Someone to Watch Over Me

by Michelle Stimpson

  Chapter 10

  Slam! The screen door jolted me out of a peaceful sleep, hurling me toward the immediate disorientation of waking up in someone else’s bed.

  “Cousin Tori!” DeAndre ran into the bedroom just as I regained my wits. “Cousin Tori, Chase cut his foot on some glass. He’s bleeding real bad. You gotta help him.”

  I sat up, wiping my eyes. “Where are Chase’s parents?”

  “They’re still at work.”

  Chase’s yowling from beyond the window came into focus now. I surrendered. “Okay. I’ll look at him, but I don’t do blood.”

  “You’re the one who’s watching us, right?”

  “I’m watching you.”

  “Come watch me watch Chase.” DeAndre took my hand and dragged me to the porch, where Chase’s right foot took center stage. Chase sat on the wooden deck rocking himself back and forth, holding his foot between bloodied hands. Tears drenched his cheeks as he attempted to quell another scream.

  Poor thing. “Let me see.” I kneeled down to get a good look at the injury.

  “Don’t touch it,” he begged while extending his leg toward me.

  Had my food not fully digested before I’d lain down, I might have lost it. The deep gash in Chase’s small foot spilled over with deep tissue never meant to see daylight. This boy needed stitches.

  “You’re going to have to call your parents to take you to the hospital,” I informed him, hoisting my cell phone from my pocket.

  Horror gripped Chase’s face. “Wait. Are they gonna put alcohol on it?”

  I’d almost forgotten: alcohol on open wounds is every child’s worst nightmare. Instinctively, I curbed the alarm in my voice. “Probably not.”

  “I gotta get stitches?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe they can just put special tape on it.”

  Chase looked at DeAndre, DeAndre looked at me, then back at Chase again. “Man, this is my cousin Tori. My grandmomma told me all about her. She went to college and everything. She knows stuff.”

  “I never heard of no tape.” Chase shook his head, pulling his foot from my reach.

  I couldn’t let DeAndre go on record with this tape mumbo-jumbo. “I said maybe they can put tape on it. The doctor will have to make the final determination. Just because I went to college doesn’t mean I know everything.

  “What’s your mom’s work number?”

  Chase wailed, “Aaaawwww! I gotta get stitches. No, no, no. I don’t wanna get stitches. Please, don’t call my momma.”

  DeAndre intervened. “Chase, we have to. You could get an infection and they’ll have to cut off your foot.”

  “But I’m going to get a whippin’ for playing outside without my shoes on,” he hollered even louder.

  As Judge Judy would say, that falls under the category of too bad. “What’s your momma’s name?”

  “Katrina Webb.”

  “What’s her number?”

  Through a flood of tears, Chase rattled off the number. After another failed attempt to dial out on my cell phone, I resorted to using Aunt Dottie’s land line in the kitchen. Thankfully, her phone was cordless, so I was able to return to the porch with the boys.

  I called Chase’s mother and calmly explained to her that we weren’t facing a life or death situation, but he certainly needed medical attention.

  “Shoot, we just had one in the hospital last month with pneumonia,” she fussed. “Was he outside playing with his shoes off?”

  Chase definitely knew his mother. I looked down at Chase’s body quivering through a minor mental meltdown. “Yes, ma’am, I believe so,” I replied.

  “Uh huh. I told him about keeping his shoes on.”

  If she could see him now, she might go easy on him later. “Well, an unpleasant trip to the doctor would certainly teach him a good lesson,” I offered.

  She paused. “I guess so.”

  I gave a thumbs-up to Chase. He smudged tears and snot across his face with the back of his hand. “What did she say?” he mouthed.

  DeAndre begged to know as well. “Is he gonna get a whippin’?”

  I silenced them with an index finger over my lips.

  “I’ll be home in a few minutes,” Chase’s mother finally acquiesced. “And who is this, again?”

  “This is Tori. Aunt Dottie’s niece from Houston.”

  “Oh, yeah,” she singsonged. “You’re the one who was pregnant and lost the baby and then went to college, right?”

  Oh my gosh! The correction came out with attitude. “He was stillborn.”

  “He was what?” from DeAndre.

  I whispered, “Not you.”

  Katrina’s voice lowered. “Oh, I’m sorry, sweetie.”

  Which wrong, exactly, was she apologizing for? And why was she calling me “sweetie” when she was probably only a few years older than me?

  She continued, “I tell you what. Your Aunt Dottie sure does brag about you all the time. She’s got a copy of your degree on the wall behind the counter. The print is kinda small ’cause I think she wants people to ask her about it so she can tell them all about you.” She cackled. “Drives Joenetta crazy.”

  I joined in Katrina’s laughter now. Anyone who read Joenetta the way I read Joenetta was on my side—bad manners notwithstanding.

  “How long until you can get here?” I wanted to know.

  She blew a breath of concession. “I gotta log out of the system. Fifteen minutes. You think he’ll be okay?”

  “Yes. I’ll keep an eye on him until you get here.”

  Just before I hung up, I heard her yell, “Thank you, Tori.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Chase belted out, “Is she coming?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “Right now.”

  Chase cried even harder when his mother’s classic Cutlass groaned up the driveway. I laughed to myself, knowing his antics were meant to save his hide.

  Together, Katrina and I helped situate Chase in the backseat. “Keep the towel pressed against your foot,” I instructed him. “The force will stop the blood.”

  The rims of his eyes had reddened from crying so hard. “Okay,” he agreed. “You are smart, Miss Tori. Just like DeAndre said.”

  I winked in response.

  DeAndre gave his friend a pat on the back and told him not to worry. Everything would be okay.

  After Chase and Katrina left, DeAndre and I were left to await Joenetta’s arrival. He followed me from the porch to the kitchen. I made him a sandwich. When he was finished, he plopped himself on the couch right next to me. Obviously, this child hadn’t heard the term “personal space.”

  He scrunched his face. “You like these shows?”

  “Yeah, I like court television. What do you like to watch?”

  “Cartoons,” he replied. “Mostly I watch Kamen Rider so I can learn how to fight.”

  I lowered the television’s volume. “Why do you need to know how to fight?”

  “’Cause people tease me all the time about my momma since she went to prison for a long time.”

  Too much information. “Oh. Maybe you should ignore them.” TV volume rising again.

  He shrugged and hopped up from the couch. “I’m gonna go see if Mike-Mike can play.”

  “Wait a minute. Don’t you have some homework?”

  “Ummm . . .”

  I didn’t know DeAndre well, but I knew a lie-in-the-making when I saw one. “Get your backpack, go to the table, and do your homework.”

  “But, Cousin Tori, I gotta play before it gets dark outside,” he whined.

  “Uh uh. Homework first, playing later.”

  A scowl covered his face as he snatched up his backpack and stomped over to the kitchen table, mumbling under his breath. If this was the kind of flip-flopping attitude Aunt Dottie dealt with day in and day out, no wonder her blood pressure was high. I hadn’t witnessed such disrespect except on those nanny shows. My first instinct was to snatch him up the way I used to see
people at Mount Pisgah rearrange their children’s facial expressions, but who was I to jump in? DeAndre was not my problem.

  When he finally reached the assigned homework location, he blurted through tears, “You ain’t my momma!”

  No better words have ever been spoken. This kid has got to go.

  After his little homework incident, DeAndre and I didn’t speak to each other the rest of the day. I just let him vegetate in front of the television and wait for his granny.

  Joenetta finally came by at a quarter till six to make dinner. She shuffled through Aunt Dottie’s pantry and then declared, “Whew! She ain’t hardly got nothin’ in here!”

  I took her words as my cue to leave. She and that bad DeAndre could starve together, for all I cared. Sonic would be my savior.

  I grabbed my purse and headed for the door.

  “Where you goin’?” he wanted to know.

  Away from you. “To the store.”

  Joenetta called from the kitchen, “Oh, good. Pick up some flour and hurry back.”

  I grabbed my purse, my keys, and my laptop. “I’m not going to the grocery store. I’m going someplace else. I’ll see you later.” The screen door slammed behind me.

  Joenetta’s fussing followed me to the car. She said something about me not caring, and she was right. How on earth she could claim to care for Aunt Dottie and yet leave her to raise this little boy was beyond me.

  Yes, Aunt Dottie had taken me in, but I was a good boarder. Okay, yes, I was pregnant, but even in my precarious situation, I never gave her any real trouble. I was respectful, I cleaned up, I helped out around the house and the store. I was good company—Aunt Dottie even said so herself.

  This little boy, on the other hand, was a sixty-pound ball of energy with a hair-trigger attitude. He was more than a handful, and no woman past forty-five should be raising him.

  Sonic was my first stop, the church my second. After fuming over the situation with DeAndre, I’d mustered up enough gusto to give the out-of-office idea to Preston straight. He often worked late, so I figured I could catch him at the office.

  “Preston, it’s Tori. My aunt’s recovery may take months. I’m proposing a telecommuting arrangement. I can make it back to the office once a week or so for meetings, and the rest I’ll handle via the Web, business as usual.” There. I got the whole pitch out in one big blurb. Maybe that DeAndre was good for something after all.

  Preston cleared his throat. “Sounds like you’ve given this some thought.”

  Not really. “Yes, I have.”

  “How much longer do you expect to be out?”

  I took a deep breath and gave my best guestimate. “A month or so.”

  Preston hesitated. I imagined him sitting there thumbing through his calendar. I hoped he was thinking about my vital role in the team. “We’ve been talking about offering a telecommuting option at NetMarketing for quite some time. I suppose there’s no better person to test the waters than the top producer.”

  Relief swept over me and my shoulders dropped an inch. “Perfect. I’ll contact my colleagues for updates and pick up right where I left off.”

  I ended the call on an exhilarating high. Maybe there was something to this whole church-mountaintop signal arrangement. I could have my job and take care of Aunt Dottie, too. And if I dug up an Internet connection, I might actually be able to pull this whole thing off.

  I left the church parking lot determined to stay away from Aunt Dottie’s house as long as possible. Maybe if I rode around long enough, Joenetta and DeAndre would disappear.

  I scoured the town for Wi-Fi signs so I could put my files to work. The gas station I’d visited earlier had an ATM light, so Bayford must have some kind of link to the outside world.

  Driving through downtown Bayford presented a quaint collection of businesses connected by a cobblestone road. Main Street’s charm slowed time. Though most of the businesses had already closed for the day, their window displays spoke of pride in long, hard working hours, not to mention faith. A flower shop, a bakery, a newly remodeled bank on the left. A tea room and an antique mall on the right. The center median flourished with evergreen brush, and I imagined some retired people’s horticultural organization would come by in the spring to tend these minigardens.

  Still no sign of free Web access. I turned a few more corners, desperately hoping, checking every blinking sign for the four magic letters.

  The back side of the senior center boasted the best lead yet: COMPUTER CLASSES HELD HERE.

  I parked and grabbed my laptop bag from the floorboard. Once inside, I was directed to the adjacent library and thereafter greeted by Mr. Kneebam, the head librarian.

  He looked like the type who had been stuck in Stephen King novels all his life. Glasses, scruffy beard, long graying ponytail, fashion rebel. Mr. Kneebam actually favored Stephen King, come to think of it.

  “How can I help you?”

  “I need to connect to the Internet. Do you have Wi-Fi?”

  His face lit up at the mention of this term. “Wi-Fi—music to my ears.”

  I matched his enthusiasm. “Mine, too.”

  He rolled his lips inward and shook his head. “Sorry. We don’t have it here. The closest Wi-Fi hub is the Starbucks in Henrytown. But you’re welcome to utilize our computers.” He gestured like a game show hostess, guiding my eyes toward two centers containing a total of eight ancient CPUs with large, boxy monitors.

  Is he serious? “How do I get to Starbucks?”

  “Hold on a second. I know what you’re thinking. I assure you, these computers are actually pretty fast,” he bragged in a used-car-salesman tone.

  “I work primarily online. I’m not sure—”

  “You can get on and off here faster than the twenty minutes it’ll take you to get to Starbucks.”

  He had a point.

  I followed him to the main counter to fill out an application for a library card, where I paid a nominal fee for membership since I wasn’t a resident of Bayford County.

  “You can occupy the computers for an hour at a time, but if there’s no one waiting, you can stay on as long as you’d like—or at least until we close,” he said with a laugh.

  “What time do you close?”

  “Eight o’clock on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, six on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Closed Sunday.”

  I finished the library’s paperwork and logged on to a computer, wondering how on earth I was going to operate within the library’s clipped hours. When working away from the office, the internal engine scarcely revved up by eight o’clock. And Sundays were prime production time, in my world.

  Mr. Kneebam showed me where to check my time and warned me about inappropriate Web sites. “If you happen to notice a kid on a questionable site, let me know.” He winked, as though I had partnered with the Bayford village to raise all these bad kids who don’t wear shoes outside and pout when made to do homework.

  “I’ll be too busy managing my own affairs to monitor anyone else’s screen.” There. I am not a part of the village.

  Mr. Kneebam tipped his head. “Well, if you happen to observe questionable surfing, please let us know.”

  The next half hour flashed by quickly. Most of that time was spent carefully wording the e-mail regarding my extended leave to colleagues. I needed to thank them for stepping in while, at the same time, reclaiming my clients and rightful feeding order. I’d leave it to Preston to break news of my telecommuting arrangement because there would surely be backlash to subdue.

  I could almost hear them complaining. “First, Tori takes off for weeks and then she gets to telecommute?”

  A rush of teenagers—who, I gathered from Mr. Kneebam’s impromptu minilecture, had waited until the last minute to do a research project—filled the computer waiting list.

  I had to use my last thirty minutes for answering more e-mail messages and posting one press release. I made a mental note to do everything possible off-line and transfer information to my flash drive
before coming to the library. Whew!

  Mr. Kneebam apologized unnecessarily for kicking me off the machine. “I wish I could let you work longer and teach these kids a lesson. But rules are rules,” he sighed.

  After logging off, I relinquished my spot to a shaggy-haired frantic kid with an armful of books and two spirals. “Miss, you know anything about Wuthering Heights?”

  Sympathy laced my response. “It’s by Emily Brontë, and I think the main character is a guy named Heathcliff.”

  “Thanks, miss. That’ll help me get started.”

  Sadly, he was serious.

  Stalling in hopes that Aunt Dottie’s house might clear out before long, I took the scenic route back to her side of town. Train tracks that used to separate the “black” part of town from mainstream Bayford seemed hardly needed now. From what I could tell, the town had integrated nicely.

  Again, the familiar streets greeted me, flagged me through the town. Aunt Dottie’s store rested only a few blocks from the tracks, strategically located to serve everyone in Bayford. Aunt Dottie used to claim her store was the melting pot of Bayford. “People need bread and milk no matter what color they are,” she’d say. “And all money is green.”

  As I approached the store, which was actually a frame-house-turned-retail venue, scores of cards and flowers came into view. I threw the car in park and rushed to the porch in awe of the neighborhood’s support for my aunt. Even the CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE poster board was covered with well wishes. “We’re praying for you, Aunt Dottie.” “Get well soon!”

  Some people had even dropped off teddy bears, and a beautiful ivy with a card from First Baptist Church sat safely under the porch’s cover. Even vendors who weren’t informed of the store’s closing before coming to deliver left personal messages with their nondelivery notices.

  I gathered the well-wishers’ sentiments and loaded them into the cargo area of my SUV. All I could think about was the numerous times Aunt Dottie had given extra food to people who could barely scrape up enough change to buy a dollar’s worth of summer sausage. She’d wink at me and whisper, “It pays to be nice to people.”

  That sage advice followed me back to the house, where Joenetta griped upon my return, “Took you long enough!” She wiped off the kitchen counters and hung a dish towel on the stove’s handle. I had to admit, the smell of whatever she’d scrounged up for dinner teased my taste buds terribly.