3. Georgie
CHAPTER THREE
GEORGIE
Ihave always believed in karma. That the universe gives what is rightfully deserved.
I believe Tracey should inevitably get what she deserves for treating people like shit, myself included.
I believe that the taxi driver who picked me up from the interview should be rewarded.
Taking one look at my face, tears falling from my eyes against my will the minute I settle into the car, he offered a free ride home, no questions asked.
But sometimes, I think the universe gets it wrong.
I think that bad karma should come to the man on the street, wearing a business suit yelling into his phone about stocks—or whatever it is that he does—because he gives one look to the homeless man outside the dollar store, scoffing and telling him to ‘Get a life’ instead of trying to help him.
Bird shit on his shoulder or ruining his expensive leather shoes in wet concrete, that’s what he deserves.
Instead, he’ll get a promotion at the job he was yelling about, he’ll get a new car, he’ll win the lottery.
Something good will go his way because the universe works in mysterious ways and, as my mom tells me, ‘It only gives out what it knows we can handle’.
But I think she’s wrong about that too; some things that are out of our control should not be things we are just expected to handle.
No one deserves to get cancer—or any other incurable illness—no matter how many good or bad things they have done in life.
Someone could be the purest of hearts, the kindest of souls, and yet they are still unlucky.
The universe might work in mysterious ways, sure, but sometimes it's just a straight-up asshole.
The ride home to my apartment is silent apart from my sniffling.
I keep avoiding the soft eyes of the cab driver glancing back at me through the mirror.
I know he wants to ask; he wants to know what he can do to help, wants to know why I’m crying in his cab…
but the truth of the matter is there is nothing he can do.
The damage is already done, and I just have to get home to clean up the aftermath.
Literally.
Everything fades into a blur. The construction is just a soft hue of colours beyond my window, my neighbourhood a mottled grey memory.
When I do get home, all I want is to have a shower—or three—then clean myself up and curl up in bed.
Today is cancelled, we’ll try again tomorrow.
The sight of my building coming into view behind the strip-mall plaza has never been so appealing to me.
“Here we are,” the driver says as he turns into my parking lot. He drives me right to the awning of the front door before meeting my eyes once more in the mirror.
“Thank you, again. Are you sure I can’t pay for the trip?” I ask while sniffling and taking the tissue he’s extending for me to wipe at my nose.
He shakes his head and smiles at me. “Think of it as paying it forward. The next time you notice someone having a bad day, or a tough time, you pay-it-forward to them and tell them the same thing. The world is shit. We’ve got to look out for one another.”
This day might be terrible. It might be the worst one I have had in a very long time. But even though the universe might be an asshole, at least there are still kind people out there who care enough to make things a little easier.
I get out of the taxi and buzz myself into the building.
If it weren’t for my thighs feeling like they’re on fire from rubbing together, and the disaster spot stinging, or the insatiable itch niggling its way into my brain of refusing to let up, I would consider stopping at Franny’s to unload all the baggage this shit day has dragging along.
Francis Mariana Douglas, affectionately coined Franny, is my best friend.
She hates that her parents called her Francis, but they were expecting a chunky baby boy, not a preemie baby girl, so they only had boy names picked out and couldn’t settle on a girl name to save their lives.
Thus, Franny was named Francis after her grandfather, a name she would go down correcting until the end of time.
The other thing about Franny is she’s just an elevator ride away from my place, as she just so happens to live on the first floor of the building, whereas I live on five.
She is also the building manager. So, the chances of her being in that ground-floor apartment of hers this early in the morning are slim to none.
She’s likely running around plumbing here or tinkering there, yelling about stolen parking spaces and what not.
While I could hide out in her apartment until she returns to listen to me vent about unchangeable things, my shorts are starting to stick in all sorts of wrong ways and I just want to be rid of them. I have executively decided to burn this damn suit the first chance I get.
I hear the familiar ding of the bell, signalling the elevator has arrived and awaits my stepping on.
Although this building has six floors, two laundry rooms full of washers and dryers and two elevators—among other amenities I really should start taking advantage of—it’s very rare to find the laundry units working at full capacity or to have both elevators in service.
Someone is always moving in or out and it’s like the working elevator is permanently reserved for those people to use.
I enter the latter of the two without a second thought, determined to make it up to my fifth-floor apartment without running into anybody I might have to talk to. I quickly press the ‘door close’ button before anyone can try to join me.
“Floor one, going up,” the robot-lady voice sings at me, beeping past the floors we don’t stop on.
I sigh, lean back against the wall of the elevator, resting my head against the cool metal. I let my eyes slip closed, relaxing, and waiting to hear the familiar “floor five” sung to me by the robot lady again.
I wonder why someone signed up for that job. How does one become an elevator announcer anyway? Does it pay well? What other robots do they voice? Do you have to go to school for that? Is there a class called Robo-Talk?
Somewhere in the middle of my thought spiral, everything comes to a stop.
Literally. The entire world stops. Although, right now my entire world is inside this elevator, which tells me that the elevator itself has stopped.
But it has not reached floor five yet. The robot lady is not announcing my arrival. Is something wrong?
That question is immediately confirmed by the crash, the flickering of lights, and the glitching female robot voice announcing something I can’t make out. With me inside it—screams echoing for no one to hear—the elevator plummets to my death.