Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

"List, where's that stock marketing application I had you write a report about. It's supposed to be due now."

"Right here sir," I say shuffling through the piles of papers on my desk.

"Oh, and will it kill you to get organized? You're living like a clustered pig!" says my boss.

"This is as neat as I can be." I tell him with gritted teeth.

"Well, then you're not trying enough."

In my mind I curse at him with every known profanity in the book. I've been working hard and straight for only eight hours and so far I've written, typed, and retyped twelve long copies of various reports and he expects me to be organized?

"Here you go sir," I say pulling out the report from the bottom of my pile.

He scowls. "Good."

He walks away but not before knocking over half of my finished reports. He gives me a fake apologetic look then walks away all poodle and prime. God I hate that guy. As soon as I walked into this building that first day, he has had a grudge on me from the start. But I'm not going to let him stop me from doing what I really want to do. I'm just here to perfect my writing skills, and for the money. The rest comes later.

I get up and start gathering up the files in front of my desk. As I sorted them back into order, I was joined by a guy I've never seen before.

"Mind if I help, that Thomas guy can sure be an a*s huh?"

"Yeah," I chuckle. "He's something else."

I look at the guy beside me. He wore oil stained overalls over a black long sleeved shirt and on his feet were brown work boots.

"I guessing you don't work for this department?" I asked nonchalantly.

"Nah," he says. "I'm just the good old janitor slash mechanic guy, you?"

"I'm the dude that writes the s**t that Thomas guy tells me to do."

"Ah," the guy says. "You're the newbie. Anyway I'm Wendell, I go by Wenn."

"Dominic." I reply.

Wenn looks up at the other sets of desks around me.

"I'm guessing no one has warmed up to you yet huh?"

"No one has warmed up to anyone. They all look like programmed working robots."

"Robots?"

"Robots," I repeated. "I barely know half of their names."

"Neither do I, but that's because I don't have time to socialize."

"Yeah." I agree.

Wenn places the piles of paper back on my desk and surprisingly he has put them all back in order.

"Thanks man," I tell him standing up.

"No problem, but I gotta go. Boss has me on toilet duty."

"Ah, the perks of being the janitor," I say sarcastically.

"One of the finest." Wenn humors back. "Anyway, it was nice meeting you newbie. Good luck with whatever you're working on."

"I don't think I'm the one who needs the luck."

Wenn chuckles.

"Then good luck to both of us then." Wenn walks away before yelling back, "We're going to both need it."

I sit back at my desk and try to pick up from where I left off. The rest of the day goes by quickly and by the time my shift was over at three, I had already done 23 reports. Twelve were listed, eleven were charted.

My fingers ache on the drive back from work. On the way home I marvel on the fact that I now know two people who are not from my previous home.

Speaking of home, my heart grows heavy at the thought of my sister all alone and struggling to deal with mom. Sure, I guess it was selfish to leave her and mom behind but my life has to get started somehow. I'm 26. I need to live a little. Thankfully my phone vibrates distracting me from my thoughts. It's a text from Fay.

"I may or may not have done something bad."

It said.

"Depends on what it is."

I reply unsurprisingly.

"No, no, no. I can't text U this. I need 2 hear UR voice. This is imp!"

I have a feeling this is something I need to sit down for.

"Okay, I'm on the road, give me a sec 2 pull into my drive way

"I text back quickly.

About ten minutes later I unlock my door using the key to my house and immediately dialed Fay's phone. It rings once, twice, and on the third ring, Fay picks up.

"About time." She says

"Hey Fay, what's up?"

I can hear shuffling on the other side then finally she answers.

"I'm kind of in a sticky situation."

"Literally?" I ask.

"No it's just that-

She trails off.

"What? Did you run over another stray?"

"No. Um... so okay, Greg left this morning to get my daily prescriptions that I ran out of."

"Okay?" I said dropping my keys by the counter and getting myself comfy by the couch in my living room.

"Of course it was just an excuse to be alone." She continued. "I haven't had any me time in like forever."

I put the phone on speaker so I didn't have to hold it with my aching hands. I lean back on the sofa and lay the phone, speaker side up, on my chest. I close my eyes.

"Continue." I tell her.

"Okay so it took me some time to convince him but he left after my mom overheard me begging for him to. Apparently he's a people-pleaser. Any way he left and I finally had some time for myself but then I saw something very rare, his phone."

I opened my eyes now finding myself more interested in this turn of events.

"Did you look through it?" I asked trying not to sound eager.

"What? No! I would never-

The silence came through the other end and I waited for her to crack.

"Okay fine I did." She admitted. "I was curious."

"mhh hmm." I mocked.

"Whatever, the point is, what I found on there was something I recognized."

"Like what?" I ask. "Did you see pictures, text messages, email accounts?"

"Contacts." She answers. "I would have written them all down but Greg would have gotten home any minute so I only got one name down. Beatrice Clementine. I can't picture her but I sure as hell remember this name."

"What are you saying then?"

Fay takes a shaky breath.

"I think Greg's hiding something from me but I'm not sure. I could either be right or crazy and right now with this messed up brain of mine I'm going along the terms of crazy."

"You're not crazy Fay." I tell her. "In fact you're one of the sanest people I know."

It was quiet on the other end but then softly she said, "You're just saying that."

I grin.

"I know but it's true."

The phone goes quiet again. I think I can almost feel her smiling on the other end.

"Thank you Dominic, but what am I going to do? Greg's back now and he realizes that he left his phone with me so now he's watching me like 24/7. So far I've pretended not to notice, but this is really eating at me you know? What am I going to do?"

"Okay Fay, calm down. Everything's fine you just need to chill."

Fay doesn't answer.

"Okay, listen. If I were you, I'd have options."

"Options?" she questions.

"Yes options, as in plan A, plan B, etc."

"Okay then, so like what?"

"My first option would be to drive him crazy. Act like you do know something important from his phone but don't say it out directly. See how much this bothers him and then that's when you can assume he's hiding something."

"How do you know to do all this?" she asked amazed.

"I have an older sister. I used to do this all the time with her precious little diary she still keeps."

"'Course you did." Fay presumed. "Anyway, what's option two? Is it as masterminded as the first?"

"Option two would be to actually investigate more and find out single-handedly if he really is hiding something."

"But how?" Fay asks.

"First of all, start off by finding out who Beatrice Clementine is. Obviously you know her so try finding a way to get her number from Greg's phone or search her up on the web."

"Very clever," Fay compliments. What's three?"

"Pretend you saw nothing." I say simply.

"Really?"

"Yeah, I mean, do you really want to know?"

"I don't know," she answers softly. "Should I?"

"I don't know Fay, it's up to you."

The line goes quite again. I can practically hear her thinking.

"You don't have to do anything now." I tell her. "Sleep on it. Then just do what you think is right."

"Okay," she says softly. "Can we change the subject? I'm tired of talking about me."

"Yeah sure." I agree.

"Good." Fay says eagerly on the other end all a sudden, "So did you make any new friends there in Oregon?"

"Um yeah, I guess." I say realizing how quickly the subject has changed. "There this one guy named Wenn."

"Yay, Dominic's first Oregonian bro friend." Fay excites. "Does he work with you? Are work buddies?" Suddenly she gasps. "Is he your boss? Oh my god that would be way cool. You could be getting a promotion any day now."

I laugh at her assumption.

"Don't get too worked up Fay, he's the janitor."

"Oh," she says disappointedly but then she perks up. "Oh well, is there anything else?"

I shake my head even though I know she can't see me.

"The guys I work with at work don't count as friends so nope I'm kind of an independent country boy at the moment."

"Besides Wenn." She adds.

"Besides Wenn

." I agree.

"Well then good for you."

I get off the couch and start towards my room to clean up the mess I didn't clean this morning.

"Where are you right now?" I ask.

"Bathroom." She answers.

"Right well, can I ask you something?"

She doesn't answer.

"I know you don't want to talk about you right now, but how are you, really?" I toss random pillows from the floor onto my bed.

"Besides hopeless and confused?" she asks.

"Yeah," I say reaching above for one of the pillows on my closets top shelf.

"Well sometimes I just wish I could be as independent as you, you know?" Like I told you before, I have no personal time for myself what so ever. My parents check up on me every day and George still watches me like I'm his prey. And get this, I'm suddenly not allowed to leave the house unless there's a fire or something. Can you believe that?"

"That's bogus," I agree.

"Yeah," Fay says sadly. "I feel like a prisoner."

I've just finished spreading my bed sheets back over my bed and I exhaustedly belly flopped myself onto it.

"I don't mean to butt in or anything but why do you listen to them if what they want isn't what you want. Don't you think that's a little unfair?"

"Yeah, well... they think they know what's best for me so what else am I to do but trust them. I'm all gooey in the head anyway so right now they know me better than myself."

"Oh Fay," I coo. "Poor confused Fay."

"Don't make me sound more pathetic then I already am," she mutters.

"Okay, okay, but promise me that you won't let everyone control your life. I mean really, memory or not you're still you and nothing else, okay?"

I can hear her sigh tiredly on the other end.

"How do you always know what to say?" she asks.

"It's a country thing?" I inquire.

She laughs over the phone line making my heart beat a couple of paces faster again.

"Well, then don't you ever change either," she tells me.

"You can count on It." I tell her.

"I know," she replies. "Anyway, you've heard enough about my crazy family, what about you? Basically all I know about you is that you come from the south and your name is Dominic."

"My life is hardly as intriguing and exciting as yours," I tell her warily.

"I'm not looking for exciting. I'm looking for normal."

I chuckle.

"My life is not normal either."

"Of course it's not. Nothings normal these days but at least tell me something. I'm dying over here."

"Sure okay fine. I live somewhere in Louisiana."

"Really, you're not even going to tell me where in Louisiana?" she asks.

"Nope, not important, it's useless information, can I go on?" I don't wait for her to answer. "I just moved out of my mom's but my sister is still there taking care of her. I'm twenty six and have a love and hate relationship with my job. Also I love my car, which I think you already know."

"Fascinating," Fay says in mock enthusiasm. "Hopefully you're going to tell me more right?"

"I wouldn't bet on it but if there is something interesting to tell, I let you know."

"Right." she answers sarcastically.

We both chuckle then are stopped abruptly by the sound of pounding from Fay's end.

"Faylene open the door!" says Greg's voice in the background.

"Just give me a couple seconds, let me-

Greg cuts her off. "You came in hear 20 minutes ago. "Open the damn door!"

I hear a bunch of shuffling going on, on the other end.

"H-hold on," Fay cries angrily.

Whatever's going on there, I don't like it. I don't like it at all.

"Fay, Fay listen are you there?"

"Yes," Fay squeaks, while the sound of pounding echo's behind her.

"Should I hang up, are you going to be okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I can handle him, he'd never hurt me. I just might not see my phone for a while that's all."

"Who are you talking to?" Greg bellows pounding harder on the door.

"I gotta go." She says.

"Don't let him touch you." I tell her getting worried by the violence of the pounding coming from the across the line.

"I won't, but please don't check up on me. Greg will have my phone and he doesn't like you, at all."

"Fay," I start to say.

She cuts me off.

"I'll call you, okay?"

"Yeah but-

"I'll be fine." With that said, she hangs up.

I sit up in bed starting at my phone. All I could think about is how Greg's slimy deceiving hands are on Fay right now and she's about to get punished because of me.