Worst Week Ever (A Long Road to Love)

by Liza O'Connor

  His voice rose an octave higher and now sounded quite cheery. “Of course, I remember you. I proposed to you. Do you think I’d propose to a woman I don’t plan to remember? It would make one hell of a marriage. Hello? Who are you? My wife? For how long?”

  If she didn’t interrupt Tiny, he’d probably go on for hours.

  “Tiny, could you and Tall possibly help me? I need to get some turtles away from an employee before he eats them all.”

  “Is he on drugs?”

  “Yes. I think that may be the problem.”

  “And he’s eating turtles…how big?”

  “They fit in your mouth….Oh, not real turtles. The chocolate-caramel-over-nut turtles. It’s my gram’s recipe, only I used bars of chocolate that may have harbored secret ingredients. He’s climbing the elevator walls crying out ‘Rosebud’ and declaring the elevator pretty, which it isn’t.”

  “This sounds most interesting. Tall and I would love to come to your rescue. Where are you?”

  Carrie gave him her address and breathed out a sigh of relief. Tiny would get those turtles from Jack. Only she had to make certain he didn’t eat any in the process.

  She smacked herself on the head. If she couldn’t get them away from Jack, she’d never prevent a master magician from devouring them. She shouldn’t have called him. Tall would never forgive her for getting Tiny hooked on turtles. They didn’t even have rehab for a turtle addiction.

  Calling Tiny back, she asked him to put Tall on the phone.

  “Why?”

  “Because I need to be sure he wants to help as well.”

  “He does.”

  “Then let me speak to him.”

  “You don’t believe me? The man who begged for your hand in marriage?”

  Maybe if she hurt his feelings he wouldn’t come. To save his life, she lied. “No, I don’t.”

  He laughed and handed her over to Tall.

  “Carrie?” Tall’s deep voice resonated concern.

  “Tall, I mean Harmon, I shouldn’t have called you guys. I think my employee Jack is eating chocolate turtles with drugs in them.”

  “You think he’s eating them, or you think there are drugs in them?”

  “I know he’s eating them, and he’s acting very weird.”

  “Tiny’s jumping at the walls, howling ‘Rosebud.’ What’s your employee doing?”

  She sighed heavily. “The same.”

  “It’s not Trent is it?”

  “No, he’s my employ-er. This is an employ-ee.”

  “Just checking. When it comes to turtles, I like to be very clear on the facts,” Tall said in his somber voice.

  “I’m afraid Tiny is going to be so curious about the turtles he’ll eat one.”

  “Almost a certainty.”

  “Then don’t come. You have no idea how potent these things are. I nibbled one little foot and almost fell over. I’d never tasted anything so good in my life. I’m worried all that ‘goodness’ isn’t chocolate.”

  “You ate one?”

  “No, just a nibble on the foot.

  “Who made these turtles?”

  “Me.”

  “And what illegal ingredient did you use?” Tall asked with the patience of a saint.

  “I don’t know. It had to be the chocolate.” She paused. “Unless they tampered with the whole wheat flour or sugar.”

  “We’re outside your door and the man doesn’t wish to let us in…Oops, well Tiny’s in. I’m stuck outside.”

  “Pass me over to him.”

  “I hope you mean the man and not Tiny because he’s probably halfway upstairs by now.”

  Mr. Bergerman spoke hesitantly on the phone.

  “Mr. Bergerman, please allow my very tall friend to enter. He’s going to help me set the furniture to right.”

  “What happened to the man who went up with you?”

  “He’s not being terribly helpful.”

  “We’re coming up too,” the old man stated and hung up on her.

  Tall called her back. “We’re now waiting for the elevator.”

  Carrie turned and saw the elevator doors had closed on her side. “Either Jack has hidden in the elevator or I’ve lost him. He’s rather crazed, Harmon. Please be careful.”

  Tall chuckled. “You should see Tiny when he goes on a binge. Now he’s a fright.” She heard him suggest the others stand back. “Carrie believes a deranged fellow eating a bag of turtles may reside within.”

  A heart-rending scream tore through the phone. Then pleading sobs to give him back his turtles. A moment later, Harmon spoke. “Turtles have disappeared and we are headed up. What floor?”

  “Fifth.”

  She heard Jack plead, “I’ll give you whatever you want. Just give me back my turtles. They make everything beautiful.”

  Mr. Bergerman scolded him to behave. When the elevator doors opened, Mr. Bergerman and his two helpers hurried out. Tall followed, assisting Jack from the elevator. Tiny came out of nowhere and kicked Tall in the shin. With a mighty leap into the air, he wiped the chocolate from the side of Jack’s mouth and plunged his hand into his mouth as he landed.

  Tiny’s eyes widened and a smile formed on his face. A minute later, he removed his fingers from his mouth. He studied Jack then glanced at Carrie. “When did he eat his first turtle?”

  “About twenty minutes ago.”

  “How many did he eat?”

  “I don’t know,” Carrie replied.

  “Well, we should get the bag and count what’s left.”

  The elevator door opened and Officer Pascal entered. His hand went to his gun.

  “Carrie, you okay?” His eyes scanned the group, focusing on Tall and Jack.

  “Yes, but I think Jack needs to go to the hospital.” She pointed to Jack swatting at the air while Tall held him by the back of his T-shirt.

  Officer Pascal studied him a moment. “What’s he on?”

  Tiny tried to make another swipe at the chocolate on Jack’s face, causing him to jump back in a panic.

  “I’d say something like Europa, but faster acting,” Tiny declared.

  Pascal’s stern glare refocused on her. “Carrie, you want to tell me what’s going on here?”

  “I made Jack some chocolate caramel turtles. Do you know what those are?”

  He nodded, never taking his eyes off Jack or Tall.

  “Evidently, the chocolate I used had some contaminant in it and now I’ve got half the town hooked.”

  He frowned. “By half the town, who do you mean exactly?”

  “Jack, of course, but Tiny tasted the residual chocolate on Jack’s mouth and is acting weird now.”

  “No weirder than normal,” Tall assured the policeman.

  Carrie hit her forehead. “Oh God, Mars ate a whole turtle.”

  “Mars, Master Trent’s butler?”

  She nodded.

  “Shit!” He opened his phone and called someone. “Get Mars to the hospital now. He’s ingested a narcotic.”

  “Improved Europa,” Tiny yelled out and leapt against the wall. “Rosebud.”

  Jack howled the same.

  “Tiny, stop,” Tall ordered. When he quieted, Tall continued, “Are you positive it’s Europa?”

  Tiny eyed Tall. “No, but if you let me eat a turtle I can be.”

  Tall pulled Jack to Pascal. “Hold him for a minute.” He picked up Tiny and brought him to Carrie. “Hold tight to both of his hands.”

  Before she could get them, Tiny threw his arms around her waist. She did the same to him.

  Tall motioned for Joey to follow him into the elevator and she nodded for Joey to do so. After a brief moment of reluctance, Pascal pulled Jack into the elevator and the three men disappeared.

  A heavy sigh of relief came from Mr. Bergerman and his two Spanish workers, whom Carrie suspected might not be entirely legal.

  “I am so sorry to drag you into my week from hell.”

  The old man chuckled then frowned at Tiny glued to her ches
t. “You want me to get him off you.”

  She patted Tiny’s head and smiled. “No, he’s fine.”

  Mr. Bergerman eyed Tiny with displeasure and took in a deep breath. “Then we should be going.”

  “Do you need me to sign anything?”

  “No, but you should come down and verify the work is to your satisfaction.”

  “I have absolute faith it is.” She glanced around the destroyed office. “I have to clean this up before tomorrow morning.”

  “By yourself?” Mr. Bergerman exclaimed.

  “I’m sure Tiny will help once he sobers up. And when Tall returns, he’ll put the desks upright…if he’s still talking to me after I doped Tiny.”

  The old man shook his head. “I got this granddaughter, always getting into trouble, and I’ve told her a hundred times ‘trouble finds those looking for it,’ but you’re a nice lady and I’ve never seen anyone find more trouble in two days than you.”

  She nodded in agreement. “This is hands down the worst week of my life, but it could have been worse.”

  “How?”

  “Well, I could be dead twice-over, or rotting in jail for scaring people off the sidewalk by yelling bomb. Or, I could have not yelled bomb and let them be crushed by falling file cabinets and have to live with the guilt for the rest of my life. Or, some policeman other than nice Mr. Pascal could have arrived and arrested me for making illicit turtles.”

  One minute Carrie had firm hold of Tiny, the next the little guy fell backwards and rolled in laughter. He then humped his back in a rather good impersonation of a turtle and tried to solicit the two Spanish guys. They stepped away from him and complained to Mr. Bergerman in Spanish.

  Mr. Bergerman came to their rescue. “Stop it, little man. They don’t think you’re funny at all.” He glared at Tiny and then huffed. “Well, I’m not leaving you alone with him, so let’s get to work and set this mess to rights.”

  His offer overwhelmed her. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “Yes, I do. If my granddaughter had fallen into this mess, I’d expect someone to help her out and not leave her alone with some drug-crazed midget.”

  Those final words lessoned her warm fuzzy feeling toward the old man. “Tiny’s not a midget, he’s just small. He’s not even that small. He’s almost my height.”

  To prove the point, Tiny stood beside her on the tips of his toes, which made him just a few inches shorter.

  The old man shook his head. “Let’s just get this place cleaned up so we can all go home.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Tall returned and flipped the desks as if they weighed nothing.

  Mr. Bergerman brought some plywood from his van and covered the broken windows. “We do windows, too.”

  “You do? You’re hired.”

  “Don’t you want to know my price first?”

  She sighed. “I can’t imagine a man as kind as you would overcharge me on windows. But honestly, you really should add the hours of work you’ve put in tonight onto the price of fixing the doors.”

  A smile finally found its way onto his disgruntled face. “You are so much like my granddaughter. Doesn’t have a lick of sense but I love her to death.”

  Carrie didn’t care for his compliment, but before she could assure him she had plenty of good sense, Sam stormed out of the elevator and into the office area. “Oh great, the circus is in town!”

  “Sam, stop being rude. This is Tall and Tiny, friends of mine who came to help when you wouldn’t.”

  “Let’s go. Trent has yet to realize you aren’t sound asleep in his bed.”

  All eyebrows, except for the Spanish guys’, rose two inches. “He’s just my boss. We are not having sex.” She returned Sam’s glare. “My day has been bad enough! I don’t need you dragging my reputation through the mud, nor do I need you to drive me two freakin’ blocks. I have feet. I can walk.”

  Sam matched her fury. “Fine! Erase my number from your phone and don’t call me for help anymore,” he yelled and stormed to the elevator.

  “I’m doing it right now.” She pulled up his number and glared at it. She was so angry, she couldn’t remember how to delete a number.

  Tiny took it from her, poked it a bit, and returned it to her with a smile. “He’s gone.”

  Leaning down, she kissed his cheek. “Thank you.” She looked at Tall then Mr. Bergerman. “Thank you all.” She repeated her comment in Spanish for the two workers.

  She looked around at the amazing job they’d done. “Let’s all go home. Job well done.”

  After they walked out of the perfectly behaving sliding door, and she'd locked it shut, all her helpers insisted on escorting her to the door of the penthouse.

  Two Spanish guys, an old Jew, a seven-foot giant, and two little people, neither of whom were midgets, somehow managed to frighten hard core New Yorkers to the other side of the street. Thank God, they only had two blocks to go. When they arrived at Trent’s lobby, she hugged everyone goodbye and hurried upstairs alone.

  Finally, her horrid day had ended, and as she told Mr. Bergerman, it could have been a lot worse. She sighed with relief. Everything would be fine. Mars would be fine and someday he’d forgive her for feeding him ‘improved Europa’—whatever that was. Sometime far in the future, she’d forgive Sam for making her feel like a whore in front of her friends and an old Jewish man with traditional views on such matters. Then, someday even further in the future, Jack would forgive her for turning him to a life of drugs, but only after they got him rehab. Until then, he wouldn’t remember her at all.

  At least the madness had ended. She sighed in relief. Maybe she could draw herself another soothing bath if Trent would explain the purpose of all those levers on the Jacuzzi.

  Then the elevator doors opened into the penthouse and all hell broke loose.

  Chapter 23

  “Carrie, how did you get outside?” Trent stormed toward her the moment she stepped into his penthouse. “I thought you went to the bedroom to work on getting my business running. God! Has everyone who works for me gone mad?”

  Mad? Oh, she was getting there. Really fast. How dare he lump her in with his horrible employees! “I went to the office, to ensure the front door got fixed, and to get everything ready for employees to return to work tomorrow.”

  Trent gripped her sweatshirt, pulling her close to his lowered, angry face with a taped but very straight nose. “Can you not see the policeman sitting on the couch? Breaking their tape and entering a crime scene is against the law, you idiot!”

  The policeman would’ve heard Trent’s outraged ‘whisper’ even had he remained on the couch. Unfortunately, Detective Pascal perceived Trent’s angry, charging-bull approach as threatening and rose to intervene.

  “He’s not hurting me!” Carrie yelled out. “I’m fine.”

  Trent stared at her in horror. “My God, you’ve been drugged, as well.” He lifted her into his arms. “I’m taking you to the hospital. Mars!”

  “Is Mars here?” she asked in shock.

  “No. He’s at the hospital.” He turned and glared at Pascal. “You have to take us to the hospital now. Carrie’s gone mad.”

  “Put her down,” Pascal ordered in a stern, authoritative voice.

  Trent countered by raising his voice. “But she’s lost her mind. We need to go to the hospital. I need her with her mind intact.”

  Pascal widened his stance as his hand went to his gun and he barked, “Put. Her. Down. Now!”

  Carrie thanked God Trent didn’t drop her to the floor. If matters had been reversed, she might have…except she couldn’t have picked Trent up in the first place.

  Once Trent set her down, Pascal motioned for her to come to him. When she did, he pried her eyes open to twice their normal size.

  “Not really enjoying this,” she muttered.

  “Are you satisfied? Will you get off your lazy ass and take us to the hospital now?” Trent bellowed.

  Pascal ignored him and focused on her. “Can you t
ell me what you’ve been doing the past few hours?”

  She frowned at him. “You know this. I tried to get those turtles away from Jack.”

  Trent threw his arms into the air. “Now are you satisfied? She’s hallucinating turtles. Take us to the hospital now!”

  Instead of taking them anywhere, he smiled and chucked her beneath her chin. “You saved his life by doing so. Had he eaten much more he might have died of an overdose.”

  I almost killed Jack?

  God, this day just kept getting worse. She didn’t think it possible, but…

  Her legs gave out and only Pascal’s swift reflexes prevented her from crumbling to the floor.

  “You see!” Trent bellowed and attempted to pull her from Pascal’s arms. “I told you to take us to the hospital. But would you do your job? No! Instead, you waste valuable time flirting with my deranged assistant. Now give her to me!”

  While they fought over who would carry her, she passed out, only waking when the sirens screamed. Trent whispered in her ear, “Don’t die. Please don’t die.”

  “I won’t. We’ve got too much to do,” she replied before falling back into a sleep of exhaustion, happy Trent had stopped yelling at her.

  Her sleep ended when someone decided to burn her retinas with a bright penlight. Pushing the excruciating light away, she growled, “Stop it.”

  “Sounds a bit like you.” The teasing voice sounded slightly familiar but she couldn’t place it.

  A moment later, a familiar tantalizing scent filled her nostrils and large, strong hands gripped her left hand. “Carrie, speak to me, so I know you’re all there.”

  Carrie opened her eyes to her very worried boss and a white walled hospital room. “You need a better test. All of your employees can speak and some of them are clearly not all there.”

  Dr. Lenard, Trent’s physician, moved in front of him. “She has an excellent point.”

  “Which means she’s fine, or she couldn’t have impressed you.” Trent smiled and stepped back so the doctor could work.

  Dr. Lenard sat on the edge of her bed. “How are you feeling?”

  She gave the matter some thought. “Fine.”

  “Better than before?”