Well Played, стр. 25
I put my purse in its drawer, and before I opened the office for the day I ducked in to see the office manager. Lindsay and I had been cheerleaders together at Willow Creek High, and while we hadn’t been besties, she was the one who’d hooked me up with this job when I’d needed one. And sure, in some ways it was weird to have an old high school classmate essentially be my boss. But she was also a friend, and I knew I could count on her on a day like this.
As usual, she was the first one here, so I wasn’t surprised to see her already behind her computer, frowning at something on her screen.
“Hey.” I kept my voice low so she wouldn’t jump out of her chair, and I flashed her a weak smile when she looked up. “Real quick, I need to keep my phone out today.” I took it out of my pocket and waved it in illustration. “My mom’s . . . uh, she’s . . .” To my surprise, I couldn’t say it out loud. I could text that she was in the hospital, but saying the words out loud made it more real.
As it turned out, I didn’t need to say anything. “Oh, God, yes, of course.” Her brow furrowed in concern. “Is she . . . Is she gonna be okay?” There was that good thing about small towns. I didn’t have to explain. Everyone just knew.
She’d already risen to her feet with her Concerned Face on, which just made me revert back to my usual smile. The one that said Nothing’s wrong! Everything’s great! Nothing to see here! “Oh, she’s going to be fine,” I said in the sunniest voice I could manage. “I’m just waiting for Dad to call, and he gets worried if he can’t get hold of me right away, you know?”
Lindsay nodded slowly and sat back down. “Well, don’t worry about it. If Dr. Cochran says anything, I’ll take care of it. And when your dad calls, if you need some privacy, feel free to come in here. I think I’m the only one with a door that shuts.”
And that way she’d be the first to know what was going on. But that was the trade-off, wasn’t it?
I went to unlock the front door, fully expecting to spend the morning on pins and needles while I waited for a call from my dad. I knew it would be a while before I heard from him—hospitals were notoriously slow—but that was a good thing, right? If there was something seriously wrong with Mom, they’d move a lot faster, and Dad would have called by now. It was all well and good that Mom didn’t want me to worry, but we were past that now.
My phone first buzzed about fifteen minutes after we opened for the day. My heart leapt into my throat at the vibration against my hip, but it only buzzed once, so it was a text, not a phone call. If Dad was barely a phone call guy, he definitely wasn’t a texting guy. When the lobby was quiet I slipped my phone out of my pocket to see a picture of a Starbucks drink, something iced and so pale I wondered if there had ever been any coffee in there at all. It’s not pumpkin spice, the accompanying text said, but I told you I take a lot of cream.
The picture and its caption made me smile. You’re not kidding, I texted back. Did you just get a cup of milk with some ice in it? His response was a shrug emoji, and when nothing else was forthcoming, I put my phone away, turning my attention back to the mother and daughter who had come in for a yearly checkup.
My phone buzzed again about twenty minutes later. Another text. Another picture, this time of a pony dressed up as a unicorn. Meant to send you this over the weekend! I met this unicorn at the faire we’re currently working. He says he wants to come to Willow Creek soon.
I sucked in an excited breath, because while on the outside I was twenty-seven and mature as hell, on the inside I was still a nine-year-old who squealed at the sight of a unicorn. Simon would love that, I responded. Send me that unicorn’s digits and I’ll put him in touch with someone who can make that happen!
It’ll probably be people you’ll be dealing with, not the unicorn. Unicorns don’t have thumbs and have a hard time operating a smartphone.
Well, have his people contact my people, then. I grinned as I hit Send and put my phone away again.
The rest of the morning went like that—a text a couple times an hour from Dex, with a random thought or a meme he pulled off the internet. It hit me, after the fourth or fifth innocuous text, that not once did he ask if I’d heard from my dad or how my mom was doing. He was distracting me, just as he’d promised. He was also making me accustomed to the feel of my phone vibrating in my pocket, so by the time my dad finally called, a little before lunchtime, I didn’t jump out of my skin the way I would have if my phone had been silent all morning.
“She’s fine,” he said without preamble. “Indigestion, can you believe it?”
“Are you kidding?” Lindsay had already left for lunch, so I ducked into her office and left the door cracked so I could still keep an eye on the lobby. I’d already switched the phones over to the answering