Making It Count, page 14
“What? No. What?”
“Oh. Is it Eliza? I thought you broke up.”
“No, it’s not Eliza. We did break up.”
“Then, who is it?” her dad followed up.
“How did you hear me talking to someone exactly, Mom?”
“I went downstairs to bring you your laundry, and I heard you practically giggling on the phone, so I turned my butt around and went back upstairs. I was trying to protect your privacy, but I heard a girl’s voice, Shay.”
“Don’t make a big deal out of this, okay?”
“What is there to make a big deal about?”
“It’s someone from the team, Mom.”
“Oh, well. Okay, I guess. It sounded like you were talking about more than basketball.”
“We were. She’s… a friend. She graduated.”
“Was this that Martin?” her dad asked.
Shay was surprised he even remembered Martin’s name and said, “No, it’s Layne.”
“I don’t think I’ve heard you mention someone named Layne,” he replied. “Was she new to the team this year?”
“No, she got there at the same time I did. We just started getting close right before all of this started happening. She really killed it for us in the conference tournament. I wish you could’ve seen us play together. It was like she just knew where I was going to be even when we weren’t in a play, and she’d get me the ball and–”
“You like her,” her mom stated.
“I do,” she admitted.
“As more than a friend?”
“Yes.”
“Does she like you?”
“I think so.”
“So, you’re not together?”
“No, Mom. We’re just dealing with the situation right now. She’s at home with her mom, and I’m here with you, guys. She’ll be moving to Chicago once her job tells her the remote stuff is over. I’ll go back to Dunbar. It’s not like anything can really happen.”
“She makes you giggle, Shay. You don’t giggle.” Her mom shook her head. “That says something to me.”
“I giggle.”
“Not like that. You laugh, yes, but I’ve never heard you laugh like that. And I happen to like the idea of you laughing like that.”
“You know she’s a girl, right? You didn’t miss that part?”
“No, I didn’t. Shay, we don’t care. You came out, and it took us a while to figure out how to handle everything, yes, and the timing wasn’t great because you were going off to school, and your dad got the job that takes us away from here for half the year, but we… just want you to be happy. God, life is too short. If there’s one thing this horrible sickness has taught us, it’s that, isn’t it? I don’t want to lose any of my kids to this or anything else, so if this Layne makes you laugh like that, and you like each other, I vote you two figure it out.”
“You don’t really get a vote, Mom.” Shay laughed.
“I know. But I should. So should your father.”
“This isn’t the eighteen hundreds.” Shay laughed again.
“Are you done eating, or do you need to shuttle the peel from your baked potato into your mouth, too, before you guzzle the rest of your iced tea?”
“I’m done.” Shay rolled her eyes.
“Then, go. Your father will do the dishes tonight.”
“Thanks, Mom,” she said, not needing to be told twice, and rushed out of the kitchen.
“Me thinks our little girl is in love,” her mom said to her dad.
“Mom!” Shay yelled but didn’t stop heading to the stairs.
She did stop jogging, though, and walked the rest of the way. When she got downstairs, she checked her hair in the bathroom mirror and changed her T-shirt to a Dunbar tank top because she thought it looked better on her than what she’d tossed on after her shower. Then, she climbed onto her bed and waited. Seconds later, Layne’s face came through on her screen, and she accepted the FaceTime call.
“Hey,” she greeted with a smile that then fell. “What’s wrong?”
“I haven’t told you because it’s been fine, but…”
“Layne, what’s going on?” Shay shifted to lie on her side and stared at her phone.
Layne looked exhausted, and Shay’s heart raced.
“I’m okay.”
“Are you?”
“I tested negative last week, and I went again today. I’m okay.”
“You took a test last week? Layne, why? You’ve been staying at home, right? Not going out? Were you exposed? What the hell is going on? We talk every night.”
“I didn’t tell you because it was negative. The only reason I’m telling you right now is because my mom is positive, and I’ve been taking care of her for a little over a week, which is why I went to get tested the first time and again today. So far, so good. And we’re doing our best to stay away from each other, but–”
“Come here,” Shay interrupted. “We have plenty of room here.”
Layne tilted her head.
“Wait. Sorry. You wouldn’t leave her while she’s sick. Don’t mind me.”
Layne smiled a tired smile at her and said, “Thank you for the offer, but yeah, I can’t leave her.”
“How is she?”
“The coughing’s gotten worse today. She’s sleeping some, not eating much, though, and the fever is high, so I need to run her to a doctor in the morning. I made the appointment, and thankfully, we were able to get in. I thought that would be better than the hospital, but… I don’t know. I don’t know how to deal with all of this, Shay. Do I just take her to the ER now? Would that make her sicker because there are a bunch of sick people there already? I think she’ll be okay for the night. She says she will. But if something happens, and–”
“Hey. Babe, it’s okay,” Shay interrupted. “She’s going to be okay.”
“You don’t know that,” Layne replied with tears welling in her eyes.
“Not for sure, but I know you. I know you’re doing a great job taking care of her and that you’re both probably doing your best.”
“I guess. I just… I can’t lose her, too, Shay. I’ve lost one parent already.”
“God, I want to hold you right now. I want to be there, holding you and telling you everything is going to be all right.”
“I don’t want you to get this too.”
“I don’t want you to get it either, Layne. I can’t get to you.”
“I know,” Layne said. “But I wouldn’t let you come here even if I lived down the street.”
“You’ve got to let someone take care of you eventually.”
Layne looked behind her and said, “I need to go. I have to bring her something, but I didn’t want you to think I’d forgotten to call or that something was wrong.”
“Something is wrong, Layne.”
“I’ll be okay. I just might not be able to talk all the time like we have been. I need to make her my focus.”
“I understand. Just… Can you check in with me so I know that you’re okay whenever you can?”
“Okay. I will. I have to go. Bye, uh… babe, I guess.”
Shay’s eyes widened just as Layne smiled and hung up.
“So, she had heard that?”
CHAPTER 18
This internship wasn’t what she thought it would be, but it also wasn’t the exact circumstance that she’d expected, either. Layne was supposed to be taking a train into the city, stopping for coffee on the way from the train stop to the office, listening to music on her headphones as she did so, using a badge to scan in, and maybe saying hi to the security guard in the lobby. Then, she was supposed to take the packed elevator up, with some people staring down at their phones and others talking on them, inevitably dropping the call and ending up staring at the elevator door impatiently, waiting for it to open so they could call that person back. She was supposed to sit down at her cubicle, crack open her computer, check her email, do her tasks, have a cheap sack lunch in the breakroom with other people in her program while they gossiped a little about the people who worked there, and then, she’d do more work and take the jam-packed train home.
That was what she’d seen in all the movies, anyway. So far, she’d only checked emails and done her tasks, which, she supposed, meant that she had to also crack open her computer, but it had been three weeks of work so far, and Layne wasn’t loving it how she expected. She wasn’t naïve. She knew she was an intern and mainly there to do the grunt work and learn, but because the program had been built to be in-person, it wasn’t the same now that they were all working remotely. She didn’t get too many emails, but the messages from the program director and the few people in the department she’d been assigned to support started rolling in immediately upon the clock striking eight in the morning.
Most of the tasks were simple, but there were a lot of them, keeping her very busy from eight to five. She had a lunch break, but Layne didn’t really see it as a break. She’d been taking care of her mom every free minute of every day. They’d developed a bit of a routine, with Layne starting her morning in the bathroom and knocking on her mom’s bedroom door to see if her mom was awake after. If she was, Layne would tell her that the bathroom was hers. Her mom would take her turn. Layne would put on a mask and gloves. When her mom knocked on her own door, it meant that Layne was good to wipe down the bathroom, which she would do, and then prepare breakfast for them both, leave a plate by her mom’s door, knock, and walk off to eat her own food.
That had worked for the first week or so before her mom had gotten worse. The doctor didn’t have much he could offer, but he gave her mom a few things for them to take home with them. They didn’t seem to be working because her mom got worse still, so Layne had to go into that bedroom, open the window, take care of her mother’s needs, and shower afterward whenever she could, or, at least, wash as much of her body as possible and change her clothes. Her mother was insistent that Layne not get sick, and Layne didn’t want it, either, but she knew her mom needed more help. It wasn’t like they could afford an in-home nurse or that one would even be available. They were all busy working non-stop, trying to help everyone they could.
With her mom being unable to work, they also could barely afford enough masks and toilet paper in the apartment. Layne hadn’t told her mother, but she’d used some of the money from her graduation present to buy the things they needed to get her mom well and to keep herself from getting sick. She also hadn’t told Shay that she’d used her gift card to buy PPE supplies, which was a term she’d never known about before but was now everywhere. She knew Shay would give her a pass because this was about her mother’s life, but it had hurt Layne a little to give up this gift that Shay had given her to that cause. Then, she’d felt guilty that she’d thought that at all.
It was supposed to be something for her, though, and not something to protect her from a virus. Layne was going to go through the site and pick out little things for her new apartment. It wasn’t a massive amount of money, but it would’ve been enough for her to buy some pots and pans, some cheap plates, and some things for the bathroom that she’d never needed because she’d always lived in a dorm or at home with her mom. Now, those things just sat in the cart, and she wouldn’t be able to afford them for a while.
Her first paycheck from her internship had come in, but that wasn’t enough money to outfit an apartment she might not even get to live in anymore. While the internship was a full year long, the way things were going outside, she might never get to make it to Chicago before the program wrapped up and she’d be told if she’d earned herself a job there or not.
Thankfully, her mom was starting to show signs of improvement. It was a slow progression that Layne had noticed. One day, the woman seemed to be a little less tired. The next, her coughing wasn’t as bad. Following that, her fever started going down, and she’d been able to sit at the table and have a meal. It was solo since Layne was eating in her bedroom, but they’d put their phones on FaceTime so that they could pretend like they were in the same room. Her mom’s bedroom would require the deepest of cleans when she was finally out of the woods, and her mom was now begging to go back to work, which Layne thought was too soon.
“You need two negative tests; that’s what your boss said. And you’re not going to clean people’s houses, so it’s just the gas station when you’re able to stand for more than ten minutes at a time, Mom,” Layne had said.
“I have a chair there at the counter. I’ll be fine. It’s not grueling work, Layne. I sit there. People buy things. I ring them up. I sometimes stock the shelves, but that’s about it.”
“We’ll see once you have those negative tests,” Layne had replied.
“When did you turn into the parent in this house?”
“When you got sick,” she had stated.
Layne was running on empty. She had so much going on at home and with this new job that she felt lucky to have but was also draining the life out of her at the same time. Her tasks were dull and boring, and she failed to see how she would learn the business by organizing files into folders by client or business entity name. Anyone could do that. Yes, Layne took notes in meetings where she heard things that were good to know, but she didn’t have time to process them because she was typing feverishly to keep up with everything being discussed. Then, she had to send the notes to the meeting participants, and it was time for the next one.
She was burning the candle at both ends, and she knew it. She also missed Shay. She’d checked in via text messages here and there, but she missed Shay’s voice and her face. They’d talked on the phone or FaceTime daily for weeks, which had turned into months, and now, all she could offer was a single text every few days telling Shay that she was tired but okay.
Shay: I’m here to talk if you need me.
Layne wouldn’t respond usually because she’d need to do something for work or for her mother. She’d never done so much laundry, so many dishes, wiped down so many counters, and she seemingly had to do all of that several times a day, every day. She couldn’t wait until her mom felt better. Once the virus was out of her system and she was able to help out a little around the house, Layne knew she wouldn’t be as tired, but she didn’t really care about her mom helping. She just needed her mom well so that she didn’t have to spend hours a day, it felt like, trying to disinfect anywhere her mother had been or touched.
She made her mom a plate for breakfast as usual, not making anything for herself since she wasn’t hungry, and dropped the plate at her mom’s door.
“Breakfast, Mom!” she yelled through it.
“Thank you,” her mom said.
Layne walked into her bedroom and closed the door, opening her computer and preparing to get to work. She heard her mom’s door open and close shortly after and breathed a sigh of relief. Her mom had been having difficulty walking at the height of the virus, but now, she was able to get up and bend down to pick up her plate. Layne checked her email and saw a meeting request from her boss right at eight in the morning. She checked the date and realized that the meeting was for that day and that it was seven-fifty-eight. She accepted the request and yawned.
She hadn’t slept well the previous night. She hadn’t slept well in weeks, if she really thought about it. Her mom’s coughing had kept her up most of the night for several nights in a row. Sometimes, it got so bad, Layne had had to get out of bed, put on her mask and gloves, and check on her. Then, she’d take off everything, put it in the washer or trash, and change into something else to go back to bed. She knew this couldn’t go on for much longer. Eventually, her body would just be too exhausted to keep up and she’d crash, but she was determined to make it until her mom was completely well.
“Morning, Layne. Sorry for the last-minute request,” the program director said.
“No problem.”
“So, I have some bad news,” the woman said.
“Oh,” Layne replied.
She hadn’t done anything wrong that she knew of. All of her tasks and assignments had been done on time or early, even though she’d barely been able to keep up with everything. Layne was certain nothing had fallen through the cracks, so she couldn’t be getting fired right now.
“Please keep this to yourself for now. I’m speaking with all of the interns today. You’re up first, but I want the rest of them to hear it directly from me.”
“Okay,” she replied, her heart pounding in her chest.
“We’re going to temporarily suspend the internship program, unfortunately. This program was built to be a comprehensive look into the business because the more you know before you really work here, the better it is for us. We view this program – which is one of the best in the country, if I do say so myself – as a way for you to get much-needed experience, a little competition – which is a good thing, in my opinion – and, hopefully, end up with an entry-level job with us in the end, after we’ve trained you well. We were not as prepared as we should have been to take it remote, though. There are in-person training sessions we put you all through that just aren’t built to transfer to a remote environment, and we didn’t have time to make a change before the summer began. We plan to spend some time on that now, but I’m sure you’ve noticed that the tasks we’ve assigned you to work on aren’t exactly what you were told you’d be doing when you applied.”
“Yeah,” Layne replied, trying to hold in her emotions because she felt like she might cry.
“I wish I could say it’s going to get better soon, but we’ve had to move our entire company into everyone’s houses, and it’s been a difficult adjustment for all of us. On top of that, sports kind of stopped for a while and are only just resuming again. We’re not laying anyone off, but we did decide to cut some things to help us make it through this, and unfortunately, this program is one of those things. Now, I know this is bad news, but I also have some good news to go with it. We do this program annually, beginning in the summer, so next summer, we’re extending you an invitation to rejoin us. Hopefully, in the office, but if not, we’ll be ready to have the program be fully remote by then.”
