Ch. 40 – Prem
“ W here the hell is Deja?” Prem growled, slumping against the clinic’s reception desk. Outside the front window, he watched Mrs. Horner pull out from a parking spot, her four poodles in tow.
“I’ve tried her three times,” Layla responded. “It keeps going to voicemail.”
“Call Kate. See if she can come in for the full day,” Prem barked. “This place is a mad house.”
Deja’s no-show had immediately thrown him behind schedule. Then the Gundersons had burst through the front door with their Corgi, Homer, who’d swallowed a pork bone. Things hadn’t improved when Sapphire, in for a wing clipping, had escaped the exam room. For 20 minutes, the terrified parakeet had fluttered around the reception area with Prem, Layla, and Ms. Timmison chasing after it.
An obese white cat by the painfully ironic name of Angel had joined in the effort but with entirely different motivations. Deprived of her parakeet prize, Angel had thrown a fit during her exam, leaving Prem with four deep gouges in his forearm. The cleaned-out wound throbbed beneath his hastily slapped-on bandages.
“I hope Deja’s okay,” Layla said, snapping Prem’s attention back to the present. “It’s not like her to be unreachable.”
“I don’t care if she pulled over to save a burning orphanage on the way to work. She should have given notice!” Prem retorted.
“I’m sure she has a good reason,” Layla answered, but even she looked exhausted. She’d done her best to step up in Deja’s absence, cleaning the exam rooms as soon as they were open, taking down pet health histories in the waiting room, and chatting warmly with customers while they waited for their appointments, which were running 15 to 20 minutes behind.
But that had only made things worse. It’d been three days since he’d learned of Layla’s re-engagement to her asshole fiancé, and Prem could barely look at his receptionist. Every time she walked through the back door, he felt a new stab of rejection and pain.
Why did she have to be so damn beautiful? So effortlessly kind?
He wanted to despise her, but every time their eyes accidentally met, he saw only guilt and sorrow in her gaze. Layla seemed nearly as miserable as him. Which left them all in an excruciating purgatory. And because Prem had nowhere to focus his unrelenting hurt, he unleashed it, raw and ragged, into the world.
“I’ll try her again.” Layla picked up the desk phone, but just as she began to dial, the back door slammed open. Frantic footsteps beat through the back of the clinic, and Deja appeared from the door of Exam Room One, eyes puffy, hair in manic disarray. She wore no makeup. A baggy t-shirt and sweatpants hung off her small frame, and her feet were stuffed into untied sneakers.
“Oh my God, I’m soooo sorry,” she moaned as she jogged to the reception desk and practically collapsed against it. “Deon was sick all night. I forgot to charge my phone and it died.”
“Oh no,” Layla murmured. Her eyes grew round with concern. “Is he okay?”
“His temperature was 104 this morning, so I took him to the emergency room.” She looked at Prem. “I’m so sorry I didn’t call. I kept meaning to.”
“You poor thing!” Layla said. “You look so tired. Did you get any sleep at all?”
“I think I dozed off a couple of times when I was holding Deon over the toilet to puke,” Deja answered with a wry smile.
“Is Deon feeling better?” Layla asked.
Deja shrugged. “We got his temperature down, and he’s been able to eat some ice cream. The doctors say it’s just the flu. Apparently, it’s been going around the school. He’s staying home for the day, and my neighbor is keeping an eye on him. Bless her heart.”
“Go home,” Prem said, ice lacing his voice. “Take care of your son.”
Deja turned to him, her eyebrows lifting. “Really? I can have the day off?”
“Yes,” Prem told her. “And the next day and the day after that, and the day after that.”
Deja frowned. “I don’t understand.”
Prem didn’t mind making the situation crystal clear. “You’re fired.”
“What!” Deja cried. “My son was sick!”
“I understand,” Prem told her. “But if you’re going to be late, you have to give notice.”
“My phone died. I told you,” Deja answered. “It was just a mistake.”
Prem didn’t flinch. He’d gone too easy on Deja, on all his employees. “I’ve given you multiple warnings about being late,” he told her. “Today is the last straw. We had clients waiting 20 minutes past their appointment times. We had an emergency visit. If my vet techs don’t show up, I could be putting animals in danger, not to mention pissing off our clients. You’re out, Deja.”
“It won’t happen again.” Deja’s voice wobbled.
“You’re right, it won’t,” Prem retorted. He looked at Layla. “Call Kate. Get her in here. I need to prep for our next patient.”
Layla didn’t move, her face frozen in shock.
Deja’s eyes darkened and her jaw tightened. “I’m a damn good vet tech,” she said solemnly. “But I’m also a mother, and being a mom to my son will always come first. If you don’t understand that, then I don’t want to work for you anyway!”
She turned on her heels and stormed through the back.
Prem watched her go, his chest tight. Firing Deja was the right thing to do, of course. He was running a business, not a charity. Despite what everyone around here seemed to believe, they weren’t really a family.
But then why did he suddenly feel like absolute shit?
He dragged in a heavy breath and turned back to the reception desk. “Call Kate,” he repeated to Layla. “I’ll re-work the schedule tonight after we close.”
Layla stared at him, her expression stony. “That was a very cruel thing to do,” she spoke quietly.
Prem held her gaze. “It was a business decision. Nothing more.”
Layla shook her head. “You’re hurting, and it’s my fault, but you didn’t have to take it out on Deja.”
Prem’s whole body vibrated with anger and pain. “This has nothing to do with me and you,” he snapped. “Call Kate!”
He turned and stalked out of the reception area. He only had five minutes until the next appointment, but he couldn’t stand to look at Layla, to see the disappointment lacing her blue eyes.
He yanked open the door of his office, dropped into his desk chair, and grimaced at its annoying squeak. He held his aching head in his hands and, through his splayed fingers, caught sight of a sticky note placed prominently in the middle of his desk.
You are in control.
He’d written it on Monday, hours after discovering that monstrosity of a ring on Layla’s finger.
Prem pulled in a shaking breath. It was time to stop letting his emotions control him. Time to stop being soft. He opened a task app on his phone and hastily added another action item to his spiraling to-do list.
Hire new vet tech.