go for a run?”
“Give me a few minutes.”
I walk to the door and let Chucho and Dulce out, they try to find that cat. Don comes up behind me, yawning.
“Ready? I’m planning on an easy five. Sound good?”
“Sounds good. Let me get the dogs, and I’ll be ready to go.” Don grabs them easily and gently drops them inside. We head out; I walk and skip towards the trail. The morning is crisp and I imagine that if I were a plant I would be growing super tall. Weird maybe, but intriguing. Don follows, he’s like a big cat, a panther, walking beside me alert, and yet at ease.
We reach the trail and stretch, and start at any easy jog, gradually increasing our pace. Don is nice; he stays next to me as we run. Once we hit the halfway point we turn back heading back to my house. He catches my attention, making it clear that the run back is going to be a race. Drat! He takes off and I fall back, still a bit surprised, and then I rush after him. He stays ahead, not far enough for me to lose him, but enough to see that he’s messing with me. I increase my speed and stride, and I’m this close. He reaches the house first. I change my mind. Don is not nice. He laughs at the expression on my face.
“Why should I let you win? Losing is good for you, you know.”
“Of course I don’t want you to let me win.”
He can see that I’m still sulking. “You know I was going to make crepes, and whip up some cream, but you know, if you aren’t feeling well, I can forget about it.”
“No…No…I’m fine. Really. Peachy, actually! And speaking up peaches… Do you think you make that peach filling I like? Pretty please?”
He grins. He totally played me, but if I’m getting crepes, I’ll deal with it.
“Go take a shower first stinky.”
I shoot him a glare, and then march to my room to do as he says. My stomach rumbles, and I try to hurry with my shower, but having long hair makes that difficult. I enter my room; Chucho and Dulce are lounging on my bed and look at my clothes. How boring, they seem to say. I sniff. I like my t-shirt and jeans combo. My phone rings, it’s Marlo.
“Hey, those rentals Charlie told you about, they got held up. Will you be alright? Don told me he was staying over at your place, had a fight with the rentals.”
“I had to let them go. They would have started to interfere with my work soon. Don came by helped me out.”
“Sorry they turned out so rotten. I’ll try to be more thorough with the placements.”
“It’s alright.”
“Be good then. I won’t worry too much, since you have Don.”
“G’bye.”
I walk towards the kitchen, where Don is already making crepes. He showers very quickly. He gestures me to the table.
“Remember when we first met?”
“Of course, I’ve been stuck with you since then.”
“I don’t think I told you this, but when I first saw you, I thought you were Death.”
“That is definitely not a compliment.”
“I know, you weren’t exactly outfitted with a scythe and an hourglass. But you were going through an all black clothing phase, dare I say Goth? I was actually quite happy to meet Death.”
Don looks up at this, he can’t believe I’m serious. “Most people don’t have this cavalier attitude toward their own demise.”
“I’m my own special little snowflake.”
“I’m serious, you know.”
“So am I. You know what it’s like, we all do. Death seems like the only escape sometimes.”
Don is whipping up my special peach cream filling while he answers me. Breakfast is going to be delicious. “I think you should take another few days off.”
“Hey, I’m not saying it’s the answer now. It seemed so then.”
“You should work on your phrasing,” Don says, as he starts putting dollops of cream and rolling our crepes.
I ignore the comment. I’m itching to wolf down those crepes, so I focus on pouring us some juice. He takes forever to get to the table, but when I see my plate, I forgive him.
“How old are you again, ancient?”
Don sputters, “I’m only nineteen. Ancient!”
“Oh calm down Donny boy.” I roll my eyes and cut my delicate crepes.
Now that I think about it, it’s really funny that I thought he was actually Death coming to reap my soul in the guise of a fourteen year old kid. I was a weird twelve, hell I’m a weird seventeen.
“I’m going back to my place. I’ve got to get everything together for tonight.”
I nod. Don clears the table, and he’s out the door with Dulce. I slide my laptop over from its corner. I only have few assignments due today, and I finish them in an hour. I glance at the time, 8 o’clock. I must have gotten up earlier than usual. Chucho comes over to me, and tells me how much he’s starving.
I clean out his bowl and fill it with breakfast. While he starts munching, I head back to my study. Don left his notes from yesterday in the safe, and I log those in. It’ll be a while until I start getting calls. There isn’t a lot happening today, which is nerve-wracking in an odd way. There will be a service on Sunday for the girl we lost this week. I might fly up to New York after all. I play Spider Solitaire while I wait and I get obsessive enough to whittle down the remaining hour.
10 o’clock finally comes around. I only expect two calls today. Later I’ll be able to start setting up for my half tonight. My phone rings at 10:10.
“How’s business this week?”
“Good, except for one shipment.”
“Yes, I got your email. They’ll be going on a company vacation. I’m thinking, U.K. Visit our partners overseas. A little stress relief.”
“Sounds like a good plan.”
“How are your plans? Anything interesting?”
“Oh, boring actually. I’ll miss Don, he’s got this meeting up north somewhere.”
“Maybe he’ll bring you back a souvenir.”
“Nah. He isn’t good about that sort of thing. He just likes to focus on the job.”
“Good for our company.”
“Yes. Well, I hope that you have a good weekend, and I’ll be shooting you an email with the official report for the week on Saturday.”
“Ok be good Rosemary.”
“Thanks. Bye George.”
I set the phone on my desk, one call down, one more to go. I feel all tingly and itchy. I want to get started. My phone rings in twenty minutes, and in between I fidget plenty.
“Rosie, I just wanted to let you know that I have everything together up here.”
“Thanks Granny. You should be seeing them in the afternoon on Saturday. I’ll let you know if anything changes.”
“Alright, be good, and I expect to see you some time soon.”
“I’ll try and find a good time, have a good day.”
Finally. I get up and do a few stretches. We have a green light and Granny will be settling our charges comfortably in Chicago. The train leaves tomorrow morning at nine. A long trip for them, but not a lot of people down here think about trains as a mode of escape.
I head to my next task, packing the duffle bags. We can’t give them time to take their own clothes, and we try to think of everything. Once they contact us, we get their clothing and shoe sizes, preferred toiletries, and anything they might request. I expect one more shipment to my house today, but in the meantime, I pack the bags to the brim.
The doorbell rings. I rush to open the door, and sign for my boxes quickly. The last few things are here. I take out the MP3/MP4 players and get them ready for use, uploading a ton of music and movies. I set them aside, and head to the guest room where I change the sheets and get everything in order. I set out three outfits on the bed. I pull out the hair styling kit from the hall closet, and bring them to the kitchen. I look around, remember I haven’t arranged for dinner, and call my favorite pizza place. I ask them to make the delivery at 2 am.
With that finished, I make a sandwich, and give the house a once
over again. Chucho follows me, and I eventually trip on him. The look on his face convinces me to go take him for a long walk. We head to the river edge and walk towards a dock. We don’t make it far before I see a snake slithering along the path. Both of us stop, fascinated. I’m not ready to tempt my fate by continuing on the trail, so we turn back home. I call Don.
“Have you finished with everything?”
“No. I still have to go to the drug store. I need to pick up some hair dye.”
“Oh. Ok then. I guess I’ll see you later.”
“Don’t worry, we’ve done this hundreds of times. Go take a nap.”
“Someone’s bossy. G’bye.”
He’s right though. We’ll be up late tonight, I can’t do my job right half asleep. Chucho and I go to take our nap. I jump on my bed and try to sleep. Nothing happens. I get up and make myself a cup of chamomile. I turn on the TV, a really bad infomercial is on. Some kind of shower foot contraption. I shut my eyes.
My sister sits down next to me and offers me another cup of tea. It’s a very good blend and I tell her so. I flip through the channels, we stop on a show about tigers. “If you could be any animal, what would you be?”
“I would be a tiger for sure,” Amber says.
“I think I would want to be a jaguar.”
“They both have their good qualities.”
“I think that you would make a great tiger.”
My phone starts to ring, and it seems unusually difficult to hold. My hand finally gets a good grip and I answer.
“Who is this?”
“Don. I’m running red rover. Bread in a few crickets.”
“Mhmm. Okay.”
I turn to Amber, “Sorry about that. How’re you doing these days?”
“Surprisingly well,