Don’t you see how that’s worse? That I’m being protected because he’s your uncle? She took a deep breath. He couldn’t help benefiting from nepotism, and why should she fight it? After all, she had to swallow the casual misogyny that made her job harder, so maybe it was only fair that she benefit from his protection, even if it was unjust and infuriating and not even meant for her.
They drove for a while without talking, listening to a mix of classic rock.
“You don’t listen to current stuff much,” she said after a while. “Don’t you like to discover new music?”
He didn’t answer for a moment, then replied, “I don’t want to hear any Smidge songs.” Something about the way his mouth was set, and his white knuckles as he gripped the steering wheel harder, told her he didn’t want to discuss it.
“Fair enough.” She liked classic rock as much as newer music, anyway; she’d only asked out of idle curiosity. Signs for Brewster began to show up on the freeway and the GPS prompted them to take the next exit. “Let’s stop somewhere and get flowers,” she said. “We’ll get in to see Jessalyn more easily and with less questions if we look like visitors.”
He nodded. “Clever.” A quick online search found a florist nearby, and he pulled up to wait while she ran in to choose something.
At the hospital, they followed the directions for the labor and delivery department, then simply asked for Jessalyn Roberts at the nursing station. The nurse sitting there smiled, seeing the pretty bunch of white freesias and baby’s breath that Nell carried. “Aren’t those flowers lovely? I’m so glad she has some visitors, the poor girl — all alone, with her husband deployed. She had quite a scare, but with proper care, she should be all right now.”
“We were worried,” Nell said.
“And how do you know her?” the nurse asked. Clearly, they didn’t just let any random people walk in without questions.
“Work,” said Eamonn, with a charming smile that caused the nurse to take a second look as she wondered why he looked so familiar.
“I’m her supervisor,” Nell added.
The nurse nodded, apparently satisfied. “Aren’t you kind, to visit a co-worker. She’s in 4B, just down there on your left. And you’ll find a vase under the sink in the bathroom.”
When they walked into Jessalyn’s room, the first thing they noticed was how young she was — young, very thin, and all round belly under the blanket on the bed. She looked fragile, with an IV in one arm and a vital signs monitor hooked up to the other. She gazed at them in surprise and a blend of pleasure at having visitors and puzzlement as to why they’d come.
“Hi there, Jessalyn,” said Eamonn, again with that charming rock star smile.
The young woman’s eyes widened in astonishment. “Oh my goodness! You’re…” Her mouth opened in wordless surprise, then she squealed, “You really are! You’re Easy from Smidge!”
“And you must be Jessalyn from Champagne Cascades,” he replied. Nell jabbed him with her elbow and handed him the flowers. Might as well let him do the whole rock god act. She can tell her friends Easy brought her flowers in the hospital. He winked at Nell, closed the distance to the bed, and held the bouquet out to Jessalyn with a flourish.
Nell ducked into the bathroom to find the vase that the nurse had mentioned. When she emerged with it, Jessalyn was clutching her flowers and gazing up at Eamonn — Easy, because he was wearing his rocker persona and doing the suave charm thing — with a gooey fan-girl expression on her face. Meet-and-greet man. Nell wanted to stomp her feet and kick things out of rage, have a full-on toddler tantrum. Can’t you see this is fake? He’s putting on an act for you! There’s no such person as Easy! And you lick it up like cream for a cat, Jessalyn. Have some dignity. She was just wondering how to break into the conversation and bring it around to the subject of work and what had happened, when he turned to her with a smile and drew her forward to the bedside, saying, “Jessalyn, this is my friend Nell. She works for Wildforest, and she’s here because we got a phone call saying you were missing.”
“Missing!” Jessalyn’s eyes got really round. “Oh my goodness, I guess no one told Mary or François. My husband is down as my next of kin but he’s on deployment — he’s in the Navy — and I never thought…” She looked worried. “Oooh, that’s really bad. Am I fired?”
“No one gets fired for a medical emergency,” Eamonn assured her, in a tone of voice that suggested it wasn’t even a possibility. Oh, you’ve never been poor, or a woman, my friend, Nell thought wryly. We get fired for medical emergencies all the time, especially baby ones. They just come up with something that sounds plausible. But he could probably pull strings with his uncle to make sure Jessalyn kept her job, if he wanted to.
“We just need to put something in our report to explain your absence,” Nell said soothingly, taking the flowers from Jessalyn and placing them into the vase, which she set on the bedside table.
“Oh. I was at work, you know, having my coffee and doing all the things, and I know I should have eaten something, but I woke up late and… you know how it is sometimes. The thing is, last week I failed my glucose test and my doctor started me on insulin right away because it was so bad. I’ve been really good for a whole week about not eating sugar — or anything nice…” And Jessalyn burst into tears.
“Fuck me,” Eamonn muttered, looking at Nell with a what-do-we-do expression on his face.
Nell pushed him out of the way, gently, and perched on the bed
