Page 39 of Say Yes to the Hot Mess

“Toy repair,” I read out loud. “I can fix your yo-yos. Also available for fireplace cleaning/helping get your ashes hauled.” Beneath that are the words “Place your order and payment in locker twelve” and a string of numbers. I frown, turning to Maya. “What?”

She nods vigorously. “Weird, right? Does any of that mean anything to you?”

“No,” I say slowly, “but…none of the units here have fireplaces.”

She raises one eyebrow and smiles. “I noticed that too. I think this might be it.”

I shake my head. “It doesn’t make sense, though. Is this some kind of code?”

Maya shrugs, looking over her shoulder again at Archer, who still appears to be fast asleep. “Maybe. Let’s see. I’ll do a very questionable, possibly sketchy Google search.” She looks up at me, wincing. “One of those Google searches where you’re sort of scared to do it because you don’t know what’s going to come up.”

I nod, grimacing. “I know exactly what you mean. I read about the bubonic plague in a historical fiction novel when I was a teenager, and I looked it up because I didn’t know much about it, and I got some really disturbing pictures. Blackened body parts and whatnot.”

Maya’s nose wrinkles. “Oh, sad. I mean, I know it happened and all, but…I don’t want to see pictures.”

Still nodding, I say, “Yes. It wasn’t fun.”

She takes a deep breath and then pulls out her phone. “Okay, well, let’s do this.”

“You’re just going to search all the terms used here?” I say, interested. Her mind works in a more practical way than I would have expected.

“Yep,” she says. “And all I get when I search ‘yo-yo’ is a bunch of nearby toy shops. Maybe ‘fireplace cleaning’ is some sort of slang?” She searches for a second, frowning. “Mostly this just talks about chimney sweeps. I didn’t realize that was still a thing.”

“I don’t think it is—the way you’re thinking about it, anyway,” I admit. “Dick Van Dyke walking the streets of London, covered in soot and all that. You can hire chimney cleaners, though.”

“Huh,” she says. “The things you learn. Okay…” She bites her lip, leaning sideways and resting her shoulder against the bulletin board as she stares intently at her phone. “Let’s try something else, then. What about ‘get your ashes hauled’?” And then, one second later—“Oh! This is it!”

I blink in surprise. “Wait—really?”

“Yes!” she says excitedly. “‘Getting your ashes hauled’ is an olden-day euphemism for engaging in sexual activity!”

I glance around us to make sure no one is listening in—mostly because I’m embarrassed—but no one is nearby. Everyone is going about their business still, eating and chatting and gathering, oblivious to the two of us.

Maya goes on, “And it’s from…huh, interesting. It’s from the early 1900s. So I bet…” She trails off, lost in her search, and for a second she’s quiet. “Ah-ha! Yes. I’m looking up olden-day slang and euphemisms for sex, and here it is. ‘Yo-yo’ is slang from the 1930s for—” She breaks off, her cheeks going red. “Well, for man parts that don’t work like they should.”

“Ah,” I say, and I can feel my cheeks flush too. Hopefully she doesn’t notice. “That’s definitely it, then.” I pluck the paper off the bulletin board, feeling a surge of satisfaction.

We’ve finally got a lead.

* * *

The next dayI wake bright and early to the sound of Archer crying. At first I wince, but then I hear the low, muted sounds of Maya’s voice—she’s either talking to him or singing to him, and something about it makes me smile. I remember her quick thinking from the day before, and that makes me smile even more.

It’s a strange feeling, and one that I quickly force down. I can tell I’m starting to like her as a person, and that’s the last thing I need. So I focus instead on the day ahead of me.

I have a meeting this morning with the head of maintenance, the transportation director, the head of janitorial staff, and the scheduling director. I’m nervous, but also excited.

Yesterday after we found the paper on the bulletin board, I left Maya to her work and went to check inside locker twelve, using the combination listed on the flyer. I wasn’t even sure I was in the right place when I first got there, but there’s only one set of lockers in this building: in the exercise room.

My suspicions were confirmed when the locker combination listed on the flyer caused the little padlock to pop open. There was nothing in there, though, so I went back to my office. I’ll have to keep checking the locker periodically until I find something inside, or I can put something in there myself. I don’t have time for that at the moment, though; I focus instead on my presentation for today’s meeting. It’s short and to the point, but I think it will go well. I’ve met these men before, and they seem professional and reasonable.

They all show up at nine, and I take it as a good sign that they’re all on time. I lead them to the conference room—which is really not big enough for any sort of conference, but at least there’s a table and a projector—and wait for all of them to be seated before introducing myself. I try to keep my voice steady and my expression friendly, because the truth is, these men are all significantly older than me. The youngest of them, Ralph, still looks to be somewhere in his mid-sixties or early seventies. They’ve been around for a long time. I want them to like me if we’re going to work together smoothly. I’m not a groveler or a suck-up, but I do want to be on their good sides.

“Thank you for coming today,” I say to them—Don, Ralph, Vick, and Wilhelm, Josephine’s friend. “I wanted to go over some of the things Mr. Mackey talked about before he left—expanding the maintenance team, adding another shuttle stop, and so on.”

Don, Ralph, Vick, and Wilhelm all nod in unison, like they’re one coordinated unit, and in my head I begin referring to them as “the Oldies.”

“Go on, then,” Wilhelm says, gesturing to the PowerPoint presentation. He’s the one I’ve seen the most, just because he was eating lunch with Geraldine and her crew in my office the other day. “Let’s hear what you’ve got.” Once again, I notice his voice is surprisingly high pitched.

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