Service Dress Blues by Michael Bowen Read Free Book Online

she toyed with changing a phrase, though, a bit of sparkle seemed perversely to insinuate itself into the message somewhere else. She adjusted the collar of the yellow blouse she was wearing over a black turtleneck sweater and under a black v-neck sweater. (She had grown up in Kansas City, and not even four undergraduate years at the University of Michigan had prepared for Milwaukee winters.) No further inspiration reached her. The Muse of Serviceable Prose was apparently taking the afternoon off.
    It would have to do. Shrugging, she hit SEND . She consoled herself with the thought that at least she had completed the most annoying task she would have to confront for the rest of the day.
    Then her husband called.
    â€œWhere are you?” she asked, hearing the whine of tires over pavement as she answered the phone.
    â€œHeaded south on Highway Forty-one. Driving past the naughty book store this side of Fond du Lac. Maintaining speed and ignoring the exit.”
    â€œHow did things go in Loki? Did you get the copyright case?”
    â€œNot only that, I might have gotten an attempted murder case for Walt.”
    â€œAttempted murder? Who tried to kill whom?”
    â€œWife allegedly brained husband with skillet and he ended up in the hospital for a three-day nap. He allegedly clocked her one first but that was a good deal earlier, so the skillet-conking wasn’t exactly in the heat of battle.”
    â€œThat would have been a pretty standard premise for a TV sit-com episode in the ’fifties,” Melissa said.
    â€œIt’s a felony in Wisconsin.”
    â€œI’m guessing alcohol was involved.”
    â€œSafe bet. Do you know Veronica Gephardt, by the way?”
    â€œAfraid not. Should I?”
    â€œShe’s head of a study center affiliated with UWM. My new client would like to turn her into a politician—and I have a sneaking suspicion that he’s going to ask you to help him do it.”
    â€œLet me just check my job description,” Melissa said thoughtfully. “Let’s see, that would be under ‘H.’ ‘Hackwork comma Academic.’ Yes, that’s there. ‘Hackwork comma Bureaucratic.’ Yep, that too. Hmm. Nope. ‘Hackwork comma Political’ isn’t here. So unless he wants her to run for Provost or Chancellor it doesn’t look like I can help.”
    â€œI’ll take that as a maybe. By the way, am I going to get Melissatude for the rest of the day, or was that a one-shot deal?”
    â€œSorry, honey. Sarcasm is a fault that I should try harder to overcome. I just finished a note to a big shot in non-academic administration and I guess I hadn’t quite gotten all the bitchiness out of my system.”
    â€œThe Lindstroms also have an issue that your brother Frank might help us with,” Rep said then. He described what he called the “drunken-plebe mess.”
    â€œI have more sympathy with that one.”
    â€œI thought you might. Wasn’t Frank your favorite sibling growing up?”
    â€œHe was my most useful sibling, which may be the same thing. He’s the one who told me that boys don’t really think smoking is sexy, no matter what they say. More important, he taught me how to take a punch—and then he taught me how to throw one.”
    â€œBoth useful skills, with an important place in any self-respecting liberal arts curriculum. I’ve already called Walt about both issues, and unless I miss my guess the Lindstroms will be in touch with him before the day is out.”
    â€œI’ll send Frank an email this afternoon.”
    â€œThanks. I should be back by the usual time.”
    Melissa hung up and turned back to her keyboard. She had just turned fifteen on the I-Day not quite twenty years ago when she and her parents came with Frank for his induction into the United States Naval Academy. From the time she was two or three she remembered looking up to him in near adoration, even