“Need some help?”
“No, no, I’ve got it under control . . .” She looked at the water bottle disdainfully.
“Uh-huh,” I said dryly. “Look, it’s okay if you need to ask for help once in a while. I know this is technically your job and everything, but it’d be better to get one of the guys to do it instead of throwing your back out and not being able to come in for a month.”
She made a face when I said “one of the guys” and yanked at her skirt, set her jaw, and shook her head. “I’ve got it,” she said.
I held my hands up. “By all means, then.” She had a look of determination on her face that wavered slightly when she looked back at the five-gallon bottle she was going to have to wrangle onto the dispenser.
“My offer still stands,” I said.
“I can handle it. I’ve got it.”
I stood back and watched. She didn’t “have it” by any stretch of the imagination, but it sure as hell was fun to watch. She grunted, she gritted her teeth, she wrapped her arms around the bottle in a bear hug, started to lift it up, made it halfway, but then realized there was no way she was going to be able to flip the jug over and get it onto the dispenser properly with her arms around it like that. So she lowered it back down, shooting a look in my direction to see if I was still watching. Which I was, of course. So far, this was the most exciting thing of the day.
“You don’t have to stand there, you know,” she said, brushing wisps of hair back from her forehead. Her eyes widened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that . . . You’re the boss here . . . you can do whatever you want, obviously. I just . . . I just think that I might have an easier time doing this if I didn’t have an audience.”
“You’d have an easier time with it if you just let me do it.”
She’d obviously been brainwashed by the credo that anything a man could do, a woman could do (better).
“Just pretend that I’m not even here then,” I said.
Now, if I were Jonathan, I would’ve worded things in such a way that would make her feel as though accepting my help wouldn’t be an affront to her feminism. If I were Jonathan, the water would’ve been on the dispenser five minutes ago and we’d have filled our cups with a nice cold drink and be standing around, talking.
And just like that, as though all I needed to do was think about him, he materialized. “Oh, hey,” he said. He looked at Daisy, who had resumed her struggle, and then to me, and then back at Daisy. “You need a hand there, Daisy?”
If I weren’t there, she’d say yes. She was tempted to say yes anyway, but she shook her head. “I can do it.”
“Uh . . .” Jonathan appeared to be about to dispute that but thought better of it. Instead of standing there watching her, though, he started talking to me. I listened to what he was saying, but continued to watch her over his shoulder.
She somehow managed to get the bottle up and on the dispenser, without actually spilling a drop. It wasn’t the most coordinated effort to watch, but she had done it, and was now trying to hide the fact that the whole thing had left her a little winded.
Jonathan was still talking when I walked past him and over to the water cooler. I grabbed one of the cups and held it under the spigot, pressing the button for cold water. I filled it up and then offered it to Daisy.
“That was quite an effort,” I said.
“It wasn’t really.” Still, she took the cup from me and took a sip. I wanted to reach over and brush a wisp of hair from her forehead, but I restrained myself. When she finished the water, I held my hand out and took the cup, then dropped it into the trash for her.
“Thanks,” she said.
I could tell by the look on his face that Jonathan was just wishing that he had thought to do that first.
Every Wednesday evening, after I left the work, I’d drive on over to Eagle Hollow Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center. I’d bypass the main parking lot in favor of the smaller employee lot on the side of the building, right where the window to his room looked out. He was on the second floor, which meant he’d have a great view of the car.
My car.
Well, it wasn’t actually my car, that blue ’67 Camaro. It still technically belonged to Pete. I kept the thing maintained, and I drove the hell out of it. That car was his pride and joy, perhaps the only thing he ever truly loved. And somehow, somehow, it had ended up in my hands.
I’d requested that the nurses make sure Pete be wheeled over to the window right before I’d show up every Wednesday. “He loves that car,” I told them. “And nothing would make him happier than to be able to s
ee it, even if it is just a glimpse from a window.”
The nurses there all fawned over me; they thought it was so sweet how I visited my stepfather on a regular basis, even though he was no longer able to communicate. He’d had one stroke that left the whole left side of his body paralyzed, but it was the second stroke that had robbed him of his ability to speak.
I parked the car and walked around the side of the building, past the manicured lawn and the immaculately kept flower beds. Inside, I waved to the receptionist, said hello to some of the nurses, and made my way to the elevator. Wendy was walking down the hall and hurried over just in time to make it in before the door shut.
“Ian!” she said. “I thought that was you.”