Chapter 7 #2
Darina blinked again, and Nick faltered. A concussion was seeming likely.
Finally, Darina reached out a bangle-clad arm.
Nick took it gently, helping her out of the car and up the flower-studded embankment.
She managed to drag her handbag and a package of documents out as well, doing so with an impressively guttural grunt.
The documents were drenched dayglo green with smoothie goo.
Alice retreated, her lip curled slightly. Odd. Alice loved everyone, and she’d met Darina before, at the farmers’ market.
‘Are you all right to walk?’ Nick asked Darina, cautiously.
Blinking, Darina scooped smoothie goo off the folder and jammed it into her mouth, sucking her long, glittery fingernails clean.
Nick did his very best not to recoil. Was this how Darina ordinarily comported herself at work? Had she been raised by wolves? Or just hippies? Should he say anything, or would that affect his tax break, or grant, or whatever she’d been about to offer him?
Unstable on her giant platform heels, Darina stumbled down the driveway, possibly high, or possibly concussed – Nick couldn’t tell which. He walked alongside her, trying to halve his steps so that their strides matched. He felt like a racehorse with a slightly demented miniature pony buddy.
Was it safe to redirect someone who might have a head injury?
Should you engage them in conversation, or just hope that their brain miraculously healed before they started spontaneously speaking French or claimed to be living a past life?
He did know that you weren’t meant to let someone with a concussion sleep, but that was about as far as his knowledge extended.
Perhaps Darina just had to shake off the accident funk, and then she’d be all right. Maybe this was a pride thing, like the way Zoey had refused his fridge-moving assistance.
‘So, thanks for coming down,’ Nick began, hoping to set Darina at ease and let her know that he wasn’t about to report her for a single incident of stoned ditch driving.
Darina made a gurgling noise not unlike the dismissive greetings offered by the baristas at Nick’s favourite Portland coffee shop, Chem Lab, which sat on the riverfront in a repurposed automotive garage. Following behind them, Alice whined softly.
‘Nice day for a quick survey, huh?’ he went on, uncomfortably.
Maybe it wasn’t a concussion. Maybe Darina was mad at him for some unfathomable reason, and was giving him the silent treatment.
Oh shit, the silent treatment! It was the perfect weapon for making someone else natter on like a fool.
His sister Larissa was a master of the silent treatment.
She’d used it to coerce her tenth-grade math teacher into revealing the end-of-year exam answers, and to make her first boss admit that they’d illegally started her at a rate lower than the guys doing the same work.
No wonder she was such a sought-after employment-law attorney.
‘Look, I’m really sorry that I spoke to Darren on the phone about the survey,’ he offered. ‘The names are so similar, and his voice is so whispery … I got confused. I didn’t realise that the division of labour was quite so clear in the Chamber of Commerce.’
Nothing.
All right, so this was getting very weird, and very unprofessional.
This couldn’t be how the Chamber of Commerce did visits.
Perhaps it was time to call the local ambulance provider (not a proper ambulance, because they were out here in the sticks) and have someone shine a bright light into poor Darina’s pupils …
which seemed to be expanding by the minute.
Nick tried a line about the rain forecast, which was usually fairly safe in the PNW. People loved to one-up each other about how many consecutive days of rain they’d experienced.
Success.
Darina halted and turned towards him, her bloodshot gaze burning right at him.
Alice growled.
Oh no, thought Nick, as she leaned forward, held in place by the enormous gravity of her platform boots. Not this again. Had she got the wrong impression?
He took a step back, trying to draw attention to the whole personal-space thing that was highly recommended to maintain between two people not in a romantic relationship.
But Darina was not to be dissuaded. Stretching out her braceleted arms towards him, she shuffled forward, rising up on her tiptoes. Her red-rimmed eyes were hungry.
And then, in what was clearly a violation of laws relating to any government official, she launched herself at him. Nick leapt backwards, hands out to fend her off.
‘I’m sorry, I’m not … Zoey and I are actually maybe … I hope I didn’t give you …’ he stammered, as she came at him again, her smoothie-covered tutu bouncing from the ferocity of the movement. Props to the Girl Boss types for taking what they wanted, but his body was not it.
Darina’s teeth were bared now, and Nick felt a splinter of fear.
She was determined. More determined than the palaeontologist he’d met at the Yamhill Pub, who’d recited her PhD to him verbatim. That had been weird, but a bit sexy. This was just … weird.
‘I don’t consent,’ he said finally, hoping that would break through whatever fever dream she was experiencing.
But no, she kept approaching. And she was making that weird gurgling noise again.
Was it internal bleeding, on top of the concussion? Either way, Alice wasn’t having it. She was running from side to side, ears back, emitting high-pitched little whines that said, Dad, I don’t like this.
Why was Darina holding her arms out like that?
‘Okay, I’m sorry, Darina, but …’
Grateful for his longer-than-average wingspan, Nick grabbed Darina by the waist. She was light – barely heavier than Alice, in fact. And much easier to carry, which he did, holding her out as far from his body as he could. He felt like a cartoon Yogi Bear running with a picnic basket.
‘Sorry, sorry!’ he repeated, as he hustled down the driveway and over to the wood shed. He unlatched the door and shoved Darina inside, slamming the door and propping an axe up against the handle.
From inside came a grumbling and guttering sound, followed by a garbled statement that sounded like … ‘Braaaiinnsssss.’
He’d been right: she had been suffering a brain injury. He should never have moved her from the little car. He should’ve just left her there while they waited for the authorities.
Turning so that his back was against the door to help keep it closed, Nick grabbed his phone and dialled the emergency services.
‘Operator? I’ve got someone on my property who’s been involved in a low-velocity crash.
She’s behaving extremely erratically. I think it’s a concussion.
Possibly also drugs, although she is vegan, so … ’
‘Braaaaiiiinnsssss,’ gurgled Darina, fists banging on the door.
And that was how things went until the ambulance, driven by two of the louts Nick recognised from the local lifted-truck brigade, finally arrived.