5. Hunter #2
“Could you tell us a bit about your work experience?” Rhiannon asked. She had her hands folded neatly in her lap and this was beginning to feel more like a job interview. If it was, then this was the moment of truth.
Hunter could have exaggerated. That’s what Piper would have done – whatever she had to do to get the job. But Hunter couldn’t do that. She told them honestly about her limited experience at the nursing home.
“I’ve been working at a long-term care facility for dementia patients for the last two years,” she said.
“I’m a certified nurse’s aide, which means I can administer medications and treatments that the doctors and registered nurses order, change bandages, help the patients move around as needed, and clean up whenever necessary.
It’s not too glamorous and because of the shift I work, mostly they’re asleep.
I do get to keep them company when they’re awake and uncomfortable in the middle of the night, though.
That’s the most rewarding part of the job. ”
“Who’s your favorite patient?” Kiera asked. She smiled at Hunter in a way that sent a colony of butterflies fluttering to life in her belly.
Hunter smiled and said, “There’s this man named Charlie.
He was pretty grumpy when he first arrived – his kids don’t visit much and I don’t think he has many other relatives or friends.
But he absolutely loves anything to do with the Old West. He’ll spend a whole day watching Clint Eastwood films, or rather listening to them, since his cataracts are pretty bad.
I started bringing him western novels – Louis L’Amour, Cormac McArthur, Charles Portis – and instead of thanking me, he called my tastes mainstream and trite. ”
Rhiannon looked a little taken aback, but Kiera laughed.
“So I tried again, asked him which authors he prefers,” Hunter said.
“He gave me a long list and we’ve been slowly working our way through his favorite books, a few chapters each night.
Charlie’s one of those people you have to work to get to know, but he’s fascinating once he starts to talk about his life.
Lately, he’s been telling me all about his career on the Union Pacific Railroad – the stories are straight out of his favorite novels and I can see why he likes those books so much. ”
Rhiannon and Kiera were both smiling at Hunter by the time she finished her story and she thought this job interview might not be going so bad after all.
She told a few more stories from the nursing home, talking about more of her favorite patients as well as the types of work she did, and toward the end of her last story, she saw Piper coming through the café door to clock in for her shift.
She spotted them and came over to the table with a broad smile.
“Good morning,” Piper said. “I see my sister called you.”
“Yes,” Rhiannon said. “She’s regaling us with stories from the night shift.”
“Good. I knew the three of you would be a good match,” Piper said, beaming at Hunter. She might as well have reached across the table and high-fived her, and Hunter felt her cheeks coloring slightly. Then Piper said, “Well, I have to get to work so I’ll leave you to it.”
Then thankfully, without trying to hard-sell Rhiannon and Kiera on Hunter, Piper went into the employee area behind the counter.
Rhiannon looked at her wristwatch and said, “Oh, shoot. I’ve got an appointment with a client in about thirty minutes, so we should probably wrap this up.
Hunter, I have to say that you seem like a very capable and caring nurse. ”
Nurse’s aide, Hunter wanted to correct, but she held her tongue. It sounded like, incredibly, she might be landing this job after all.
“My only concern is the hours,” Rhiannon said. “We could only offer part-time work at this point. It would be whenever Kiera needs you, mostly during the daytime. It sounds like that’s when you sleep, so is that going to be a problem?”
“No,” Hunter said, maybe a little too quickly.
If it meant she and Piper could dig their way out of the financial hole they were in, she’d be happy to hook up an IV drip of coffee and stay awake for as long as Kiera needed her.
She’d never sleep again if it meant they could get Andrew equipped for his first football game.
To convince Rhiannon and Kiera, she added, “After two years of helping my sister raise her kids, I’m used to erratic sleep patterns.
I sleep when and where I can, and I promise that it won’t be an issue as long as I can be home in time to get the boys off the bus around three during the school week. ”
“That’s no problem,” Kiera said. “My last class is at two. I volunteer in the afternoons but it’s only once a week so we can make arrangements.”
“What about your sorority meetings?” Rhiannon asked, and for the first time, Hunter watched Kiera’s cheery expression darken.
She waved the objection aside and said, “We’ll work around your schedule, Hunter. I can work with weekdays from eight a.m. to two.”
“And I can be available in the afternoons as long as I have notice,” Hunter added, eager to please her almost-employers. “I just need to check with Piper about her schedule and make sure that one of us is home to get the boys off the bus every day.”
“Okay,” Rhiannon said, putting her hands on the table with an air of finality.
She turned to Kiera and said, “I like her. I think you should take her to the house and introduce her to your grandmother, make sure everyone gets along. If it goes well, you two can finish working out the schedule and we’ll all talk salary. ”
“Oh,” Hunter said, surprised. When she walked into the café, she hadn’t really expected that she’d get the job, and now things were moving quicker than she thought they would. She had to admit that the idea of negotiating her salary with Kiera was a bit intimidating. “Thank you.”
“No, thank you ,” Rhiannon corrected, reaching across the table to shake Hunter’s hand again. Then she got up and put on her coat, saying, “I’ve got to get going. Kiera, honey, I’ll call you this evening, okay?”
To talk about me, Hunter thought. She stood as Rhiannon hugged Kiera and headed for the door.
When it was just the two of them at the tiny café table, things suddenly felt more intimate and less like a job interview.
The butterflies were still quite active in her stomach and when Hunter looked at Kiera, she was smiling at her.
“Well?” she asked. “What did you think of my mother?”
“Is that a trick question?” Hunter asked. “You want me to give feedback on my potential employer?”
“No,” Kiera relented with a laugh. “Some people find her intimidating, that’s all I meant.”
Some people find you intimidating, Hunter thought.
Kiera was the kind of girl that Hunter would never in a million years have the courage to approach if she didn’t have an excuse like this interview.
It was strange because Kiera was easy to talk to, but she also made Hunter feel like a bundle of nerves.
“My Nana is much more laid back,” Kiera said. “I think you’ll like her. If you’re not busy, I can take you to meet her now.”
“I’m not busy,” Hunter said, downing the last of her coffee.
She glanced toward the ordering counter, where Piper was watching them and grinning stupidly on Hunter’s behalf.
Kiera hadn’t noticed, but Hunter gave her a look – stop staring at me.
She felt blood rising into her cheeks again and suddenly the idea of leaving the café was very appealing.
“Let’s go, then,” Kiera said, reaching for her jacket. “I’ll drive, unless you want to meet there.”
“I don’t have a car,” Hunter said. “So unless you want to meet there an hour from now when the bus comes, I would love a ride.”
Hunter nodded to Piper on their way out the door and her sister threw an enthusiastic set of thumbs into the air at her, grinning even harder.
Hunter smirked and shook her head, a sense of disbelief filling her head.
She pretty much had this job in the bag and she couldn’t believe her luck.
Then she turned and followed Kiera outside.
Kiera’s grandmother lived in the woods just outside of Grimm Falls, about twenty minutes away from The Magic Bean by car.
While she drove, Kiera and Hunter discussed the salary her mother was prepared to pay, which was more than adequate, and then Kiera told Hunter more about the progression of her grandmother’s condition.
“She’s been forgetful for a long time,” she said, keeping her eyes on the road while Hunter periodically stole anxious glances at her.
“She started calling me Rhiannon or Niamh – that’s my aunt – around the time that my grandfather passed.
That was six months ago. It’s been getting worse lately and I have to confess, just in case you’re getting an image of me as some kind of saintly granddaughter, that I didn’t move in just to take care of her. But the timing was fortunate.”
“Why did you move in?” Hunter asked out of simple curiosity, and she was surprised when the darkness cast over Kiera’s expression again.
She pushed it aside pretty quickly, forcing a smile as she said, “Just some sorority drama – nothing serious.”
“Oh,” Hunter said. “I see.”
She didn’t, and she certainly couldn’t read this girl yet – not after only an hour – but it was pretty clear that whatever the drama had been was still affecting her.
Hunter turned her attention toward the road when Kiera began slowing the car.
They were at the edge of the woods and Kiera turned into a long gravel driveway that led up to a large Tudor house that could have fit Piper’s house inside of it three times over.
Hunter had to lean close to the glass of the passenger window to look at it in its entirety, marveling at its size as she asked, “Your grandmother used to live here alone?”
“For about six months,” Kiera said. “It definitely has an empty nest vibe to it, although I’m trying to make it feel less cavernous. Hopefully you can help with that, too.”
“I’ll try,” Hunter said, feeling daunted.
Kiera pulled her car into the circular part of the driveway in front of the house’s grand entrance – a large mahogany door – then cut the engine.
Before they got out of the car, she said, “Nana’s not that bad yet, and she’s sensitive about her memory lapses when they happen.
I think at this point she’ll benefit most from having a little extra company to keep her mind active.
If you could, you know, make sure she doesn’t leave the oven on and burn the house down, that would be helpful, too. ”
“I can do that,” Hunter said. “I’m eager to meet her – it’s obvious that she means a lot to you.”
Kiera smiled and looked down at the gear shift between them – was that a blush coming to her cheeks at Hunter’s compliment? Then she turned without looking at Hunter again and got out of the car. Hunter followed Kiera up a couple of wide stone stairs to the door.
"My grandfather was an industrialist," Kiera said, sounding apologetic about the size of the house. "He came from a poor immigrant family and had a lot to do with the development of the rubber industry in downtown Grimm Falls. This house is sort of a monument to his career achievements and I think that has a lot to do with why Nana is so determined to stay, even though it’s obviously too much for her now. Heck, it’s too much for anyone .”
She pushed open the door and revealed a large foyer with marble floors and an intricately carved banister leading up to the second floor.
Hunter smiled and looked at Kiera, at once understanding her apology and feeling even more out of place than she had in the café.
It was like stepping into another world.
“Nana usually spends her mornings knitting or watching the news in the den,” Kiera said. “Shall we go find her?”
“Of course,” Hunter said, following Kiera and stepping carefully to keep her shoes from squeaking on the marble.
They didn’t make it very far into the house before Kiera stopped abruptly and Hunter – looking around in awe at the intricate details of the foyer - nearly smacked right into her.
A loud screech of her rubber nursing shoe on expensive marble echoed across the tall ceiling as Kiera stepped into a large archway on the right side of the foyer and asked, “Nana, what on earth are you doing?”
Beyond the archway, there was a formal dining room with a very long, ornate mahogany table, and in the center of it sat an elderly woman with wispy, pure white hair.
She looked small in such a large, imposing room, and in front of her there were note cards, torn-out pages of books, and scraps of paper spread all the way across the table.
"Oh, hi dear,” the woman said to Kiera. “I decided it’s time to finally organize all my recipes. I want to gather them into a book for you and your cousins. Who’s your friend?”
“This is Hunter Ross, Nana,” Kiera said, surprising Hunter by putting her hand on her back as she guided her into the room. “She’s an in-home care nurse. Remember when we talked about that the other day?”
Hunter leaned awkwardly across the large table, extending her hand as she tried not to let her unbuttoned jacket fall forward and mess up the array of recipe cards in front of her.
“It’s nice to meet you,” she said.
The woman smiled and gave Hunter a funny look, then said, “My, what short hair you have for a woman.”
Hunter glanced at Kiera, whose expression was somewhere between blank and embarrassed.
It wasn’t really a response that Hunter was surprised by – working with so many patients from older generations, she was used to a certain degree of confusion about her androgynous looks, her short, sandy hair, the bulky flannel jacket she was partial to, even her name, which she’d had no part in choosing.
Confusion was fine – just as long as there was no hostility.
But then Kiera’s grandmother took Hunter’s hand and smiled, saying, “It suits you, dear. You’ve got great cheek bones.”
“Umm, thank you,” Hunter said, relieved.
She released the old woman’s hand and Kiera smiled, then said, “Hunter, this is my grandmother, Abigail Walsh.”
“Abby,” the woman corrected. “People call me Abby.”