{"id":772,"date":"2020-05-29T17:00:59","date_gmt":"2020-05-30T00:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/monicanolan.com\/pulppep\/?p=772"},"modified":"2020-06-10T10:36:31","modified_gmt":"2020-06-10T17:36:31","slug":"sheltering-in-place-at-the-magdalena-arms-episode-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/monicanolan.com\/pulppep\/2020\/05\/29\/sheltering-in-place-at-the-magdalena-arms-episode-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Sheltering in Place at the Magdalena Arms: Episode II"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Irregular Hours<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

At 11 a.m. Lois opened the door to the bedroom she and Pamela shared to see if her girlfriend was awake yet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pam was an inanimate lump in the bed, burrowed under the blue bedspread with only a few wisps of red hair showing bright against the white pillow. She\u2019d turned her back to the daylight that filtered through the blinds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lois tiptoed up the edge of the bed and peered worriedly down at her girlfriend of almost a decade. From this perspective she could now see an inch or two of pale, freckled skin. \u201cPam,\u201d she said softly. \u201cDon\u2019t you want to get up? It\u2019s eleven already!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Slowly Pamela turned, her face emerging from the crumpled sheets. One gray-green eye squinted at Lois. \u201cWhat time is it?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEleven,\u201d Lois repeated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell,\u201d Pam turned fully over and blinked at the ceiling, “I guess I missed breakfast.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The head buyer for women\u2019s wear at Gruneman\u2019s department store had been home for two-and-a-half weeks. The first week she\u2019d been busy from morning until night, calling suppliers, rescheduling deliveries, conferring with other buyers, and \u201cthe gang in finance,\u201d as she always referred to them. She\u2019d jumped out of bed at 7:00 a.m. as usual, and scribbled notes in her planner while she drank her coffee and crunched on her dry toast. She\u2019d even dressed for the office at first, putting on a paisley maxi dress with gold link belt and chartreuse scarf because it was, \u201cGood for morale.\u201d Lois had done the same and together they\u2019d commuted to their Danish modern dining table, where they simultaneously donned headphones as they sat down and their separate workdays began. Lois, too, had remote meetings and phone calls conferring with the higher-ups at Sather and Stirling, the advertising agency where she was office manager.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as Pam\u2019s tasks turned grimmer\u2014cancelling the deliveries she\u2019d rescheduled, laying off the lingerie department, holding tense discussions with accounts payable\u2014she\u2019d dropped the work-wear for slacks and a sweater; at the last virtual meeting, when she and the other buyers were put on half-pay \u201cuntil June when we reassess\u201d, she\u2019d simply covered her polka-dotted pajama top with a striped silk scarf. Lois knew then that Pamela was seriously perturbed\u2014ordinarily she would never pair the two clashing patterns! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now Gruneman\u2019s doyenne of dressing hardly got out of her pajamas. She ate odd meals at odd hours\u2014pat\u00e9 on ritz crackers, peanutbutter and honey sandwiches, olives or tunafish straight from the can. She spent her evenings sitting in front of the television and nursing a beer, watching the news, the same stories repeated at 6, 6:30, 10, 10:30, and 11. Once Lois had woken to find herself alone in bed. She\u2019d crept out to the living room and there was Pam, on the couch, tears streaming down her face as she watched an old training video on bra-sizing.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Be patient<\/em>, Lois had told herself. She\u2019ll snap out of it<\/em>. The stalwart office manager had kept the household running, standing in long lines for delicacies to tempt Pamela, and researching recipes as she attempted to recreate Pam\u2019s favorite restaurant dishes\u2014patty melts, veal piccata, steak tartare. She\u2019d cleaned the house for the first time in years, finding a certain satisfaction in discovering that the skills she\u2019s learned so long ago in Mrs. Grimes Dom Sci class were still intact. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And she\u2019d had her own share of grim phonecalls as Sather and Stirling, their work reduced to a few food and detergent accounts (which hardly needed advertising), shut down and cutback. She\u2019d reassured the despondent members of the typing pool that they\u2019d have jobs \u201cwhen this was all over\u201d but she hardly believed it herself anymore. Mrs. Pierson, the managing partner, had retreated to her country house on Loon Lake; ensconced there with only an invalid friend, her cook, and a registered nurse, far from Bay City and its mounting rate of positive cases, she seemed to have forgotten the agency. Her new preoccupation was survival, and she pestered Lois with requests to order pedal-powered generators,  gardening supplies, and cases of liquor, all to be expressed to her remote cabin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo what you like, Lois,\u201d she\u2019d interrupted, when Lois queried her about mundane details such as payroll and print bills. \u201cThese are end times, mark my words. End times.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lois had no energy to argue with apocalypse-minded executive. Her primary concern was Pamela. It was painful to watch her once sturdy sweetheart wasting away under pandemic strain. Now, as Pamela slowly sat up, Lois noted the blue shadows under her eyes, the way the polka-dotted pajamas hung loosely about her torso. Why, if the dreaded virus did make it past the barricade of precautions Lois had taken, the dozens of daily handwashing, the plastic-curtained \u201cdecontamination zone\u201d in the entryway, where she put mail, packages, and grocery bags, the gloves and the masks, the sanitizers, the stocked freezer that had made it unnecessary to leave the surgically sterile apartment for the past two weeks\u2026if somehow a speck of virus made it through and leapt to Pam\u2019s hand, and then to the eye Pam was now rubbing\u2014why, the once respected retailer would simply crumple under the infection like an overused tissue!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPam!\u201d Anxiety made Lois\u2019s voice sharp. \u201cGet up! I\u2019m going to make you eggs, bacon, toast, a fresh pot of coffee, and you\u2019re going to eat them all! And then\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd then what?\u201d Pam challenged her, pushing back the tangle of over-grown hair from her face. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd then we\u2019re going to cut your hair!\u201d Lois declared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next: Maxie Can’t Keep Her Distance<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The gregarious girl is jonesing for her old social life, and her scofflaw tendencies are driving Phyllis wild! Is social pressure enough to teach Madcap Maxie to toe the health department line, or are sterner measures needed? <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tune in every Friday for a new episode! (at least until the author\u2019s work situation changes)<\/strong><\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Irregular Hours At 11 a.m. Lois opened the door to the bedroom she and Pamela shared to see if her girlfriend was awake yet.  Pam was an inanimate lump in the bed, burrowed under the blue bedspread with only a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[210],"tags":[215,214,211,228],"class_list":["post-772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-serial-siping-at-the-magdalena-arms","tag-lesbian-career-girls","tag-lois-lenz","tag-magdalena-arms","tag-pamela-prendergast"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/monicanolan.com\/pulppep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/monicanolan.com\/pulppep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/monicanolan.com\/pulppep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monicanolan.com\/pulppep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monicanolan.com\/pulppep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=772"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/monicanolan.com\/pulppep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":778,"href":"https:\/\/monicanolan.com\/pulppep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772\/revisions\/778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/monicanolan.com\/pulppep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monicanolan.com\/pulppep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monicanolan.com\/pulppep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}