Saving Sunni (20 page)

Chapter 19

Geri wasn’t at work the next day. I got there at ten and waited, laughing at Geri’s flakiness. I waited in my car because she hadn’t given me a key, then went and pounded on the door in case she was inside and forgot to open up. I went back to my car and waited some more. I didn’t know Geri’s cell or home number, and I had no idea how to call and find out if she’d been in an accident on the way in. There was nothing to do but sit and wait.

When Sir’s cell phone went off in my purse at eleven, I jumped a full three inches off the seat. I fumbled for it, shaking, and saw that the call was coming from me. Or, more accurately, my cell phone.

“sunni?” Sir’s voice sounded strange.

“Yes?” I couldn’t imagine why he would be calling me, or how he would know what was going on. My brain felt too fuzzy to try to piece it out.

“Honey, Geri’s had a heart attack,” he said quietly.

It took me a second to digest that. “How do you know?” was all I could finally think to say. It somehow seemed hugely important to follow the chain of events that led to him calling me. It was horrible not to ask how she was, but my brain couldn’t get beyond that first question.

“Debi called your cell phone to tell you. Apparently her number was in Geri’s purse. She’s at University Hospital, if you want to go and visit her.”

I involuntarily looked up to where the top of the hospital was just in view, only a few blocks away, as if Geri would be standing on the roof waving at me.

“Oh—she is?”

“Are you okay, pet?” He sounded really concerned, and I made an effort to collect myself.

“I’m fine,” I said, but my voice shook.

“Do you have anything to put a sign on the door that the store will be closed today?”

At first I was annoyed at Sir’s matter-of-fact manner, but the practicality of hunting around in my car for a notebook and pen did make me feel more grounded. I set it to the side and asked for any other details that he might have heard.

“Debi didn’t say anything much, other than that Geri had been taken to the hospital. She said she would be going a little later. Are you sure you’re all right? Do you need me to come over and drive you?” His voice was soft, and I imagined having him there, putting his arms around me, making me feel safe and protected. Sir was so good at that. A sob threatened to come up my throat, and I barely choked it back.

“No, of course not. I’m fine.” It took a huge effort, but I forced my voice to be as normal as possible. If I was going to make it through this without crying, I needed to get him back to being practical instead of sympathetic.

“Well, let me know if you change your mind.”

“I will, thanks. But—Sir, do you think this was because of the protestors?” It was a risky topic if I wanted to stay calm, but I couldn’t resist asking. Otherwise it would bother me all day, and Geri probably wouldn’t tell me.

I hoped he would say, “No, of course not. Why would you think that?” But instead he sighed. “It could be. It’s hard to tell what causes these things. Don’t feel guilty, though, pet. There’s nothing you could have done about it.”

The sob started to rise again, but I swallowed it down convulsively. “Okay, Sir. I’d better head over there. Do you think I should take anything?”

“You could probably pick up some flowers, but I don’t think they will want you to bring her in food of any kind,” he said, and I was grateful to hear the brusqueness in his tone again. “Tell her to let us know if there is anything she needs. And if you feel that you need to stay there for a while, just let me know. I can come down to pick you up tonight if you’d like.”

I thanked him again and we hung up. I wrote my note, realized I didn’t have any tape to attach it to the door, and had to walk to the next store over to borrow some.

I drove as quickly as I could to the hospital, only stopping on the way to get some flowers. I decided on a small bouquet with six multi-colored balloons that completely overwhelmed the flowers beneath them. They were obnoxiously bright and cheerful and practically screamed “Geri!” at me when I walked in.

The hospital receptionist skeptically eyed the balloons when she gave me Geri’s room number. She seemed surprised I wasn’t going to the children’s ward, but pointed out the hallway and gave me directions. I felt her eyes on me all the way to the elevators.

As I approached the room, I heard a murmuring voice inside. I paused in case the doctors were there or something important was happening. The voice went on, but it didn’t sound like a conversation, so after a minute of hovering outside I decided it must be the television or a radio or something and peeked around the door.

A girl knelt next to Geri’s bed. Her head was bent over her folded hands, and she muttered indistinctly into them. Geri reclined against her pillows with her arms folded, glaring at the girl as if trying to make her burst into flame. I quickly covered my mouth to keep from laughing out loud. I hadn’t thought anyone actually prayed that way, and if they did, it was certainly not being appreciated here.

Geri looked up, flung out her arms, and screeched my name. At least she tried to screech it, but it came out more like a croak and the effort appeared to be too much for her. Her arms made a pathetic attempt to stay up but sagged, and she slumped back into her pillows. Tears sprang into my eyes to see her like that, and I tried to wipe them away inconspicuously as I came around the far side of her bed to hug her.

“sunni, you
came!”
Geri gushed as if I had crawled across the Sahara to appear at her deathbed. She squealed with delight, cradling the garish bouquet in her arms like she’d just given birth to it. She pointedly ignored the indignant face on the other side of the bed. The girl, whose glare proclaimed the impossibility of being righteously serious in the presence of so much silliness, stiffly got to her feet and stared expectantly at me.

Geri couldn’t pretend not to notice her changed posture and waved vaguely in her direction, offering an unnecessary introduction.

“sunni, this is my daughter, Melissa. Melissa, this is the newest member of my little Fringe Element family. Her name is Jessie but we call her sunni because she’s so full of light.”

I smiled awkwardly, deciding whether I should offer to shake hands or not.

Melissa solved that problem for me. “Yes, I know who she is.” Her voice was icy, and I looked at her in surprise. Her mouth was set in a thin, hard line, and her arms were folded as if I might be contagious. She wore a stiff white cotton shirt with a pleated wool skirt. If it had been Halloween I would have suspected it was a Catholic schoolgirl spoof, but she didn’t look like she had a sense of humor.

“Um, it’s nice to meet you,” I said cautiously. Was she was going to start an exorcism?

“I didn’t ask you to come here, you know,” Geri interjected, practically hissing at her. “And I certainly didn’t ask you to say your prayers over me. I love you but you know I don’t share your beliefs, and I don’t appreciate your acting like a martyred virgin.”

I covered my mouth and pretended to cough to camouflage my smile, but Melissa didn’t find it funny.

“Well, if it’s a terrible thing for a daughter to come to the hospital and pray for her mother when she’s had a heart attack, then I must be a very bad person.” She shot me a venomous look. It wasn’t hard to guess who she
really
thought the very bad person was.

“What about the daughter that gives her mother a heart attack in the first place?” Geri shot back at her, one hand absently stroking the pitiful little flowers I had brought. The balloons bobbed around frantically as she got her hand caught in their strings, and Melissa had to dodge to avoid taking one in the face. I stole a glance at Geri but couldn’t tell if the episode been accidental or not.

Melissa turned the dodge into a stoop to pick up her purse, pointedly placing the Bible she’d been holding on the bedside table.

“I certainly won’t waste my time here, then,” she said, spinning around and striding to the door. She turned briefly to give her mother a pained grimace that was probably intended to be a pious smile. “But I will continue to pray for you.”

Geri opened her mouth but Melissa was gone, almost running down the hall. We listened in silence to her footsteps until they stopped and we heard the ding of the elevator.

Geri turned to me and gave me a fairly normal smile.

“How that self-righteous little prig came from me is one of the great unsolved mysteries of the universe,” she announced, dragging the strings and giggling as the balloons bounced madly around.

“So how are you, Geri?” I asked her, realizing I hadn’t had the chance to find out yet.

“I’m fine,” she said scornfully, as if she could have told the doctors there was no point in making all this fuss over a simple heart attack. She watched the movement and colors above her, then her face got serious.

“Would you be a love and hand me my purse?” she said. I did, setting it carefully down next to her for fear its considerable weight would do more damage to her fragile condition. She rummaged through it, pulling out a notepad, pen, and a book that looked like it might have been a college textbook but turned out to be her calendar. Papers spilled out on every side and threatened to bury her in her bed, but she somehow tamed them, juggling the book and handing me the pen and notepad.

“Write down these numbers,” she commanded, and shuffled through the book looking for information. She called out phone numbers that she identified as Debi’s, Tina’s, Dennis’s, and Trey’s, then demanded the pen back and my phone number to add to her list.

“I was absolutely devastated when I couldn’t reach you this morning—or have Melissa call you, anyway,” she said. “Now call them all and ask them to come here as soon as possible. We need to have a family meeting.”

Chapter 20

The Fringe Element staff was assembled in a surprisingly short period of time. I supposed nobody had anything else they’d been planning on since all of us were scheduled to work, but within an hour there were five additional bodies crammed into Geri’s tiny hospital room. The nurses who passed looked concerned, and two of them stuck their heads in to ask Geri if she really thought she should have so many people visiting at once.

Geri flapped a careless hand at them, saying imperiously, “I need my family here to take care of some business.” If she’d only had an Italian accent she could have been the Godfather, dispatching her motley family to send her enemies to sleep with the fishes.

The nurses just shook their heads and moved on, warning us not to be too loud. They likely already had Geri’s number and were trying to avoid dealing with her more than their official duties forced them to. Geri was probably the type of patient that would rest quietly until a nurse looked in on her, then she would come to life like a swarm of disturbed bees and demand attention until the poor harassed nurse could find a reason to make a getaway.

Now she was in heaven presiding over us, her embarrassed employees. She called us individually to her to be hugged and petted, dabbing at her eyes periodically with a tissue as if we had been the ones in intensive care this morning instead of her.

“Okay, sweeties,” she began when we had all accepted her ministrations and a piece of chocolate from the box that somebody must have snuck in. It certainly hadn’t been there during Melissa’s visit. Who had done that? None of the kids standing around looked like they cared for anything other than their cell phones. “They say I shouldn’t go back to work right away, so we need to figure out how to keep the store going. I’ve been thinking about this all day—or for as much of it as I could—and I have a plan.”

She looked around at the assembled faces and stopped when she got to me. Debi’s and Tina’s eyes followed the direction of her gaze, but the boys just looked bored. I even thought I heard a tinny pulsation coming from Dennis’ pocket, but the cord to his earphone, if it was in, was well hidden in his long hair.

“I have decided, after much thought, to make sunni the assistant manager and have her take over the store while I’m out,” Geri announced, and everyone’s heads snapped back to her. She nodded gravely, closing her eyes and holding up one hand as if expecting a barrage of indignant reprisals. No one said anything. I couldn’t have, even if I’d wanted to. I felt like she had tossed a cup of ice water in my face.

“I know she’s very new,” Geri continued as we all stood and stared at her, “but there are several reasons for this decision. One, she is older than the rest of you.”

My cheeks turned red, but I told myself that she hadn’t meant it as an insult. I was definitely younger than Geri, so to her it would have been a simple statement of fact. No point in taking offense. I refrained from glancing around to see if anyone was smirking.

“Two, she is not in school and so her schedule is less complicated.” She looked at me. “I know your ma—boyfriend may have issues with you working more hours, but I want you to discuss it with him and see if you can’t get him to agree to it.”

I had no idea what to say. This wouldn’t have been the way I would have handled the situation, but I couldn’t think of a better alternative. None of the other employees were anywhere near mature enough to handle running the store. I didn’t have the kind of experience that was probably necessary, and I hadn’t proven to be exactly reliable, but I was no doubt the best option she had. And she was accessible by phone for any questions that came up.