The Devil In The Details

 

Kersey Goss works for an office supply store.She takes phone orders for pens and paper, for business cards and blank forms. She even orders jars of candy for office receptionists to put out on their desks next to acrylic card caddies that hold business cards.You might not get excited when things like fruit scented pens and new colors of post-it notes hit the streets but Kersey Goss does.

Last year Kersey parted her hair on the left side of her head instead of the right and even changed her perfume from “Sweet Lilly” to something called “ Lemon Splash “and everybody noticed.

Well to be precise, everybody was stunned into silence when they saw Kersey and her new look.Times may change and fashion may change and every time it rains the earth changes too; but Kersey Goss doesn’t change.

 It’s a fact of life out there in Stedman, Washington.

It was a slow day around Harmon and Sons Office Emporium and Wayne Kirkland who was a Grandson of one of the “Sons” in Harmon and Sons was reading the newspaper. He was always reading the newspaper…if he wasn’t reading the newspaper he was doing the crossword  ( where he filled in the words WRONG and purpose in glitter pen ) and if he wasn’t doing the crossword he was doodling mustaches and horns on the pictures of politicians and anything else that caught his eye.  

Anyway,  on that slow day Wayne saw an article in the Stedman Times that nearly sent him into hysterics. He was about to start drawing and doodling when he looked up and saw Kersey at her desk.

She was smiling and humming and busy filling a phone order. She was telling somebody all about the new line of papers they would be carrying for computer printers. 

Wayne bit his lips to keep from laughing and as he did reached into his desk for his scissors.

Then he spread the newspaper across his desk started to cut.

When Kersey came into work the next morning she reached for her inbox and pulled out her shipped order forms and was about to file them away when a news clipping floated down from the top tray and landed on her desk blotter.She turned it over and read the headline:

 Grave Robbers Strike Rural Cemetery- Law enforcement Officials now working with Local Health Department as the investigation into recent grave desecrations in GreenviewCounty escalates….

 Written across the story in red glitter pen was:

 KERSEY GETS A HOBBY

Kersey carefully folded the article in half and  dropped it into her wastebasket. Then she went back to her work.  

 

A week later Kersey found another clipping in her in box and she turned it over briefly and saw something about “ Ghoulish Discovery” at Edmonds Cemetery and Funeral Home in Burr County. Written across this article in purple glitter pen was:

 COOKING WITH KERSEY

She pressed her lips together and looked up at Wayne. He was trying very hard not to laugh and finally he couldn’t help himself. “Why are you doing this Wayne? It’s not funny you know.”  Kersey shook her head but instead of throwing away the article about the Ghoulish Discovery she read it…she read it twice.   

 

For the rest of the month Wayne kept dropping the Grave Robbing stories into Kersey’s mailbox and he finally stopped one day because Kersey wasn’t neatly folding the articles up and dropping them into her trash basket anymore.

Wayne noticed Kersey was smoothing the articles  out and then she paper clipped them together and then she put them into her desk drawer.

On that last day Kersey  looked up at Wayne and caught his eye.   She shook her head and she said in the clear and concise way she talked to vendors who didn’t deliver to her customers  on time, “I really need to do something about you Wayne. I can’t have this kind of attention”

 “Oh come on Kersey. Can’t you take a joke?” Wayne asked.  Then he went on, ” no one could ever believe you were out there in the dark with a shovel robbing graves and if my Uncle is right… and he probably is considering he’s the Sheriff in Burr, you’re not doing a little midnight snacking on what you dig up after all that work.”

 Kersey dropped her pen into her pen holder and then she got up walked over to Wayne’s Desk. “Grave Robbing isn’t something you do Willy-Nilly, Wayne. You have to be prepared and meticulous and quiet. You have to know exactly what you’re doing.”

When Kersey was at Wayne’s desk she dropped her cool lemon scented hand on top of Wayne’s head and said,  “Organization, Wayne,  is the secret to be a success at any given profession. But if you knew that you would be a full partner instead of be working for your Daddy. Isn’t that right?” 

 Wayne nearly picked up his glitter pen and stabbed Kersey in the eye with it because at that moment he never realized how awful it was to be that close to Kersey.

The next morning Wayne was at work an hour before anyone else got in…including Kersey who was always exactly 15 minutes early. He flipped on all of the lights and without realizing it he grabbed a box cutter from the sales counter and took it with him to Kersey’s desk.

He sat in her chair for a minute without moving a muscle and then he reached down and opened her bottom desk drawer.   It was as neat and organized as the rest of her desk.  

The first thing he took out were the newspaper clippings with his glittering comments.

The next thing he took out were maps and Wayne could see they weren’t street maps they were the maps you got from Funeral Homes so that you could find graves out in the cemetery.

Each of the maps had little blue boxes with red check marks inside of them written in Kersey’s neat hand.

Then one map  caught his eye in particular because it was for the “ Pioneer Cemetery”

Pioneer was were all of  the Harmons were laid to rest; it was also a famous place not because of who was buried there but because of the statue that was suppose to come to life on Halloween if you walked around it three times backwards and said “ Satan Loves Me.”

But Wayne wasn’t really thinking of that statue, he was looking at a little area on the Pioneer Cemtery map called “Reflection Meadow” where Kersey had written“Wayne Harmon for dinner next Friday”

Wayne dropped the map on Kersey’s desk and as the papers floated downwards  a cool lemon scented hand dropped down onto the top of his head.