As difficult as it was to do, Gabby had to let Egon know about the phone call from earlier.
"This woman called up accusing us of stealing her jewelry when you busted a ghost at her house," she said as she fiddled with a pen. As much as she tried to avoid eye contact with Egon, she knew that she had to look at him like any professional would. "I tried to reason with her but she didn't want any of that and she said that she wasn't going to use our services anymore." She sighed. "I'm sorry we lost a customer."
"Was it Mrs. Kendrick by any chance?" asked Egon.
"Yes, it was."
"I say good riddance to her. Do you have any idea how many times she's accused us of stealing her jewelry? She's especially fond of blaming Winston in particular."
"Oh dear."
"I know. As far as we're concerned, she can deal with her own ghosts. I may have been distracted but I'm sure you handled it the best way you could."
Gabby's stress lifted from her shoulders. The no-nonsense coworker that she reported to was more forgiving than she thought he'd be. Tomorrow will be better, she thought. It had to be. She put that behind her and returned to her post to do more secretarial work. She had the feeling that another toilet wouldn't be destroyed today.
The next day was a bit busier. Quite a few calls, quite a few dramatic moments when the alarm went off and the Ecto-1 had to speed to the scene of the crime. Her favorite part of the job was when the guys came back to tell her in great detail about what kind of ghost they caught. One such example included the mermaid ghost that they caught at the water treatment plant. Another was a ghost that resembled a giant mouth that gobbled up a deli's entire inventory. Even the story about the run-of-the-mill poltergeist that did nothing more than rattle one family's windows was interesting to her. She wished she could join the guys on their hunts in some way but somebody had to stay behind and take care of the paperwork. She didn't mind doing that, though.
The day after that, work was a bit slow and she passed the time drawing sigils on her notepad. Each symbol was one that she had drawn before many times on many places, making sure all the lines were straight and the curves were curvy. She hoped to make some of these symbols into necklace pendants, at least the ones that weren't too detailed.
She was interrupted by an emergency call, but not a usual one. Finally, something to do.
"Ghostbusters, what's your emergency?" she asked. By now, saying this became second nature to her.
"Gabby, it's Janine," said Janine's voice.
"Oh, Janine!" said Gabby, "How are you?"
"Cut the small talk. I need you to tell Egon this urgent message."
"Okay. What is it?"
"Goulash. Please tell him goulash."
"Goulash?"
"Yes. He'll know what it means. Time's a factor, sweetheart."
"Okay, I will let him know as soon as possible."
"All right. Goodbye."
Gabby immediately paged the breakroom.
"Egon?" she said.
"Yes?" Egon paged back.
"Janine was just on the phone. She wants me to relay the following urgent message: Goulash."
She could hear the guys' voices from the opening in the ceiling where the pole was.
"Goulash!" cheered Ray, Peter and Winston.
"It's goulash time, my man!" said Winston.
"Oh, shit!" said Egon. "I need my suitcase!" The sound of rummaging could be heard. "Where the hell is my suitcase?!"
"I didn't put it anywhere!" said Peter.
"Found it! Now who wants to drive me?"
"Let's three-way rock-paper-scissors for it!" said Ray.
"There's no time! Ray, you're driving."
"Yes, sir!"
Egon then paged Gabby.
"Gabby, enforce emergency protocols, stat," he said.
"Okay…"
The emergency bell rang. The garage door opened. Ray and Egon slid down the pole except they were not in their ghostbusting uniforms nor did they have any weapons. When Egon slid down the pole, he did so one-handed while the other hand had a suitcase.
Once Ray got in the driver's seat and Egon got into the backseat, they blared their sirens and left the premises.
Gabby stared out into the distance trying to comprehend what happened. What was this about goulash? Did Janine have a Hungarian stew-related emergency? One that needed a suitcase to be resolved?
She paged upstairs again.
"I'm so confused," she said, "What's going on?"
Winston answered this time.
"Goulash is the code word that Egon and Janine agreed upon when Janine is about to have the baby and needs to be taken to the hospital now," he said.
"Oh… that makes so much more sense." Funny how Janine didn't tell her that during orientation. It would have been useful. Oh well. Back to drawing sigils.