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At least Cindy's home now. She's in a foul mood, but at least she's home...
When I woke up yesterday, I was relived to be feeling better. I still had a stuffy nose, but I felt much better, and the rain being gone made me feel even better. But I was very unhappy when I peeked into Cindy's room and found it empty, the bed unslept-in. This was too much! She couldn't stay at work all the time!
I ate a bowl of pea soup for breakfast, then dressed warmly and headed for Barton. If Cindy was working this hard, I was going to help her! I was sure she needed it.
Old Man Logan was busy shoveling cow muck off his doorstep when I walked by, and was much too busy to notice me. I wondered when someone would collect the cows. From what Cindy had said on the news, their owner seemed to be unwilling to bother about them...
The sun came out from behind the clouds as I walked into Barton, and I walked happily through the warmth. Past the fountain, over the bridge...and then I stopped suddenly. A fire engine was parked outside the GAIA 9 station, and firefighters were busy packing up hoses. From the looks of things, there had been a fire...great. I hurried over to the building.
"You work here?" a fireman asked as I stepped over a hose.
"Last time I checked, I did." I waved my ID card in front of him. "What in the world happened here?"
He rolled his eyes. "A fire, duh. Why else would we be here?"
"I know it was a fire," I said in annoyance, "but what happened? How bad was it?"
"Not too bad," he said with a shrug. "As for what happened...well, just go inside and you'll see." He grinned. "Actually, you'll hear her first. She sounds just like my wife...I pity that guy."
More than curious, I went inside. The lobby was no different then usual, so the fire clearly hadn't been here... I'd ask Cindy. I headed for her office.
I'd barely gotten up the stairs when I heard what the fireman was talking about. Cindy was shrieking at the top of her voice.
"I don't care what kind of excuses you can make!" Her voice rang through the hallways. "I don't even care that you're smoking again! You can go and kill yourself with those things for all I care, but you didn't have to try to burn my office up!"
I ran in the direction of her voice. "You've ruined everything!" she was screaming as I rounded a corner and found her outside her office door, shaking her laptop...at Mike. Mike, who looked miserable and confused.
"I thought I put it out..." he was muttering.
"Well, you didn't!" Cindy screamed. "If you had to smoke in my office, why couldn't you put out your stupid butts before tossing them in my trash bin?"
Quickly getting a word in edgewise in an attempt to calm things down, I said, "Come on, stop yelling! I'm sure there couldn't have been that much damage..."
"Oh no, none at all," Cindy said sarcasticly. "Just my laptop utterly wrecked by smoke and water, just half my papers drenched past being readable, just the carpet half covered with melted plastic... Just everything, that's all! Just because someone couldn't use any common sense...if he has any!" She stormed off, still carrying her broken laptop.
"Thanks for trying to help, Dawna," Mike said gloomily, "but I've had it. She's in the worst mood I've seen her in for years...and the worst thing is, it's my fault!" He stared at the closed door of Cindy's office. "Look at this!" He banged the door open, revealing that Cindy had not been exagerating at all. In fact, she hadn't even mentioned that the walls and ceiling had been blackened with smoke.
"All because I don't have any sense," Mike groaned. "What was I thinking of? What was I thinking of?"
I looked at the blackened mass of twisted plastic in the middle of the room. "Let's get this straight," I said. "You set fire to her trash bin?"
"I thought I made sure it was out!" he said. "I shouldn't even have been smoking in there...shouldn't have been smoking at all...I quit years ago. But all this stress and work got me started again...I've been keeping awake on coffee and cigaretts for days now. Anyway, she was out, and I was dying for a smoke before I went off to shoot footage of these crop circles that keep showing up. I just had a cig and tossed it in the bin...but I thought I put it out first! I guess I didn't..." He looked miserably at the scorched room. "I'm finished. She'll never let me work with her again...I'll be lucky if I get to shoot commercials for the station!"
"Stop being such a pessamist!" I scolded him. "I'll go find her and explain...don't worry!" And off I ran, even though I had no idea how to explain this to Cindy.
Actually, I didn't have to. After a fruitless search of the building, I went outside to look around Barton. The Barton Cafe had closed for the season, and almost everyone was inside at the Barton Pub, but there was one table outside, with Cindy at it, eating scrambled eggs and toast.
"They moved it outside for me," Cindy said when I walked over. "I've had enough of other people's smoke..."
I was about to try to make her feel better about Mike, when Rufus stormed angrily out of the Barton Boutique and across the plaza towards us. "Hi, Rufus," I said. "Anything the matter?"
He must have been waiting for that question, since he launched into a tirade about Ian at once. It seemed that ever since he got back from the Cliffs after April Fools Day, Ian had refused to work in the shop, and spent most of his time loafing around the Barton train station, talking and flirting with girls. Rufus had to run the shop himself, and was quite angry. "It was no problem for me to run it after he was arrested," he growled, "and of course I kept it going when he was in the hospital, but now? He should be helping bring in the bacon!"
Cindy laughed and told the waiter to bring Rufus some milk. Then she launched into a tirade of her own about how Mike was smoking again and had so carelessly set fire to her trash bin while she was busy away from the station. "He ruined everything!" she grumbled.
"All men are like that," I said, "we just have to deal with them. But we shouldn't get too angry, they can't help it!"
"Woof!" Rufus agreed. "I still love Ian!"
"Yeah..." Cindy said. "I guess...I guess I should still talk to Mike. At least untill this mess is over..."
So things are sort of ok. Cindy and Mike are on speaking terms, although very coldly. Cindy's still in a bad mood, but is trying not to vent it on anybody. She has another office for now, and I think she's getting a new laptop tomorrow. I just hope the lost information on the ruined laptop and papers wasn't too important!