“We’re not related. I brought her a book.”
“Let me check if Dot’s up for a visit.” She lifts a beige phone and punches in a couple of numbers. “Can Dot Stevens see visitors?” There’s a long pause before she says, “Okay, I’ll let her know.”
My hopes plummet because it’s obvious she’ll say no and I’ll go home empty-handed.
The receptionist hangs up the phone. “Dot can have visitors, but you won’t be able to stay very long. She’s tired.”
I nearly jump up and down with glee. “Thank you. Which way?”
She gives us directions and a few minutes later, Dot’s nurse meets us in the hallway and knocks on her door. “There’s two ladies here to see you.”
“Send them in,” comes the reply in a raspy voice.
Dot Stevens sits in a chair crocheting a rainbow-colored afghan that’s spread over her knees. If I had to guess, she’s probably in her eighties. Her skin sags, and brown liver spots speckle her hands and face. She has watery blue eyes and wears thick glasses.
When we enter, she looks up, stares at me, and says, “Who the hell are you?”
So much for the kindly old woman vibe she had going. I wouldn’t be surprised if Dot pulled out a cigar and asked if I knew her bookie so she can place a bet on a horse named Winter Fresh.
I nervously tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “My name is Collette Higginbotham, and this is my friend, Cristina. I took over your old position at land development. Well, it’s not really your old position. They made a new one, what with the magic being restored to the land and all. But I got your old office.”
“Did that son of a bitch Oscar steal any of my books?” she snarls.
Oh my goodness, I’m so glad I didn’t bring cookies. Dot would probably prefer whiskey and a blowtorch so she can break out of the nursing home.
Beside me, Cristina attempts to hold in her laughter. She shakes silently, and I get the feeling that any second now, she’ll excuse herself to go scream into another resident’s pillow.
“Well?” Dot demands when I don’t answer quickly enough about Oscar and the books. “Did he take them?”
“No. He left them, and he didn’t even dust the office before I arrived.”
“Son of a bitch.” She stops crocheting and glares at me. “Do you know I worked with that asshole for thirty years—thirty whole years—and the whole time he gave me the shit jobs, literally. If someone was putting a new shitter in a restaurant, he made me check it out. I told him over and over again, shitters weren’t on our list of projects, but he insisted. So you know what I did?”
“Checked out the shitter?” Cristina asks with the most serious face I’ve ever seen.
“I checked out the shitter,” she confirms, deadpan as all get-out.
Before this day is over, I might spontaneously combust from laughing on the inside.
“Sounds like acrapjob,” Cristina adds.
I. Want. To. Die.
“It was more than crap,” she screeches. “It was shit!”
“Dot.” Her nurse appears in the doorway, voice coated in warning. “What did we say about cussing?”
“We said I can do it every once in a while. Look, Mary, I’ve been good for a long time. You haven’t even heard one ‘fuck’ from me in, what? Two weeks?”
“Three days.”
“Huh? Do you chart it or something?”
“No. I have a memory, and you cuss more than any woman on this floor.”
“That’s because I’m with a whole bunch of damned dainty Southern belles who think they’re too high and mighty to admit they pull up their panties the same way I do. And if Hazel’s complaining, she’d better shut her mouth, because do you know what I saw her doing to old Benji in his room?”
The nurse’s face turns beet red. “That’s for you to know. Just keep the cussing to a minimum, or try not to shout so God and all the angels hear you.”
