The Good Sister (8 page)

Noah could feel his sister’s gaze on him. Probing. Wondering. Waiting to pounce and devour him. “Wait, until we’re alone,” he said, keeping his tone low and tight. The last thing he needed was Lindsey overhearing whatever Penny was nearly biting her tongue to keep from saying.

She, no doubt, had lots to say after finding Lindsey Johanson in his employment. His sister had lots to say about everything in general. They spent a few moments gathering up his nephews: dark-headed boys who smiled happily as they bounced into everything. They loved the vet clinic and the animals, and always demanded details on any gross things Noah had to do. They loved surgery stories and descriptions of whatever he had to remove. Ah, the joys of boys. His niece, the baby, would probably not delight so in his job. He adored them all, as well as his sister. She called him earlier, complaining her husband had to work late again. Since she hadn’t seen Noah in “forever,”  they agreed to go to dinner.

Once seated, the boys ran off to the small arcade room. Penny situated six-month-old Shana in the highchair where she gummed all the toys Penny handed her. Penny was like a superhero to Noah. She could pull anything out from that giant purse of hers. Everything from baby wipes to toys to food and drinks; she was ready for any disaster that befell the kids.

“So, Jessie’s sister? How come you didn’t mention she was gorgeous? My God! She looks like a crowned princess standing among her minions. I mean, didn’t you notice the straight, nearly perpendicular way she holds her spine and head? And you have her stocking shelves? What’s the matter with you?”

He rolled his eyes. “Nothing. She’s simply filling in temporarily for Jessie. So yeah, I have her stocking shelves. It is a business I run after all, Pen.”

She sighed dramatically. “You’re not gay, are you, Noah? And just waiting to come out until we’re ready to deal with it?”

He nearly groaned in frustration. She was always overly dramatic.  A hangnail sent her to the ER. “No, what are you talking about?”

“How can you work next to that lovely, stunning woman while she stocks your shelves?”

He compressed his mouth. “She’s married. That’s how. And again, just a temporary employee.”

“Happily? Is she happily married?”

He leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs out before him. “This is exactly why I didn’t mention to you I had a new employee. I don’t know if she’s happily married. It’s not my business. Or yours either. And don’t even begin to do anything you’re thinking of doing.”

She scrunched her eyes up. “You do notice, though, that she’s incredible? I mean, you’re sure you’re not gay? It would be totally fine, great even, if you were. I just need to know.”

He ground his teeth. Little sisters could be the most annoying things sometimes. “Yes, I’ve noticed she’s beautiful. I noticed it five years ago when I first met her, and first learned
she was married.
” He tried to enunciate slowly so his thick-headed sister would get it.

She waved her hand in the air. “Well what’s she doing here for long-term, long enough to fill in for you, if she’s happily married? Where’s her husband?”

“Working in Hawaii. She’s taking care of her pregnant sister. Is that enough to satisfy you she most likely
is
wonderfully and happily married? Now, do you think you could quit implying I should make a move on my
married
temporary assistant? One who, as you noticed, is too far out of my league, no matter what.”

Penny let out a big sigh of disappointment. “It’s just so frustrating. You’re thirty-four years old, handsome as all get out, successful, financially solvent, funny, intelligent, kind, and yet, you can’t find anyone. I mean even Pete did.”

They shared a smile. Pete was their older brother. It shocked everyone when their loud-mouthed, kind of slouchy/sloppy, lazy brother married a younger, lovely Asian student who was studying at the university. They had two kids and were currently trying to have a third.

“Maybe I don’t want to find anyone. I date plenty of women, Pen.”

“I’m not talking about sex, Noah. I have no doubt you do fine in that realm. But, you’re so special. I just want you to find the woman you deserve.” Penny was happily married, and a stay-at-home mom, who had been trying for years to find her equivalent for Noah. She often set him up on awkward, awful blind dates. Sometimes, she completely broad-sided him without any warning. She had been known for even bringing potential contenders by the clinic, and forcing him into a terribly uncomfortable meeting right then and there.

“Well, I can guarantee you, I haven’t found your answer in Lindsey. Besides, she’d probably pee her pants if you mentioned the ‘S’ word in front of her. She’s unreasonably formal and stiff. I mean, you saw the skirt. Every day. Every freaking day, she shows up as if she’s ready to go into a courtroom or something. I mean it’s a vet clinic, here in Ellensburg. I frequently want to point out where we truly are. But that’s not appropriate.

“Plus, the poor woman can hardly do anything. I mean, to the point of being ridiculous. I don’t know how much longer I can stand it. She’s affecting my business, not to mention customer satisfaction. She’s so timid, I think Jessie was right when she said her sister had to raise her hand to ask before she could pee. I feel like she’s afraid of me.” Noah failed to mention her skirts put her long, slender legs right there all day, before him. It took a huge effort for him to avoid
looking at her legs.

No one was ever afraid of Noah. He dealt with a dozen people a day, or more, and none of them reacted as strangely to him as Lindsey did. She was a bundle of nerves that hindered her from functioning even a little bit properly.

“Why don’t you just tell her that?”

He rubbed a hand to his nose. He couldn’t tell Pen exactly why, as it would betray Jessie’s history, of which, most people were not aware. “Because Jessie asked me to do it for her. To let her sister work for me. I just don’t know how long I can stand it.”

“She does seem… timid, for lack of a better word. She’s just so breathtaking; it’s hard to complain if she’s not good at anything.”

Noah laughed out loud. Yeah, that was kind of the case. It was easy to forgive how helpless she was once he took a glance at her stunning face. “So, don’t try to set me up. It would be beyond awkward. She is Jessie’s sister and off limits, okay?”

Penny crossed her arms over her chest in a huff, but finally agreed with a jerky nod.

Noah let Lindsey fumble around his practice for another week. She couldn’t handle more than one client at a time. Or one phone call. She kept forgetting the computer program. It was like she never dealt with software before. She dropped things and spilled things, usually as a result of him coming up too quickly or loudly behind her. She was like a Mexican jumping bean. Weirdly so. She flinched or backed away if he ever so much as grazed her foot, or bumped her shoulder. He found it more than a little insulting how eager she seemed to get away from any physical contact. Her need for personal space was almost obsessive.

And her damn phone! Christ, she spent half the day answering that. At least once an hour, she took her cell phone and whispered into it. When it rang, she almost instantaneously forgot whatever she was doing, and became obsessive whenever talking to him. It got so bad, more than once, she forgot one pet owner or another.

His clients were not happy with her, as she often overcharged them, or mishandled their paperwork. She could scarcely manage to print off their care instructions or find the proper medication from the stock room. All she had to do was merely read the labels, yet she behaved as if it were rocket science.

He sighed out loud when he saw who was booked for the five-thirty appointment. The Drummonds were coming in to put down their beloved cat of twenty-two years. He rubbed at his temple. It was a part of his job, but he never found peace with it, or got used to it. Not like he probably should have. It never failed to tear him up. Especially when the pet owners were like the Drummonds, who considered their pet a part of their family. Although he knew what an agonizing decision it was for the old couple to make, whose cat had failing kidneys and suffered painfully; he also knew it was the right thing to do, but that didn’t make it any easier.

They entered the clinic, and already, tears streamed down Teresa’s face. Clive looked like he was on the verge of crying too as Teresa cradled their cat in her arms. The calmness of the cat only attested to how sick this once feisty feline was. They all knew it was the right decision. The cat was too sick to even meow anymore. It merely howled and shuffled in response.

Noah came out and met them immediately. Putting his arm around Teresa, he gently led her back into the exam room. It was quick and peaceful. Teresa folded her body around her cat in wracking tears, as her husband rubbed her back and crooned softly to her. Clive had tears on his face. Noah put his hand on her back before discreetly leaving to give them some time alone.

Noah waited out in the reception, his head bent down and his eyes staring at his shoes. He hated this. They wanted the cat to be cremated, so he only had to see them out. His tech would handle the remains. Lindsey sat quietly behind her desk. Her eyes big and wide. She seemed to respond to the sudden solemn chill that invaded the clinic at times like this. He always scheduled euthanasia for the end of the day, if possible, just to give the owners some privacy, space and respect to grieve. Most of them cried and mourned their losses as if they’d just killed their best friends. It was every bit as sad sometimes as a doctor must feel in a hospital with a dying patient. People grieved for their pets in a very real, and very heartbreaking manner.

The Drummonds eventually came out. Teresa huddled against Clive. Noah stood up and waited as Clive set Teresa off to the side. He nodded at Lindsey quickly. Noah had previously instructed her to have their bill and paperwork ready to go. They didn’t need to wait for it.

Lindsey was clicking on “print.” Noah gritted his teeth.
Couldn’t she have done that before?
She was speaking softly to Clive, as she took his credit card when her cell phone chimed. Clive’s tears started flowing again in response to her soft, “I’m sorry.”

And Lindsey, instead of comforting him, or at least finishing quickly, picked up her damn cell phone and put it in her ear, lowering her head as she answered.

Noah thought his temples might explode. Grabbing the credit card from Clive, he handed it back to him with a touch of his hand on the man’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about it now. We’ll bill you.”

Clive nodded gratefully, before shuffling over to his wife. They left after one last hug with Noah and another burst of tears.

Noah saw red. His eyes twitched, and heat filled his gut up to his heart until he flared his nostrils. How dare she? She was the most selfish, cold, bitchy woman he’d ever met. She took a phone call!

He turned suddenly and Lindsey was still on the phone. He marched over to her, grabbed the cell phone out from under her head, slapped the flip phone shut and slammed it onto the counter.

Her mouth fell open and she froze, lifting  her big, blue, horrified eyes at him. She suddenly stood up and clawed at the phone, which he kept firmly under his hand.

“You hung up on him! Oh my God… You can’t do that! You can’t!” she screamed. He stepped back, surprised at the sudden outburst. She never reacted to anything, but did to this?

He held up the phone up where she couldn’t claw at it, although she continued trying to. She was purposely touching him, while trying to open his hand. He was almost a foot taller than she, and he raised his hand up to where she couldn’t reach. It started ringing.

Lindsey jumped as if she’d just been stung by a bee and leaped up towards his hand. She wore three-inch heels, and as she landed back down, they caused her ankles to wobble until she fell back onto the floor. His jaw dropped open, stunned. Did she really just launch herself after her phone? Was she really on the clinic floor now, her eyes bright with panic
over talking on her cell phone?

She stared up at him, and her eyes looked stricken, like a frantic, cornered animal. He’d only ever seen scared dogs look at him the way she was now.
What the hell?

“Please, please, Noah, you have to let me answer that. You don’t understand.” Her tone was a desperate, pleading whisper, and her eyes were focused on the ringing phone as if it were about to detonate in his hand.

He lowered his hand, and finally held it out to her. She scrambled to her feet, and passed around him as she greeted
her husband,
for Lindsey didn’t talk to anyone else
but
him.

She finally lowered the phone and shut it. Her shoulders slumped. Her back slouched and expanded as if she’d taken in a deep breath before she slowly turned towards him.

“Why did you do that?”

Why did he do that?
Was she for real? He reacted to what she did first. She answered her cell phone while a grown man stood crying before her. It wasn’t why did
he
do that, but why did
she
?

“I’ve had enough. You take personal calls all day long, no matter what you’re doing. Or whom you’re serving. This is my place of business, and if you can’t respect that, then at least stop being so rude to people who are right in front of your face. No one, not anyone, talks to a spouse once an hour, all day long. It’s ridiculous and it’s no wonder you don’t work anywhere. Look, this might fly when you’re at home, ordering your servants around, or sitting at the country club, or whatever the hell else you do, but it will not fly here! I might be just a country vet, and not the same caliber of sophistication that you and your spouse are used to, but I will not have you treating my clients, or the people I care about, as if the death of their beloved cat is not as important as your stupid cell phone call!”

Her face paled and she took one step back, then another. Her mouth trembled. “I’m sorry. I—I’m sorry.”

She flinched when he moved forward, so he stopped dead. He didn’t even consciously notice he was taking a step. She ducked her head, and braced her weight over her legs, in a strange stance, almost as if she were getting poised and ready for something. What though?

What the hell?

He let out a long sigh. “This isn’t going to work. This is my place of business, and you are hindering it. You can’t handle this. I know the death of a cat seems trivial to you, but it was that couple’s child, literally. Their own child doesn’t talk to them, so they put all their love and caring into their twenty-plus-year-old cat. I know to some people, it seems stupid and trite. So what? It’s just a cat. But to most of my clients, their pets are like children to them. Their feelings for them are very real. And so, to simply ignore that, while a grown man is crying before you, well, I just don’t see how this can work out any longer. You simply don’t get it.”

She raised her head up to him, and he stared, waiting. And waiting. Had she nothing to say? Something? Anything?  Either to apologize or just get angry? How could she have no reaction? He wasn’t being very nice to her. She sucked her lower lip into her mouth and wrinkled her brows down. Finally, she said softly, “I get it.”

His frustration made him want to groan out loud. She was so aggravating. Fight back!
Defend yourself! Just
do
something. But her utter lack of response to his anger was unnerving. His adrenaline started to diminish and he was left with simply wanting her gone. It wasn’t even worth insulting her over.

He turned and started for the door to his office, ready to call it a day.

“H—he doesn’t know I work here. Or at least, that I’m attempting to work here.”

He stopped dead in his tracks and glanced over his shoulder. “He?”

“Elliot. He doesn’t know I’m filling in for Jessie. I haven’t told him. He’s a stickler about me answering his calls, so I do. Otherwise, he’ll catch on that something is up.”

So what if he caught on something was up? So what if he got mad she skipped one of his incessant, ridiculous calls? “So what if he does?”

She wrung her hands in front of her. “He’ll make me stop.”

“He’s half a world away.”

“Yes, but he’ll make me stop.”

Noah shook his head. How could she be so browbeaten that she accepted his strange, total dominance over her?

“And you don’t want to stop?”

She shook her head, and her shoulders dropped. Her chest rose and fell quickly, as if she were breathless. “No, I know I’m not very good at, well, anything. I know that. But it’s the first thing I’ve done in five years beyond working in my house. I don’t think you know how… limiting it is to go for days without seeing anyone. I admit, I’m rusty. But maybe, I could get a little better. I’m just so nervous, and that’s why I screw up all the time.”

Lindsey’s request weighed heavily on his chest. Obviously, the sister was under the strange influence of her husband. Jessie was right: he was an asswipe. But what, Noah wondered, did he owe Lindsey? Why should he have to suffer with Jessie’s incompetent sister?

When he didn’t comment, she continued, “I do care very much that their cat died. I do think it matters. Any grief matters, despite the cause. All pain matters. I just, I can’t miss any of his phone calls. It might not look that way, but I didn’t mean to appear so heartless. I really would like to continue working here.”

“I’m sorry, but I have to know: why do you want to work here so much?”

She jerked her shoulders back and stiffened her spine. “Because, as you already noticed, I don’t do anything. I haven’t for years. Jessie asked this of me and I want to succeed. I want to do this right for her. And ease her mind. And I want to prove to you that I am not totally stupid.”

He let out a breath. Yes, she was kind of stupid. She was stupid about answering her phone and incompetent with all the tasks that needed to be done. But how could he outright ignore her when she only wanted to please him?

She took another breath, and Noah wondered why she always seemed like she had to steel herself before confronting him. “I know I’m not Jessie. But, maybe I could improve.”

He nodded to the phone in her hand. “Not with that still here. You figure out how to not use it every hour, on the hour, and I’ll give you another chance.”

Her head dropped, yet again. She was too quick to adopt a submissive stance, posture and tone of voice. “I can’t figure that out.”

He waited a beat, then asked, “Is he that opposed to you working?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” Noah tilted his head in consideration. It wasn’t the nineteen fifties, after all. Didn’t Lindsey get the memo? What woman nowadays let a husband, or anyone really, tell her what to do? His sister would kick his brother-in-law’s ass up one side and down the other if he ever dared to forbid her from doing anything, even if it was in her best interest or safety. She would never tolerate being told to do so.

“Because we don’t need it. It’s not how our ‘set’ of people run their lives. Most have kids, and all the wives stay home. As I do.”

He ran a hand through his hair, his anger totally dissipated now. He leaned back into the counter. “Look, I don’t know what to tell you. I just know I’m running a business and I need someone who can do the job. And it might be nice if that someone weren’t so afraid of me. Besides, I can’t tolerate your answering your phone every time it rings.”

“I used to have a job.”

He scratched his eyebrow. What the hell did that have to do with anything? And how the hell was that possible? How could she do anything of value with her indecisiveness, incompetence and insecurity?