Along for the Ride

by Mimi Grace

  “No, I’m serious. Able threw this project at you, and you’ve created such an amazing PR campaign. The launch party is bigger than we previously estimated and the presales for the fall boxes are outperforming.”

  She exhaled like Yvonne had given her permission to. “I promise to gloat once this is all over.”

  “Yeah, then you can help me plan my proposal to Di.”

  Jolene nearly jumped out of her skin. “You’re finally doing it?”

  Yvonne’s dark lashes fluttered, and her cheeks grew red. “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and I even have a few rings that I’ve been looking at.”

  “You didn’t tell me!” Not that Jolene expected Yvonne to relay every detail of this really intimate and decidedly private part of her life, but Jolene did expect Yvonne to relay every detail of this really intimate and decidedly private part of her life.

  “We’ve been busy and besides, you’ve been really upset about—”

  Jolene silenced her friend with a sharp slash in the air with her hand. Jolene had been more grateful for work at this moment than any point in her life because not only could she maintain her livelihood, but also, she was too busy to contemplate Jason for long periods of time. There were moments that he would spring up in her mind, and it felt like a rubber band had snapped on the back of her neck. But Jolene didn’t have the time to recognize or mull over the sting, the lingering memory, and that suited her just fine.

  “Stop. You don’t need to protect my emotions. Let me relish in something good.”

  Yvonne looked hesitant for a beat before she pulled out her phone to show Jolene a series of rings, each one more beautiful than the next. Jolene could feel herself getting giddy, and she might have let out a squeal or two. All the stress from the last few weeks and months momentarily became background noise.

  “This one,” Jolene said, pointing to a stunning sterling silver ring with three dainty diamonds. “It’s so Diana. Oh my God.”

  Yvonne hugged her. “I can’t believe I’m picking out my future wife’s ring in our work restroom.”

  Jolene laughed. “Potpourri will be a memory trigger to one of the most important moments in your life.”

  “There’s a joke in there somewhere.”

  “Oh, I’m saving it for my reception speech.”

  Jolene had been running around all day, and her shapewear had become her mortal enemy. Other than that inconvenience, things had fallen into place despite having an hour less to set up.

  The music the DJ played was chill without being lethargic. The lush and earthy tones of the decorative elements, in addition to the setting summer sun, suited the message and theme Essential Essence Apothecary tried to convey. People were using the party’s social media hashtags and taking pictures in the aesthetically pleasing venue space.

  Jolene made sure to greet everyone she passed and paid special attention to the selected figures from the press, including popular bloggers.

  “People are raving about the bruschetta,” Yvonne said, coming to stand beside Jolene at the side of the room. “And I heard Carmen and Jessica talking to Bev Styles from Maven Elite and she seemed impressed.”

  Jolene smiled. “The stations were a good idea too.” Jolene nodded toward the interactive booths that had been set up to demonstrate how some of the products at Essential Essence were made.

  “We’re not even halfway through the night but I feel like we’ve done a good job,” Yvonne said.

  Jolene quickly knocked on the wood wall paneling. “No need to jinx it.” But with that being said, Jolene allowed herself to recognize the little buzz that told her she was indeed pulling off this launch party. She vowed that when the party officially ended, she would think about how its success would help her get bigger accounts to lead. But for now, she looked upon what she and her team had succeeded in creating.

  “Is that my phone or yours?” Yvonne asked.

  Jolene looked down at her phone. “Mine.” The number was unknown, but she answered it anyway. “Jolene Baxter.”

  “Hello, Jolene?” came a faint voice from the other side.

  Jolene pressed the phone more firmly to her ear and looked for a spot with less noise. “Hello, who’s speaking?”

  “Jolene. It’s Nadine Akana.”

  “Ms. Nadine?” Jolene’s heart leapt. “Is everything okay? Is it Jason?”

  “No, no. Jason is fine.”

  Jolene frowned. The woman wasn’t the type to call her out of the blue. They’d communicated infrequently, and when they did, it was usually through text.

  “I would’ve called Jason, but he’s currently flying back from a conference. And Elizabeth is visiting her husband’s family this weekend.”

  Jolene was even more confused now.

  “I’ve hurt myself. It’s just a sprained ankle but—”

  “Stay on the line, Ms. Nadine. I’m on my way.” Jolene retraced her steps to Yvonne. “I have an emergency. I need to leave. Can you take it from here—”

  “Jolene!” Jessica shouted from a few meters away.

  Jolene could tell from Jessica’s quick determined steps and the way she waved her paper plate in the air that a complaint of some kind was imminent.

  “My phone just died, and my speech is on it,” Jessica said.

  Yvonne and Jolene glanced at one another. Jolene had told both Carmen and Jessica to print off their speeches for this very reason. Nevertheless, this problem wasn’t hard to fix.

  “Go. I can handle this,” Yvonne said quietly. “Call me when you can.”

  “Where are you going? I need—” Jessica called out.

  Jolene heard Yvonne intercept, but she was already too far away to make out what was said. She cast aside the guilt she felt for leaving her event early and got into her car. She put her phone on speaker and placed it in the car’s cup holder.

  “Ms. Nadine, what happened? You should call the ambulance.”

  “It’s silly. Not an emergency. I tried to reach some books on a shelf. I usually use a little stool, but when I went to step down, I rolled my ankle.”

  Ms. Nadine continued to describe her journey of crawling toward her cell phone to call for help. Jolene’s heart rate didn’t begin to slow down until she saw the older woman. She entered the house with the spare key Ms. Nadine revealed she kept under a small figurine of a Catholic saint beside her house.

  “It’s nice to see you, love,” Ms. Nadine said from her place propped against the coffee table. “Oh God, were you at an event?” Ms. Nadine asked, taking in Jolene’s dress and pinned hair.

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  Jolene eyed Ms. Nadine’s dangerously swollen ankle and had to ignore the anxiety that whirled in her. Jolene had a distant uncle, probably older than Ms. Nadine, who had fallen on his morning walk and broken his hip. It was the beginning of the end for him.

  “You should’ve called the ambulance,” Jolene said again, then she kicked off her heels to get a better traction as she hoisted the older woman up.

  “It’s a fuss. It’s a sprained ankle for goodness’ sake.”

  They slowly made their way toward her car. Only stopping long enough for Jolene to lock the front door behind them. Jolene tempered down the need to tell the woman her injury might be worse than just a sprained ankle.

  “When does Jason’s plane arrive? I’ll call him as soon as he lands.”

  “No. Hold off until the doctor sees me. The boy will have an aneurism.” She paused. “Maybe you want him to drop dead.”

  Jolene gave Ms. Nadine a startled look, almost hitting her own head on the side of the car.

  “No, I don’t wish Jason any harm.”

  “Good. That’s good,” Ms. Nadine said. “But you’re angry with him?”

  “Why? Did he say something?”

  “No,” she responded too quickly.

  “We had an argument, but I’m not angry,” she said simply. And she meant it. She had tried to cling onto the anger and resentment she felt t
oward Jason for what he had said the last time they spoke at his apartment, but it quickly became exhausting to maintain.

  Jolene somehow got the woman seated and buckled in the back of her car with her leg propped up on the seat beside her. She turned off the loud air conditioner, wanting to be present and receptive to any sounds of discomfort that Ms. Nadine might make. Neither of them said anything for a while.

  “I really should move into a smaller place. Maybe a condo or townhouse,” Ms. Nadine said.

  “That’s understandable.”

  “Not because I’m old or I don’t like the house. It has wonderful memories, but it’s so big, and it’s just me there all the time.”

  Jolene didn’t say anything, sensing the women simply thought out loud.

  “He’s going to try and manage me,” Ms. Nadine said under her breath, but Jolene heard it and knew Ms. Nadine referred to Jason.

  “I usually just flip him off and keep it pushing.” Why had she said that?

  This was his mother and she expected to hear a harsh reply, but Ms. Nadine laughed. “That’s a good one.”

  Ms. Nadine hissed.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes. I just bumped my foot.”

  Jolene cast a look at Ms. Nadine through the rearview mirror.

  “No. No. No. I reject that look you’re giving me, Jolene. Let the doctors worry about me. Tell me why you’re dressed so nicely.”

  “A launch party for a client.”

  “I’m sorry I’m making you miss it. You can leave once you’ve dropped me off.”

  Jolene smiled, making eye contact with the woman in the mirror. “No, I’m glad you called. I’ll have to call Jason, though, as soon as he lands. I can’t leave him out of the loop, and I’ll wait with you until he arrives.

  Ms. Nadine didn’t respond right away, and Jolene looked in the mirror, expecting the older woman to be irked, but instead, she looked amused and had a glint in her eye.

  Finally, she said, “Of course, whatever you think you have to do.”

  Jason didn’t know how many traffic laws he broke by the time he arrived at the hospital Jolene had taken his mother to. He had always been prepared for the worst in his life, but overwhelming dread hit him upon hearing that his mother had injured herself to the extent that she needed medical attention. The knowledge that Jolene accompanied his mother enabled him to operate with some sort of clear-mindedness.

  “I’m here for Nadine Akana,” Jason said, practically shouting at the nurse at the front desk of the emergency room.

  Once verifying his relation, the nurse led him to a curtained-off room where his mother lay in a bed with her eyes closed. He tried not to superimpose the image of his father decades before in a similar bed in hospice.

  “Jason,” Jolene said as she appeared from nowhere.

  She hugged him, and he wasn’t sure if he hugged her back.

  There was tightness in his neck and behind his eyes. “I can’t lose her yet.”

  “Baby, you won’t. She’s fine. Just asleep”—she brushed tears from his cheeks he hadn’t known had fallen—“they gave her some medication for the pain. She told me the whole way here how it was a sprained ankle, and the doctor confirmed it. They’re keeping her here for a few hours to monitor her response to the pain medication since she’s a little older.”

  He looked at Jolene for the first time. Really registering her presence.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  She soothingly massaged his temples, and he relaxed a fraction. They stood there, her arms encircling him as they swayed back and forth. After several minutes, she quietly said, “Sit down. She’s bound to wake up soon. I’ll go get you something to drink.”

  Jolene disappeared, then, and Jason sat on the chair beside his mother’s bed and held her hand in his, running his fingers over the faint freckles and veins he found there. It had been him and his mom for so long, and he had worked really hard to secure them both, to pull them to a place where they didn’t have to worry about money or the future.

  “You worry too much,” his mother said. He didn’t know how long she’d been awake watching him.

  “No, I worry just enough.”

  She dismissed his concern with a weak wave of her hand.

  He clenched his jaw. “Mom, it’s not safe for you to be in that house alone.” He raked his hands through his hair. Maybe he should install some sort of panic alert system or perhaps his mom would be open to adopting a dog that could call for help with its paw.

  “It was an accident. It could’ve happened even if a dozen people were in the house. You can’t control everything.”

  He let out an exasperated laugh. “Yes, I know that. Life has shown that to me, time and time again, but I can mitigate risk, and having you in a house alone is clearly—”

  “Jason Akana. I might need to be more careful, yes. But you will not treat me like you’re the one who raised me. I won’t allow it.”

  Thoroughly reprimanded, Jason kissed the back of his mother’s hand.

  “Jolene was very kind to come to my rescue. She even gave me a tip to handle you when you get like this.”

  Jason frowned. “You two were discussing me?”

  “Hmm.”

  Jason would have to investigate what was said later on, but he relaxed a bit more seeing how normal his mother acted. Jolene’s reappearance with a bottle of water and what looked like a bag of M&Ms cut their conversation short.

  “Here,” she said as she handed him the snacks.

  “Thanks.”

  Then the three of them silently looked at each other, listening to the buzz of the machines, grasping for a safe topic they could all engage in.

  “Where are your shoes?” Jason finally asked.

  Jolene looked down at her feet clad in blue shoe covers. “At your mom’s house.”

  “She had to take them off to help me up from the floor.”

  The image got him breaking into a cold sweat. His mom squeezed his hand.

  “I have another pair in my car. They don’t go with the outfit, but they’ll do.”

  She wore the olive-green dress he’d seen hanging in her closet. He then remembered today was the day of her clients’ launch party, and before he could ask her about it, the curtains that separated them from the bustling hospital’s hallways opened, and a female doctor with a messy top knot and stethoscope slung around her neck entered.

  Without looking up from her chart, she said, “Hi, I’m Dr. Bayuk, you must be Mrs. Akana’s son.”

  It took Jason a little over ten seconds after the woman introduced herself and looked up to meet his gaze to place the name. By that point, she’d moved on to asking his mom how she felt.

  “Bailey,” he said out loud. The last name was the same as the elderly couple in his apartment complex, and she fit the blurry image that Mrs. Bayuk had shown him of her granddaughter on her phone.

  Bailey smiled. “Yeah, I recognized your name as well.”

  It was as if they both simultaneously remembered the date he cancelled and the zero effort he had put in to reconnecting. He’d been a little busy falling for someone who didn’t want a romantic relationship with him.

  “I should let you all have your privacy,” Jolene suddenly said.

  “No, you can stay,” his mom said.

  “I should head back to my event anyway. I need to make sure it hasn’t collapsed in my absence,” Jolene said as she crouched low near his mother’s face to hug her and whisper something in her ear.

  “Let me walk you out,” Jason said, moving past Bailey to the hallway where Jolene stood. He could be honest with himself and admit that part of him offered to make sure that a somewhat barefoot Jojo made it to her car without slicing her foot open, but he also wanted to extend his time with her.

  “I’m fine. Stay with your mom.” She looked a little gray, but could he blame her? She had just traversed the city trying to help his mother, and she missed a big chunk of her career-defining event.
r />   “Thank you again,” he said.

  She patted his chest where his sternum lay. “You’re a terrific son.”

  He found it hard to form words around the lump in his throat.

  “Take care, okay?” she said before walking away.

  He watched until he couldn’t see her anymore.

  Jolene’s entire body shook by the time she entered her vehicle. She flexed then clenched the hand that had made contact with Jason’s chest. Of course, she had expected to see him, but she hadn’t meant to, couldn’t have predicted the almost painful ache in her chest. He’d been so worried for his mother, and all she wanted to do was caress him and kiss his face.

  The time it took her to fetch his water and candy, she’d convinced herself she could stop being the coward he had accurately guessed she was and just embrace the feelings he stirred in her. She could do it, even if she still couldn’t pinpoint what those feelings were and despite how much they scared her.

  She had made the decision that she would let him know she’d spoken too soon when she said she wanted things to remain casual. On Monday, after she made sure Ms. Nadine felt better, she’d planned to call him and let him know about her change of heart.

  All her plans had flown out the window, however, the moment Dr. Bayuk had walked into the curtained-off room. She and Jason seemed to know each other, and there was a moment where they had a silent conversation. She noticed the spark of interest in Dr. Bayuk’s, or Bailey as Jason referred to her, eyes. Its presence deflated all of Jolene’s exuberance about possibly reconciling with him.

  From the quick conversation she’d had with Dr. Bayuk before Jason’s arrival, Jolene assessed the woman was bubblegum and sunshine whereas Jolene was more like those abrasive, hot, cinnamon, heart-shaped candies. Bailey’s personality complemented Jason’s mild demeanor more.

  Jolene had so thoroughly convinced herself of this woman’s worthiness, she could’ve taken the elevator up to the hospital’s gift shop and bought the happy couple a congratulatory card and a gift basket.