Chapter 39
39
S imon headed into his house through the garage, hoping to see something good when he entered. He was exhausted.
He’d argued with a client—never a good sign. The client was mad at him because of the outcome of the hiring campaign Simon had set up for the company. But since this manager hadn’t followed almost half of the recommendations, Simon argued back that the system hadn’t failed, management had.
Laying his keys on the little table inside the door, he had a thought to be thankful to Carlisle for providing it. Something she'd found while thrifting she said, suggesting he use the beautiful turned wood bowl for keys, receipts, loose change and whatever else he needed to keep track of.
He was doing just that. She made his life better, that much was certain.
Heading into the living room, he followed the sound of the TV and found Carlisle sitting on his couch. She was almost absently waving the stick with the ribbon on it while Kitten played happily.
“How did it go?” he asked.
Looking up at him, at least not the zombie she originally appeared, Carlisle answered, “Kitten is healthy and vaccinated. The ear mites are gone and the dewormer worked.”
“That's excellent news.” He wondered why she didn’t appear happier, then again she'd had an exhausting several days, too. Her hands even looked bruised. He pointed and asked, “What’s this?”
Switching the stick from one hand to the other, she looked curiously at her own fingers. “Oh, this? The new label printer.”
“You went for the low-end model?”
Carlisle just shrugged at him, still not up to her usual level. “And second hand!”
He didn't want to say anything. She had covered Kitten’s bills while he covered Darcy's. The lower end printer model made sense. He wondered for a moment when they had become like an old married couple deciding who paid what bills.
“So, it does print a lot faster,” she told him, still showing off the dark smudges on her hands. “However, you have to wait a moment before you handle the labels. You cannot touch them right when they come out.”
He laughed a little bit. “Does that make it not faster?”
“Oh no, it's so fast, that’s still faster. Lesson learned though. I can't get the ink off.” She looked at her fingers, puzzled for a moment, then added, “I should ask Emma Kate. I'm sure she's got a hack for this.”
Simon actually laughed at her then, but Carlisle still didn't perk up much. “So you spent all day mailing boxes?”
“Yeah.” She looked at the floor for a moment and then up at him. “Nursing is a very physical job. You're on your feet all day. We lift patients and turn them. Sometimes we have to actually run, if there's a code. And it's a twelve-hour shift minimum.”
He nodded along not knowing where she was going with this.
“But I haven't been doing that job in a long time.” She looked away as if that were a failing, when he knew it was just about her needing to take care of herself. “And let me tell you, packaging boxes is physically and mentally demanding.”
He caught on then, she’d been on her feet all day, even going to Kitten’s vet appointment.
She rubbed at her shoulders. “I need to make the table higher, I think.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“It's very tedious.” Her tone sounded flat. She wasn’t happy about that part. “I like selling kits, but I have to keep looking at addresses and then the kits, and making sure I've got the right number in the right box with the right label and nothing gets mixed up. That kind of clerical work is okay occasionally, but this was all day. I think I’m crosseyed.”
He nodded at her. “You aren’t crosseyed. It's a lot. I worked in a pizza place in college. Just watching the orders come in will scramble your brain. They're all different but all the same. And you can't mix them up. I think it's more difficult when you're smarter because your brain holds onto things and then you think the thing you're doing is the thing that you actually already did. And you mix things up.”
She nodded along. “Yeah, I need to be a goldfish—fifteen second attention span. Do this, check this label, completely forget about it, and move to the next one.” She rolled her shoulders and set the ribbon stick aside though Kitten still continued to play with it.
Carlisle shifted topics without seeming to realize she did it, “They said the vaccines might make her a little sleepy. That doesn’t seem to be happening.”
“She's so big, almost like a whole cat now,” he said. The tiny kitten was double the size from when he’d found her.
“Hardly. She’s still a baby. Four pounds on the nose.”
“Is that good?”
“Yes. She's caught up. It's perfect for the age they believe she is. ”
He nodded again thinking he should have gone. Kitten was supposed to be his baby. Carlisle told him the Cat Distribution System had chosen him, but he hadn’t even been able to pay the bill.
He plopped down, disheartened with his own day, unable to cheer Carlisle up. Though he was sitting right next to her, they didn't touch. He just leaned his head back and breathed deeply. Reaching up, he loosened the tie that suddenly felt constraining.
He could work from home tomorrow. He could hang out with Kitten, tap on his keyboard, sit in his chair, and only put on a nice shirt over his T shirt for the one meeting when he needed to show his face.
Tomorrow would be better, he told himself. He desperately wanted to order a pizza but he didn't want to say it in front of Carlisle, because Darcy's medical bills had cleaned him out. He was broke to the point where Carlisle had insisted on taking Kitten to the vet rather than waiting. Kitten was so young that waiting a month might make a difference. What if the dewormer hadn't worked? What if she still had ear mites?
So he'd let her do it, knowing it was best for Kitten, even if it wasn't what was best for his pride. And there was no money left for the pizza he wanted to order, even though it wouldn’t be anywhere near as much as a Kitten visit to the vet or one of Darcy’s bills.
He wanted to do something for Carlisle. She'd been tense and a little rough around the edges since the interview. Three days she'd been packing orders and seeming to anticipate the next interview that Jane had set up in Atlanta.
It was a bigger station—more viewers, more pressure. And Carlisle simply didn’t want to relive it.
Jane was basically working part time right now, having taken a handful of days off to appear on the news stations. Business-wise, Simon would advise that Carlisle be the one to set those up. Then, if necessary, Carlisle could have gone on her own and done the interview, but he didn't think Carlisle could do that.
She had been improving, but retelling the story was dropping her right back into her deepest fear. It was excellent for marketing, but not great for Carlisle. So he didn’t know what to say, didn’t have a way to help.
He couldn’t smooth the rough edges and make the world better for her. But he wasn't prepared when she turned and said the next thing and he felt it like a crack in his soul.