I’d never miss-bid anything if not for Janie Culpepper in Marketing.

I took the job in Technical Support because I wanted something where I could keep people out of my way while I’m bidding. Before Janie Culpepper took over Marketing, I succeeded. I fixed whatever failed on people’s computers, and people left me alone while I trolled the internet for classic television artifact auctions. When there wasn’t anything to bid on, I walked through the building to make sure nobody forgot a problem that they’d remember when there was. Nobody interrupted me. Even the president stayed away when he saw pictures, descriptions, and bidding parameters across the semicircle of six computer monitors on my desk.

Ever since Janie Culpepper transferred from the Atlanta office, I might as well be her secretary. She called last Thursday, wanted me to come up to her office and look at the number buttons on her keyboard. Pressing them, she claimed, made the cursor jump around her screen and wipe out stuff she’d already typed. And of course she had to call during the final ten minutes of nostalgiatrader.com’s auction of a Fred Sanford windup toy that said “You big dummy,” “I’m comin’ to join ya, Honey,” or “You ugly,” depending on which knob got wound. Nobody had bid on it yet, but I expected snipers. I asked Janie if she’d hit the NUMLOCK key and disabled her number pad, like the last three times she couldn’t type numbers. She couldn’t remember. I asked if the NUMLOCK light was lit. She couldn’t find it.

With eight minutes left in the auction, I scaled the stairs to Janie’s office. The second she stood up to give me her chair, I saw the unlit NUMLOCK light on her keyboard. She showed no interest in how I turned NUMLOCK back on. She didn’t even watch me open a new spreadsheet and verify that I could type numbers. She ignored my demonstration and talked about what she always talks about – how much weight she’s lost.

Only now, she wanted me to watch her turn around.

“I got this dress in tenth grade,” she said. “Haven’t fit into it since.”

I spotted the Auburn University diploma propped on the corner of her desk. It showed a graduation date of 1996, placing her in tenth grade around ’90. Beverly Hills 90210 came out in ’90, and Shannon Doherty wore a dress just like Janie’s in the pilot. I didn’t recall telling Janie that I also collect clothes, or that I needed something from Shannon Doherty to balance out my Jenny Garth and Tory Spelling stuff, but maybe I had. Why else would she make me look at the dress?

Janie must have noticed me scrutinizing the skirt seam. She pulled it against her hip. “I’m not stretching it one bit,” she said. “Look how loose it is.”

The clock on the wall behind her read 2:56, four minutes left on Fred Sanford.

“I gotta do something for my boss,” I said, turning toward the door. I’d come back to negotiate the dress later.

“Wait a second.” Janie walked around me and blocked my path. I couldn’t leave unless I pushed her out of the way. “You live in Hoboken, don’t ya?”

I’d told her ten times, me and Mom live in a Hoboken co-op. I started to ask why she still uses this topic to keep me in her office when I glanced through the doorway. Lena Spatola, Katie McGlin and Vicki Horowitz were standing outside Vicki’s cubicle. All six of their eyes caught mine. Vicki whispered something to the others. Katie shook her head while Lena rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. That’s what Mom and my aunt do when I complain about Janie at home. Mom tells me to be nice or she’ll stop calling. Why everybody wants Janie Culpepper to call, beats me. My aunt gave Mom the idea that I should start calling Janie, and now Mom bugs me about it.

I couldn’t let Vicki Horowitz’s people see me push Janie out of the way and leave. My boss hates when I get snippy with coworkers. I unclenched my face enough to remind Janie that me and Mom live in Hoboken.

“Can I come over for dinner Saturday?” Janie said. “Been wanting a west side view of New York since they transferred me up here.”

I considered saying yes to get Mom off my back, but the annual Honeymooners fan club convention was this weekend in Poughkeepsie. Their blog had announced a founding member selling off his estate. If I told Janie about it, she might invite herself, and I hate going to auctions with people. They always talk while I’m trying to evaluate merchandise or size up competitors.

When I didn’t answer, she said, “I’ll wear this dress again.”

My eyeballs jerked from spot to spot in Janie’s office, while my brain scrambled for something she’d hate about Hoboken or the apartment. I saw the mirror mounted atop her monitor. She has an obsession with makeup. I see her frantically brushing it on every time I walk in.

The mirror reminded me of my dog, Kaos, a Weimaraner. Kaos is well behaved enough, but she won’t stop licking people. I told Janie that Weimaraners are wild, warned her that Kaos would surely go after her makeup.

“I love Weimaraners,” she said. “Daddy had three. We’ll walk Kaos on the boardwalk while we look at the skyline. I’ll ring your bell around six, right after Weight Trimmers.”

***

Saturday morning, Mom asked what happened with the Honeymooners convention. Disgusted with myself for not being there, I told her Janie Culpepper was coming over. When I asked, “Are you happy now?” Mom called my aunt and said she’s going there to spend the night. Then she wanted me to move the arrangement of life-sized Charlie’s Angels dolls from the corner of my room to the closet. When I reminded her that nobody on earth has all four dolls – Kate Jackson, Jaclyn Smith, Farrah Faucett andCheryl Ladd, and a certified replica of Charlie’s speaker phone – Mom screamed, “Do you want to be celibate the rest of your life?”

She left before I could ask what celibate meant.

I wanted to google it, but then Doogie Hushmire called from the convention. He emailed me a video of the only known collection of all seventeen Ralph Kramden refrigerator magnets, and we spent the afternoon coordinating a bid.

I’d forgotten all about Janie by the time she rang the doorbell at 5:58.

The Addams Family ring tone went off and Kaos leapt from the Star Trek command chair that I let her sit on since I don’t have the complete set. On landing, her back paws dug into my Andy Griffith Show rug and pushed it into a pile.

“Sit, Kaos!”

The dog’s butt receded in mid stride as she skidded into a seated position.

I straightened the rug and realigned the command chair.

By the door, Kaos watched me turn the knob. Her eyes opened, squeezing her forehead into a frown and launching her stubbed off tail into propeller mode.

“Stay down, Kaos,” I warned, as I opened the door.

Janie wasn’t wearing the Shannon Doherty dress.

Maybe she knew I’d find non-genuine elements upon closer inspection. Apparently sensing my disappointment, she tilted her head and lazily raised her eyebrows. Collectors give this take-it-or-leave-it expression when they realize they’ve overstated an item’s authenticity. I looked at her sorority t-shirt, with Greek letters silhouetted against an Auburn University label. She couldn’t possibly have thought I wanted this instead. All three networks ran fraternity-sorority pilots after Animal House came out but cancelled them too quickly to spawn memorabilia.

I decided not to bring this up unless Janie asked.

Her t-shirt tucked into her jeans with so much room to spare that she’d folded the waistband to fill out her belt’s narrowest setting. Minus the sharp colors, her clothes looked like oversized Salvation Army hand-me-downs. Had she lost that much weight? Aside from how her chest stretched her sorority letters, she’d shriveled.

She’d always talked about body sculpting and weight loss as prequels to inviting herself over. Before I could decipher a connection, Kaos sprung from her down position and poked her snout into Janie’s crotch. Janie’s cheeks turned red. When her midsection recoiled, like a kid getting tickled, I noticed her perfume. She never put on that much in the office. The fragrance made me look at her stretched out sorority letters again.

The dog followed Janie into the apartment. With her arm bent, clutching her purse strap, Janie examined the laminated Brady Bunch magazine pullouts, one for each kid, mounted atop the entry way to my room. Her eyes rotated to my Curtis Mathes floor model TV cabinet, with its implanted high def monitor, then to the highest shelf above it, which displays action figures of Maxwell Smart and the chief facing each other through a Cone of Silence replica.

“You named your dog after Kaos on Get Smart. Didn’t ya?”

I nodded. As I began to introduce Control, my cat, I noticed Janie’s lips. Their fullness had survived the weight loss, just like her chest.

“I love that show.” Janie dropped her purse on the coffee table. “And they never show it anymore.”

“I’ve got the first sixteen episodes, original commercials and all.”

While I debated whether to add that she could borrow the episodes – no easy decision since I got them on the black market from somebody that hacked into the computer at the Museum of Television and Radio – she sat in the middle of the leather sofa, the only furniture Mom still won’t let me replace.

“Let’s watch a few,” she said.

I looked out the window and remembered Janie wanted to walk Kaos along the boardwalk and see the skyline.

Kaos tackled me before I could remind her.

Photo by Angelina on Flickr