Free Dead End Job by Ingrid Reinke Page B

independent woman does in time of crisis: I called my mother. After we spoke I looked at the clock by my bed, and it read 11:23 AM. God, this morning had felt like a fucking eternity.
    Kathy had taken Winston out for a walk, so the house was completely empty. I sat down on my bed, chucked my bag, grabbed the soft cuddly micro-fleece blanket that I had pushed onto the floor that morning, balled it up and hugged it. It was only then, in the silence and solitude of my bedroom, that the reality of the day’s events really hit me. I took a couple of deep breaths, and then a mountain of emotions began to surface. I lay down in my bed still wearing my clothes and shoes. My body started to quiver and shake uncontrollably, and I had no other choice but to close my eyes and let the stress, shock, and sadness wash over me. I cried myself to sleep.
     

Chapter 6: Death and Trivia
     
     
     
     
    After the trauma of Wednesday, I slept through most of Thursday morning and roused myself at noon. After lying in bed and staring off into space for a couple of hours with the TV on, I got myself up and decided that I was going to go about my day and not let Sarah’s untimely death ruin my life. I went into the kitchen and got myself pumped up with some coffee, then put on some old gym clothes. It was at exactly the point when I was tying the new black running shoes I’d scored at the outlet mall the week before that I realized my car was still downtown in the garage at Merit.
    I considered asking Kathy for a ride downtown, but she wasn’t around, and I didn’t want to have to call her and relive the previous day’s events by explaining the entire situation to her over the phone. I decided that I would just be an adult and call a cab. Maybe I could even get reimbursed for a work-related expense.
    I fumbled around in my dirty clothes for my cell, and when I picked it up I discovered that I had missed several calls. The first one was from my sister, Elin logged the night before. As soon as the message started, I heard her best operatic voice singing a song from the Sound of Music soundtrack:
    “When the dog bites, when the bee stings,
When I’m feeling sad, I simply remember my fav-o-rite things and then I don’t feeeeeeeel sooooo baaaaaaaaaaaaaad.”
    She finished the message by breaking away from her performance and yelling “call me back, bitch!” into the phone.
    OK then, so Elin had definitely spoken to our mother.
    I rolled my eyes and clicked through to the next message, which was from Elaine at Merit.
    “Hi Louisa,” she started in her nasally, whiny voice. “I hope you are doing OK, we are all thinking about you, and when you come in tomorrow, let’s sit down and discuss what happened with Sarah. Call Mark if you have any questions…”
    It was obvious that Elaine expected me in the office tomorrow, and her veiled attempt at checking up on me was actually to tell me exactly that. I guess my vacation was over.
    The last message was from a local number that I didn’t have stored in my phone.
    “Hi Louisa, it’s Rocky. I hope you are doing well. I just wanted to tell you that I know you probably need a ride to you car, so I’m going to swing by your apartment at around 1:30 to pick you up.”
    It was 1:22 PM. I looked up and caught a reflection of myself in the mirror: complete disaster. My outfit was even more horrifying and embarrassing. This was so totally not going to work.
    When the doorbell rang at exactly 1:30, I was spraying on some cheap, fruity-scented body mist. I took one last look at myself, and decided that, irrespective of the sweatpants, I had not done too dismal of a job in only eight minutes. I took a deep breath, then tried to force myself to walk slowly down the stairs, calming my frantically pounding heart, and up to the door as casually as I could.
    I felt better as soon as I saw Rocky. He looked the same as he had the day before in his uniform, but today he had a freshly shaven face and smelled