Twenty-Five
What Helen Harper would run over in her mind again and again was the number of times she’d walked by that plate of fucking sandwiches and thought, What a brilliant idea!
Free food always thrilled the customers, and Helen had believed for months that with the proper kind of push and a little more creativity, they could make the deli department one of the most profitable areas in the store.
Every time she walked the floor that morning, Robert was replenishing the platter.
By the time he got back to his grandmother’s house at the end of his shift, he was queasy and feverish.
His nana put him straight to bed. “It’s that time of year,” she clucked around him.
“Poor Robby. Try to get some sleep. These bugs are quick. You’ll feel better tomorrow. ”
But he didn’t feel better the next day. He felt worse.
His grandmother Concetta, who, truth be told, wasn’t feeling great herself, called the store to say he was too sick to work.
When Helen got the note, she called Eddie at home to see who they might find to replace Robert for a day or two.
“He’s real sick, Miss Harper,” Eddie’s daughter said. “He’s in the bathroom throwing up.”
“Oh boy,” Helen said. “I think there’s a stomach thing going around.
Tell him I hope he feels better.” Losing a bunch of people to a stomach flu was not something Helen needed ahead of a busy weekend in December, especially not a weekend where she was the solo person in charge.
She might need to move some employees from one store to another.
“Lizzy?” she called to her assistant. “I need employee names and phone numbers. Anyone who’s not already scheduled this weekend. ”
Right around then, Viv and Sally, two of the cashiers who had snuck pieces of the sandwich several times the day before, both called to say they couldn’t get out of bed, that they’d been up all night.
Back on Cambridge Road, Nancy Tannenbaum had let her daughter Lisa have a few friends sleep over, all girls from the volleyball team.
She woke up to them screaming, absolutely screaming, at five in the morning.
Lisa came tearing into the bedroom, “Martha is puking! And so is Missy!” At first, Nancy thought the girls were experiencing some kind of collective hysteria via disgust. They saw one person vomit and that was it, they were all sick.
But it quickly became clear they were all suffering from something.
Donna opened the trash and saw the wrappings of sandwiches from Finnegan’s.
She called the store to report what was happening and helped all the girls into her van and headed for the emergency room.
A few blocks over, Melissa Anthony, who owned a dress shop next to the Finnegan’s on Clover Street and picked up lunch at the store every day for herself and her husband, a tailor, woke up at three in the morning with a queasy feeling that quickly progressed to full-blown diarrhea and vomiting.
Her husband followed an hour later, and they spent the night vying for the only toilet in their apartment.
By Thursday morning, Robby was feeling a little better. He went downstairs, but his grandmother wasn’t in the kitchen. He found her in her bed, moaning and delirious. She looked awful and couldn’t seem to string more than a few words together. He called an ambulance.
BEFORE SHE HAD A CHANCE to pour her morning coffee, Helen got a call from one of the doctors in the ER at Rochester General. He suspected something more than a stomach virus. Twelve patients who needed antiemetics and IVs all reported having bought prepared food at Finnegan’s.
“I’m sorry to hound you when you’re not feeling well,” Helen said to Eddie when she got him to the phone. “But I’m hearing a lot of people are sick and—”
“It’s the beef,” Eddie said, his voice weak.
“The beef?”
“I don’t want to say the name or I’ll heave. The sandwiches. Robert’s sandwiches.”
“Shit. Okay. Any idea what I should do?”
“Check refrigerator number three,” he said, dropping the phone and heading, Helen assumed, back to the bathroom.
Helen made sure the sandwiches were pulled from all the shelves in town and instructed the two unaffected employees in the deli department, which she temporarily closed, to trash all the inventory from refrigerator number three.
After she called the refrigerator manufacturer demanding a service visit by end of day and notified Dennis and the board and the New York State Department of Health about the incident and instructed the local emergency rooms to notify her about any additional cases of food poisoning, she closed the door to her office and opened the envelope Finn had left.
She eyed the number with its unidentifiable exchange.
Should she call him? What could he do from wherever he was that she couldn’t? What a mess.
What an opportunity.
“Where in the hell is my nephew?” Finn’s uncle Dennis asked, storming into Helen’s office, freshly shaved and showered and wearing a suit. Outfitted for battle.
“Somewhere in the Caribbean.”
“The Caribbean! What’s he doing there?”
“Getting a divorce from Honey.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“I’m not.” She handed him Finn’s note. “He’s with his neighbor Nina Larkin. They’re getting married. The newlyweds are expected home tomorrow.”
Helen wished she could have taken a photo of the look on Dennis’s face. “Has he lost his mind?” Dennis asked. Helen shrugged.
“Helen?” Lizzy poked her head in the door. “Robby’s grandmother is in intensive care.”
“From the sandwich?” Helen put a hand to her forehead.
“Apparently. She has a heart problem or something and they can’t get the infection under control.”
“This is not good,” Dennis said.
“And,” Lizzy continued, “both the Times Union and the Democrat & Chronicle need a quote from you. Unless Mr. Finnegan is available.”
“Mr. Fintan Finnegan is not available,” Dennis barked at Lizzy. She backed out of the office and closed the door. Dennis turned to Helen. “We have to keep this out of the paper.”
“Dennis, that’s impossible and unwise. This is a public health issue. We have to say something about it and find a way to reassure people about the food in the store. Honesty is the quickest way to get past this. Should I call Finn?”
“Do you want to call him?”
“I feel confident I can handle the situation as well as anyone. With your help, of course,” Helen added, which was not true, but Dennis Finnegan was not her biggest fan. He never forgot the unceremonious way he’d been ushered out the door.
“Okay. I agree,” Dennis said.
“What do I say when the reporters ask about Finn?”
“Tell them the truth.”
“What do you mean?”
“The truth. Honesty in all things. Right?”
She stood there, confused. This was not her job. “I don’t know.”
“It’s simple,” Dennis said. “Say it like it’s no big deal. Like you’ve given them a little scoop for the society page.”
She was still a little bruised by her last conversation with Finn, still smarting from his revelations and from how badly she’d misread the cues and how easily he’d tossed off his ludicrous plans, but she didn’t want to expose Finn to the local press.
“Think about it,” Dennis said. “If there’s an article about our sandwiches making people sick and another piece about Finn eloping with his neighbor, which do you think people will talk about all weekend?”
Both, Helen wanted to say. But she was tired and needed to start putting out fires and Dennis had a point. “Okay,” she said, picking up the phone. “I’ll get to work.”