The problem with being six feet six inches tall is that you tend to stand out in a crowd. Ordinarily, this would not be a problem for Brenda Brundtland-Govanni, whose disdain for the human race generally led her to ignore the awkward glances and mothers warning their children to "stay close to me and stay away from that...let us, for the sake of argument, call her a woman." Oddly, Brenda Brundtland-Govanni’s disdain for humanity was not helpful when it came to secretly following a member of her staff.
The usual disguises were of no use to her, either. When she tried dark glasses with bushy eyebrows and a moustache, she looked like a billboard for A Night at the Opera. When Brenda Brundtland-Govanni donned a wig and dark glasses, she looked like Brenda Brundtland-Govanni in a wig and dark glasses. The less said about the fish paste and prosthetic eyelids, the better. Clearly, if Brenda Brundtland-Govanni was to get to the bottom of the leak in her news department, drastic measures were called for.
She put on a pink sun dress.
"I need to go out," she told Pops Moobly. "I’m leaving you in charge while I’m gone."
"Thanks. And, who are you?" Pops amiably asked.
Brenda Brundtland-Govanni was about to rip him a new [orifice to be named at a later date], when she realized that the disguise had worked. She turned up her lips in what she hoped was an approximation of a smile. For a reason he couldn’t comprehend, Pops Moobly shivered. To the bottom of his soul, he shivered. Batting her eyelids in what might have been coyness - hey, we all live in hope - Brenda Brundtland-Govanni replied, "I’m looking for the...cafeteria. I...I read about it in Bacteria Monthly and thought I should try it."
Pops Moobly gave her a short lecture on the history of cafeteria food - well, short for Pops, anyway. Fifteen minutes later, Brenda Brundtland-Govanni, claiming an appointment to have her spleen dry-washed, managed to get away. After a moment, Pops went to the bathroom to wash his face - he thought it wouldn’t look right to wash his entire body in such a public place...during office hours - although he couldn’t explain why he felt such a strong compulsion to do so.
Owing to a trick her mother had taught her when she was a child that involved finding calendars on supposedly secure personal PDAs, Brenda Brundtland-Govanni knew that Marcella Carborundurem-McVortvort had a weekly appointment at a place called Elegant Solutions on Queen Street West. She didn’t know why Carborundurem-McVortvort spent so much time at a store that sold chemicals, but, then, you could fill a Google with what Brenda Brundtland-Govanni didn’t know about her staff.
Eschewing (chewing esses? - Grammarcheck isn’t having a seizure, so the word probably makes sense) the combination hovercraft/coffeemaker as too conspicuous to be inconspicuous, Brenda Brundtland-Govanni used her personal scooter to drive over to the store. You would think that a six foot six woman in a pink dress tooling around a big city would attract attention, but Toronto was made of more jaded stuff.
Brenda Brundtland-Govanni reached Elegant Solutions just as Carborundurem-McVortvort was leaving. She was carrying an oversized bag in the shape of a doggie bone. Brenda Brundtland-Govanni had the sneaking suspicion that the bag actually contained a purse dog; she didn’t have time to consider the possibility that this was a kind of reverse cannibalism, though, as Carborundurem-McVortvort hopped into her Toyota Corolla (with specially fitted brake slippers for comfortable driving late at night) and drove off.
Brenda Brundtland-Govanni followed her to an office complex. According to Carborundurem-McVortvort’s PDA, she was meeting with Gabrielle Rotunda, President of Donny’s Daycare & Domestic Doodles. Brenda Brundtland-Govanni had done due diligence on Donny’s Daycare & Domestic Doodles: it was a company that created books in Braille for eReaders. Carborundurem-McVortvort volunteered there twice a week (including the month of March), helping distribute the Braille books to deaf children.
It was such an altruistic pursuit, it almost made one forget that Carborundurem-McVortvort had stabbed her employer in the back. Almost.
Brenda Brundtland-Govanni had no reason to believe Donny’s Daycare & Domestic Doodles was anything other than what it appeared to be, so she spent the next 90 minutes scowling at small children who walked past her on the street. She was enjoying herself so much - Brenda Brundtland-Govanni decided that she liked the scurrying the best - that she almost missed Carborundurem-McVortvort exiting Donny’s Daycare & Domestic Doodles. Almost. Brenda Brundtland-Govanni followed Carborundurem-McVortvort back to Queen Street - East, this time - to a place called Bob’s Tox Box.
In the history of poorly regulated self-mutilation in the name of beauty, Bob’s Tox Box barely rated a footnote. A soft, wrinkle-free footnote, but a brief mention, nonetheless. It occupied an 1870s art deco building that had been retrofitted to fit in with the city’s dominant retro esthetic: new concrete, steel and glass imprisoned the old brick with a haughty, self-satisfied laugh. The effect was an edgy feeling of comfortable tradition. Or, possibly a comfortable feeling of edgy tradition. Architecture is not an exact science.
Brenda Brundtland-Govanni was looking for small children on the sidewalk when she noticed another woman entering Bob’s Tox Box: Edina Splatt-Furstenberg. It had been over a decade since they first clashed over the proper use of shrimp forks, but Brenda Brundtland-Govanni remembered the brittle bottle blond as Edina Splatt-McSplice - Rooney McSplice’s third wife (and fourth divorce)! As evidence of wrong-doing went, it wasn’t exactly OJ’s blood-stained knife, but it was something. Deciding to spare the children, Brenda Brundtland-Govanni followed Splatt-Furstenberg into Bob’s Tox Box.
"May I help you?" Brenda Brundtland-Govanni, entering the reception area, was asked by the skinniest woman she had ever seen. How skinny was this woman? Slender was jealous. Slim couldn’t believe that somebody that skinny could have evolved naturally. Thin thought being that skinny couldn’t possibly be healthy. Scrawny felt she could have been gorgeous if she would just eat a little more. Emaciated had a hissy fit and ran to its trailer before it could comment.
"I...no, thank you. I’m just looking," Brenda Brundtland-Govanni replied, scanning the sea of anxious, saggy faces hiding behind magazine covers. Not five seconds in, and already she had no idea where Carborundurem-McVortvort or Splatt-Furstenberg were!
The woman looked over her owl-rimmed glasses and said, "You’re in luck. Dr. Billy had a last minute cancelation - he can see you for a consultation right away."
"But, I’m not - " Before Brenda Brundtland-Govanni could even figure out what she was not, the woman gave her a withering look and said, "You’re not here to spy on anybody, are you?"
Brenda Brundtland-Govanni reluctantly gave the woman her name and contact information and allowed herself to be led up two flights of stairs, down one hallway and into a sterile doctor’s office with ornate children’s drawings and degrees in crayon on the walls. She was trying to imagine an outcome to this encounter that didn’t involve slapping everybody in the clinic silly - but, not trying too hard - when an Adam’s apple in a doctor’s lab coat entered and sat behind the desk in front of her.
"Ms. -" the man consulted a clipboard. His Adam’s apple immediately lit up. "Gabor? Eva Gabor? I - I’m honoured that you would honour our clittle linic with -"
"Oh, it vas nuzzink, darlink," Brenda Brundtland-Govanni chanelled her inner Green Acres to say. "I vas in town and decided I needed a little...touch up. Here and zere. You know how it iz."
"Oh, absolutely!" the Adam’s apple trilled. "I’m Boctor Dilly - uhh, Doctor Billy."
"A plezzure," Brenda Brundtland-Govanni stated. Then, she looked at her watch, then the door, then Doctor Billy. He got the hint.
"Now, here is what we do here at Bob’s Tox Box," Dr. Billy explained, his Adam’s apple adopting a professional tone. "We put deadly poison in your face. I know, I know, it sounds dangerous. When they first come to us, most women say, ‘I don’t want poison in my face!’ And, who can blame them? Poison anywhere in your body is a terrible, terrible thing, but it is especially terrible to think of it in your face. And, yet, somebody had the idea, ‘I wonder what would happen if I injected poison into women’s faces?’ And, as it turned out, when they saw the results, women loved having poison injected into their faces! It’s a funny old world, isn’t it?"
"That’s your sales pitch?" Brenda Brundtland-Govanni asked, awestruck.
"Oh, no," Dr. Billy responded. "I’m just making chit chat while my secretary looks into your background. You know, to see if you are who you say you are."
"You’re...investigating...me?" Brenda Brundtland-Govanni’s blood ran cold. Er.
"You’d be surprised how often we get nosy reporters posing as prospective clients," Dr. Billy told her. "‘Do you inject women’s faces with poison?" they want to know. Of course we inject women’s faces with poison! It’s not like we make a secret of the fact that we inject women’s faces with poison! But, journalists will sensationalize the most trivial - are you alright?"
Brenda Brundtland-Govanni was not alright. "I think I may have...left my camel running," she said, weakly.
"Camel?" Dr. Billy mused. "Strange form of urban transportation."
"You wouldn’t believe how many miles to the gallon it gets, though," Brenda Brundtland-Govanni responded. After an awkward pause, she added: "Excuse me," and rushed out of the room.
And, ran straight into Marcella Carborundurem-McVortvort.