Accounting for It All

By R.R. Campbell

Former porn-star Robin Whethers has skated by as Pornucopia's do-nothing accountant for years. And who can blame her? Her supervisor has only encouraged her dillydallying, and it's given her oodles of time to do what she loves most: coach the talent at her mentor's all-female pornography studio.

But then the IRS comes knocking. With her supervisor unable to bail her out, Robin can either come clean and risk her friendships and career, or buck up and find another way to skirt the system. No matter how she chooses, along the way she'll have to confront both her blossoming feelings for the man she's enlisted to teach her accounting and the return of the woman she's always loved, who's finally ready to try to make things work.

This lighthearted yet evocative tale of one woman's quest for self-actualization is sure to please anyone who's ever made the wrong choice for the right reasons.

• Language: English
• Publisher: NineStar Press, LLC
• Release date: Nov 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9781949909371

Book preview

Chapter One

MIAMI, FLORIDA—APRIL 2017

Thursdays are my favorite days at Pornucopia.

For starters, it’s payday, and second, it’s in-house filming day, which means after a whole week of waiting, I finally get to work as a talent consultant again.

But it’s the simplest of things that make Thursdays the best of days, and there isn’t anything more predictable than the Thursday morning safe-looting operation.

Before I make it to the safe, though, I stop in the doorway of Jerry’s office for our routine Thursday conversation. Morning, Jer.

We’re still doing this, huh? He says it with a grin, so between that and me being—in his words—a prized former starlet, I know he doesn’t mind my teasing.

I’m betting we only have a few thousand in the safe this week. Still want me to—?

Jerry throws his hands up, pretending to look all exasperated as his double chin wobbles around. Always. Go. To. The. Bank. Every Thursday. No matter how much or how little is in there. Always. Go. To. The. Bank.

I repeat always go to the bank with him as he says it for the second time. Right. How could I forget?

Never forget.

I won’t, I say. And I never have.

I keep moving my way down our skinny, second-floor hallway and enter my office through the last door on the left. After I plop to my knees at the base of the filing cabinet, I ease out the bottom drawer. It slides with a terrible squeak—Jerry still hasn’t lubed it up with WD40 like he promised—and I lift the half-rusted safe from it, my palms running along its cool steel.

I punch in the combination and the safe clicks open, revealing the fat stack of cash inside. If Jerry’s makeshift receipt can be believed, we’re a tick under sixty-two hundred bucks.

As I double-check Jerry’s count, the graininess of each bill wears on my thumb. It’s probably my least favorite part of the safe-looting scheme, what with how tedious it can be. Honestly, for as much as I love the Thursday morning charade, I’d much rather be back talent-consulting full time. Or heck, even acting.

It could be worse, I suppose. Really, Jerry’s not bad where supervisors are concerned. He may be a ham-sandwich-pounding son of a gun, but since he’s the only person actually doing any accounting around here—and because he’s the only one who knows he’s the only person doing any accounting around here—I’ve got no plans to betray his trust.

After all, getting paid for five days of work a week when I really only have one? That’s a pretty sweet deal, if I do say so myself.

I wrap up counting Jerry’s stack of bills—a bit under six thousand two hundred, just as his scratch-paper receipt says. No need to count again; they’ll do that at the bank anyway. I wad it all together with a rubber band and exit my office.

Out in the hallway, I figure I may as well tease Jerry one last time before slipping downstairs and out the door. Hey, Jer?

My eyebrows knit when I hear nothing from him. I could’ve sworn I heard him shuffling around hardly a minute ago.

Hey, Jerry. Again the only response I get is my own breathing and the soft pad of my ankle-cut Chuck Taylors on the tiled floor.

I step into his office. Hey, Jer. Looks like we only have a few thousand—

There, facedown on his desk, rests the motionless body of Jerry Chalmers.

I drop the chunk of cash and rush to his side. Jerry. Hey. I shake him. He doesn’t stir. My fingers fly to his neck, then to his wrists in search of a pulse. Nothing.

After dashing back to my office, I fumble through my purse for my phone and dial nine-one-one.

Thursdays are normally my favorite days at Pornucopia, but this Thursday might change all that.

Chapter Two

THE POLICE COME and go. The coroner, too, and the ambulance drives off empty. Jerry was deader than dirt by the time even I’d found him, apparently. I guess that’s what you get for a lifetime of ham sandwiches and spreadsheets.

We decide to cancel Thursday’s in-house shoot, and Cee puts us on optional attendance until after the burial. Family we are, all of us, and Jerry—well, he was never in the business like us ladies were—are—but he was family all the same.

Hm. Every time I walk past his office—even now, a whole Thursday later—I expect to see him sitting there, chowing away. I shake my head as I leave his office behind and head for mine.

After fetching the safe from the cabinet’s bottom drawer, my fingers fly across its front as I pop in the combination. The safe clicks open and I reach my hand inside. The bills are there, all right, but it isn’t until I yank my hand free that my blood near stops pumping.

Jerry was the one who always put the cash in here. The receipt in his handwriting suggested so, anyway. So where did this new set of bills come from?

Back up a minute—why did I even bother showing up in the first place? I guess the Thursday safe loot and bank run were deeper ingrained in me than I realized.

I turn the cash over in my one hand, fishing around in the safe with the other. Oh no. Oh, Lord God, no.

Last week’s haul. It’s still in here. With all the hullabaloo around Jerry’s buying of the farm, I put those bills back in there and never took ’em to the bank. Mr. Ham Sandwich isn’t even buried yet, but if he were, he’d be rolling. Always. Go. To. The. Bank, I hear him say. My back tenses. I shoot up from my crouch, long locks of blonde hair swooping into the corners of my vision. I toss them aside as I plop the two sets of cash onto my desk and get to checking ’em out.

One wad has a receipt—Jerry’s original from last Thursday. The other has no receipt. None at all. I fire through the new set of bills to get a count. Eight thousand, more or less.

My phone tells me I still have time to make it to the bank before meeting up with Joss and Cee at the burial, but part of me wonders if I shouldn’t put this whole operation on hold until I can clear things up with Cee. Last thing I want to do as Pornucopia’s acting accounting manager—not that I have any clue what I’m doing—is put whoever we eventually hire in a bad way by botching the books.

I make to rubber band the fresh set of bills and toss it back in the safe, but a thought stops me. Jerry’s mantra. His damnable mantra. Every Thursday, Jerry’s voice says in my head. No matter how much or how little is in there.

Right. Stick to the normal routine, Robin: deposit the full value of the safe’s contents. Immediately withdraw ten percent. Leave that cash in the safe back at office. Write check for ninety percent of original deposit. Mail check to ENDOV SERVICES, P.O. Box 918. Lather, rinse, and repeat next week.

I tie up the new bills and tuck ’em into the bank bag with last week’s haul. I’m not gonna bungle these books, no. Jerry hasn’t led me wrong before. The best I can do is pretend nothing’s changed and sort out where the cash comes from later. Heck, the books probably have that information in there somewhere. If I force myself to learn to read them a bit, I’m sure I can find the answer on my own.

I unclench my fists and drop the bank bag into my purse.

THE ENGINE REVS as I lay into the gas pedal of Babygirl, my ’05 Aztek. In light of her recent coughs and sputters, I shouldn’t ride her so hard, but there’s no way I’d ever give up on her. For now, she can take it—not that it’s right for Babygirl to have to pay for me being late for the burial, but here we are. I mean, really it’s kind of Jerry’s fault I’m running behind since I visited the bank as a tribute to him in the first place. So yeah. Thanks, Jerry. Or something.

I say a quick rest in peace under my breath as to not speak ill of the dead, just in case. I don’t need that on me.

My phone buzzes. I read but don’t respond to the prodding text from Cee before tossing my phone onto the passenger seat. It bounces at a bad angle, plopping on the floor with a smack. I cringe, but the sucker’s taken harder falls in its day. It’ll be all right.

With both hands back in control of Babygirl, I push it all aside. Today’s about Jerry and his family, not whether I’m late for something again.

My phone starts vibrating against the floor, crying out like I can only imagine a howling duck would sound. For a hot second, I shift my weight to reach over and take the call, but the phone’s slid into the passenger-side door. Way too far. Anyway, Cee or Joss can buzz right off. I’ll be there in a minute.

Fine. Ten more minutes.

When I pull up, the pallbearers are only just unloading Jerry’s casket from the hearse beneath the overhang some thirty yards away. I throw Babygirl into park before clicking my seat belt off and reaching across my center console for my phone. Gotta remember to put it on silent before hustling up there—well, no, I’ll take my time to prove a point. A nice, leisurely—

My heart finds my throat. I scrunch my eyes up and try to blink away the confusion once, twice, three times. But it’s still there. Every time I look, the voicemail is still there.

It’s not even the voicemail that’s got me struck dumb as a box of socks, though, not really. It’s who it’s from.

I look through the windshield toward the overhang. They’re only hauling in the casket now. I’ve got time.

My thumb finds the play button and I press my phone to my ear.

Hey, Robin. Her voice is still sweet—so sweet—but there’s something sad to it too. It’s Sarah. Um, I know it’s been a while—a long while—but I wanted to let you know, she says, suddenly getting giddier, I’m moving down your way in the next couple of weeks.

My heart blows up in my throat, pieces of it choking me as I struggle for air.

So, I guess… If you’re still in the Miami area, I’ll only be a quick jaunt up the highway from you. Anyway, I thought I’d call to say hi. It’d be nice to see you again if you’re, you know, up for it. But yeah, I hope all is well. Talk soon.

Quick as it came, her voice disappears. Gone again.

My phone tumbles into my purse. I wipe the sweat from my palms on the flare of my black dress before I exit Babygirl and speed walk toward the overhang.

No matter how fast I hustle, thoughts of Sarah catch up: the tender familiarity of her voice, how she’ll be as close as she’s been in eight years.

Chapter Three

I SWIRL MY paintbrush around in my cup, the water spinning faster and faster as I keep at it. I don’t know why we couldn’t go to the Wittmore instead.

Joss pokes her head out around the side of her canvas. Her hair is pulled back tight in a high pony, and the contacts she’s wearing are still throwing me for a loop; I haven’t seen her without her glasses on since her acting days. We go to the Wittmore every Wednesday—

Yeah, I say. That’s why it’s called Wittmore Wednesday.

Cee presses a brush to her own canvas on my right. She keeps her eyes on her work as she jumps into the conversation. It’s called Wittmore Wednesday because you choose to have us go to that skeezy hotel bar when it’s your turn to pick. She dabs at her canvas, her tongue poking out the corner of her mouth. Besides, we’ve gotta do artsy things when it’s Joss’s turn—otherwise how’s she gonna keep feeling so fancy? She’s gotta make use of her art-school education somehow.

Excuse me? Joss says. This is Paint Tyme, not a studio session at the Cooper Union.

Cee puts her free hand to her chest. She tries out this English-sounding accent, which isn’t really her thing. Oh, well, excuse me—it seems we plebs know nothing of the Cooper Union.

I snort laugh, which botches the bluish-gray brushstroke I was making in the corner of my canvas. My laugh puts Cee to bellowing, which has Joss biting her lip to keep from doing the same.

Cee starts teasing Joss again hardly a second later. Making fun of her for her starving artist attitude toward her role as a director is one of our favorite pastimes, after all. I mean, Joss is great at what she does—there aren’t many feminist porn directors out there who can say they’ve been nominated for Feminist Porn Awards five years running, but there aren’t any who can say they’ve been nominated for so many without ever having won.

Yeah, it’s a sore spot for her. We try to avoid bringing it up.

The two of them keep bickering while I train my ears toward the front of the tiny café hosting this Paint Tyme event. The instructor—midthirties and wearing a sweatshirt underneath his apron despite the normally blazing temperatures this time of year—seems to have the hots for a girl at the front table, which has been plenty entertaining to watch when Cee and Joss aren’t playing WrestleMania with words.

So now—the instructor says, speaking directly to blondie, the rest of us apparently undeserving of his infinite wisdom—I want you to grab your ‘fat man’ brush and make long gentle strokes. On his own canvas he shows where he means—he’s trying to get everyone to paint a wine bottle and a basket of bread—but the words fat man get me fixated on Jerry, which triggers thoughts of the funeral, which jacks up my concern over how someone’s gonna have to step into his accounting role soon. God, I hope Cee has a plan for that ’cause there’s no way I’m qualified to take it on.

Then, because my brain is an anxiety-addicted ne’er-do-well, Sarah’s voicemail steals my attention away.

I try to push it—push her—away for now, mostly because I want to call her, but every time she holds my attention hostage, the color drains from my face. If that happens, Cee and Joss’ll get to asking questions, and I am so not ready for that, even though part of me knows it’s exactly the kind of thing I’d like to bounce off them before I decide to call or not call her back for real.

So yeah—I’m doing a great job of not focusing on it.

All I’m saying is it’s more than a bit ironic, Cee says. You know, you dropping out of art school because you were tired of folks—

Believing they were God’s gift to film? Joss says. That’s one of many reasons I dropped out, sure. And if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have come here, and if I hadn’t come here, I wouldn’t have become God’s gift to feminist pornography.

Cee rolls her eyes. "At least you’ve got a sense of humor. Still, it is ironic, don’t you think?"

Ooh. The sound leaves me before I can stop myself. Like that song by Sarah McLachlan.

Both women stop painting, their eyes wide, their paintbrush hands frozen.

I go on. Like ten thousand spoons when—

Oh my God, girl, Cee says. She is not—who did you say?

Sarah—

Alanis Morissette sings that song, Joss says. Pretty sure. She looks to the floor a minute. It’s her, isn’t it?

Check your phone, Cee says.

Joss raises her hands a little higher. Covered in paint right now, if you couldn’t tell.

Cee eyes me up. You check.

Same. I show her my hands. But I think Joss is right. It’s Alanis Morissette. Ugh, and I knew that. So why did I say Sar—oh. Yup. That’s why I said Sarah.

The song actually has very little irony in it, Joss says. Which is kind of ironic.

Where’d you learn that? Cee says. The Cooper Union?

From the front of the room, the instructor tells us to switch to our little boy brush. I do, but I’m so far off the suggested design I can’t imagine changing brushes will help.

Joss rolls her eyes. No. I learned that in real life.

Explain it, then. Cee sets her fat-man brush down but doesn’t pick up her little boy. She wipes her hands on her apron before folding her arms across her chest. Come on, Miss Cultured. Break it down for us.

Cee’s not always this hard on Joss, but I suspect Cee was on my side this week—she would’ve much rather settled for drinks at the Wittmore than done this whole Paint Tyme thing.

All right, Joss says. Irony. It’s when you expect one thing, but the opposite happens.

I swipe my little-boy brush against the canvas. Hm. So like rain on your wedding day?

No, that’s just unlucky.

But what if I expected it to be sunny? I say.

Then you… Joss takes her eyes off Cee and pretends to be at painting again, all serious-like. Well, listen, the point is Alanis Morissette—

What if—? I say it not realizing I’m interrupting until the words are out. What if you’ve got a friend you’ve always wanted to hear from—but never expect to hear from—and then when they do contact you, you get to panicking because you don’t know how to act now that they’ve reached out?

How oddly specific, Cee says.

Let me guess, Joss says. Was it—ugh, what was her name? Sarah? Is she the one?

Now I’m the one who stops painting. How did you—?

Oh, you know me: a good friend with a good memory.

But that was—

Eight years ago. Yeah, I was there, remember? You two were tighter than two peas fired into one another in the Large Hadron Collider.

Ooh, a science reference, Cee says. But they don’t teach science at the Cooper Union, do they?

Joss ignores Cee. So do I. We were close, yeah, I say. Well, more than that, really—but that still doesn’t explain—

Think of it this way, Joss says. I watched the two of you hit it off for a whole week, but the second she left I never heard you mention her for almost a decade. Only seems appropriate she’d be the person you bring up as part of this incredibly specific scenario.

Cee interrupts again. The question is, Cooper Union, is this scenario truly ironic?

My God, Cee, Joss says. "I get you’re teasing, but now is not the time. Besides, I didn’t even go to the Cooper Union."

The whites of Cee’s eyes get as big as they’ve been all night, making it apparent she’s not gonna take sass whether she deserves it or not. Girl, whatever this whole Sarah-and-Robin thing is, it better be damn important to get so short with me.

Classic Cee, Joss says to me. Dishing it out but can’t take a serving of her own.

Guys. I throw my hands down so hard I lose my paintbrush on the floor.

Everything okay back there? the instructor says. He scratches at what must be an itch behind his mustache, leaving a chunk of blue paint tied up in its hairs.

We’re fine, I holler much more loudly than I intend to. Sorry.

My breath escapes in a sharp huff. Focus. Center yourself on the explanation. Get zen or whatever. Sarah is a friend, I guess, or I don’t know—she was my best friend growing up, and the two of us had a thing late in high school, but when I brought up what happened between us with her directly, she got all scared and stopped talking to me when she went off to college. We got together again once I moved down here, and things were perfect, and then they weren’t and—

All right. So, Cee says. I’m either gonna need you to slow your roll or be more specific. Probably both. No way I can help with this if you don’t give me the context I need.

Right. But where can I begin? And how? Well, I guess there’s the high school thing?

Sure, Cee says. Tell me everything about this girl you liked in high school that you still haven’t gotten over.

It’s more than that, I say. If it were so simple, I’d have—

We’ll be the judge of whether it’s simple, Cee says. So go. Story time. She picks up a brush again, and Joss does the same.

I fold my hands in my lap and get to spilling, hoping my words do justice to the memory, to the emotion behind it. Junior year I was seeing this guy—well, I wasn’t at the time—we were on and off, really—

Are you gonna tell the whole story this way? Cee says. Give me the highlights, girl. None of this, ‘well, like, um’ stuff. Ain’t nobody got time for it.

Both of my hands form fists. Fine, I say. "Here’s the deal: Sarah and I were friends going way back to, well, our childhood. First memories and the like. Pretty close, anyway.

And junior year, me and this guy had stopped seeing each other not long before prom, so Sarah and I went ‘together’—she always did the air quotes thing, not me—and by the time the night was over, we had this moment when—

Y’all made out, Cee says. We get it.

My heart hops, and other bits of me stir at the memory too. More than make out, we—

Let me guess, Cee says. Y’all banged, and it made you realize you also like women, and you’ve never been able to get over her because she was your first?

That’s not it, I say.

Cee, Joss says, for the love of the Cooper Union, please let Robin tell the story.

Cee rolls her eyes and keeps at her canvas.

In the weeks and months after prom, I say, we had this whole—I don’t know—actual relationship going on. I mean, we never addressed it out loud at the time, but anytime we were alone it was holding hands and lying across one another and… I loved it. I loved her.

Hm, Cee says. So you told her and she got scared and stopped talking to you and that’s the whole thing?

Ugh. That’s not the whole thing. Well, maybe it is. Cee’s always been one to cut through the bull—there might something to her straight talk, no matter how little I might want to hear it.

Judging by her expression, though, she’s not interested in hearing any more anyway—her mind is already made up. Let me guess, I say, I’m a whiny dingus who just needs to get over it?

Always, Cee says.

It takes all I have not to scoff. What’s with you today, Cee?

Don’t listen to her, Robin, Joss says. Knowing what I know about you and Sarah—especially after seeing how you ogled one another way back when—I’d say if she’s reached out now, it’d never hurt to at least return her call. You’re not committing to anything and neither is she.

Good. There. Joss would know better anyway. She’s known me longer than Cee has—though I guess not that much longer—and she’s always been a little more involved on the personal side of things. Even so, Joss telling me to call Sarah back won’t make doing it any easier, but nobody said I had to do it now, I guess. Or tomorrow. Or this weekend. We’ll see.

Cee sighs. You know what, y’all? You’re right. I’m outside myself tonight.

Tonight? Joss says.

All right. Fine. I’ve been a bitch and a half for a few days now.

A few days? I say.

Don’t push it. Cee plops her paintbrush into her water cup and takes a long draw from her wine before she says anything more. ‘I’m sorry’ is what I’m trying to say. I’ve been stressing since Jerry died, but I shouldn’t be taking it out on you. Y’all are family. The best I got.

I think every one of us has been stressing since Jerry died, Joss says. We should be helping one another, not clawing at each other.

Right, Cee says, and there’s something I can’t keep putting off any longer. She adjusts in her seat and cracks her knuckles. I cringe every time she pops ’em, but it sure gets my attention. We need to sort out this accounting thing. That’s what’s had me most concerned—after the whole Jerry-having-died business, that is.

This accounting thing. Oh God, no. How do you mean?

Don’t ‘how do you mean’ me. Cee pauses. Sorry. I did it again, didn’t I?

Both me and Joss nod. Up at the front of the room, instructor man seems to be almost finished with his painting. Mine’s still got blank patches on it, and who knows where Cee and Joss are at. I keep listening to Cee but throw myself into covering my canvas as quick as I can.

The way I figure, Cee says, Jerry had to have you nearly up to speed on everything he did. He had years to teach you something.

Jerry? Teach me something? Ever since he joined the team, it was always, No, no. You focus on the talent. I’ll focus on the books. I hate numbers, to be honest, so I wasn’t gonna complain.

Don’t get me wrong; I totally would’ve tried to learn the stuff if I had to. When Cee told me a couple