30DaystoSyn (2 page)

“Rachel,
please
,” Lina cut her off.
She could feel the heat burning her cheeks at such talk.

“Hell, even if you lasted just one night,
I’ll bet he’d give you the thirty grand! Think of what you could do with that
kind of money until you found a decent paying job. As hard as you pinch a
penny, you could make that thirty grand last you and Drew for years.”

“I’m hanging up now,” Lina said.

“At least think about it! Think what you
could do with a cool mil. Think about Drew and what that kind of money could do
for him!”

“Goodbye, Rachel.”

Lina hung up the receiver with more force
than she meant to. She turned away from the phone and went to the sink. She
needed a cup of coffee. Badly.

Taking her mug from the drainer, she filled
it with water then stepped over to the one-cup coffee maker that Rachel had given
her for her birthday.

“I’d have bought you a regular-size
coffeemaker but I knew you’d only make a single cup every morning anyway,” Rach
had told her. “Waste not, want not and all that shit.”

“Too much caffeine isn’t good for you,” she
mumbled as she opened the top of the little coffeemaker and poured the water
into the reservoir. She reached for the cheap powdered creamer and dropped a
tablespoon of the bargain-brand French vanilla flavoring into her mug. She set
the mug on the warming tray under the spout. After dropping two sugar cubes and
a quarter cup of French roast coffee into the little basket, she started the
machine.

A flicker across her line of vision made
her glance at the window over the sink. As the coffee brewed she sidestepped to
the window and looked out. The sight that greeted her was disheartening—sparse
plots of grass growing like dry archipelagos in the red Georgia clay, a scruffy
pin oak shedding leaves and dropping acorns, a lone pine that dripped tar down
its trunk, and a dilapidated wooden privacy fence surrounding the postage
stamp-sized space. The little islands of wilted grass broke her heart. She
didn’t have the money for fertilizer or grass seeds and her landlord couldn’t
care less what the yard looked like.

The flicker returned and she smiled as she
saw a cardinal. Its bright-red feathers were the only pretty things she had
ever seen from her window. She watched it soar across her yard from the pine to
the pin oak where an empty bird feeder swung gently. It lowered its head and
pecked at the birdfeeder tray.

“Sorry, sweetie,” she said softly. “I
didn’t have an extra few dollars for birdseed this month.”

As though it had heard her, the bird took
to flight, abandoning her.

“Fair-feather friend,” she whispered then
chuckled at her rearrangement of the term. She turned away from the window. Her
eyes went to the newspaper.

“Think of what you could do with that
kind of money until you found a decent paying job.”

“I could do a lot of things with that
money, Rach,” she said softly. “Like have a life.” She glanced at the pantry
door. “And eat something other than freeze-dried noodles.” At the mention of
the noodles, her stomach growled.

Once more her attention went to the paper.
Her gaze fell to the ad enclosed in the box. As the coffeemaker hissed and
spat, dropping the last of the rich black liquid into her mug, Lina stared at
the ad.

“Think about Drew and what that kind of
money could do for him.”

Her brother was her responsibility. After
all, she thought as she stared at the ad, she had survived. Although he had, he
really wasn’t living. Just thinking of him being shuffled to a state-run
hospital where individualized care was at a premium from the overworked staff,
made her want to cry.

Her eyes zeroed in on the million dollars
then skipped to the next number—thirty consecutive nights.

Could she handle thirty nights at the hands
of some gross old man who had schoolgirl issues? She wondered. Could she give
her innocence to some jaded despot in exchange for Drew living out his days in
a facility like Cedar Oaks?

She didn’t have internet access at home but
she did at work. Unfortunately, the emails were monitored. Answering the ad
could get her fired.

But she could use one of the computers at
the library.

Bottom lip folded between her teeth, she
went to the junk drawer and opened it, took out a pair of scissors. Not giving
herself time to think, to procrastinate, she ran the scissors up the page and
cut out the ad.

* * * * *

The sub sandwich bread tasted like
cardboard and the Italian herbs and spices baked atop it left a film in her
mouth. The onions were too strong, the jalapeño peppers mildly lukewarm, and
the lettuce was wilted. She’d had worse sandwiches from Drecker’s but this one
topped the chart. Unfortunately, it was the closest fast food restaurant to her
work, and with the pouring rain coming down hard enough to rock her car, she’d
have to make do. After all, she couldn’t afford to waste the three dollars and
fifty-seven cents she’d paid for the damn thing. Even the bottle of water in
the cup holder on the console tasted off.

Sighing, she sat slumped in the seat of her
car, watching the rain sheeting down the windshield and munched distractedly.
Her hair was damp from having run into the shop and her blouse clung to her
shoulders. Idly she wondered who had pilfered her one and only umbrella from
the car and why and when.

“What kind of pervert steals an old
umbrella with a broken rib?” she mumbled and wondered how much a new one would
cost.

She took another bite of the sub, grimaced,
and then took a sip of the tepid water.

“More than I can afford,” she answered her
own mental question.

The sound of a car pulling up alongside
hers made her turn her head. Through the rain she could see the sleek black
vehicle with deeply tinted windows, the wipers flashing across the windscreen
like a runaway metronome. A man got out of the car and ran hunched over through
the downpour as though that would keep the rain from soaking him. He jerked the
door open in his haste only to pause like a deer in headlights and step aside,
the rain pummeling him. An elderly lady stepped through the door and opened a
big red umbrella. Though she couldn’t see their faces, Lina knew the two were
talking. The man took the umbrella and—huddled beneath it—escorted the lady to
her car on the other side of his.

“I bet he knows her,” Lina said. “Maybe an
old teacher of his.”

She saw him running back to the door and
hurry inside the shop, shaking himself like a wet puppy. There was no way he
couldn’t be soaked by now and she felt a wave of pity for the poor man.

And a sense of pride that there were still
respectful gentlemen in the world.

She was listlessly chewing the last bite of
her sub when he came out of the shop with a box in his hands. The rain had
eased enough that she could make out dark hair—plastered to his head—and a nice
suit. She wondered if he had been sent on a meal run by his boss. If so, he was
a lowly peon like herself although the pricey black car made her question that
impression.

“Maybe he’s the owner and is getting those
sammies for his employees,” she said, watching him as he skirted the front of
his car and got inside. She hadn’t seen his face but she pictured him scowling
as the wet suit clung to him like her blouse did to her.

The expensive motor of his car purred into
life and he backed out of the parking slot quicker than he should have. She
turned her head to follow the car out of the lot, her curiosity poking at her.
She wanted to know who he was, where he worked, and if he was as polite to
everyone as he’d been to the little old lady.

“Some woman’s a very lucky girl,” she said
and her overactive imagination built a whole scenario for him. Rich man, trophy
wife, home in the ‘burbs with a pool and a golden retriever.

Crumpling up the sub wrapper, she stuffed
it into the long plastic sleeve from which it had come, finished the last of
her water, then slid the bottle into the sleeve as well. Blotting her mouth
with one of the rough beige napkins with Drecker’s logo of a grinning cartoon
sub sandwich on it, she added that to the sleeve. Laying the trash aside, she
reached down to scoot her seat forward, dragged her seatbelt around her and
started the car. Carefully, she backed out of the parking spot and headed back
to work. She was just about to make her turn into the street when the engine
died.

“Are you kidding me?” she snarled. She
twisted the key in the ignition and all she heard was a click. “No!”

She tried again and again and when there
was nothing but the clicking sound. A car pulled up behind her to blast her
into mindless anger with its horn. She slammed her palms on the steering wheel.

“This can’t be happening!” she said and the
horn blared again. She looked in the rearview mirror, her voice filled with
tears as she spoke. “Come around me, you jerk!”

Once more the horn blasted—long and
loud—and when she didn’t move, the car backed up and pulled around her. As the
driver wedged between her and the Drecker’s Sub Shop sign, he flipped her the
bird.

“Screw you!” she said and stuck the middle
finger of her right hand in the air, wrapped the fingers of her left hand
around it then drove her middle finger repeatedly through the cup of her left
hand. The stunned look on the rude driver’s face made her laugh. She laughed
harder when he laid on his horn like the juvenile twit he was and peeled out of
the parking lot.

Her uncharacteristic moment of revenge
fleeting, she crossed her arms against the steering wheel and lowered her head
as hot tears began to fall.

* * * * *

“Twelve hundred,” Lina told Rachel on the
phone. She sneezed then wiped her nose and red eyes. “Where the hell am I going
to get twelve hundred dollars for a new engine, Rach?”

“The ad?” Rachel prompted.

“Will you stop with the ad already?” Lina
snapped. Her eyes were red from crying. Her feet were killing her from walking
the three blocks to work—forty minutes late after the tow truck pulled her dead
car from Drecker’s—and her ears burning from the lecture Mr. Albright had given
her for not being at her desk when the clock struck two.

“Let them repo the car,” Rachel said.

“Like I have a choice?” Lina asked. “How am
I going to get to work?”

“I’ll swing by and take you in the
mornings,” Rachel said. “Maybe Steve can take you home in the afternoons?”

Lina thought of the handsome man in charge
of the computers who flirted with all the girls in the office. He lived a block
from her but she barely knew him. Having to ask him for a ride home seemed
presumptuous.

“Or you can walk the two blocks to the bus
stop,” Rachel said helpfully.

“The bus doesn’t go anywhere near my
street,” Lina said. “I’d have to walk another four blocks. That’s okay in good
weather but what if it rains again? I don’t even have an umbrella.”

“Did that die, too?” Rachel asked and Lina
could hear the laughter in her friend’s voice.

“No, someone…” She sighed. “Never mind.
It’s not important.” She stood up to peer over the partition of her cubicle to
see if Steve was at his desk. She found him at the water cooler—flirting with
one of the temp workers. He turned his head, saw her and smiled.

“Ask Stevie,” Rachel said. “Maybe he’s in a
cherry-picking mood.”

“Screw you,” Lina whispered into the phone
and hung up as Rachel’s laughter echoed from the receiver.

Sitting down, Lina opened her desk drawer,
took out her pocketbook and opened it, rummaging inside for her bottle of
ibuprofen. Her head was hurting again and the sub sat in her stomach like a
lead paperweight. The Italian herbs and spices clung to her tongue. The pungent
taste of the onions filled her mouth and the jalapeños were giving her
heartburn. Popping open the ibuprofen, she shook two caplets into her palm then
plopped them onto her tongue, washing them down with another tepid bottle of
water she kept on her desk.

She had to call the car place where her
junker was financed. They would repo the car but she knew she’d still owe the
balance. Knowing the man from whom she’d purchased the car, she knew he’d tack
on as many charges to what she owed as he could.

Then there was the towing company she’d
have to pay. That was another thirty dollars she didn’t have.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” she whispered,
tears filling her eyes again.

Her stomach churning, she recapped the
bottle of ibuprofen and tossed it back into her purse.

Her gaze went to the newspaper ad she’d
stuffed beside her wallet and held.

“At least think about it! Think what you
could do with a cool mil.”
Rachel’s voice drifted
through her mind like a sinister worm.

She picked up the ad, unfolded it, smoothed
it out on her desk, and reread what was written there. The email address seemed
to pulse from the page like a heartbeat.

“
Think what you could do with a cool
mil.”

An image of Drew formed over the ad.

“Think what you could do with a cool
mil.”

Her eyes went to the keyboard on her desk.
She couldn’t use that computer to answer the ad. The computers in the office
were carefully monitored. There was a keystroke program in place. Any personal
emails that were sent from the workstations would be read, logged in and the
offender called on the carpet. People were fired for an infraction of the
ironclad rule. Not to mention the address on the ad would be noted and she’d
bet dollars to doughnuts someone would have seen the ad. Something like that
would not stay secret long in a place like Dunham, Belvoir, and Brell.

She was staring at the ad, chewing on her
bottom lip, when her phone rang. It startled her and she jumped before fumbling
to pick it up.