8
As awful as Debra is, I’m determined to do an amazing job at caregiving, for Mrs. Finnamore’s sake. The next morning, I pop
over to her house before work to sort out a list of things I’ll do for her.
“You don’t have to do anything,” she says, pouring tea into my cup. “Just keep the money, buy a little treat for yourself.”
“I can’t do that ,” I say, aghast. “Your daughter gave me a check for a thousand dollars.”
“Debra’s got more money than brains,” Mrs. Finnamore says. “She’d pay ten times that to get out of caring for me herself.”
I shift in my chair. “I’m sure she’s just worried about you.”
Mrs. Finnamore makes a dismissive noise. “Biscuit?”
“Er—sure.” I take a chocolate biscuit from the box she offers me. “Really, though, I can’t just take her money. I wouldn’t
feel right about it. And there must be something you need help with,” I add. “Some chore that you don’t like to do, or something
you don’t have time for...”
I trail off, glancing around her kitchen. I don’t know how Debra could worry about this place turning into a “pigsty.” It’s
the cleanest, neatest home I’ve ever been in. It is a bit cluttered, I suppose, with hundreds of porcelain figurines arranged
artfully on little tables and shelves, but it’s so clean I could eat off the floors.
“I manage just fine,” Mrs. Finnamore says. There’s a distinctly stubborn edge to her voice.
My shoulders sag. “Then I can’t take your daughter’s money. No, I mean it. It wouldn’t be right. She paid me to be a caregiver.”
Mrs. Finnamore watches me for a long moment. So long, in fact, that I sneak a glance at her wall clock to make sure I’m not
going to be late for work. I don’t rush her, though. I’ve found that some older people need a little time to gather their
thoughts. I think that’s why a lot of young people get so impatient with them. But I don’t mind waiting. I take a few sips
of my tea and take another chocolate biscuit.
“I suppose you could get the groceries,” Mrs. Finnamore says finally. “They keep that store far too cold.”
I nod. “I can do that.” I hesitate, then add, “What about setting out your medicines? Debra seemed pretty worried about them.”
Mrs. Finnamore lets out a harsh breath through her nose. “Debra’s worried about everything. But if it’ll stop her fussing,
I suppose.”
I nod. “Anything else? Laundry, maybe?”
She eyes me. “Do you know how to do laundry properly?”
“Er... yes.” She looks so doubtful that I glance down at my clothes, suddenly worried I have a huge stain or something.
“I’ve got a new machine,” she says. “It’s very complicated to use.”
“I’m sure I can sort it out. I mean, if it would be helpful.”
She hesitates and then nods. “Fine.”
“What about meals? And dishes?”
I realize right away I’ve pushed too far. Mrs. Finnamore’s mouth tightens at the edges. “For goodness’ sake, I’m not an invalid . I’m perfectly capable of making my own meals. And I’ve seen what you young girls think meals are, all that microwaveable
nonsense and pasta from a box. No, thank you.”
I hide a smile. “Fair enough.” I look around her pristine house again. I wonder how much time it takes her to keep everything clean like this, and how often she gets out of the house. “We should go out once a week, too,” I add determinedly, “to do something fun in town.”
She looks skeptical. “Like what?”
“I don’t know. There’s a museum on Main Street I’ve been meaning to go to since I moved here.”
Mrs. Finnamore raises an eyebrow. “What on earth could they make a museum about in Waldon?”
“Oh, c’mon,” I say encouragingly. “It’ll be fun. A girls’ outing on Debra’s dime. It’s supposed to be rainy tomorrow, we could
go then. Rainy days are the best for museums.”
She looks at me—a bit pityingly, I might add—and then grudgingly relents. “If you really want to. I think my old friend Jim
works there.”
“There you go,” I say brightly, then rise to my feet. “I should get to work. Thanks for the tea.”
I sing along with the radio as I drive to the shop. I can’t believe I’m going to make two hundred and fifty dollars a week
just to help out a cool old lady. Think of all the interesting stories I’ll hear! I make a mental note to ask Mrs. Finnamore
if she remembers where she was during the moon landing. In fact, maybe today I’ll do a little research about the fifties and
sixties, when Mrs. Finnamore would have been around my age, and make a list of interesting questions to ask her. I want to
make sure she has a good time on our outing, and like I said on my date with Arjun, there’s nothing people like more than
talking about themselves. Whether they’re thirty years old or ninety years old, the rule still holds true.
When I arrive at the shop, John is at the front desk talking on the cordless phone. He’s frowning heavily, like he’s annoyed with whatever he’s hearing. He wanders off as soon as I come in without so much as a nod of acknowledgment—thanks, John—and I sneak a glance at the number on the phone dock. He’s talking to the shop owner, Fred.
Huh.
I’ve never seen Fred and John interact, but I have occasionally wondered if they don’t get along. I’ve heard John complain
about the state of some of the garage equipment, and when Fred popped into the shop the other day he made a few weirdly defensive
comments when he was checking the books, like, “See? Plenty of business. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it, Emily. That’s what
I always say.”
I hesitate for a few moments, then surreptitiously rise to my feet and drift toward the hallway. Just to stretch my legs,
you know.
Coincidentally, it allows me to hear a few snippets of John’s conversation.
“I really think—no, but—” An impatient sigh. “No, I realize that, I’m just saying—”
Man, I haven’t heard John sound this angry since that time a customer asked him to paint their Volkswagen Beetle bright pink.
(I believe his exact words were “You want to pay me to make your stupid car look even stupider?”)
“Fine. No, fine,” John snaps.
Shoot—his voice is getting louder. He’s coming back.
I hustle back to my desk. By the time John reappears, I’m frowning thoughtfully at an old receipt.
“Oh, thanks,” I say casually, as he returns the phone to the dock. He kind of grunts in acknowledgment and then disappears into the garage. I put down the receipt—which I’ve just noticed is from 2009, how the heck did this get here?—and prop my chin on my hand, frowning thoughtfully.
It never occurred to me to wonder if Fred runs this shop properly, because honestly, I’ve never really cared. But now that
I think about it, there are a lot of things around here that need updating. The booking system is ancient, for one thing,
and I know for a fact the security cameras in the back are broken, since Dave warned me not to park there when I first started
working here. And I’m no mechanic (obviously), but I’ve heard Dave and John cursing out some machine called a tire balancer
about a billion times. I wonder why Fred hasn’t bought them a new one.
Oh, well. I’m not going to get involved. Fred has always been nice to me, but he seems like someone who could fly into a temper
pretty quickly, and I don’t want to get on his bad side. Plus, it’s not like I’m going to work here forever. In fact, with
the new money coming in from helping Mrs. Finnamore, I might be able to get out of here even sooner. If I don’t change my
lifestyle at all, I can use the caregiving money to pay down my student loan. This time next year, I could be debt-free and
ready to dive into a new, exciting career!
This encouraging thought carries me through the morning, and I pass most of the time looking up things that happened in Canada
in the fifties and sixties. I even track down a list of the top ten most popular songs in Canada in 1962, which is when Mrs.
Finnamore was my exact age. Maybe I’ll make a playlist of them for the drive to the museum.
A few times during the morning, I find my thumb hovering over the New York Times app, but every time, I decide against opening it. It just makes more sense to do Wordle at lunchtime, when I can focus more.
And if John happens to be doing it then too, well, so be it.
I head back to the break room just after noon. John is sitting at the table, unwrapping a ham-and-cheese sub.
“How’s it going?” I ask, opening the fridge door.
He shrugs.
That’s his answer to the question “How’s it going?” A shrug .
I turn away and roll my eyes. Okay, maybe we’re never going to be BFFs, but I’ve still decided I’m going to make him my Wordle
work buddy, whether he likes it or not. I’ve got to keep my streak going, and it can’t hurt to have someone to bounce ideas
off of.
I put a pot of coffee on, spoon some granola and yogurt into a bowl, and sit down across from him. “Wordle time.”
He raises an eyebrow at my tone (which, okay, was kind of bossy) but takes out his phone.
“What’s your first word going to be?” I ask.
He shrugs again. “You?”
“HELPS,” I say. “As in, my neighbor’s daughter just hired me to—er, helps her out around the house.”
“That sentence doesn’t make sense.”
“Yes, I know,” I say tartly. “But ‘help’ is only four letters. What’s your first word?”
“COURT.”
“As in...?”
“As in nothing.” He types it into his phone. I look away before he clicks enter. I don’t want to accidentally cheat. “So are you, like, trained to do home care or something?” he asks.
“What? Oh—no. I’m not doing actual nursing stuff.” I spent a good hour last night making sure that I didn’t need any specific
training to be a caregiver in Canada, but it seems like as long as I stick to strictly nonmedical things, I’m okay. “I’m just
going to help my neighbor out with groceries and chores and things. She’s eighty-eight,” I add.
He grimaces. “Brutal.”
“No, it’s fun!” I insist. “I love older people. They have such interesting stories.”
He looks at me like I’m crazy. “Okay.”
“Don’t you ever ask your grandparents to tell you stories from when they grew up?”
“No.”
I frown. “Well, you’re missing out. Too many people think of their grandparents as just, like, generic old people who only
exist to send them money at Christmas. They don’t think of them as real people with feelings and hopes and dreams.” John is
still looking at me like I’m nuts, but I ignore him. “I bet your grandparents could tell you really interesting stories if
you just asked them the right questions,” I chide him. “Like, wouldn’t your mother’s parents have been alive during the April
Revolution? Or were they living in Canada then?”
John frowns. “How’d you know my mom’s Dominican?”
With effort, I refrain from rolling my eyes. “You told me.”
“Did I?”
This time, I actually do roll my eyes. “Do you remember any conversations you have that aren’t about cars?”
He blinks at me, looking faintly surprised. “Yes. Just because I don’t remember every single thing I’ve ever told you—”
“Every single thing?” I repeat. “You’ve told me, like, three things about yourself.”
He stares at me, and for once I think I’ve actually startled him out of his usual apathetic stupor. My cheeks grow a little
hot under his gaze.
“Forget it,” I say. “Let’s just finish Wordle.”
I turn back to my phone determinedly. HELPS gave me a yellow E and a green S. Time to rule out some other letters.
CRAZY, I type. As in, I must be CRAZY trying to have conversations with John.
It’s a better choice—the C is green and the A is yellow.
C, E, A, S.
C, A, E, S.
Hmm.
CAVES, I type in.
Shoot. Every letter is green but the V, which is wrong.
CANES, I try.
Crap. Wrong again.
I skim through the remaining letters.
Oh! CARES! It must be CARES. I confidently type it in and click enter.
Crap, crap . How can that not be right?
Oh. Wait a second.
CAKES. It could be CAKES.
Or... CAGES.
... and isn’t CATES also a word?
Oh, god. This is my worst nightmare. Any one of those could be right, but I’ve only got one guess left. My streak might end right now, just because of pure bad luck .
I swear under my breath.
“What?” John says.
“I’ve got one guess left, and there are three words that it could be.”
“Show me.”
I turn my phone toward him. “CAGES, CAKES or CATES.”
“Or CADES,” he adds.
“Is that a word?”
“I think so. A cade is, like, a barrel.”
I drop my head into my hands and rake my fingers through my hair. “I’m screwed.”
John studies me for a moment and then looks down at his own phone. “Do you want some help?”
I shake my head miserably. “My streak won’t count if I cheat.”
“Well, then, you’ve just got to guess.”
I bite my lip. He’s right. There’s no other way.
“CATES and CADES are too weird,” I say. “I’m not going to use them.”
“CAKES or CAGES, then.”
“Yeah.” I roll both words over my tongue, trying to see if I get a gut feeling for one of them, but all I feel is slightly
anxious.
“Do you have a good feeling about either of them?” I ask John.
“What do you mean, a good feeling?”
“Like, does either one of them feel right?”
He stares at me like I’m nuts for a moment, then shrugs. “I’m putting a roll cage in that Miata later.”
I nod tersely. That’ll have to do. “CAGES it is.”
I take a breath—type the letters—
“I can’t look,” I say, squeezing my eyes shut. I stab my thumb in the direction of the enter button. A moment of silence,
then—
“Nice,” John says.
I crack one eye open. “Seriously?”
“You got it,” he says.
A childish squeal of excitement slips from my lips. I bounce around in my chair a little and then stop when I see John watching
me.
“What?” I say, a little sharper than I mean to.
He watches me a moment more. “You’re kind of weird.”
He doesn’t say it like an insult. In fact, it almost sounds like a compliment.
I lift my chin up. “Yep. And you’re good luck,” I add generously. “That’s twice now you’ve saved my streak. If I have to guess
again tomorrow, I’m going to have to hunt you down at home.”
“Or you could just text, like a normal person.”
I brighten. “Ooh, yes. Give me your number.”
He dictates it to me, and I save it as “John Smith (Auto Shop).” I shoot him a quick text so that he has my number and then
rise to my feet. “I should get back to the desk.”
“Later,” he says.
It’s not until that evening, when I’m driving home, that it occurs to me that I’ve accidentally asked John for his number.
I squirm uncertainly in my seat. I hope he didn’t think I was like... asking asking. Like, in a romantic way.
Then I laugh out loud. What am I, crazy? Of course he doesn’t think that. There’s nothing romantic between John and me. He made that abundantly clear when I first started working here, and every single day since. And I’m definitely not interested in him. This is a Wordle friendship, plain and simple.
No, not even a friendship. A Wordle alliance .
That’s all there will ever be between John and me.