Flowertown

by S. G. Redling

  If she was going to get busted for stealing the box, she was at least going to see what was inside those files. Not caring if her guard watched, Ellie reached into the box and grabbed three folders from its center. A quick glance told her they were labeled with that same indecipherable alpha-numeric code on the outside of the box, so she figured any file was as good as the next. She couldn’t just walk out with files under her arm, she knew. Even the non-Feno files were under security watch. If it had been winter she could have shoved them up under the many layers of sweaters she would be wearing in the always-freezing office, but today all she had on was an old Cheap Trick T-shirt that wouldn’t hide a pack of cigarettes.

  Then she saw the bag of groceries Bing had dropped beside her desk. God bless you, Annabeth Dingle, she thought, for sending Rachel those oyster crackers. The box wasn’t big enough to hide three manila folders, no matter how tightly she tried to roll them, but if she slid the folders between the cracker box and her body, Ellie thought she would be able to stroll out of the building without attracting any undue attention. As far as she could see, it was her only choice. Tucking the bag between her feet, Ellie placed the folders carefully, being sure not to rip the cheap bag. Both the folders and the crackers left no room for the three remaining cans of chili, so Ellie tucked them into her large file drawer. She hoped Bing wouldn’t steal them. They could well turn out to be the last meal of a condemned woman.

  When she stood up and pulled the bag to her side, she realized what a terrible hiding place she had chosen. The files were longer and taller than the oyster cracker box, and the bag strained at the seams. Still, Cooper had noticed her rise, and she couldn’t think of any other options. All she had to do was get past the guard and she was confident she could rush her way out the door. It was time once again to go on the offensive.

  She grabbed her cigarettes as she cleared the corner of the desk and, shifting the bag to her right hand, the oyster crackers against her leg, she lit a cigarette and puffed hard as she walked. Cooper smelled her before he turned to her and didn’t pretend to disguise his disgust.

  “I thought you weren’t going to smoke in here. I thought you made a peace offering.”

  “Relax, Cooper.” Ellie blew out another thick cloud as she passed, keeping herself in the middle of his line of sight of the bag. “I’m taking it outside. If I get any calls, take a message.” The guard coughed and fanned the offensive smoke away, not bothering to watch her go. Ellie swung the bag on her wrist, turning the folders against her, the cracker box on the outside, and hurried to the stairs.

  “Where the hell are you going?” Big Martha leaned on heavy forearms across her desk.

  “Med check.” Ellie froze, thinking quickly of the best way to turn around without exposing the bag.

  “Bullshit. You had one yesterday.”

  Ellie let anger be her disguise. “Well, I’ve got another one today. What do you want me to do? Bring you a note?” She could hardly hear her own words over the pounding of blood in her ears as she watched Big Martha’s gaze drift to the bag she half hid behind her leg. Her boss quickly lifted her gaze, her mouth set in a hard line, and it felt like hours before she spoke.

  “I’ve never known you to eat oyster crackers before.”

  Ellie could only blink several times, trying to wrap her mind around what her boss saw. Nobody chose to eat oyster crackers. They were a last resort when nothing else would stay down, and Ellie felt a twinge of guilt at misleading her boss. People got sick in Flowertown. It was a fact of life, just like the fact that many of them didn’t get better. In this new bizarre world of chemical containment, etiquette demanded that one never, ever ask the question, “Are you okay?” when issues of wellness arose. If Ellie had two med checks in one week and she carried around a box of oyster crackers, that was her business. If she wanted to share it, Big Martha would have listened, but until then, the topic was off-limits.

  “Don’t make a day of it.” Big Martha turned back toward her computer. “Those files are piling up.”

  Ellie nodded, trying not to gasp out her relief. She was sick, she told herself, so technically she hadn’t misled her boss. That would have to do as far as comfort went, and Ellie took the stairs two at a time.

  She didn’t trust herself to exhale until she turned the second corner on her way to the med center. She’d made it from the building with the files. Trying to slow her pounding heart, she cut across the street to the newsstand. Ellie didn’t know what kind of files she had in her bag, but she didn’t want to go strolling into the med center and have someone there recognize them. A newspaper would be just the right size to wrap around the bulky manila folders.

  Ellie scanned the nearly empty rack of newspapers. There was a small stack of week-old New York Times, one three-day-old Sioux City Journal, and a few two-day-old USA Todays. Flowertown never got the news the day it happened. Folks inside often referred to the “USA Yesterday,” but usually the national paper made it a day late. Not today, though, and judging from the scowl on Mr. MacDonald’s face, the proprietor was none too happy about it. Well, she wasn’t here to read. Ellie grabbed the Davenport paper.

  “What the hell are you doing that for?” MacDonald’s voice roared from his small stand.

  “Uh, what? Buying a newspaper?”

  “That’s not a newspaper!” The old man slammed his veiny hand down. “Newspapers carry news! News as in new, not day-old, not two-day-old. That’s not news in there. That’s history. Why don’t you go to the library and check out a history book?”

  Ellie waited out his tirade. She liked Mr. MacDonald. She liked the bourbon she smelled on his breath and the way he yelled at everybody, especially his customers. Bing had told her he had been a professor at Northwestern before the spill, and she thought he would have been the kind of professor she would have enjoyed.

  “I want to buy the paper.”

  “You want to piss your money away?”

  “Why not?” Ellie shrugged. “I’m just going to drink it away otherwise. Or maybe I’ll use this paper to hide a bomb.”

  MacDonald leaned over the counter and lowered his voice. “Talk like that can get you arrested, young lady.”

  “Oh, I sure would hate to be confined in a small area with no chance of escape.” She held MacDonald’s hard gaze until his eyes crinkled up in a smile. He loved a smart-ass. “And if I do go down, old man, I’m taking you with me.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, promises, promises.” He swiped her debit card. “Did you pick up ‘the local’ today? It’s got some interesting tidbits.” “The local” was a newsletter residents of Flowertown put out on random days, from random outlets, with a random selection of topics. It read like a badly printed church bulletin. MacDonald stuffed one in the fold of her paper.

  “Thank you, sir. I’ll check it out.”

  “Liar.”

  The med center was crowded as always, the eleven o’clock line for meds filing all the way out the glass doors into the lobby. Ellie elbowed her way through the bored-looking mob and flashed the keychain tag that she had hooked to her work badge under the scanner. The door to the left buzzed, and she let herself into the blue tag lounge. That wasn’t really the name on the door, but Ellie never bothered to read the words on the sign. Leaning on the ledge under an unmarked window, Ellie waiting for the heavily made-up clerk to acknowledge her.

  “Hello.” Ellie rapped her knuckles on the glass after a solid minute.

  The woman continued to type and kept her eyes glued to the screen before her.

  “I have a med check at eleven.”

  The woman typed some more and then made a great show of craning her neck to see the large clock behind her before turning back to Ellie with leaden eyes. “It’s ten fifty-two.”

  Ellie waved her medical tag under the opening in the glass. “Yeah, well, considering the fact that I’m a blue tag, you might say time is of the essence. Plus I have a job to get back to.”

  The woman curled her lip, cracki
ng the shellac of foundation around her mouth, and Ellie could see she was older than she first appeared. Perhaps a steady diet of being a bitch had aged her prematurely. In any case, her sneer made her face that much more unpleasant as she leaned forward on her elbows.

  “I have a job to do too, ma’am.” She looked Ellie over with much the same look Ellie had given Martha’s hairball. “And my job is to make sure appointments are kept on schedule. Your appointment is for eleven o’clock. Not ten fifty, not eleven oh one.”

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

  “Please take a seat,” she tapped on the glass with long, pink, flowered nails, “and I will call you at your proper appointment time.”

  Ellie knew it was pointless to argue, so instead she pressed her forehead against the glass. “I bet you win employee of the month every month.” The woman pursed her lips in an ugly semblance of triumph. Then she saw the greasy spot Ellie’s skin had left on the glass. Ellie ran her finger through the stain, spreading it. “You might want to clean that up, honey. I bet that’s part of your job too.”

  She flopped into a chair out of sight from the bitch behind the glass. In truth, she was glad for the moment to sit down. It gave her a chance to slip the files from the bag and into the fold of the newspaper. Ellie desperately wanted to peek into the files, but she knew every inch of the med center was under camera surveillance at all times. Bending from the waist, she did her best to block the camera’s view of her bag until the folders were well out of sight. Just as she was straightening up, the door to the examining rooms opened and the She-Nightmare from the reception desk stood, holding a clipboard.

  “Cauley?” She spoke loudly as she scanned the empty room. “Eleanor Cauley?” Ellie rose and headed her way, and still she paged the empty room. “Eleanor Cauley.”

  “I’m right here.”

  The woman checked the clipboard and then looked up at Ellie. “Eleanor Cauley?”

  “Yes.”

  “You had an eleven o’clock med check?”

  If the bag had not contained stolen classified files, Ellie would have given in to the temptation to beat the woman to death with it. “Yes.”

  The woman scribbled on the clipboard, then held open the door. “You’re late.”

  Ellie bit her tongue as she passed her, then stopped and turned. “You know, I think it’s really heartwarming that Barlay hires the mentally handicapped.”

  “Room three.” As Ellie turned away, the woman shot her a syrupy smile. “Hope you feel better.” Then, pretending to notice the blue files on her clipboard, made a show of covering her mouth in fake surprise as she walked off. “Oh, wait. That’s right. My bad.”

  Ellie was certain, as she forced herself to sit on the stool next to the med tech, that if she looked she would see her heart beating out of her chest. The receptionist’s remarks played over and over in her mind. Her fists were clenched and the plastic handles of the bag cut into her white fingers. Her face felt hot with rage, and while she could hear the tech’s voice speaking to her, the part of her brain that understood words had been eclipsed by something far more primal. It wasn’t until a hand touched her arm that she could break the spell of the anger consuming her.

  “I need your tag.” The woman touching her wore the pale blue coat of all Barlay med techs. Her brown hair was pulled up in a loose bun, revealing a large strawberry birthmark on her smooth neck. Ellie stared at the red mark, trying to gain control of herself.

  “It’s on my badge.” The words scraped out of her tight throat. She handed her badge over to the tech, who scanned it and studied the computer screen. Ellie worked on taking the deep breaths she had learned would control her temper, and by the time the tech handed her badge back, Ellie felt in control once more.

  “Have you taken your meds this morning?” the tech asked, studying the screen. When Ellie didn’t answer right away, she cocked an eyebrow at her. “Don’t lie. It’s going to show up on the blood test anyway.”

  “No, I haven’t. I forgot them at home.” The truth was she had no idea where the bottle of red pills was. They could have fallen out of her pocket at any point last night. “If I were to lose them or something…”

  “You can get a refill. Your QOLs are unlimited.”

  “That’s reassuring.” Ellie watched the young woman type. Apparently terminal diagnoses were no big thing in the blue tag lounge, but Ellie wouldn’t have minded a little less offhandedness. “Can you sign for a refill for me?”

  The tech rolled her chair closer to Ellie and tied a piece of rubber tubing above her elbow. As she wiped Ellie’s bulging vein with an iodine swab, she laughed under her breath. “You mean you don’t want to deal with Miss America out front?”

  “What a bitch.”

  “Tell me about it. Try being stuck in here all day with her.” The tech jabbed a needle into Ellie’s arm and started to withdraw blood. Rather than look, Ellie watched the woman, seeing the name tag stitched to her lapel.

  “Olivia. That’s pretty.”

  “Yeah, I was named after a pig.”

  Ellie laughed, remembering the children’s books with the pig named Olivia. “You must be a local.”

  Olivia nodded, gently pulling back with the needle. She didn’t meet Ellie’s eyes, so Ellie took the conversation no further. Nobody liked to talk about how they wound up here.

  “I need to take a pretty big sample.”

  “I’m not using it,” Ellie said. “Take all you want.” Olivia looked up quickly at her, and Ellie felt a sharp pinch at the site of the blood draw. “Ouch!”

  “Sorry.” Olivia pressed her gloved fingers over the injection site and put the full syringe back on the desk. She replaced her fingers with a thick wad of gauze and pulled Ellie’s arm up over her head. “Put pressure on this for a minute. I’ll get some tape.”

  Olivia turned her back on Ellie, pulling off a length of medical tape and sticking it to the edge of the desk. Rather than put the tape over the gauze, however, she picked up the phone and tapped a flashing button. Ellie couldn’t hear what she said and wasn’t interested. Instead she held her arm up, pressing on the gauze. With her luck, she would bleed out. Her fingers began to tingle as she heard the tech playing with the tape and laughing into the phone. It would do no good to complain, she knew. In the med center, all you could do was wait.

  Finally Olivia turned back to her, lengths of tape stuck to several fingers, and told her to lower her arm. Quickly she taped the gauze in place and began reciting the medical instructions required by law within Flowertown. Ellie had heard them hundreds of times: medications were to be taken upon instruction with no exception; any complications or difficulties were to be reported immediately; no medications were to be shared or disposed of in any way, blah blah blah. But just because Olivia and her coworkers were obligated to say it didn’t mean Ellie was obligated to listen. She smoothed out a loose piece of tape as she gathered her bag of contraband and waited for Olivia to finish her spiel.

  Olivia finished chanting the words she had to say no less than twenty times a day and then picked up a pen. “You need a refill?” Ellie nodded and took the blue scrip from her. “Keep an eye on that arm. No heavy lifting. You can peel off some of the tape if you need to.”

  There was no line at the dispensary on this side of the building. As she waited for her pills, she pulled out her phone and punched in Guy’s number. She wasn’t really worried about him. She just wanted to hear his voice. Twice she misdialed, her fingers trembling, maybe from the blood loss, maybe from the ebbing rage she had felt inside, or maybe just from not being high. The pharmacist slid her pills across the counter, and Ellie dropped them in the bag, still trying to dial as she headed back out onto the street.

  This is ridiculous, she thought, and plopped down on the curb in front of the med center shrubbery. She took the bag off her arm and focused all her attention on her fumbling fingers. At last she got the number correct. It rang several times, and while she waited, she tried onc
e more to smooth out the dangling tape on her arm. She swore when Guy’s message began to play. What a fucking day. The operator began the unnecessary instruction on how to leave a voice mail, and Ellie swore again as the tape on her arm refused to stick.

  “Hey, Guy,” she said after the beep. “Just seeing how you did last night. I’m heading back to work and—” She let the phone slip from between her shoulder and her ear. In her frustration she had pulled the uncooperative tape from her bandage. The gauze hadn’t fallen off because there was another piece of tape underneath the first. On the lower piece, in small handwritten letters, were the words, “Don’t take the red pills.”

  Ellie could only stare at the words. She heard the phone at her feet beep that her message was over and still she didn’t move. Bing. She knew she had to find Bing. Grabbing the bag, Ellie leapt to her feet and began to run. All the tension from the night before, all the rage from this morning, all the years she had refused to run melted out of her as her muscles pounded to life. She felt her lungs burning but didn’t stop, couldn’t stop until she found Bing. He would know what those words meant. He would tell her some conspiracy theory and they would get high and she would tell him he was crazy, that the words were just a practical joke.

  But she didn’t believe it.

  She was gasping for breath as she turned the final corner to the records office, the bag banging painfully against her aching legs. Bing would tell her what to think and help her make sense out of this. Bing always knew what to do. Bing always knew everything. Ellie stopped. Bending from the waist to catch her breath, she realized that Bing knew nothing about the red pills. He didn’t know because she hadn’t told him. After all they had been through together, she had kept the most important information of her life a secret from him and for the life of her couldn’t predict how he would take the news.