Chapter 4
Usually, I wouldn’t be worried. I’d tack on a few extra minutes at the close of my shift and that would be the end of it, but they brought in a new administrator—Nurse Bouchard—last month from Montreal.
She seems hell-bent on exercising her authority by writing up her subordinates for any perceived slips of the employee ethics code—particularly tardiness.
I learned this fact a few days ago when I was late because, on my way in, I stopped Mr. Lewis trying to smuggle in a cat in his gym bag.
He was crossing the parking lot, his old red-and-white Adidas gym bag tucked under his arm, presumably on his way to visit his wife, who’d moved into Sunnyvale six months ago when her medical needs became too complicated for him to handle at home.
The scene wasn’t unusual. Mr. Lewis came every day to visit his wife.
It was the bag that blew his cover—moving in a way that made me suspect there was more than gym socks inside.
“Morning,” I called as I caught up to him in the lobby. Mr. Lewis jumped at the sound of my voice, spinning around to face me faster than I’ve ever seen him move.
I eyed the bag. “That’s not what I think it is, right?”
“This old thing?” He shifted the bag slightly behind him. “Just my smelly old gym shoes. Nothing untoward here, I tell ya.”
As if perfectly timed, his gym shoes let out an angry yelp.
His face deepened from pink to red. “It’s just for an hour, I promise. Moira has been feeling a little under the weather lately, and I think a few snuggles with her sweet Pumpkin will cheer her up. It really helped last time.”
I closed my eyes, picturing the last time, when sweet little Pumpkin got spooked and took out a potted ficus.
“Fine. But if you get caught, you didn’t see me, and you didn’t talk to me, okay?”
“Didn’t talk to who?” His blue eyes grew so big and wide that I almost thought he had not grasped the plan, until he winked and patted me on the shoulder with a “Thanks, kid.”
I was in a pretty good mood until four minutes later when I walked into the employee lounge to find out I’d been docked an hour’s pay for being late and issued an official warning.
She didn’t tell me at the time how many warnings one gets before it becomes a problem, and I’m not particularly interested in finding out.
My brain is sifting through a list of half-baked but believable excuses: engine failures or failed alarm clocks.
I even consider throwing Mr. Lewis under the bus and claiming my delay is due to preventing another cat smuggling, but then I clear a bend in the road and see a familiar bright red toque in the distance.
Its owner walks with her back to me, gloveless hand thrust out—thumb up.
“Don’t you know what happens to girls who hitchhike?” I slow as I approach, leaning over the center console to yell out the open passenger window.
Zoe spins around at the sound of my voice. “They get picked up by sexy strangers, obviously.”
I stop the car fully and slide the gearshift into park.
Zoe flings the passenger door open and flops into the front seat, bringing with her a gust of frigid air.
“Stellar timing, Ju-Ju. The girls were getting chilly.” She yanks up the zipper of her hoodie and then shivers with an audible chatter of her teeth.
“Why is your coat wide open?” I ask, cranking up the heat to its highest setting.
Zoe shrugs, tilting the heating vents on the dash so they blast her from multiple angles. “I figured I’d be more likely to get picked up. A woman with glorious tits is probably not going to hack you to bits and leave you in the woods. Right?”
“Zoe!” I look back at the road, but not before catching her shrug.
“Don’t judge me. It’s freezing out there. Five more minutes and I would have been a frozen Zoe popsicle.”
“Where is your car?”
Zoe leans to the right, craning her neck to see her house in the side-view mirror.
“Sitting in my driveway. The stupid hunk of junk wouldn’t start this morning.
My guess is it’s probably the transmission.
I’m praying it’s not, though. We are beyond broke right now, and Dale is already picking up overtime at the plant.
He took a night shift last night.” She pulls out her phone and starts to type.
“He should be home in an hour or so,” she says as she continues texting.
“I guess I could have waited for him to come home, but fucking Bouchard has had it out for me ever since I told her she looked like she’d be into CrossFit.
She did not take that for the compliment I intended it to be.
” Her phone whooshes with the sound of a sent text before she tucks the phone into her hoodie pocket.
“Why didn’t you call me?” I ask.
Zoe shrugs and lets out a loud huff. “It just happened now. Plus, I figured you were already on your way. I know you hate being late. The fact that the only place Dale and I can afford is in the middle of absolute nowhere is a me problem. Besides, it all worked out.”
Zoe and Dale bought their cozy two-bedroom three months ago.
Both had grown up in West Lake, close to the water, but during the pandemic, real estate prices skyrocketed when folks living in Toronto’s downtown core had been forced to spend months with their families in six-hundred-square-foot apartments.
When restrictions were lifted, they bought up lakeside properties with spacious outdoor areas in quaint little towns.
Their city salaries outbid locals who couldn’t afford the inflated prices.
Zoe and Dale, along with a whole slew of our high school friends, have been forced to buy outside city limits—if they could afford to buy at all.
Zoe rubs her hands together and then flattens them in front of the heater as if it were a bonfire. “Not that I’m complaining, but what exactly are you doing out here this morning? I thought at first you might have hooked up last night, but you’re dressed for work, so that doesn’t clock.”
Like my mother, Zoe is always full of glowing optimism, even on a bad day.
When Niles James warned me not to blow my unconfirmed future inheritance on a shopping spree, he had someone like Zoe in mind.
She would be thrilled to hear the news. That’s amazing, Ju!
she’d say. Think of how this could change your life.
And maybe that’s why I don’t want to tell her.
I don’t want to spend the next few weeks dreaming with Zoe about all the possibilities that could come from a little extra money.
I want to forget about it completely so that I’m not disappointed when it doesn’t end up working out.
“Oh, I’m, um, feeling a little off this morning.
” The lie rolls clumsily off my tongue. “Thought I’d take a drive to clear my head before my shift.
” Zoe nods as if this is a perfectly acceptable answer.
As much as last night was a party, it was also a reminder that Kitty is gone.
Zoe and I have been working at the retirement home long enough to get used to losing residents, but that doesn’t mean their deaths don’t affect us.
By the time I flick the signal to turn into the retirement home’s parking lot, it’s almost 9:15.
I pull into my usual parking spot facing away from the abandoned property next door, looking in the rearview mirror to smooth my new hair frizzies with my sweaty palm before returning my attention to Zoe.
“So, how do you want to play this?” I nod at the front door of the residence.
“I can walk in five minutes after you if you want. Your car died. That’s a pretty legit excuse, and it will give me time to think up one of my own. ”
Zoe flicks the handle of her door and pushes it open.
“I say we go stealth. Leave our coats in the car. Sneak in through the side door. I guarantee you Mrs. Hail has left it bricked open so she can sneak out and smoke. If we run into anyone on the way in, we play it like we’ve been here the whole time but we’re too busy to clock in yet. ”
Her plan is so simple it could actually work.
“You’re an evil genius.” I shed my jacket as she tosses hers onto the passenger seat.
She smiles as she ties back her hair with the elastic from her wrist. “Imagine what I could do if I used my powers for good.”
We cross the parking lot in a full-blown sprint, dipping in between cars, seeking reprieve from the wind coming off the lake, which bites against the fabric of our thin cotton scrubs.
The side door is, in fact, propped open with a chair, and on that chair is Mrs. Hail with a lit cigarette between her lips and another, yet to be lit, between her fingers. She doesn’t try to hide, either.
“Hello there, girls!” she calls when we get close. “Just out for a little fresh air.” She waves at the cloud of smoke as we approach.
Zoe leans in, plucks the unlit cigarette from her fingers, lights it, and takes a long drag. “You know these things are terrible for your health.”
Mrs. Hail chuckles. It’s a deep smoker’s laugh that morphs into a cough as she stubs out the rest of her cigarette with her shoe. “I’m ninety-four, honey. The Lord can have me anytime he wants, and I plan on enjoying the time I have left.”
“Jules and me need to make a stealthy entrance here,” Zoe tells Mrs. Hail. “So, if anyone asks, we’ve been here all morning.”
Mrs. Hail takes her second cigarette from Zoe. “You can count on me, girls.”
We leave her to smoke in peace, slipping past her through the door.
The hallway is empty, which isn’t surprising, as many residents take their breakfasts in the dining room around nine.
Zoe and I slip down it silently, heading for the stairwell at the opposite end that leads up to the second-floor employee break room, where all the schedules and room assignments for the day will be posted.
Our intended pathway passes the office of Roy Taylor—Sunnyvale’s general manager.
He’s a nice enough guy. Friendly but always looking to avoid doing actual work.
If he were to catch Zoe and me sneaking in, he’d be equally as likely to ignore us as he would be to report us to Nurse Bouchard. A risk we’re not looking to take.
When we near his door, I can hear a slow hiss of breath from Zoe as it becomes clear that it is firmly closed.
She shoots me a thumbs-up, which I fully interpret as See?
Easy. But just as we pass, I hear the distinct sounds of the handle turning, the door being pulled open, and two male voices caught in mid-conversation.
Run, Zoe mouths, and she takes off, sprinting the last ten feet. I follow—my legs pumping hard and fast—colliding with Zoe as she presses the latch to the stairwell door with her thumb and it flies open with a metallic bang.
We tumble through. A tornado of legs and arms, both of us out of breath and gasping.
“I think we made it!” Zoe bends at the waist before arching backward, pressing her hands to her lower back with a groan.
“Do you think he saw us?” I ask.
Zoe shakes her head. “No way. He was talking to someone. Ten bucks says he was probably too wrapped up in the sound of his own voice.” And as if proving her point, a loud, Roy Taylor–like laugh sounds from out in the hallway.
Zoe raises her brows. “What did I tell you? Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.” She turns and begins to climb the steps.
I move to follow but stop when a second laugh joins Mr. Taylor’s, and the familiar sound makes the tiny hairs on my arms stand on end.
Zoe turns, her hand on the rail, one foot hovering above the next step. “Dude! You coming or what?”
“Just a sec.” I tilt my head, resting my cheek on the cool metal of the door, and listen.
The laugh sounds a second time. Deep and throaty, it infiltrates my core as if it knows its way. As if it’s been there before.
Pressing my fingers to the handle, I push ever so slightly. The door cracks just an inch. Just enough so I can see the back of Mr. Taylor’s suit, and when he moves…
No.
I release the door, flipping around so my back is against the wall. What is he doing here?
“Well, that was awfully dramatic.” Zoe ascends the stairs, her eyebrow raised.
“It’s nothing,” I breathe, attempting to look nonchalant, very aware that my half-Irish heritage has turned my cheeks a dark pink, and my heart is beating so hard I swear the bah-boom is echoing off the stairwell walls.
“You can’t lie worth shit, Jules. Your voice gives you away, and it’s doing that high-pitched squeaky thing that only happens when you’re freaked out.”
Before I can stop her, Zoe is down the rest of the steps and pushing the door open a crack, just as I had only moments ago.
“Hmmm,” she says, peeling her eyes away to meet mine before returning them to the scene in the hallway.
“Definitely didn’t see that coming.” She continues to divide her time between looking at me and at the crack.
“I know you said last night he’s in the no-fly zone, but are you sure you don’t want to reconsider, Ju-Ju? I mean, those arms.”
Without meaning to, I flash back to that bunk bed.
The way his muscles flexed as he braced above me.
“Let’s go,” I snap. My voice is unusually raw. “We’re wasting time here.”
Zoe takes another look before letting the door close fully and joining me on the stairs. “Are you going to explain what’s really going on between you and that guy, or are you going to make me pry it out of you?”
I quicken my pace up the stairs, but Zoe anticipates this, taking them two at a time.
“There’s nothing to explain.” I stop when I reach the second-floor landing, knowing this conversation will happen eventually, and it’s probably in my best interest to get it over with now.
“He was just a hookup. A mistake, if I’m being perfectly honest. I have no idea why he’s here or why he’s talking to Mr. Taylor.
And I really don’t care enough to find out.
I’m sure he’ll be gone again soon. It’s not worth my time to worry about it. ”
Zoe doesn’t say anything, but she does study my face until she gives up with a disappointed click of her tongue. “I’m going to let this go—for now. But only because I have to pee.”
I move to push open the door to the second floor, but before I can exit into the hallway, she grabs my arm.
“And I have a feeling when you do tell me everything, it’s going to be worth the wait.”