Ch 18 – Working Girls (2)
A knock at the door interrupted Angela's umpteenth attempt at making it through the year-end report on the Bower Agency's dealings with London Fog.
It had been a successful year for the company, in no small part thanks to excellent work by Angela's team. But overall, the market for waterproof outerwear was not particularly exciting or dynamic, and neither was the report. Angela kept losing her focus and found herself staring through the letters and numbers in front of her instead of reading them.
"Yes?" she said, secretly glad for the distraction.
Sam poked her head into the room. "Angela?"
"What is it, sweetheart? Come in." She waved for Sam to come closer.
"Carol called. Jack's girlfriend? She wanted me to let you know that he will be out sick for the rest of the week at least."
"Carol?" That was odd. And the whole week – at least! They would have to re-schedule some of their reviews to the week before Christmas, or possibly even later. At least the Guacamunchies people were the only clients coming in until Friday.
"Yeah. She's a nurse, and she said it looks like he's got mumps."
"Mumps," Angela repeated. "I thought he had the flu."
"Carol said it's pretty contagious. That's why she called. In case anybody here never had it as a child. But I know I did. Dad always says I looked like a hamster." Sam smiled.
Angela nodded dumbly. A memory of something was rattling at the back of her mind, but she couldn't quite grasp it yet.
"Anyway, I just wanted to tell you. I'll have the Guacamunchies file ready in a minute. Do you want me to bring it in?"
"Ah, no, thank you, Sam. I'll come out and get it when I'm done in here. I need to make a phone call."
"Okay." With a small wave, Sam walked out and pulled the door shut.
Angela dropped the London Fog report on the desk in front of her and tried to zero in on what was causing the hollow, uneasy feeling behind her sternum.
Mumps. Did people really still get that today?
She remembered talking to Jonathan's pediatrician about recommended vaccinations when he was a baby, but that wasn't it.
Mumps, mumps, mumps.
Then it hit her. Wasn't mumps one of those childhood diseases you should be careful not to catch while pregnant? Like rubella? Or chickenpox, or measles? Wait, were only some of those a problem, or all of them?
Her obstetrician had told her all about that before she had Jonathan. But that had been almost twelve years ago. She couldn't remember.
With a sudden burst of nervous energy, Angela got out of her chair, walked over to the window, yanked it open, and began to take greedy gulps of cool, fresh air. Losing her head now wouldn't help her or the baby one bit. Not that she knew for sure if there even was a baby.
After a moment, she walked back to her desk and pushed the button on her intercom. "Mother? Do you have a minute?"
Mona didn't answer, but simply came in a few seconds later.
Angela looked up and tried to keep her voice as steady as possible. "Did I have mumps as a child?"
"Oh, because of Jack? I think so. Maybe. Yeah, you probably did. But who remembers? Kids get sick all the time."
"So, you're saying you aren't sure?"
Mona shrugged. "I would have to look it up. We kept a little notebook with those things. I hope I didn't throw it out when I thought I was going to start working with Cornelius …"
Angela shook her head, impatient. "Never mind, thank you, Mother."
But Mona didn't move. "For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure you had it. And anyway, Jack was here for an hour and a half, tops. I doubt you or anybody else got too close to him, with him looking the way he did." She blew out her cheeks and punctuated her grimace with a comical shudder. "Unless, of course, you two are in the habit of kissing each other on the lips." Mona winked at her, but Angela decided to ignore this last remark.
"Yeah, he- we just talked for a minute before he went home. But better safe than sorry, right? I mean … it would be unfortunate if anyone else got sick before the holidays." Angela cleared her throat with some effort. "Could you let the others know, please? Just in case anybody starts feeling ill the next couple of days, I don't want them to come in."
Mona's eyes lit up. "Oh? Now that I think about it, maybe I do feel a little warm." She touched a hand to her forehead.
"Mother," Angela warned, in no shape whatsoever to deal with such shenanigans.
"Alright, alright." Mona raised both hands theatrically. "I hope you remember this conversation when I keel over at my desk."
"Don't be so dramatic."
Angela flashed on a terrible story that interns up and down Madison Avenue used to tell each other when she worked at McCann Erickson in the summer of 1974. Apparently, sometime in the 60s, the secretary of a legendary ad man at an agency that had since gone under died at her desk in the middle of the workday.
The poor woman's body then needed to be smuggled out of the office so as not to spook an important client who was visiting that day. It was rumored that her ghost sometimes haunted unsuspecting interns who stayed late at the office, but Angela had never had an encounter herself and was pretty sure that the whole thing was nothing more than an urban legend.
"Well, you're no fun today." Mona gave Angela a scrutinizing look and arched one of her eyebrows. "I wasn't that far off this morning, was I? You're certainly tense."
"I-" Angela's voice cracked for a second there, "I didn't sleep well last night, that's all. I had this dream about being in a trapeze act, and when I-"
"It means you're not getting enough sex," Mona dead-panned before Angela could finish.
"Thank you, Mother."
"That was an easy one," Mona smiled and kept her gaze fixed on Angela for a few more seconds, which was unnerving to say the least, before she turned on her heel and announced, "I'm going to let everybody know about Jack. Don't worry."
Then she finally left Angela alone in her office.
'Don't worry' was a lot easier said than done. Angela tried to take deep breaths, but a heavy, cold ball of fear had formed in her stomach, making it difficult to fill her lungs to capacity.
What if she was pregnant and caught mumps from Jack and something happened to the baby? At the thought, a quickly rising tide of panic threatened to overwhelm her.
It was 12:20. She had forty minutes until her next phone call. An old but familiar instinct kicked in, and Angela knew what she had to do. She grabbed her purse and coat and rushed out the door.
"I forgot something," she said to Mona and Sam as she walked past them at a fast clip, taking note of the confused looks on their faces. "I'll be back in time for my one o'clock."
ooooooooo
Half an hour later, she returned, sweaty and out of breath. She had opted against the drugstore closest to the office and gone to another one that was a bit more out of the way, hoping she wouldn't run into anyone she knew.
"Hey, Angela, can I-" Sam said, but Angela waved her off.
"Sweetheart, not now, this is a crazy day." Then she locked the door behind herself.
Back at her desk, she ripped open the package of one of the two pregnancy tests she had bought. She unfolded the insert and read the instructions. For accurate results this early, the test had to be taken in the morning. The same thing with the other brand.
Angela felt herself deflate like a balloon. It seemed that life consisted of little more than waiting these days. But before she could contemplate the misery of her situation any further, the phone rang.
An hour later, she had no idea what they had talked about, or how she made it through the call at all, her brain feeling as foggy as it did, but she had.
Shoving her glasses up into her hair, Angela blinked forcefully and squinted at the clock. Less than two hours left until the Guacamunchies meeting, and her prep time would be interrupted by a half-hour discussion of London Fog at three. She needed to pull herself together and start reading up on the campaign now. On her way to the door, her growling stomach reminded her that she had skipped lunch.
"Sam?" she asked as she stuck her head into the anteroom. "Do you have the Guacamunchies file for me? And could one of you please get me a sandwich or something? I'm starving."
Sam jumped up from her desk chair and walked over to one of the filing cabinets. When Angela saw where she was headed, her heart sank. No, no, no. Nervous heat rose to her neck and cheeks.
"There were so many loose papers, I didn't want them to go flying all over the place, so I put everything in here," Sam explained with a perky smile and pulled on the little handle that was supposed to open the drawer. But the drawer didn't budge. She tried again with the same result.
"Sam, we don't put anything in there. The lock is broken. Didn't anybody tell you that?" The words came out a lot harsher than Angela had intended.
"Mother?" Mona was facing away from Angela but nodded.
"Angela, I'm really sorry," Sam said, her cheeks a dark shade of crimson.
But Angela didn't have time for apologies. Suddenly she felt like a single raw nerve ending. Mona was still not looking at her. "Mother!" Angela shouted this time. "Get me a locksmith, now! I need those documents."
But Mona showed no reaction aside from her incessant nodding, and Angela finally realized why: She was wearing headphones, bopping her head along to some beat only she could hear.
The sight infuriated Angela to no end. If Mona had been paying attention, Sam wouldn't have put the papers in the broken cabinet.
"Could one of you at least try to be helpful!" she erupted, and it surprised her how angry she sounded.
Sam shrunk back in her chair but reached for the phone. "I'll call a locksmith," she said meekly.
Angela exhaled shakily, not sure whether she was fighting against rage, or tears, or both. "First go get Tim. He needs to brief me in case we don't get those papers out of there," she ordered. "And I still need a sandwich," she added. "Please."
Sam nodded and hurried down the hallway, looking for Tim.
Then Mona turned around. "Is something the matter?" she asked and lifted one of the headphones off her ear.
"Forget it, Mother."
ooooooooo
It was almost six-thirty by the time the Guacamunchies meeting finally ended.
Tim had saved Angela more than once over the course of the afternoon. When she cited the wrong numbers, or when the exact strategic reasoning behind certain aspects of the campaign escaped her.
Her performance had been decidedly subpar, and she knew that they had all noticed. Bob, Eric, and Larry of Guacamunchies, and Tim of course.
She could have blamed it on the circumstances. But the truth was: Tim had done a wonderful job of getting her up to speed on the campaign, and after the locksmith arrived at three-thirty, she had still had twenty minutes to look at all the numbers and materials for herself. On any other day, all of this combined would have been more than enough. Aided by the adrenaline rush of a presentation in front of clients, Angela would have sailed through the meeting.
But today, neither her head nor her heart had been in it. She kept thinking of the pregnancy tests in her purse, of Jack and mumps and Tony and his finals and what if, what if, what if.
"You did great in there," she said to Tim after they had bid farewell to their guests in the reception area and were slowly walking back to their offices. "I mean it. You were on top of every little detail."
"My pleasure," Tim said and smiled politely. With a small nod, he made a left at the water cooler and was about to disappear in the direction of his office when he turned around and looked at Angela. "Good night, boss. I hope you feel better soon."
"Oh, uh- thank you," Angela said, chagrined that her distraction was so painfully obvious that Tim felt it necessary to be kind to her instead of respectfully overlooking her momentary weakness like most seasoned professionals would.
When Angela arrived at her own office, she found Sam still sitting at her desk, doodling on a legal pad. Sam! With everything that was going on, she had all but forgotten about her.
"How was the meeting?" she asked, eyeing Angela cautiously.
"It went okay. They signed off on everything." In the end, the client had left the Bower Agency satisfied, and that was all that counted.
"That's good, right?" Sam asked hopefully, and Angela nodded.
"Hey, Angela?" Sam spoke up again, "I'm so, so sorry about the cabinet."
With a sigh, Angela sat down on Mona's empty chair. Looking at Sam's crestfallen expression, she deeply regretted her outburst earlier in the day.
"Oh, sweetheart, it's alright. You couldn't have known. I'm the one who's sorry. I shouldn't have shouted. I was just- I'm having a bad day. First Jack, and then the file cabinet … But I shouldn't have reacted the way I did, that wasn't fair. Can you forgive me?"
Sam smiled, visibly relieved. "Yeah. Some days just suck."
"They do," Angela agreed. "And thank you, I'm glad. What do you say you and I go to lunch tomorrow? I'll make a reservation at the Russian Tea Room. Just the two of us."
"I'd love that."
"Good. It's a date. Let me just call them, and then we'll head home."
Sam nodded. "Mona said not to wait for her. Some guy sent flowers and a card. She went to meet him for dinner."
"Of course." Only now Angela noticed the colorful, fragrant bouquet that sat on the desk next to Mona's phone. The flowers were beautiful, but their scent was a bit much for indoors.
"If the smell bothers you, feel free to tell Mother to throw them out tomorrow, okay?" Angela said, pushing the vase a little further away from herself.
"I don't smell anything," Sam said lightly.
Angela paused. Of course she didn't. But she couldn't allow herself to go there again until tomorrow morning.
Without another look at the flowers, Angela got up and went to call the Russian Tea Room. When that was done, she gathered her things in her office, making sure to hide the pregnancy tests at the very bottom of her spacious purse.
It was a good thing that it would be only Sam and her on the train tonight. She would try to find out more about who this Kevin was. If he seemed like a nice boy, maybe she could help convince Tony to let Sam meet him in the City one day after work.
A/N 1: I couldn't resist and hid one or two Easter eggs in this chapter. They're not even that well-hidden, I suppose. They're just there. Maybe Peggy Olson and Angela Robinson met during one of Angela's summer internships in the 1970s! (Now I gave myself an idea for a crossover.)
A/N 2: I did my best to research how people would have dealt with a case of mumps in their midst back in the late 1980s. My own instinctual approach to such matters is heavily influenced by the pandemic experience, and inside my head I went 'Of course everybody has to quarantine until they know whether anyone got it!' But I just don't think that that's how it would have been handled. By 1988, adults might have had mumps as kids (or not), and younger people (Sam's age, probably a little younger) might have received the vaccine (or not), which to my knowledge became available in the 1970s, but wasn't widely recommended until about 1990. If I'm completely off the mark about any of this – please suspend your disbelief for the sake of the story. ;)