Wrong Place, Right Time(23)

He touches the code into the keypad without saying anything else, and I don’t hesitate a moment before grabbing the handle and opening it so that I can go out to the staircase below. I want to scream and tear my hair out when I see another keypad at the big, main door, but then I notice Lucky is there and he’s waving up at me.

“Could you get the door for Jenny?” Dev yells out to his coworker below.

Lucky looks a little confused. “She’s leaving?”

I don’t wait for Dev to confirm. “Yes! I’m leaving.” I bang down the stairs, hanging on to the railing tightly, because if I trip now I’ll end up in the hospital, and I don’t have time for that nonsense. I need to get home. Bath. Sleep. Kids.

Lucky shrugs and then turns to enter the code. I’m at the bottom of the stairs when the big door begins to slide open. I’ll admit, there’s a little piece of me fearing that there’s going to be some bad guy with a machine gun standing outside, but when the only thing that greets me is the sultry night smelling of the Mississippi River, I relax. I think I’ve had more adrenaline pumping through my veins today than I have in the past year. I feel like I’m high. No wonder I’m having these ridiculous thoughts about men and animals and seahorses.

“Be safe,” Dev says from somewhere behind me.

“Yeah, okay.” He doesn’t see me rolling my eyes. These people are crazy. Of course I’m going to be safe. All I’m doing is getting into my car, driving home, and taking a bath. That’s it. Oh, and I’m also going to drink an entire bottle of wine by myself. And then if I’m lucky, I’ll find a nice chick flick to watch on television, pop some popcorn, eat a couple scoops of ice cream, and fall asleep on the couch. I never get to do that stuff when my kids are around. Embracing the couch potato lifestyle, that’s what I’m all about. Ice cream addicts, unite!

This is my chance to live like I’m single again. Like I have no responsibilities and calories don’t matter. I can’t believe I almost blew it by working on my day off. Ha! What nuttery is this? I can go home right now and pretend that I’m fresh out of college again and I have the entire world as my oyster in front of me, and that there’s a man out there who’s both a great husband and a great father just waiting to sweep me off my feet, look me in the eyes, and say: “Jenny, do you know how amazing you are? You’re funny, you’re intelligent, you’re adventurous . . .”

Shit. It’s Dev’s voice that I hear echoing in my head, and I almost start crying when I realize that it’s not me who’s being described; it’s my sister. Some girls have all the luck.

I use my key fob to open my car door and get inside. My car starts up immediately, and the climate control blasts me in the face, hot humid air that makes my future warm bath start to feel like a really bad idea. Sweating in the bathtub suuuucks. The bath is now officially out, which makes me want to punch something. What more could possibly go wrong today?

I drive away, refusing to look in my rearview at the warehouse—the evil place that stole my sister and my bath away from me. The more I think about those people in there and what they do, and what my sister is wrapped up in, the sadder I get. Two miles away from the port, I burst into tears.

I cry almost all the way home, and I don’t even know what the damn tears are for. Are they for May? Are they for me? Are they for my past mistakes, or the future I’ll never have? Maybe they’re for all of the above. I obviously need to get my head examined, because shit is seriously messed up in there. There’s not enough ice cream in all of New Orleans to fix this.

I’m not sure how I got home. My brain took over and put the driver-me on autopilot. I remember leaving the warehouse and then pulling into my neighborhood. I hope I didn’t run anyone over in my daze.

After parking my car in the driveway, I walk into my house. I’m so exhausted, I go straight upstairs to my room and flop down onto my stomach on my bed. Not a single thought passes through my mind before I’m sound asleep.





CHAPTER EIGHT

A vague dinging sound coming from somewhere in my house penetrates the sleep-fog filling my brain. In my half-dream state, I imagine that I have something cooking in the microwave, and it’s time for me to take the food out. Another ding comes, louder this time, or so it seems. Apparently, my microwave has a mind of its own. It’s nagging me: Come get your food, woman!

As I become more fully awake, I realize it’s not my microwave talking to me; it’s my telephone. Someone is texting me. I groan, knowing who woke me up, regretting that I have the hearing of a mother with small children. My shit is bionic.