Of Blood and Smoke

Chapter 8

EIGHT

Della

Footsteps, shuffling, and voices I didn’t recognize woke me up. “Melinda,” I called out to my dad’s caretaker as I hopped out of bed.

Brett opened my door. “Get dressed, it's your dad.” He turned to leave.

“What do you mean it's my dad, what’s going on?”

Brett came in and shut the door while I tugged on a pair of pants. “Melinda found him unconscious. She called the hospital; they’re taking him now.”

“What?” I yelled at him. “And you’re just telling me now? Get out of my way.”

I shoved past him and ran into the hallway, immediately faced with paramedics and a worried Melinda. “Dad?” I called out.

One of the medical technicians came over to me, followed by my dad’s caretaker. “We’re bringing him in. You’re his next of kin?”

I proceeded to give the man my information while Melinda went to retrieve his go-bag loaded with changes of clothes, toiletries, and medications.

“What happened?” I asked. I felt a hand on my waist and elbowed Brett, dislodging him.

The technician answered, “We won’t know for certain until he’s seen by the doctor.”

Melinda brought his items out to the living room as the ambulance crew moved back and forth. They loaded my dad onto a stretcher while I watched helplessly. “I think he had another stroke, but we have to let the doctors ascertain that,” she offered, a sad smile on her face.

“Why did nobody wake me up?” I demanded, looking back and forth between Brett and Melinda.

“It just happened, I just got up,” he defended himself.

My dad was being carted out the door. “He’s stable, Della,” Melinda stated. “You can meet us at the hospital. You called out of work, right?”

There was too much happening, too much noise.

“Where were you last night?” I wheeled on Brett.

“What the fuck you talking about? With you.” He stepped up to me, our chests nearly touching. “Don’t give me that attitude,” he hissed into my hair so only I would hear.

He picked a great time to be an asshole.

Rubbing my forehead, I mumbled, “What time is it?” I glanced at the clock on the wall. Shit . “Again—why did no one wake me up?” No one answered.

Scurrying after the last of the ambulance crew, I stopped the man about to close the door. “What hospital? The General?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the guy nodded to me, and I thanked him.

Melinda placed a hand on my shoulder. “I’m going to follow them in, I’ll call you later.”

I wanted to go with them, but I knew the drill. This wasn’t an unusual event; something happening to my dad and him being carted away by a medical team. He’d have an episode of some sort, spend time in the hospital, and come back. The one thing we could rely on to never change was our bills.

Survival depended on me going to work.

It was two hours after I was supposed to be at the restaurant. I groaned out loud when the actual time finally computed in my scrambled brain. Searching for my phone, I asked Brett softly, again, “Where’d you go last night?”

“I was here.” He walked to the counter and picked up a mug of coffee and took a sip. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”

I wanted to punch him. “Yes. Thanks for making me coffee,” I said, trying to keep the sarcasm out of my voice while also hinting he should’ve been more considerate and had a cup waiting for me.

Irritated with my bad mood, he stuck a coffee pod in the machine on the counter, slammed the K-cup holder down, and pressed the button.

“Where the hell is my phone,” I complained and stormed back to my room. Somehow, it had fallen on the floor. I leaned over and grabbed it.

There were no missed calls, just a missed text message from Melinda stating she’d called nine-one-one. I let out a breath and dialed the restaurant.

Rubbing my hands down my face I sat on the edge of my bed after I set the device to the side. My manager had hung up with a fake “I’m so sorry” after what I told her. It didn’t matter, there were hundreds of people waiting to fill my shoes.

My dad was back in the hospital, Brett mysteriously disappeared during the night, and I’d gotten fired from my job for missing the shift I was supposed to be working right now. I was past the two-hour window for calling in, so they said I’d voluntarily quit, and I wasn’t about to beg for a job that I’d hated anyway. I’d just find another. Somehow.

Mickey D’s, here I come.

Brett pushed the door open, and I looked up. “Where’d you go last night? I woke up and you weren’t in the room.” He still hadn’t answered me, and I wanted to ask him about eating me out, but it felt like it wasn’t him, the technique was different and since when did Brett wear hooded cloaks? I’d seen him wear hoodies plenty of times but what I saw wasn’t one of them.

The intimate details of last night were not a conversation I wanted to have—letting a possible home burglar give me a mind-blowing orgasm. The man’s skills left Brett with a lot to be desired in terms of his technique.

He looked at me like I was crazy. “I was in the room the whole night.” He bent down and grabbed his shoes and socks and hopped around tugging a sock on.

“Whatever,” I mumbled. “I got fired, you know. I missed my shift.”

He shoved his feet into his shoes. “I tried to get you up, but you smacked me away. Don’t miss anymore shifts.”

None of that sounded familiar, not the hitting or him trying to wake me. “Ugh. Thanks for trying, I guess.” I slid off the bed and began digging through my dresser not wanting to stay in the T-shirt I’d slept in.

“Let me know how your dad is doing,” Brett said as he walked out.

Glancing at the door, I dismissed him from my thoughts. I texted Melinda asking for an update as soon as she knew anything and then moved to the living room, snagging my cup of coffee on the way. She’d said she’d tell me, but I knew it could get crazy at the hospital.

The apartment was dark, and I felt the absence of my father keenly. Even though he never made any noise, I still felt the lack of his presence. The air conditioner in the living room window auto switched on, the interior mechanisms rattling the unit as the fan started. There was some banging outside in the hallway and I listened to muffled voices trailing away as whoever it was moved toward either the stairs or the elevator. With the gray skies and lingering rain outside, the void in the atmosphere widened.

Leaning back on the couch, I scrolled through my phone with one hand and drank my coffee with the other. It was nice that Brett remembered I like French vanilla, I thought. The only nice thing about him other than his occasional talent in the bedroom, anyway.

My mind flicked back to my nocturnal visitor and me being trapped in my bed. Brett had said he was there the whole time, but I hadn’t seen him and someone else climbing on the mattress would’ve woken him up. It had to have just been a dream. A very vivid one, but a dream.

Further musing reminded me of Ashley and Andy and last night’s festivities and then I remembered the link she’d texted me at the street festival.

I knew she’d already sent her application in, and I quickly filled out my own. I left out my restaurant job when I got to the employment history part. My now-ex employers were jerks enough to potentially give me a very bad, overly detailed reference. They’d never liked that I’d always received good tips. My employment history wasn’t extensive, just some boutique shops and the tea gallery in Boston, other than the call center.

It would have to do.

As soon as I finished, I called Ashley. “Hey, I filled it out,” I told her.

“Good! My interview is tomorrow. They won’t tell me what department I’ll be in or anything until the interview. What did you apply for?”

I put her on speakerphone and tried to scroll through my application, but it wouldn’t let me go back over it. “A bunch of things. Technical assistance, copyediting, data entry, receptionist assistant.” I laughed. “Janitor.”

“Eww no. Why janitor? They’ll never give you that I bet.”

Placing my mug on the table, I said, “I’m not too good to scrub toilets.”

“You’re too pretty to scrub toilets.”

“Shut up, that’s not true. Dad went to the hospital again this morning. Melinda found him unconscious.”

Ashley gasped. “Oh my God. Will he be okay?”

“I hope so; I’m waiting to hear anything.” I bit the inside of my lip, trying to keep my anxiety down. “You know how this goes, he’s in and out, over and over.”

“I know,” she said, voice filled with pity. “But it's gotta be so hard.”

“It is.” My phone dinged with a notification. It was an email from the company we’d both applied to, Ipomoea Pharmaceuticals, and I clicked on it. “I already heard back—I have an interview.”

“Oh shit, that’s awesome. When?”

“Tomorrow. What time is yours? I have to call in sick for work; mine’s at ten in the morning.”

She let out a groan. “Mine’s at two. Would’ve been nice if we could’ve gone together.”

“It would’ve. I’ll have to take the train, it’ll be okay, that’s what I’ll be doing if I get the job, and we have different shifts.”

Walking out of the living room, I went to my closet. “New clothes, too. If this job is better than The Center.” Our job at the call center—creatively named The Center, had a loose dress code. I had the feeling the new place would be much stricter. If all the warnings about non-disclosure agreements and public image I’d seen on the application were any indication.

“The so-called ‘fine print’ in the application was a bit unnerving but this is the opportunity of a lifetime. I hear the pay is crazy high,” Ashley said. “We could even get nicer apartments.”

Sitting down on the edge of my bed, I warned my friend, “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”