going to talk? Joni wanted to say. Instead, she said, “Well, wouldn’t you have been in your early teens back then?”
“No. Not if I’m forty-eight right now.”
“Forty-eight!” Joni exclaimed with surprise. She studied Nadirah’s face. She looked older. But not that much older. “My God, I thought you were early to mid-thirties.”
Nadirah didn’t say anything.
The remainder of the hour passed uneventfully. Joni finished installing the new software and then she showed Nadirah how to use it. Nadirah only spoke when spoken to or if she had a question to ask.
“I’ll be around a while longer if you have any additional questions or run into any problems along the way,” Joni told Nadirah, rising from her chair. She gathered things up and tossed them back into her satchel.
“Okay,” Nadirah said in a barely audible voice, not looking at her. “Take care.”
“Have a good one,” Joni said on her way out.
Bitch.
It was lunchtime. Nadirah and Gifford locked the laboratory door and headed to the cafeteria. They were just rounding the corner when they heard Joni and another woman talking.
“And so I prayed and prayed to God that He would take my cat before the long-distance move. She was so old and I knew there was no way she’d survive the trip anyway, and He did,” said a woman who was brought in as a special analyst.
Just as Nadirah and Gifford spotted the two women, Joni laughed in response and said, “Leave it to God to take your cat when asked, but would He take my bitch of an ex-mother-in-law when I asked Him to? No, of course not!”
The women then realized they weren’t alone and glanced at Nadirah and Gifford.
Joni’s face turned red with embarrassment. “Uh, hi guys,” she said with an awkward smile as she ran a hand across the top of her head.
“Hey,” said Gifford. “God can have my boyfriend if He wants him.”
Everyone laughed but Nadirah, although a small hint of a smile was just barely noticeable on her face.
“My boyfriend’s been a real rat lately.”
“Oh, but rats are great,” Joni insisted. “They’re smart, cute and friendly.”
Another round of laughter.
“So where are you fine ladies headed?” Gifford asked.
“To lunch,” said the other woman.
“Oh,” said Gifford. “Well, so are we. Want to join us?”
Nadirah threw Gifford a look of annoyance that she was pretty sure Joni had caught.
“Well, we wouldn’t want to intrude or anything like that,” Joni said, casting a glance at Nadirah.
“Oh, you wouldn’t be,” Gifford assured them both.
“Then I guess we will,” Joni said.
They headed for the cafeteria, got trays, selected what they wanted, and then made their way to a table by the window.
Sitting in the seat across from Joni, Gifford eyed Joni’s salad and said, “You don’t eat much, huh?”
The woman accompanying Joni laughed and said, “She eats like a bird.”
“Huan here gets to eat all she wants without gaining weight. It’s one of the benefits of being Asian,” said Joni.
“Nadirah can pack it in and get away with it, too,” said Gifford.
“Not me,” said Joni. “Ever since I cracked my thirties, I just look at food and on comes the weight. Gotta diet and work out to keep it off.”
The group went on to make small talk with Nadirah offering very little to the conversation unless someone asked her something. She was too busy trying not to look at Joni. Joni, whose snug jeans and tank top fit her a little too perfectly.
And looked very nice.
Joni searched for something in her handbag, and then she asked if anyone had any pain relievers.
“No, not with me,” Huan said. “Sorry. What’s wrong, another headache?”
Joni nodded. “And being uninsured doesn’t help either.”
Gifford looked across at Joni in surprise. “You’re uninsured?”
Joni nodded again. “Yes, because I only work part-time.”
“Why’s that, because of the economy or something?”
“No. I just figured, hey, why work so much when I can just win.”
Now all eyes were upon Joni’s, including Nadirah’s.
“Yeah, I’m one of those internet super sweepers,” Joni explained. “I enter tons of sweepstakes and contests every day.”
“And you actually win these things?” Gifford asked, eyebrows raised.
“I actually do. Hundreds - sometimes thousands - in cash and prizes each month.”
“Oh, wow,” said Huan. “I should drop to part-time too, and start entering some of these things.”
Gifford laughed and Nadirah gave a weak attempt at her own laughter.
The discussion eventually turned to how Joni hated the cold and the snow so much that she had been driven to leave New England because of it. “I ended up living in Arizona for a while first.”
“That must’ve been hot as hell,” said Gifford.
“Deserts usually are, though not in the winter. I was surprised at just how chilly it could get at night there in the wintertime.”
“Well, brace yourself. We’ve got a cool spell working its way through over the next few days.”
“Yeah, I heard about it this morning,” said Nadirah, glancing at Gifford.
Joni moaned, looked at Nadirah and said, “Sometimes the past comes back to haunt us.”
No shit!
“So how long have you lived in California?” Gifford asked Joni.
“A few years.”
“Like it so far?”
“Yes and no. I miss my ex who isn’t really an ex.”
“Oh? Is he still part of your life somehow?”
“No,” Joni said. “And that’s because she’s dead. She was a cop and she happened to be off duty during a hold-up at a convenience store one night.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” Gifford said through a mouthful of pizza.
“It’s okay. Shit happens.”
Gifford and Nadirah exchanged glances while Huan blinked in surprise at her coworker’s bluntness, almost admiring the way she could so easily brush the incident off as a mere fact of life.
After a minute, Huan asked, “How are you two liking the new software system Miss Not Naturally Thin here has installed?”
Nadirah simply shrugged while Gifford said, “We’re getting used to it. As long as there’s a box to enter certain codes and numbers, it works for us. What’s next on the agenda, anyway? Do you know?”
“The boss lady said she might have me do some indexing on Nadirah’s computer, defragmenting, and basically cleaning things up and making sure there are no viruses or anything like that,” Joni said. Then she turned to Nadirah. “She said you got some kind of infection last week and weren’t sure if you were cured a hundred percent.”
“Yeah, something like that,” Nadirah said before taking a bite of her chicken leg.
“Ah, you’ll be good medicine for Miss Haddad here,” Gifford said, patting Nadirah on the back.
Huan laughed.
“Watch out,” Joni warned Nadirah with a playful wink as she raised her glass of soda to her lips. “Those that take my medicine may experience a few minor side effects.”
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