Free Confessions of a Bombshell Bandit by Gemma Halliday Page B

belonged in a Corona ad. I decided then and there that banks were the places where dreams were made.
    It's not surprising that as soon as I graduated from college I took a job at Los Angeles Mutual Bank, home of the famous L.A. 'Moo' dancing cow ads. And I would have probably been content for many years with my just-getting-by life there, too, if it hadn't been for Mr. Leeman.
    "So," the woman across from me said, leveling her even gaze at me above stylish wire rimmed frames. "What exactly is the issue you have with Mr. Leeman?"
    I looked down at my hands, twisting themselves together to gather courage. "He's inappropriate."
    The woman, district manager for L.A. Mu, raised an eyebrow at me. "Inappropriate how?" she asked "Please elaborate?"
    I took a deep breath. "He calls me 'muffin.'"
    "Muffin?"
    I nodded. "And 'sugar cakes' and 'honey buns' and sometimes even 'dumpling pie.'"
    The district manager pursed her lips, but it was impossible to tell what she was thinking.
    So, I plowed ahead.
    "And it's not even that he just calls me these degrading things, but he does it to my chest. He always talks to my chest."
    The DM looked down at my chest. Luckily, I'd had the forethought to dress in a high necked sweater.
    "Now, I've always been a sticks-and-stones kind of girl," I continued. "So, I've tried to shrug it off. But, last Monday he…" I paused. I did another deep breath. "He touched me."
    This got the DM's attention. "Touched you?" she asked leaning forward, her pen hovering expectantly over her clipboard.
    I nodded again. "Yes. He…" I paused, trying to think of a genteel way to say this. Then gave up. There was nothing genteel about it. "He grabbed my ass."
    She narrowed her eyes at me. "I see. She scribbled something on the clipboard.
    "I don't want to make waves," I assured her, knowing that the last person who'd complained against the all powerful Leeman had been transferred to the South Central branch of L.A. Mu, where she had to go through a metal detector every morning, "but I just want him to stop. It's… inappropriate."
    "I see," she repeated. Still scribbling.
    "We all went to the sensitivity training session last month and they said we had a responsibility to the team to report any inappropriate behavior."
    "Uh huh."
    "So, um, I'm reporting it," I said, craning my neck to see what she was writing. 'Grabbed my ass' seemed like a pretty quick thing to jot down and she was now working on paragraph three.
    She quickly slapped a hand over her clipboard, obscuring her notes.
    I cleared my throat. "Right. So, um, I just want him to stop. Okay?"
    "Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Miss Cabot. I'll look into it."
    Hmm. I noticed she hadn't actually said what she'd do. I rose and shook her hand, trying in vain to get a look at her notes, then hopped in my little red Civic (parked two blocks down and behind a dumpster to avoid Mr. Repo) and left the district office for my own L.A. Mu branch, where, I realized looking at my dash clock, I was already five minuets late for my shift. I hated having to tattle on my lunch hour.

    * * *

    "So, what did she say?" Lynette asked. "Are they going to fire The Octopus?"
    Quinn rolled her green eyes up toward her spiked hair. Blue today. "Geeze, Lynnie. The guy grabs Carrie's ass and suddenly he's an Octopus?"
    "He touched my booty, too! In the break room yesterday. My husband hasn't even had his hands on my booty in six weeks," Lynette mumbled wistfully.
    "TMI, honey." Quinn flicked cigarette ash onto the pavement behind L.A. MU. "So, what did she say?"
    I took a long sip from my Diet Coke before answering. Ever since I'd gotten back to my teller window (ten minutes late, Mr. Leeman had irritably pointed out) I'd been running the conversation with the DM through my head. Three hours later, on our mandatory five minute coffee break, I was no closer to a conclusion. "She said she'd look into it."
    "What does that mean?" Lynette asked, popping the rest of her fat free muffin