16. Jack
16
JACK
E ven though the office door is open, Laura lightly raps on the door frame before she comes in. I look up, annoyed at the interruption while I’m slogging through a bunch of paperwork. I should’ve shut the damn door. I ordinarily would have, but I like the thrill of looking at photos of that big plug in Bunny’s ass while watching staff and visitors mill around the center, entirely unaware.
“What?” I ask her, my tone sharp.
Like the rest of them, she usually looks a little nervous when she has to ask me for something. Today, though, her expression is actively anxious. She pushes her thick-framed glasses up her nose and takes a deep breath.
“Um, there’s sort of a complication.”
This doesn’t sound good. “Are you asking me to fix somebody else’s screwup?”
“Well, uh, it’s more like inconvenient circumstances. You know I have to be out tomorrow because my husband has that procedure and I have to drive him home.”
“Right. I know. Why are you reminding me?”
“I filled out the form to take the day off weeks ago.”
There’s something weirdly defensive in her tone. I narrow my eyes. “Where are you going with this?”
“Patrick’s got the flu.”
“I know that, too. Sounded like death in the message he left me.”
“There’s no way he’ll be recovered by tomorrow, so both of us will be out.”
I scowl, not bothering to mask the irritation in my sigh. “You’re saying that like I can’t handle things here myself.”
Laura cringes. “Tomorrow we’ve got the fourth-graders from Malcolm Elementary here on a field trip.” Her voice drops steadily, making her final words a whisper.
Oh fuck me. This wasn’t on my radar earlier because it didn’t really concern me. Some combination of Patrick and Laura always handle this kind of bullshit. Yeah, it’s also technically part of my job description, but what’s the benefit of being the most senior one here if I can’t delegate a few things?
I don’t know what my expression is, but from the look on Laura’s face, I can guess it’s not pleasant. “I’m really sorry. But —”
I interrupt her. “What about what’s-his-face? The intern?”
“Charlie?”
I shrug. “Sure. What about him?”
Laura makes a face. “I actually did look this up because I thought you might ask, but this is so far above his actual scope of duties, I wouldn’t risk it. We had to fight the department to get even one intern this year. You know as well as I do if they heard we were saddling him with that kind of responsibility, they’d refuse to give us anybody next time.”
I huff out an irritated sigh. She’s right, of course. “And I assume they can’t reschedule this thing?”
She shakes her head, long dark ponytail swinging from side to side. “I mean, if you were out sick too or whatever, they’d have to reschedule, or I’d have to come in.”
Ugh. Just fucking ugh . I’m not about to fake being sick like a goddamn child trying to get out of school. And I really can’t make Laura cancel a day off she planned for and needs to take.
Fuck me.
I glower at her as she shows me the sheaf of papers she printed out that cover what I’m supposed to be doing with these brats. Showing them the exhibits, leading them on a nature walk — I roll my eyes so hard at that I’m surprised Laura doesn’t hear it — and telling them all about the local ecosystem. It’s all the shit I absolutely loved as a kid, so the irony isn’t lost on me, but I resent the hell out of it right now.
“How much, I don’t know, interaction do you actually have to have with them? Aren’t their teachers there?”
Laura blinks at me. I’d only been half-listening. I probably interrupted her again. “Well, yeah, teachers and parent chaperones. So they mostly keep the kids in line, but you know, kids are kids.”
“No, I do not know,” I say, maybe a little stiffly. “I make it a policy not to know anything about kids. They’re somebody else’s problem.”
Except for tomorrow. Then, apparently, the little shits are going to be entirely my problem.