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“Okay, I don’t know what you think I can do for you, but I don’t work for Stingray. I have no say in who gets hired or who gets fired, and as far as I know, they won’t even be doing any of that for a while,” I say. “I wish you all the best of luck, but now will you please get out of my way so I can go home?”
“We’re not trying to take advantage of anyone, Miss Michaels,” Mr. Robbins says. “We were just hoping—”
“I have nothing to do with it,” I interrupt. “You need to get out of my way, now. And seriously, who camps out in front of someone’s door to ask them for a job?” I ask. “I may not have any say over anything Stingray does, but I know if Iwerethe one doing the hiring, each and every one of you would be on my blacklist, so maybe it’d be best if you all move now.” When they don’t jump out of the way, I repeat, “Move now!”
Slowly, they turn and start filing toward the other end of the hallway.
When I get through the door and lock the deadbolt behind me, I pull out my phone.
Zach answers, “Scipio.”
“Hey, Zach,” I start. “Listen, I just got home, but I’m not feeling so well all of a sudden. Would you mind if we postpone things for a while?”
* * *
It’s beenthree days and I haven’t left the apartment.
Every time I approach the door to look out the peephole, I get this feeling like I’m on the verge of opening Pandora’s Box.
I haven’t heard anything from Troy about coming back to work yet, but I suppose I didn’t expect I would. Knowing him, he’s probably on a riverboat somewhere along the Mississippi, losing every last dime we made in a poker game.
Right now, I’m ducking behind the couch because someone’s at the door. A moment later, Naomi’s coming in, carrying three paper bags of groceries in her arms, saying, “No, it’s fine. I’ve got it. No, don’t worry about it. I was built for manual labor, you know.”
I get up and take two bags from her, and we haul everything to the kitchen.
“How is it out there?” I ask.
“It’s about the same,” Naomi says. “You know, about the same as it has been for the last twenty-eight years of your life. What is your deal, anyway?”
“They all think I can do something for them, but I can’t,” I tell her. “How much longer do you believe they're going to buy that, though? I’ve seen the news. I know how quickly things can go bad.”
“Remind me to cancel the cable,” Naomi says as she starts unloading groceries. “You have seriously got to get out of this place for a while.”
“Actually,” I start, my nerves creeping back to the surface, “I was hoping you might be willing to do me a favor.”
“If this is another chocolate run,” Naomi says, “I get that your metabolism is fantastic and everything, but—”
“It’s not that,” I tell her.
Zach called this morning, asking if he could stop by with some chicken soup. Apparently, the soup was prepared by world class chef What’s-His-Name and is said to have healing powers beyond that of conventional poultry.
“Oh, you’ll never guess what happened to me today,” Naomi says.
“Win something?” I ask.
She sighs and her shoulders drop a little. “You know you take all the fun out of this,” she says.
Naomi is the luckiest person I’ve ever met. When Naomi was five months old, mom entered her into a cute baby contest. Naomi came in fourth. Between the time she was passed over for the job and the photo shoot itself, though, all three kids in front of her came down with a different illness.
Since then, every time there’s something to win, Naomi’s won it. The only exceptions I’ve found so far are the lottery and general gambling. I guess it’s more a sweepstakes kind of luck than anything.
“What’d you get?” I ask.
“A car,” she says.
“You won a car?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she says, waving her hand, “it’s nothing too fancy, though. I think they were just looking for a way to get rid of the thing, if I’m honest.”