Brian wasn’t phased in the slightest, he just grinned right back at them and opened the back door on the passenger side, slid in and said “hello, ladies.” He said it in a thick, fake as hell cockney accent, which came out sounding more like ello leigh-tees.
Austin lowered his head and went around to the front of the car, leaned forward and looked to his left for any oncoming traffic, feeling the stares from six eyes radiating out at him through the windshield. Finally after three cars passed he saw an opening and made a break for it, maybe hurrying a little faster than he really needed to. When he jumped into the backseat to join Brian and slammed the door, the whole Jeep shook for a moment from the force of his maneuvering.
He was waiting for Brian to say something smart ass about it, or make fun of him in some way that he hadn’t seen coming, but luckily Mia spoke up first. Turning around in her seat, grabbing the console with her right hand to help keep her twisted, her long, straight dark hair following just behind her, whipping around in front of her face. She had to tuck her hair in behind her ear to uncover her face, the rays of light shining through the window behind her gave her a faint halo around her head.
His heart gave another double thump to the inside of his ribcage, as a scene from Back to the Future played in his mind. The one near the end when Marty plays guitar and the band is singing the song Earth Angel.
“You two lads up for some good ol’ fashioned fun tonight?”
“What are we headin’ to a malt shop after the sock hop, or some shit?” Brian asked only a little assholio-ish. Brian spoke not taking his eyes off the rear view mirror, looking at Ashley’s reflection hoping for a smile, but more likely hoping for a brief glance down her shirt as she shifted in her seat. Which he eventually got, the smile at least, as she turned around.
“Guess again, Jackass,” Ashley said giving Brian a flirtatious wink with long, thick eye lashes before turning back around grabbing the wheel. She slapped the turn signal down and pulled out without even bothering with a cursory glance in the side mirrors and floored it.
“Oh hell, they’ll never get it, just tell ‘em,” Ashley said staring back into the rear view a little too long at Brian, and not enough on the road for Austin’s likings.
All three passengers were grabbing at handholds and stomping at invisible brakes by now but Austin’s fear was much more pronounced. Sweat started to break out across his forehead, his face beginning to lose color, his knuckles white and shaking from panic. Mia glanced back at him and could tell he wasn’t doing so hot, as she put her hand on top of Ashley’s, whose own hand was on the gear shift between the seats, even though it was an automatic.
“We’re in no rush, Ash, we have plenty of time before the whistle blows,” she said stealing another glance back at Austin to let him know she had it covered. Mia could sense there was something a little more than just Ashley’s driving that was affecting him right now. Ashley looked around and could tell the terror was being absorbed a little more than usual with her passengers and took the hint.
Easing off the gas pedal, and putting both hands on the wheel, she brought the speedometer’s needle down to just over five miles over the limit. Normally she wouldn’t have given a damn. Any other time she more than likely would have started driving even crazier just for spite. Earlier though, while they were sitting in the car waiting, just after Mia sent Austin the text changing the meeting spot, Mia had all but begged her to be a little nicer tonight.
She didn’t want Ashley to try and scare this one away like she normally did with the guys that would try, and they all try, and mostly because of her, fail. Making it anything more than a casual conversation with Mia while she was around was mission impossible.
Mia was her best friend, pretty much her only friend, which is why she had no patience for men trying to come between them, especially on their “girl’s nights”. This wasn’t one of their girl’s nights, however, and this wasn’t some schmuck hitting on her best friend. This was Mia, telling her in her own way that she liked this one, to go easy on him, so she would, for now at least.
Austin was able to loosen his grip a scooch, take a deep breath, and concentrating on what she just said, wanting to think about nothing else than her, not this car, not their driver… just her.
Doing this, he was able to ask “Wh-What whistle?” hoping it didn’t come out as much of a stutter and squeak as he heard in his head. Mia either didn’t notice, or was kind enough to pretend not to in her reply.
“Well, we couldn’t agree on where we should take you two tonight. I wanted something nice and relaxing, where we could all talk and get to know each other a lil better,” said Mia.
“Yeah and I wanted something not so boring, to bring a bit of life to the night,” added Ashley, elbowing Mia’s arm with a big toothy, grin on her face.
“Anyway,” rolling her eyes, Mia responded “we did rock, paper, scissors and tied. Three times!” She said this with such a massive wide open smile, you would think this had been unheard of, nigh, impossible. “So we figured we both deserved a win, we’re going to my place first then hers. Hope y’all like mini-golf.”
She finally faced front after saying this, still beaming, still everything.
To say she’s beautiful would be like saying Einstein was smart. Because Einstein was more than that wasn’t he? More than smart, more than genius even. He was revolutionary, he changed the way the world thought about itself.
To Austin, Mia was like that. She was more than beautiful, more than breathtakingly gorgeous even. She was world-shattering. Just like Einstein did to the world, she changed the way he thought about himself and the world around him.
“So get ready to have the time of your lives boys,” Ashley said then added “once we get to my place,” chortling at her own dig.
“That still doesn’t shed much light on where we’ll be going after putt-putt, which is an awesome idea by the way,” Austin said hoping not to sound too ass-kissy.
“That’s funny you should say that,” said Ashley “but the only thing going to be shed tonight… is blood, dun, dun duuuhhhh,” bursting out into a full on laugh making it sound like the old timey music from the movies right after something dramatic happened.
Austin and Brian exchanged a quick “what the hell?” look between each other.
“Don’t worry fellas, it’s nothing freaky,” sticking her thumb out and pointing it at the driver she continued, “our lil girl here loves her some Roller Derby. The State Championship is tonight, Dallas Goal Diggers vs Austin’s, very own, The Hell Marys.”
“Hell yeah, that sounds dope,” Brian said nodding as if keeping beat to a silent rhythm, kissing a little ass himself but in a much smoother way.
“I’ve always wanted to see one of those games in real life,” Austin said.
“Well, keep your pants on back there because that’s later,” Mia said then turned her head to the left, facing Ashley and said “let’s go Ash, second star to the right and straight on ‘til morning.”
Putt Putt
They didn’t end up arriving in Neverland, but it was as close as possible. Nine holes into their first round of putt-putt at Peter Pan’s Mini-Golf, Mia was wiping the floor with all three of their scorecards.
Popping up from grabbing her ball out of the cup in the ground after yet another hole-in-one, she says “My grandpa used to take me to the driving range with him when I was little.”
She gives the triplet a coquettish wink along with a look that says “didn’t I tell you that before”, then actually says “I would spend the whole time on the putting green, while he was hitting from the tee.”
From the moment Mia had told them they were going to play mini-golf, he had been picturing a completely different way of how things would have played out this evening. There are only a few places where a man can snuggle up close behind his date and put a facade out that he is only showing her how to do things properly, not copping a gentlemanly yet cheap feel. The most obvious one is billiards,
the second most apparent was putt-putt. Maybe a midday tennis lesson at a country club much to the chagrin of the rich jealous husband coming in a distant third.
Here he was at the tenth, Mia standing behind him, placing her hands on his, her arms on top of his arms, guiding him gently through his back-swing, the ball gliding smoothly across the green felt, rolling right through the gap between Captain Hook’s opened legs.
They were roughly the same height, so it didn’t feel or look like a fairy, helping a giant like one would imagine in this scenario. It felt right to Austin.
Of course she’s teaching me, sheesh, I may be able to show her how to trip and fall with a foolish grace but that’s about it.
From the outside point of view however, it still looked peculiar for the group behind them starting the ninth hole.
Izzy's Initial Findings
Izzy Ramirez didn’t mind working late, especially didn’t mind the time and a half the good Doctor promised her when she covers the late shift last minute. Whether she hit forty hours a week or not, which was laughable considering she always hit forty if not fifty hours on a weekly basis easily.
Her co-worker Blaine, who would play it off or deny it right to her face if the subject was brought up, barely hit thirty hours a week even though they were both hired to do the exact same position. She didn’t mind that either, he was here just for some extra cash and a little resumé padding while taking in the sights sounds of the live music capitol of the world. Who could blame him?
Working for a non-profit never hurt your chances later down the line, but that’s not why she applied. It wasn’t the dough that caught her eye most in the ad on MedJobs.com, that didn’t hurt either.
She thought it was too good to be true, an ad promising the moon but only delivering the cheese. Like the Marine recruiter talking her cousin from Oakland into signing up, along with hundreds of other boys just out of high school in that area and areas like it all over these great states, telling the young, desperate recruits whatever they wanted to hear.
“Sure you can have your pick of assignments,” they would say, “of course you can choose the job you want to do once you’re in,” saying it almost as if they had their fingers crossed behind their backs, “Just sign here and pledge there.”
The pay was amazing and the hours were short, at least compared to her friends from med school at UCSD who went straight to the clinics or hospitals, but the science is what drove her to click the APPLY button. Izzy would have the cutting edge technology of the medical field right at her fingertips, conducting tests and experiments that could literally change the world.
That’s what she thought she would be doing anyway. In reality though she was exactly what Blaine said they were, gophers. Izzy guessed that was the rub with any self-deprecating joke, the ones that were funniest were the ones that had a bit of truth in the chewy center. She liked to think of herself as more of an eager beaver, than some stupid, ugly gopher, but she supposed a gopher was more apt, just hopefully not for long.
Which is why tonight she didn’t mind taking over for the night shift gal without any sort of a heads up, flu my ass. She hoped that these nights and extra hours, along with all of the other extra things she did around the lab, coffee refills before being asked, making sure the printer was full of toner and paper at all times, always hopping to it what ever task that was asked of her right away, would shine a spotlight on her.
Hopefully this would allow her to get closer to the real action, saddle up next to the Good Doctor and work together on this project hand in hand, maybe not equal partners, but more of her sidekick. Then she could side kick night shift girl out on her ass. If that spotlight got so bright that it just also happened to cast a shadow over her coworkers on the way, then so be it.
Izzy was glad to be here tonight, if she hadn’t been then she wouldn’t have been the one to catch her own mistake, which would cast a pale shadow over her own work.
That wouldn’t do, no ma’am, would not do at all.
At first, she didn’t realize she had made any mistake, actually she thought she had found something great, unbelievable in fact. The last batch of blood from one of the two boys that came in earlier that day, had received firm, positive results throughout the entire range of tests.
Not only was Izzy the one conducting the tests on what she believed the only time the K prize foundation had come close to a positive results, but her being here tonight, those two boys just walking in off the street carrying a flyer that she herself had dreamed up and pinned to the damn corkboard no less. All of that added up had to be a few extra brownie points right there. She had been overcome with a full body joy, physically bouncing up and down in her seat clasping her hands in front of her wide open smile, like a little girl at Christmas who actually got the damn pony she asked Santa for.
Even though she was hired as a lab technician, she mostly handled the sign ups and took the blood donations, labeling this and that, setting up for the tests to be done by either the doc or the night shift, so she had only done just a handful of actual tests on her own, and then with the Doctor hovering over her shoulder, critiquing and guiding her. Izzy was almost undoubtedly sure that she followed every single step in the proper order, in fact, she would even bet her next two paychecks without hesitating that she did just as she was supposed to.
Even so, she had to be sure before making any calls, escalating it up the chain of procedures. She went back to the beginning, reading through the paper work, making sure all the i’s were dotted and t’s crossed. She remembered checking for one of the guy’s blood type, but couldn’t remember exactly which one. She knew that the shorter of the two felt awfully sure about what his blood type was, the other not so much, which is why she took a sample and checked before drawing the blood she would use for testing.
Which was which?
It had already been a long day before those two walked in, now that she was pulling a double Izzy was downright tired. Especially after the adrenaline pumping through her veins from reading the results earlier, followed by the sudden drop in her pulse and emotions at realizing her mistake.
She sat there trying to place the names on her papers with the faces of the two, but the more she tried, the more it felt like their faces had been taped to balloons and were now floating away, the ribbon slinking and slipping away centimeters from her outstretched hand.
Ugh stupido, screw it. I’ll have to verify the other’s as well, just to be sure.
Most of the time Izzy didn’t need to remember the face along with the name on the paper or blood bags, it was normally just come on in, please sit, this won’t take long, see wasn’t that easy, flash a smile, I’ll contact you later if we need anything (which they never did, because they never got the result they were looking for) adios muchacho, see ya never, flash another smile.
This time, though, it wasn’t whir, blur, thank you sir. She needed to remember this one, had to. There it was in living color on the test strip, staring up at her, the mistake giving her a big mocking wink.
She had been running AB+ positive tests on O- blood, giving her false positives across the board.
That cocky gringo.
She normally didn’t think about race in any given moment in her life, but right now she wasn’t her normal self and he had been so sure of himself. The balloons that had once been taped with pictures of blurry faces in her mind were replaced with the galas, grants and awards she would have surely received as part of the project. The balloons popped, exploding into rubber shards right in her face, dashing away the thoughts of the future, thumping her back into reality.
That pinche, puto, leche gringo.
Izzy had to take a deep breath to calm the boiling rage inside her chest, another deep breath dousing the flames a little more, another breath clearing her mind of the frustration and bitter contempt at herself for making such a boneheaded error.
Surely, that wouldn’t have caused a false positive across all the tests.
She let her mind wander down this road a bit longer, rubbing her right shoulder with her left hand releasing some of the tension in her shoulders that had built up in these last ten minutes.
I’ll just start over, redo it, no biggie.
Except the battery of tests that each batch went through, up to thirteen different samples of varying sizes were needed to complete the experiment, not leaving a lot of wiggle room for screw ups. The last drops of the blood that did remain had been used up re-verifying the type. So she had a choice to make.
Normally the Good Doctor, which is what Izzy referred to her in her head ever since she caught the Neil Simon play one night late on PBS her first week on the job, was present and accounted for. If she wasn’t in the lab, she was at her desk in her small but comfortable office.
Tonight, however, she was nowhere to be found.
I guess she does need sleep after all.
Izzy would either have to call the Doctor and tell her everything, from the first excited discovery to the rapid descent into despair over her mistake, or she could do what she had been doing all her life, handle it on her own. She picked up the hand set from her tiny cubicle in the corner of the lab and dialed.
The Bloodshed
For Austin’s sake, Mia asked Ashley if she didn’t mind handing over the keys so Mia could drive, using the excuse that Ashley and Brian could have the backseat for the ride to the Roller Derby. Reluctant at first as they were walking out of the golf area, passing by a giant T-rex statue, unexpectedly Ashley threw her the keys which Mia caught by a big furry purple ball attached by a short chain to the rings that reminded Austin of a hippie rabbit tail.
“To the bloodshed, Jeeves!” Ashley called out jumping into Brian’s arms.
The Heart of It All (HeartSick Series Book 1) Page 9
