Authors: Michelle Stimpson

Someone to Watch Over Me (4 page)

BOOK: Someone to Watch Over Me

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Chapter 4

T
he doctor ordered me to refrain from driving for at least another three days following the appendectomy. So when the time came for me to check out of the hospital, I was stuck out. Kevin was still in Chicago, so there was absolutely no one on hand to escort me home. My attending nurse asked if I knew how to get in touch with anyone from my job, but since it was Saturday, I had no means of reaching them outside work except e-mail. After all, they were my coworkers, not my friends. I went to an occasional wedding shower or birthday party with those people, but that was about it.

The nurse went down a list of other possibilities: church members, sorority sisters, neighbors. She even went so far as to ask if one of my clients might be willing to transport me.
No, no, no, and are you out of your mind?
The more she asked, the more frustrated I became. She instructed me to go through my cell phone and scan the contacts to see if there might be someone I'd overlooked. “Maybe you're a little foggy, with the drugs and all.”

I followed her orders and still turned up nothing. All I had was business contacts, Kevin, my favorite restaurants, and Aunt Dottie, who lived more than three hours away and whom I wouldn't dare bother with my troubles. She was in her seventies. I had no doubt she would hightail it to Houston if she had to, but the last thing I wanted to do was raise Aunt Dottie's blood pressure.

“Can't you just call a taxi for me? Whatever it costs to get me back home, I'll pay,” I offered. As if the hospital would have it any other way.

Satisfied that I was indeed a real-life true hermit, the nurse sighed. “I'll call a social worker. He or she will help the checkout and take it from there.”

“A social worker?” I attempted to sit up, but the sting in my side reminded me of stitches I still needed to guard. “I'm not a
foster
kid. I'm a grown woman who happens to not have a lot of friends.”
Do Facebook friends count?

When she left the room, I picked up the phone to call a taxi myself. Why were these people acting like everyone has to have a million friends? A zillion contacts? I mean, some of us are busy with work. We've dedicated ourselves to being the best at what we do. Is that so wrong? Isn't that the American dream?

Besides, I did have a boyfriend. He and I had friends. Well, they were mostly his friends, but I knew them. I saw them at Target and McDonald's and said “Hi!” They always said “Hi!” back to me.

The social worker arrived shortly after I'd psyched myself out.
My life isn't so bad, really
.
I'm perfectly fine.

“Hello. Tori Henderson?” A chubby Hispanic lady with glasses and a long braid down her back tentatively stuck her head into my room. “I'm Josephine Sanchez with Social Services.”

I couldn't be rude to this lady. She was just doing her job. Plus, she was at least twenty years older than me, so I had to be respectful. “Yes, I'm Tori.”

“Great.” She entered the room and came right over to me, stretching out a hand for shaking purposes.

I returned her gesture and she pulled up a chair. “Well, as I understand it, you're going to need transportation from the hospital to your home. Will you need someone to pick up your prescriptions for you as well?”

“What prescriptions?”

“For pain.”

“Well, my boyfriend will be back in a few days. He travels a lot.”

She laughed slightly. “I don't think you'll want to be without pain medication in the interim. My son actually had this same surgery a few years ago. Trust me, you'll need it.” Her eyes turned to slits when she smiled, but the warmth therein still came across. She had the kind of demeanor I wished I could have when I was in those “What went wrong with your campaign?” meetings with Mr. Harvey.

“Don't hospitals have pharmacies?” I asked.

“Some do,” she said, nodding, “but this one doesn't. Don't worry about it though, Miss Henderson. I can help you with that, too.” She produced a notepad from her purse and scribbled. “And, by the way, I can also help you to connect with other people in the Houston area so if you're ever in a bind like this again, you'd have people to help you.”

I shook my head and smirked. “I don't need help meeting people.”

She shrugged. “Well, that's part of what Social Services is all about. If you'd . . . already been meeting people, it might be easier to get along in life. Especially when things like this unexpected surgery happen. Life has lots of surprises. The longer you live, the more you get.”

“Ms. Sanchez, I thank you for taking the time to arrange for the taxi and the medications, but I don't
need
any other Social Services. I do have a life, I have a boyfriend, and I'm one of the top producers at my jobâ”

“Tori.” Josephine stopped me, taking off her glasses and peering at me for a moment. She seemed to be deciding something. She looked toward the sky, seemed to nod, and then took a deep breath. “I'm going to tell you something off the record. Something I wish someone had told me a long time ago. Do you want to hear it?”

Do I have a choice?
“I guess.”

“I think you're ready.” She smiled, as though she had been waiting for this moment since she first heard my name. “I used to work for a huge bank. I was well on my way up the corporate ladder, bringing in millions for the company, looking forward to that corner office.

“One day, a colleague in my department died of cancer and we all went to her funeral. We carpooled together that morning. We went to support the family and represent the company, of course.

“When the ceremony was over, about five of us piled into my car. And do you know what was the first thing someone said when we got back into the car?”

It took me a minute to realize her question wasn't rhetorical. “Umm . . . I don't know.”

She smiled with a faraway look in her eyes. “The first thing said, I remember it word for word, was, âHey, where do y'all want to go for lunch?'”

Call me a little slow still that morning, but I didn't get her right away. “Okay. And?”

“My point is, when you die, the people you work with will move on with their lives just as if you never lived. Your employer will post an opening, there'll be interviews, and your position will be filled as quickly as possible. It'll be just like you never lived. Is that how you want to go?”

My face crinkled in annoyance. “No. No one wants to be forgotten. I'm just . . . very busy living my life.”

“And you have no family whatsoever?”

Eyes cast down toward my blank hands, I answered, “None to speak of.”

“Who raised you? Are you originally from Houston?” she prodded.

“What's with all the questions?”

Josephine smiled and leveled with me. “I'm also here to make sure you're not in any danger. You'd be surprised how many people use a hospital stay as an opportunity to escape abusive situations.”

I took a deep breath, wondering if Josephine worked for the FBI, too. “My mom and stepfather raised me here in Houston until I was fifteen. Then I got pregnant and went to live with my Aunt Dottie in a little country town called Bayford. Ever heard of it?”

Josephine shook her head. “Can't say that I have.”

I continued, “I stayed with her until I graduated from high school, then I went to college. After graduation, I got my first entry-level job and worked like crazy. Got another, better paying job I really enjoy. Then I met Kevin. We moved in together. It's just been me, him, and work since then.”

Josephine had listened intently, nodding and smiling. She was just listeningânot taking any notes. “Why didn't you tell the nurses about your mom or your aunt?”

“I haven't talked to my mom since the day she ripped my son out of my arms and told me to stop crying. And Aunt Dottie . . . I talk to her now and then, but she's elderly. I wouldn't want her to worry about me.”

“You love her though, right? I can tell by the way you say her name.”

A smile crept up on me. “Yes, I do love my Aunt Dottie very much. If she lived closer to me, there's no way I'd be sitting in this room all alone.”

Josephine snapped her notebook shut. “Well, if you ask meâand you didn'tâbut if you
did,
I'd say you might want to think about getting you some folks. Everybody needs folks, you know?”

I nodded.

“So, I'll get you a taxi and have your prescriptions filled and dropped off at your house. I can also coordinate having meals delivered to you.”

I laughed at her offer. “I've got plenty of restaurants in my cell phone.” I had those if nothing else.

“Good deal, Tori.”

Chapter 5

A
normal person probably would have enjoyed lounging around the house for ten days. Relaxing drove me crazy. For one thing, when I finally spoke to Preston about my predicament, I learned that he'd farmed my work out to Lexa and a few other representatives who didn't know diddly-squat about my clients' profiles.

“Tori, you've always kept immaculate, clearly written reports. We should have no problem picking up where you left off. Don't worry. Everything will be fine.”

I pleaded, “Can't I at least have proxy to view communication relevant to my accounts?”

Preston let out a condescending laugh. “If it makes you feel better, I'll personally supervise them for you. Take some time off, catch your breath, and come back as soon as you can. All right?”

I did feel a little better knowing Preston would be at the helm. “All right. I'll call back in a few days to see if you all have any questions.”

“And I'll put you straight through to voice mail.” He stood firm. “I only want you to work on recovery, okay? I'm serious about this. You're a valuable part of this team, but you're no good to us if you're not well.”

He had a point, but I couldn't help thinking I wasn't any good to them sick or well. How could he just divvy up my workâlike I didn't even matter?

“Okay, Preston. I'll . . . I'll be in touch later this week.”

“Good deal.”

The same words Josephine used prior to my hospital checkout. “Good deal,” she'd said. Talking to Preston felt like talking to Josephine all over again. Maybe they were both right. Maybe the people at my job really didn't need me. I mean, if what I pride myself on doing can be doled out without so much as a consultation, maybe my work wasn't important. Shoot, a computer could probably do my job, the way Preston acted.

And what if I had died? What if I hadn't made it to the hospital “in the nick of time,” as the doctor had phrased it. I think Lexa would have made her lunch plans
before
my funeral. Couldn't blame her, though. All she knew about me was my work record and maybe my birthday because Preston always recognized birthdays. He gave us each gift cards to our favorite venues. Mine had been for Starbucks since I started at NetMarketing Results six years earlier.

This was bad. Really bad. I mean, if my job didn't need me, who did? Kevin certainly didn't. And if no one really cared whether or not I lived, what was the point in me living? Could I possibly be here on earth for eighty-five years or so and then . . . nothing? What would they say at my funeral? “Here lies Tori Danielle Henderson. She lived, she worked, she died. That's it. Y'all can go on to lunch now.”

I started thinking about my sixth-grade teacher, Mrs. Pope. She died of cancer when I was in eighth grade. Her funeral was standing room only. Her family, friends, and former students had so many positive things to say about how she'd touched their lives. At one point, the officiating minister actually curtailed the commentary line because there wasn't enough time to hear all of their testimonies about how thoughtful, selfless Mrs. Pope had helped them. “Please consider expressing your thoughts in writing,” the preacher had suggested. But even at the burial grounds, I'd seen people approaching Mrs. Pope's family members to tell them what a wonderful person she had been.

I tried talking to Kevin about my purpose crisis, but he wasn't listening. I think I'd scared him with the mere mention of family the previous week. Not the first time I'd approached the topic, but definitely the first time I'd presented it as more than a rogue thought. Nothing like a hospital room full of nothing to illuminate life's priorities, I suppose.

He left me alone during most of my recovery while he watched basketball at his friends' apartments. He said what I needed most was probably peace and quiet. Since I didn't have work or anything else to fill my time, I fell into a bad combination of reality shows and ramen noodles. With no calorie-burning activity, I had to adjust my intake to less than a thousand calories a day if I wanted to avoid gaining weight. Those college years made for a great experiment in how little one can eat and still survive.

As for the television shows, how could I resist? Real life is way more interesting than anything those screenwriters could imagine. I mean, who would have guessed that someone's mother would suggest her own daughter become a prostitute? And how many dads out there jump for joy when their sons raise fight-winning pit bulls?

The “scientific” channels were my favoriteâ
Hoarding Life
,
Mites In My Mind
,
Undiagnosed
, and
The Intervention.
I couldn't watch them all, so I started recording them, to Kevin's dismay.

“Is this what you've become?” he asked. “You're turning into a reality-show junkie.”

“Better this than chocolate.” I shrugged.

He agreed. Kevin had a serious problem with fat people. “They're disgusting,” he'd said on more than one occasion. “I don't know how they can live with themselves.”

He reminded me of my mother. “You can't control how tall you are or how long your nose gets, but you
can
control how much you eat.” She'd said that to me so many times growing up that I almost became anorexic during one of those awkward preteen spells when I packed on eight pounds preceding an upward growth spurt. “Don't sit downâgo run around the block!” she'd say when I got home from school.

Aunt Dottie, however, disagreed vehemently with thinness. When I talked to her about losing weight after the baby, she'd said, “Don't nobody want a bone except a dog.” The years I lived with her in Bayford warped my sense of the word “healthy,” I think. In Bayford, healthy means chubby. In Houston (and apparently the rest of America), healthy meant skinny. I'd tried to explain the height-weight chart to Aunt Dottie, especially when the doctor told her she might want to cut back on fried foods, but she still didn't agree with me. “I ain't studyin' that doctor. I eat everything in moderation with thanksgiving. All this worryin' y'all tryin' to make me do will kill me before the fatback does,” she argued.

She carried on as usual and made me eat my words when her doctor died of a heart attack that next year. He was only fifty-six. “Two years younger than me,” she'd pointed out as she signed the card for his family. “Tomorrow ain't promised to nobody, fried chicken or not.”

The more I thought about Aunt Dottie, the more I missed her. I hadn't talked to her in a couple of months. Truth be told, Aunt Dottie was hard to catch up with. Between running her store and volunteering at the church, she kept pretty busy. I'd call her on birthdays and holidays, of course, and we'd pick right up where we left off. If I caught her at the right time, we'd talk for hours. She'd always ask about my parents and I'd always reply, “I haven't talked to them lately,” which translated: I hadn't talked to them at all. There's nothing to say to people who don't want you in their lives anymore.

Aunt Dottie would tell me the latest news in Bayfordâwho got married, who had a baby, who was going off to college. I'd tell her about my work.

“How's Kevin?” she'd ask, even though I knew she wasn't too crazy about him.

“He's fine,” I'd say as I mentioned whatever city he happened to be visiting. Seems like Kevin was always gone somewhere when I had my lengthy talks with Aunt Dottie.

She'd sigh. “Well, I hope he knows what a good woman he's got in you, and I hope you know it, too.” Aunt Dottie didn't think Kevin was a good man because he hadn't made an honest woman out of me. I'd heard her talk enough in the corner store about this one or that one shacking up and how men don't buy the cow when they can get the milk for free. “I tell you, it's not so much wrong as it is sad. When are we ever going to figure out that when we do things God's way, it always turns out better, quicker, and easier?”

I knew where Aunt Dottie stood on cohabitation. She didn't have to say anything to me about it. Condemnation and guilt weren't Aunt Dottie's style. She'd sooner smother me in love than beat me over the head with a fire and brimstone sermon. That was the good thing about Aunt Dottieâshe granted all this free, unconditional love, and I certainly needed some love right about then.

Aunt Dottie's number was forever seared into my brain. She said she'd had the same phone number for more than fifty years and wasn't planning on changing it. So one can imagine my horror and surprise when a child's voice answered, “Hello.”

I double-checked my phone's screen to be sure I'd dialed the correct number. “Hello, is this Dorothy James's residence?”

“No.”

“I'm sorry.” I ended the call with great peace, but confusion quickly followed. I
had
dialed the right number. Where was Aunt Dottie?

I called again, this time determined to speak to an adult. The child answered again, “Hellllllooooo,” with annoyance in his or her voice.

“I'm sorry. I'm trying to reach Dorothy James. This is 5-5-5-7-3-2-1, correct?”

“Yep, but nobody lives here 'cept me and Aunt Dottie,” the child informed me between heavy breaths.

I laughed to myself. I forgotâeveryone in Bayford called Miss Dorothy James Aunt Dottie whether she was blood kin or not. “May I speak to Aunt Dottie, then?”

“She's not here. She's in the hospital.”

“What?!” I tapped the television's mute button and sat up quickly, thankful that the sting in my side had fully dissipated by then.

“Uh huh. She might be back by tomorrow or maybe not till next week or something 'cause the doctor might make her stay 'cause she got good insurance.”

In the background, a woman's shrill tone called, “Who's that on the phone?” Had to be Joenetta. Something must be wrong for Joenetta to be in Aunt Dottie's house unattended. And who was this running-off-at-the-mouth child claiming to live with Aunt Dottie?

“Hello?” Joenetta took over the conversation.

“Hi, Joenetta. This is Tori. How are you?”

“Well, well, well,” she cackled, “look what the cat done drug in. How you hear about Aunt Dottie all the way in Houston?”

“I didn't hear anything. I was just calling to check on her. Why is Aunt Dottie in the hospital?” No need in playing these catch-up games with Joenetta. She'd never liked me and the feeling was mutual.

“She had a mild stroke, they say. I think the doctors are just keeping her in there for the insurance,” she surmised. “I told your Aunt Dottie she ought to walk out, but I guess it's a bad idea to make your doctor mad at you, especially if he's white. He just might kill you and cover it up.” She laughed at her own wacked sense of humor.

“When did she have the stroke?”

“A few days ago. She was workin' at the store and Cassandra said all of a sudden Aunt Dottie was having trouble moving her arm, said she'd had a headache all morning.” She paused. “You remember Cassandra Meyers, don't you? Dottie hired her over me. Shame when your own sister won't give you a job. I was one of Dottie's very first customers, you know that?”

I rolled my eyes and jumped in when Joenetta took a breath. “What's the prognosis?”

“The
what
?”

My mind scrambled for a synonymous phrase. “What did the doctor say? Is she going to get better?”

“I know what a pragnesic is, Miss Smartie Pants. I just didn't hear you the first time,” Joenetta snapped. “They're going to do a couple more tests. Give it some time. Go to some workout classes.

“You know when Big Daddy had his stroke, they sent him home right away 'cause he didn't have no money. They sure ain't doin' Dottie like that, I tell you.”

“What's her room number?” No need in asking what hospital Aunt Dottie was inâthere was only one within a fifty-mile radius.

“She's in room one seventeen, but ain't no use in you calling her. I told you she done had a stroke. You can't hardly understand a word she's saying.”

The vision of Aunt Dottie barely able to speak broke my heart. Was she in pain? Did she know what had happened to her? Were there flowers in her room? “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Joenetta sighed heavily and took on a gloomy tone. “Well, if you really want to help, you can send some money.”

I'd never known Aunt Dottie to be in need of money. She'd always lived beneath her means, a practice she taught me well. Joenetta, on the other hand, was a different story. “Money for what?”

“Money to keep this house going. Electricity, groceries, takin' care of DeAndre.”

“Who's DeAndre?”

“The one who answered the phone.”

“Okay, but who
is
he?”

“Ray-Ray's boy.”

BOOK: Someone to Watch Over Me

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