Must Love Otters (3 page)

They’ve replaced the air fresheners in the bathrooms with these fancier models that spit into the toilet bowl every time someone flushes. Make a poopy, instant flowers. Unfortunately, one has already malfunctioned and the entire underground bunker where my section of the dispatch center is located only gets air pumped in through vents. Vents with intake just down the wall from the bathroom. Which means the entire place reeks, compounding the headache already forming behind eyes baggy and tired from two hours of ragged pillow-free sleep on a lumpy, dog-smelling couch.

Les is at his usual spot in the lunchroom, newspapers from local municipalities organized so that one doesn’t touch another but all six take up the entire surface of a singular table. I’ve tried to tell him he can use the Web to get his news, but he shut me down. Something about Big Brother and how the digital era will be the end of humanity, that the reengineered dinosaurs the government has in hiding will roam the planet again soon and then we’ll wish we had more things written down on paper or better yet, in stone like the Sumerians did with the stylus and clay tablets. “Those have lasted for six millennium. Your Internet? Ha. Dino food.”

I still haven’t made the connection between the World Wide Web and dinosaurs, but apparently, it’s there. For those of advanced intellect. So, in other words, not me.

He looks over the smudged lenses of his wire-rimmed glasses, pausing as he thumbs through the pages of his Black Book of Death.

“A little light reading, Les?” I ask.

“Postmortem this morning,” he sneers. “Expect a memo on your desk before day’s end.” A memo means retraining in some area where you suck. I’ve had three memos since I got off probation. Shit, one more memo means I have to sit with a trainer again. Next step is a dock in pay, followed by a union review, and possible termination if the memo results in a finding of negligence on the part of the dispatcher.

Why another memo today?

I stare at the poor excuse for cappuccino sputtering from the spout of the coffee machine, combing through the memory bank for recent folks who died when Operator Hollie was on the job. Probably Batman Jerry. Maybe I wasn’t urgent enough with his wife to get his cowl off. Hey, when the Big Man pulls Batman out of circulation, all the chest compressions in the world ain’t gonna do shit.

I start to tell Les about the doughnut jelly smeared into his sad excuse for a moustache. I’ll leave it. He probably will say it’s not from a doughnut but rather brain matter from the alien he ate for breakfast.

Troll Lady slams into the room.

“Who did it?
Who did it
?” she yells. She marches up and thrusts one of her troll dolls into my face—Troll Elvis, his prior black plumed coif now abbreviated and patchy.

I hold up my hands. “I didn’t work this weekend. Wasn’t me.” She squints at me, her mascara-caked eyes narrowing into two blue slits from her CloudlessSkies eyeshadow. Her name badge/keycard clipped to the pocket of her shirt inches closer as she leans her ample breasts into me. I look down, read it. No way.

Her first name isn’t Candi—it’s
Candida
. I hold in a laugh.

Isn’t Candida a yeast found in the … girlie parts?

Candi—Troll Lady—is named after a vaginal infection. How did I not know this?

This day just got a whole lot better.

“Well,
somebody
here is guilty—his hair is all over my console! This is a recent crime! Do you know how much this one doll is worth?” She waggles a chubby finger capped with a pink press-on nail at the four of us in the room. “I should call upstairs. See if I can get an ID tech down here to dust for prints.”

She turns on me. “Think if this was the stupid otter statue sitting on your console. How would
you
feel?”

Les is up from his chair. Wraps an arm around her shoulder. Turns to me. “Put your hands out.”

“What?”

“Put your hands out in front of you.”

Reluctantly, I do, not sure where this is going. Les angles closer, the neck of his button-up stained with too much aftershave, and lifts his glasses to survey my hands. “Turn them over.”

This is ridiculous. “I didn’t touch Elvis. Go sniff someone else’s butt and leave me out of it.”

I turn away to retrieve my coffee. He grunts at the back of my head. Troll Lady grabs a paper towel and wipes the schmutz off his moustache.

“We’ll get to the bottom of this, Candi,” he promises.

“Mommy just gets so attached to her widdle troll babies,” she baby-talks. I need to leave before this degrades further.

Two other dispatchers file out of the lunchroom before Les accosts them too.

This morning, I dug through Keith’s jump kit in search of the softest gauze he had to tuck in between my nipples and the fabric of my bra, but it’s already chafing. No time to whine. Lives must be saved. The Reaper waits for no man, blistered nipples or not.

The morning’s calls are routine: someone locked out of their house, three pocket dials, a kitchen fire, one possible broken arm call from an elementary school, four break-and-enters, one with the suspect hog-tied with duct tape in the victim’s kitchen. I have to convince her to not use her black-belt training on him—he’s already crying from the kick she delivered to his testicles. The usual barking dog calls. One very intoxicated girl who should probably be at school but is instead ripped by noon and is pissed that I won’t send the police to her house because she thinks her stepbrother stole the money she had hidden under the mattress even though she was going to use it to take pole-dancing classes because it would piss off her dad and he’s a lawyer who makes a “shit ton” of money and how much I suck because I’m not taking her seriously and how her parents pay my salary through their taxes and that I’m a total loser who is probably super fat and has no boyfriend and will never have sex ever again and I probably collect stuffed animals and watch lame reruns and drive a shitty car and I have no boobs and terrible hair and tons of zits and I smell like fish.

Oh, yeah. I love this job.

The worst part? Some of what she said about me is totally true. Wow. That’s super depressing.

On second coffee break, I check Facebook because I don’t know what else to do. Indeed the memo Les promised showed up while I was in the bathroom. Cowards never wait until I’m at my desk—they leave the mustard-colored warning in plain sight where everyone knows the advisory board is breathing down my neck. I was right. It was Batman Jerry. “Review of procedures and protocol required.” Goddammit.

Facebook brings more fantastic news from “friends,” i.e., people who don’t call or hang out but who would say, “OMG, Hollie, is that
you
? You look exactly the same as you did in eighth grade!” if we were to run into one another at Starbucks, which is totally insulting. Eighth grade was my “transition year,” the one my dad spent telling people I was going through that awkward phase we’re all prone to. Stellar. Being reminded that I look like a pubescent male child when in fact, I am a female, is not complimentary at all.

The red notification bubble is illuminated with announcements from friends getting married, friends graduating from law/medical/astronaut school, friends having (more) babies, one divorce party, invitations to listening parties for jazz and indie-electro music where vegan Asian fusion and craft beers will be served. I hate that stupid red circle. It is a harbinger of terribleness.

I break free of my dazed and confused stare at the computer screen, pushing aside the fact that cool people are doing cool things while I sit in a basement that smells like a flower truck full of rotting product has slammed into a nursing home.

I lick the first tear off my lip and it tastes terrible. New makeup.

I unhook my headset and move swiftly to the bathroom. The pungent slap of synthetic flowers isn’t enough to sober me, despite the fact that I can taste it and my mascara is now trickling down my face in stinging, rose-scented rivulets. I can practically
see
the molecules of air freshener. I don’t even care.

Call it PMS, which it probably is, dammit, but I am feeling very sorry for myself. I will indulge this moment because I’ve learned it’s easier to just get it out than hold back the deluge. And I have much to snivel about: an audit memo. Scorched nipples. Friends getting married. Friends having babies. Friends buying houses. Friends getting lives. Friends with mothers and friends with boyfriends who don’t make nachos on their bellies.

There is not enough chocolate in the world to make this right.

Troll Lady slams the bathroom door open and fans her face against the noxious perfumery. “Your break is—” She stops when she sees that my emotions have taken a disconcerting detour. “Hollie, are you okay, dear?”

“Yeah, yeah … I’m fine.” I suck it in and splash my face. I don’t need Troll Lady to pretend she’s goddamned Dear Abby and try to offer meaningful life insight. A quick check of my phone reveals that I still have two hours in this shift. I have to pull it together.

“Oh, hey, I’m really sorry about Elvis,” I say. “I swear to you, I didn’t see a thing. I’d tell you if I did.” I squeeze past her squishy self and can’t help but wonder what it would feel like if she gave me a hug. Like a mom. Moms hug, right?

One hour, fifty-six minutes to go. I can do this.

“911, what is your emergency?”

“Yes, hello, my husband, he isn’t feeling so well, and he sort of fell over in his chair.”

Old ladies. These calls scare me almost as much as when little kids are faced with dying or dead parents. “Ma’am, where is he now?”

“He’s on the floor. Oh, dear, he might have spit up a little. Herb, Herb, honey, can you hear me? It’s Mona …”

“Your name is Mona?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, Mona, can you tell me if Herb has any medical conditions?”

“Yes, he has diabetes. And a pacemaker.”

“Does he take insulin?”

“Yes. He was just about to take his next shot.”

“Okay, stay with me here. I’ve got an ambulance on its way.” I click the right buttons and send the info over to the medics. Answer their return chirps. “Mona, they should be there in just a few minutes. Is there a code to let them into your apartment?”

“No, dear, we’re on the ground floor. I will make sure the door is open for them. They can come through the patio.” I radio the driver and let him know.

“Mona, is Herb still breathing? Is he conscious?”

“Herb, honey,” she says. “Yes, he’s a little bit awake.”

I pull the protocol flip cards from my shelf to make sure I don’t screw this up. I don’t want this old geezer dying today. It might be the nudge that sends me over the cliff. “Can you ask him if he’s experiencing any chest pain?”

“Herby, does your chest hurt, honey?” She pauses. “No, he’s shaking his head no. Oh, he just gave me a thumbs up. Now … now he’s pointing to his leg.”

“His leg hurts?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Does your leg hurt, Herby?” A muffled voice, deeper than Mona’s, rumbles in the background. “I think he wants me to give him his shot.”

“Do you know how to give Herb his insulin?”

“Yes, yes, I do. I should do that. Should I hang up, then?”

“No, stay with me, Mona. Just put the phone aside and give Herb his insulin. Then pick up the phone again when you’re all done.”

She does this, and I hear her grunting, likely trying to get Herb’s pants down enough to find skin, cooing to her husband as she talks him through what she’s going to do for him.

“Okay, I gave him the shot. Oh, now, there’s my sweetie cakes. The color’s coming back into his face.”

“Mona, let’s keep him comfortable until the EMT guys get there, all right? He doesn’t need to get up from the floor yet.” She tells him this. Small chuckles float through the phone as he tries to tell her he wants to get up. She pooh-poohs him. Yay. Herb is going to make it.

“Mona, do you have family nearby? Anyone who can help you get to the hospital?”

“Oh yes, dear, I can call one of our sons. We have four.”

“You have four sons?”

“Yes, we sure do. Such nice boys, all of them. Joseph, Martin, Larry, and Daniel. My little sweeties, although I suppose they’re not so little now.”

“They’re my boys too,” Herb says in the background. He’s coming around.

“And we have nine grandchildren, don’t we, Herby?”

“That sounds wonderful,” I say. “How long have you and Herb been married?”

“This year will be our fifty-ninth anniversary. We met when I was a coat check girl at the dance hall, and he would come in with his boys and try to dance with all the pretty girls. I fancied his friend Bert, but he turned out to be a real cad. Drank too much gin. Herb was a real gentleman. But I wouldn’t dance with him until he bought a ticket,” she laughs.

Dance halls. Coat checks. Gin. Times have changed. Nowadays, if I want to meet a man, I have to flash my boobs on social media or have a sex tape go viral.

“My Herb, he courted me for a few months before we knew that we wanted to be together, but I knew right away—I knew Herby was the one when he spent the whole night talking to me in the stinky coatroom instead of dancing the night away with his friends.”

“That is so romantic …”

“My father would only allow him to take me out for an hour at a time, and only to the park to feed the ducks. We still walk by the duck pond, Firwood Lake, over at Laurelhurst Park. Every day. Doctor says we have to exercise, so we moved here next to the park so we could walk and keep an eye on those birds.”

Herb mumbles something in the background. “Yes, Herb knows everything about the ducks and geese. We get quite a lot of Canada geese.”

“Sounds wonderful,” I say.

“Got married right there in that park. Ducks even came to the ceremony. That was a surprise. We had such a beautiful wedding, didn’t we, Herb?”

“Expensive,” Herb adds. Mona giggles.

“That Spanish lace wasn’t cheap. And this was before girls were really out in the work world, so we had to be careful with how we spent our money.”

“How long before you had kids?” Herb sounds like he’s awake again, and I like Mona. She must be like Everyone Else’s Grandmother. I never had one of those. She is a foreign entity—I want to talk to her while we wait for the ambulance, protocol be damned.