“Maybe I can still volunteer.”
Denisha nodded her head sadly. “We’d love to have you. Any way we can.”
When Lizzie left the office a little later, she thought she was likely losing the best boss she’d ever have. Dr. Roberts had that rare combination of compassion and practicality that worked so well in medicine. She was also an inspiration, giving so much back to the community she’d grown up in. The joke around the center was that she should run for governor someday.
Except the staff really meant it.
Lizzie walked down to the medical-records room and finished pulling charts so that the Saturday-morning staff would be ready for their first five patients of the day. Then she grabbed her lunch tote from the kitchen, waved goodbye to the other nurses and headed out into the oven that was your typical early August evening in Boston.
On her way home, she called Boston Medical Center and asked her supervisor to put her on the sub list so she could hopefully log more hours in the ED. She would need a financial cushion if she couldn’t find another day job right away and she might as well prepare for the worst.
When she pulled up to the duplex, she told herself it was going to be fine. She had an excellent job history, and with the number of hospitals in and around Boston, she would secure another position in a week or two.
But God…wherever she ended up it wasn’t going to be as special as the clinic. There was just something about that place, probably because it was run more like an old-fashioned doctor’s office than a modern-day, insurance-driven, patient-churning business.
Lizzie’s mood lifted long enough for her to get through her front door, but the revival didn’t last as she hit the message button on her answering machine. Her mother’s voice, that singsong, perpetually cheerful, girlie rush, was like the chatter of a goldfinch.
Funny how draining such a pretty sound could be.
“Hi-ho, Lizzie-fish, I justhad to call you because I’ve been looking at kilns today for my pottery, which iscritical for my new direction in my work, which as you know has recently been drifting away from painting and into things of a more three-dimensional nature, which is really significant for my growth as an artist, which is…”
Lizzie’s mom used the word which as most people did a period.
As the message went on and on, Lizzie put her purse and her keys down and leafed through the mail. Bill. Bill. Flyer. Bill.
“Anyway, Lizzie-fish, I bought one this morning and it’s being delivered tomorrow. The credit card was broken so I wrote the check for two thousand dollars and I had to pay more for Saturday delivery….”
Lizzie froze. Then whipped her head around to stare at the machine. Two thousand dollars? Two thousand dollars? There wasn’t that kind of cash in their joint account. And it was after five so Lizzie couldn’t call the local bank to stop payment.
Her mother had just bounced that check good and hard.
Lizzie cut off the message and deleted it, then sat down in the quilt-covered armchair by the front bay windows.
The credit card was not “broken.” Lizzie had put a five-hundred-dollar limit on the thing precisely so her mother couldn’t charge things like kilns, for God’s sake.
At least this situation was repairable, though. First thing tomorrow morning, she’d call the bank and cancel that check, then she’d get in touch with the one art-supply store in Essex and tell them the purchase was off. Hopefully, she’d catch them in time.
A thump drifting down from above jerked Lizzie to attention. She looked at the ceiling then out the window. Another rental car was parked at the curb, this time a silver one, but she’d been too caught up in the drama over her job to notice when she’d arrived.
***
Sean O’Banyon was back.
Sean stood in his old bedroom and wondered how many boxes he’d need to clean out the space. On his way into Southie from the airport, he’d hit U-Haul and bought two dozen of their cardboard specials, but he was probably going to need more.
He went over and opened up the closet door then tugged on a white string that had a little metal crown at the end. The light clicked on and the dusty remnants of his and Billy’s high-school wardrobe were revealed. The two of them had shared clothes for years because Billy had always been so big for his age, and when Sean had left for college, they’d divvied up the best of the stuff. All that was left now was a wilted chamois shirt with a hole under one pit and a pair of khakis they’d both hated.
His cell phone rang and he answered it offhandedly, distracted by thoughts of his brother. It was the team of analysts from his office about the Condi-Foods merger, and he started to pace around as he answered their questions.