Deadly Dosage (11 page)

Chapter
17

On the way home from work, I stopped at the ATM. I
figured a hundred would tie me over until the end of next week. The machine
thought otherwise. I got fifty and it sucked up my card. Great, another
headache. Since I never let myself get overdrawn on my account, this was a bank
error, and I was in for a fight.

     I turned on the radio and searched in vain for an
upbeat song. No luck. I hummed a tune from
The
Sound of Music
about edelweiss. That depressed me more, so I switched to thinking about Lloyd
and his tight jeans. If I kept it up for long, I would have to turn off the car
heater.

     By the time I arrived home, I had four messages,
and I needed a cold shower. I went to the fridge and settled on a cold beer.
Damn you, Lloyd.

     In another hour Brandi would be walking in the
door and I’d let her know she owed me a new towel after the harry beast had his
pecker on mine.

     I checked my phone messages. Autumn. Mom. Autumn.
Lloyd. Lloyd? The heat was back, so I drenched it with beer. I dialed Autumn
and waited. Come on, Autumn, I need sisterly advice. On the fifth ring, she
picked up.

     “Autumn.” It rushed out of my mouth before she
said hello. “It’s me.”

     “I know your voice, Sunny,” she said. “Where have
you been?”

     “I needed money and the ATM took my card. Listen
Autumn—”

     “You have more trouble than anyone I know.” She
crunched on a carrot.

     “Autumn—” I tried again to get her attention, but
she was on a roll.

 “Alan needs to work this
Saturday. Do you—”

     “Autumn!”

     “What?”

     “Jeez, you go on and on. I need to ask you
something?”

     “Well, what is it that’s so important?”

     “Just forget it. What were you saying?” I tried
not to sound as pissed as I felt.

     “Sunny, I’m sorry, what is it?”

     That’s better. “Lloyd called. He didn’t leave a
message.”

     “Lloyd who?”

     “Lloyd! You know, the hot guy from Bellos.” She
could be so dense.

     “Oh, that Lloyd. So what’s the problem? You like
him, right?”

     “Yes. That’s the problem. We have a date on
Friday and what if he’s calling to cancel it? I don’t know if I should call him
back, or wait for him to call me again.”

     “Um, you know he might just want to talk to you.
You’re always waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

     “That’s because it usually does. So you would
call him?”

     “Sunny, if I hadn’t pursued Alan, nothing would
have happened. Guys need women to be upfront about their desires.”

     “Oh. I just don’t want to appear desperate. Like
I wait around all day for the phone to ring.”

     “He’s not going to think that. He called you
first! So call him back.”

     “All right. But if he breaks our date…”
I’ll
what? Be heartbroken? Angry?

     “You were saying?”

     “Nothing. So what did you call about?”

     “Shopping and/or movie on Saturday? Alan’s
working.” Autumn hated staying home. She would go by herself if that were her
only option.

     “Sure. I’ll call you when I get up.”

     “Okay, sounds good. And Sunny?”

     “Yeah?”

     “Call him. He likes you. Bye.”

     “Bye.” I hung up and took another swig of beer
for courage and I dialed his number.

     I waited holding my breath, running glib comments
through my mind. In another ten seconds, I planned to hang up. Ten, nine,
eight, seven, six, five…

     “Hello?”

     “Um, hi, Lloyd? This is Sunny, returning your
call.” Whew. I managed to spit that much out. Now for a real conversation.

     “Oh, hi. Sorry, I dialed your number by mistake.”

     Crap. Now what. I felt like an idiot.

     “Well, I’ll let you go then.” The sooner the
better.

     “No, wait,” he pleaded, “I meant to call you
later tonight anyway.”

     Yeah, sure, I thought.

     “So, have you had a chance to check on my dad’s
roommate?”

     “Well, yeah. I managed to have a run-in with his
daughter. We argued about juice.”

“Juice?”

“Yeah. She wants him to have
it and he feels pressured into drinking it. His nurse said it wasn’t prescribed
but it was okay for him to have. I don’t know. Something doesn’t feel right.”

     “That’s what my dad said. That daughter is always
hovering over him, sneaking his medical chart from the nurses’ station. She
makes notes on a little pad she keeps in her purse. My dad said he’d disinherit
a daughter like that.”

     “Do you have any brothers or sisters?” It seemed
like an easy segue to a more personal topic.

     “One brother, Ethan, one sister, Dale.”

     Dale. The big date?

“Is she younger or older?” I
inquired.

     “Thirty-six, older by four years. She’s married
with two kids, twin girls—Dana and Deena. Ethan is thirty-four and divorced.”

     Before I could ask him if she was the big date,
he answered my question.

     “On Valentine’s Day the girls turned eight and we
celebrated at Chucky Cheese. Her kids are great but the other little brats
drove me nuts.”

      Suddenly my whole outlook changed from bad to
good, as quoted by the Winter Warlock in
Santa Claus is Coming to Town
.
Only my gift was better than a wooden choo-choo train.

     We continued talking for another thirty minutes
about this and that. His tenor voice flowed like sweet music to my ears. He
seemed to know something about everything. By the time we concluded our
conversation, I felt I knew him better than I did Sam.

Chapter
18

Thursday,
February 16th

This morning I did something I hadn’t done in months.
I curled my hair and applied eye shadow, eyeliner and mascara. One tends to lean
towards the natural look when your day is spent with old, senile people who
have bad vision. Today however, Lloyd was stopping in to visit his dad. With
Donna walking around looking like a model, I didn’t want to take any chances.

     What the hell, I’ll even iron my wool slacks. Ten
to one everyone I saw today would comment on my appearance.

Hard to believe, but Lloyd was
the first handsome guy ever to enter the nursing home while I was present.
That’s a lot of years without some eye candy. Hey, a girl likes looking as much
as a guy does. We’re just more subtle, which is probably why women spend so
much time sitting at home without a date. We should just stare at their male
packages and lick our lips. I bet my phone would be ringing off the hook.

Brandi strolled into my
bedroom and went straight to my closet. I don’t know why, since she spent twice
what I did on clothes.

“Hey, Brandi, what are you
doing up already?”

She yawned. “Got an interview
today.”

This is the first I heard
about it. “Oh yeah, where? I thought you loved Hot Pants?”

She pulled out a gray,
cable-knit dress, one of my newer purchases, and held it up to her chest.
“Cute,” she said. She turned toward me, “Good for an interview?”

“That depends on where?” I
said, still waiting for her reply to my question.

“CJ’s Boutique. They’re
opening soon at the mall and are looking for an assistant manager, so I
applied. I like their clothes.”

“I thought you got huge tips
at Hot Pants.” 

“Well, yeah, but the manager
has his eyes on me and it’s annoying. I figured I better get another job,
because he’ll fire me if I turn him down.”

“You could threaten him with
harassment,” I said with a twinge of sympathy.

“Yeah, if I hadn’t already
slept with him to get the job.” She bent down to check out my shoes.

Okay then. What do you say to
that? The woman has no morals; I was sure of it. “Good luck with the
interview.” Not that she needed any. I pulled a gold scarf from my dresser
drawer and handed it to her. “Here. It goes nicely with that dress.”

“Thanks, Sun. If I get the
job, I’ll let you use my discount.”

“In that case, knock ‘em dead.
My wardrobe could use some sprucing up.”

“No kidding,” she said taking
my dress and scarf out of the room with her.

I shook my head and finished
my ironing, wondering if she’d still borrow my clothes after she got this job.

Some days go on forever, and today was no exception.
Four hours of entering ancillary charges made my fingers ache. I swear a
quarter of the family members called me with stupid questions and one suggested
I was stealing her mother’s money and giving it to another resident. That
happened to be Mabel Zirkowski’s daughter, and I had a difficult time trying to
prove over the phone that I wasn’t giving money to a resident named Edna,
because Edna didn’t exist. By the time I ended the call, I thought Edna was
real.

     Tomorrow I would be billing Medicare, so I had to
be sure everything was entered and correct. Phyllis demanded that it be done
before noon, so payment would arrive in two weeks. I never disappointed her, not
that she’d let me.

     The phone rang and I picked up the receiver.
“Summer Kramer.” I was too busy for pleasantries.

     “Sunny!” she sang.

     “Hi, Spring, listen I’m a little busy…”

     “You’ll never guess why I’m calling?”

     She was right. Once more, I didn’t care. I had
tons of work to do.

     “Why?” I kept typing while I waited.

     “I’m getting married!” she screamed with
happiness.

     I stopped typing. “What?”

     “Married.”

     “Seriously, Spring? When?” I said sincerely
shocked. Spring never talked about marriage, just her job. “When did Nino ask
you?”

     “Last night. He met me in Charleston, SC, that’s
where we are now, and proposed in the cutest little Southern restaurant in the
historic district.” She sounded deliriously happy. “You should see this
diamond!”

     “I’m really happy for you. Are you coming home
soon?”

     “Nino’s flying in tomorrow but I have to work, so
I’m returning Saturday afternoon.”

     “Does Autumn know yet?”

     “No, I called you first. Don’t tell her.”

     “No, of course not. Hey, I planned to do
something with Autumn Saturday, what if we pick you up at the airport?”

     “My car’s there. What if I meet you at mom’s at
7:00 that night? We can all go out to dinner and celebrate.”

     “Sure.”

     “Well, sis, I’ll let you go. Lots of calls to
make.”

     “Okay, bye. Say hi to Nino and have a safe trip
home.”

     “Will do. Love ya.”

     I hung up, with renewed energy. Her high spirits
were intoxicating.

     The phone rang again. Let me guess, Autumn is
getting married too. A double wedding.

     “Summer Kramer, how may I help you?” Back to
professional pleasantries.

     “Mornin’ Sunny,” Lloyd said.

     “Lloyd, hi,” I said sweetly, “what’s up?”

     “I’ll be there in thirty minutes, and I thought
if you didn’t already have plans we could grab a quick lunch before I visit my
dad.”

     Shantel’s lunchtime. “Sure. I’ll see you then.”

     “Okay, bye.”

     “Bye.”

     I walked over to Shantel’s desk and waited for
her to finish her phone call. She caught a glimpse of me out of the corner of
her eye and jumped in her chair, knocking her coffee cup over, the contents
spilling into her calculator.

     “What’cha doing sneaking up on me? I hate that.”
She placed her coffee cup right side up and began wiping down her calculator
with some tissues. “Sheesh, what a mess.” She turned the calculator on its side
and coffee drained out. “Do you think it’ll still work?”

     “Sorry ‘bout that. Yeah, it should work. I’ve
done that a few times. It just needs to dry out. Better hide it from The Hawk
though.”

     She unplugged it and placed it under her desk.
“Hope nobody needs to use it.”