Chapter 3
The hallway outside the suite was cooler than the bedroom and smelled like floor polish. I stepped out and pulled the door until it caught, not closed, just enough to hear if the bed creaked. My phone had been buzzing against my hip through the whole last entry.
I didn't check it in front of the guard. That was a rule I'd made for myself after the first day.
I leaned against the white trim and finally looked. Three missed calls. Grandma. Then a text: Mija need 200 for light bill call me. The timestamp said 2:17. Then another at 2:28: ??
I called back before I could talk myself out of it.
She picked up on the first ring like she'd been holding the phone. "There you are," she said. Her voice was thin and fast. "Another one. My grandmother never knows when to quit," I didn't say. I thought it. I breathed instead.
"Hi, Grandma," I said.
"You at work? You sound at work."
"I am. I'm on break for two minutes."
"Good, good. So you can send it. Just two hundred. They said they'll shut it off tomorrow. I told them my granddaughter is a nurse, she helps."
I closed my eyes. The hallway light hummed. Downstairs a door shut. "I sent two hundred last week for the same bill," I said, quiet.
"That was for the other bill. This is new one. You know how they are."
It wasn't a new one. It was the same one and we both knew it, but she said it smooth, like she'd practiced. I pressed my thumb into the edge of the phone case. My rent was due on the first. Twelve hundred, and I was still eighty short even with this shift. The agency took its fee out before I ever saw the deposit, forty dollars a day for the placement, plus the background check they'd split into three payments. I did the math without meaning to. If I sent two hundred now, I'd be short two-eighty. I'd have to pick up another overnight.
"I can't today," I said. My voice did that small pause thing it does when I'm trying not to sound mad. "I get paid Friday. I can try Friday."
She sighed, and I could hear her TV in the background, loud. "You always say Friday. Your cousin sends when his mom asks."
"I need the money," I said, and I hated that it came out exactly like I'd said it to myself that morning in the bathroom mirror. "That doesn't make me bad at my job, Grandma, but I can't send what I don't have."
Silence on her end. Then, softer, "I didn't say you were bad. I'm just cold at night when they turn it off."
"I know," I said. "I'll call Friday. I promise I'll call."
She hung up first. She always did when I said no, not angry, just gone. The call ended at 2:34. I stood there a second longer with the phone hot in my hand, listening to the air conditioner kick on.
The rent envelope was on my kitchen counter at home with the agency invoice paper-clipped to it. I could see it clearly, the blue pen I'd used to write RENT - DO NOT TOUCH and then touched anyway. That's why I'd taken this private suite job when the agency offered it. Twelve hours, double rate because the family wanted discretion. No charting system, just a notebook. No manager walking past. Just a man in sunglasses by the window and a bottle I wasn't supposed to question.
I slipped the phone into my bag and pushed the suite door open.
The guard hadn't moved, except now he was checking his watch. He didn't look at me, just noted me with a flick of his eyes. The patient was still under the dark blanket, chest rising slow. The cat wasn't on the nightstand anymore. The glass of water was still there, and the notebook was exactly where I'd left it, pen clipped to the page with the false entry drying.
"2:42," the guard said. His voice was flat. "You were out eight minutes."
I nodded. "Bathroom and a call."
He clasped his hands again. "Log your break."
It wasn't a request. I went to the nightstand and opened the notebook to the next line, wrote 2:34-2:42 break - hallway in my normal handwriting. My hand was steady this time. The small amber bottle was still in my pocket from earlier, the white cap pressing against my thigh through the uniform. I'd told myself I'd put it back on the nightstand when I had a moment alone, but there was no moment alone. Not with him there.
I didn't put it back. I zipped open the brown crossbody bag where it hung on the chair and slipped the bottle inside, down under the spare gloves and the folded time sheet, where it wouldn't clink. My fingers lingered a second on the zipper.
The guard watched the zipper, then my face. He didn't ask what it was. He just said, "We keep schedule here. Family likes schedule."
"We do," I said.
May you like
I sat in the white chair with the dark wood frame and let my bag rest against my ankle. I could feel the small hard shape inside it. I needed this job to make Friday possible. I would tolerate the watch, the notes, the quiet. I wouldn't quit over a bottle in my bag and a lie in the book, not today.
Through the window the daylight stayed bright and even, and the painting in the gold frame kept its same calm landscape like nothing had changed.
