A few minutes later she slinks back into her spot behind the desk. She’s probably going to be fired for leaving during her shift—her boss watches the security camera footage like it’s Monday Night Football, and will surely notice her absence. Now that she’s less panicked, she feels pretty stupid for leaving, but she’s not a time traveler so there’s nothing she can really do about it. She shivers as she shakes the rain off her hair, breathes a few times into her hands to warm them up, and then jiggles the mouse to wake up her computer.
She goes through her minimal tasks purely by rote—printing out visitor badges for the day, staring at the events calendar, confirming the time the carpet guys will show up to the fifth floor. The early birds start trickling in around six, the pace slowly picking up over the next hour like usual, althoughthe big rush of people won’t hit until after her shift ends at seven. The building houses over thirty different businesses, mostly law and financial firms, which all demand twenty-four-hour access and never use it. Except for Nolan Altman, of course, who shows up between midnight and one in the morning at least once a week.
He’s been the only bright spot in her long, lonely nights for the two years she’s had this job. Beautiful and serious, with sharp features, pale skin, and jet-black hair, always well dressed, striding into the lobby like it’s not the middle of the night. He usually gives her a quick smile, and Alice isn’t counting or anything but he’s saidhifour times,heythree times, andhow’s it goingtwice. So. A love story for the ages, she’s pretty sure.
She really hopes he lives.
By six-thirty there are always a few people around, but today there seems to be some sort of commotion outside the main doors. Alice squints at it and watches as a group of people bustle in, all of them out of place. It looks like a family, a cluster of people in their sixties and a kid in her late teens, maybe? They’re all haphazardly dressed, like they threw on whatever was closest, some with more success than others. The youngest looks almost normal in an Oregon State hoodie and sweats except for two different shoes, but one of the older women seems to be wearing a large men’s trench coat over a frilly pink nightgown. They’re all wet from the rain that’s steadily picked up in the last hour, absently brushing the droplets off whatever they’re wearing like true Oregonians.
They’re all talking at once, pointing around, and Alice is about to call them over to help when she sees her boss stalking toward her.
Oh shit.Alice gulps. Goodbye, boring job. Goodbye, tinybut steady income. Goodbye, paying rent. It was nice knowing you. “Rue!” he bellows, stomping across the incredibly shiny floor. Goodbye, freshly waxed faux marble. “What the hell were you thinking?”
Alice nervously tucks a piece of hair back behind her ear. Goodbye, enough money for semi-regular haircuts from those hairstylists in training. “Mr. Brown, I—”
“You left the building unattended!”
“There was an emergency,” Alice says weakly. She’s not sure why she’s even trying. Brown is a fucking asshole and always has been. He won’t give a shit about how she low-key might have saved someone’s life. All he cares about, as he has said repeatedly, isher ass in her chair all night.He even tried to tell her not to go to the bathroom when she first started working here, which, like, on a ten-hour shift? Yeah, no.
“A tenant, Nolan Altman, he collapsed, and I had to give him CPR,” she says, and out of the corner of her eye she sees the lost family all snap to attention and start to rush over to them.
“I don’t give a shit—” Brown starts to say, but the woman in the trench coat and nightgown interrupts him with a loud cry.
“Oh my god, it’s you!” She reaches over the desk and grabs Alice’s face in her hands, which is so startling that Alice forgets to recoil, allowing the woman to get a freakishly strong grip on her cheeks. “You saved my baby boy!”
Oh god. Ohgod.
“Oh,” Alice says, managing to slide her head back and out of this woman’s hands. “No, I just—”
“They told us at the hospital that you saved his life,” the woman sobs, grasping at Alice’s hands now, giving them a superhuman squeeze.
“It’s so romantic,” the college student gushes. “Saved byyour girlfriend.”
Okay, honestly, what the fuck? Alice chokes. “Girl—what?”
“Oh, don’t worry, sweetie, the cat’s out of the bag!” the nightgown woman says, patting her firmly. “No need to keep it a secret anymore—the EMT told us that his girlfriend saved him, and that’s you!”
What the actual hell is going on? Alice had always assumed that theGrey’s Anatomyrumor mill was exaggerated for TV, but maybe it’s all true? Fucking Corey J. the EMT!
“No,” she says firmly, needing to nip this in the bud. “No, there’s been a misunderstanding.”
The nightgown woman, who Alice figures must be Nolan’s mom, has somehow come around behind the desk and Alice finds herself enveloped in an enormous mom hug. The woman is round and soft, and the feeling of being pulled into her makes something bereft and primal rise up inside Alice’s chest, an echo of a cry she’d learned to ignore years ago. The words catch in her throat, just for a second.
“You should be proud of your employee,” the other older woman says to Brown, looking at him a bit shrewdly. “She single-handedly saved the life of one of your most successful, um…” She stops for a second, clearly searching for the right word. “Clients?”
“Tenants,” Alice hisses at her, and the woman takes the suggestion much too loudly.
“Tenants,who happens to be her boyfriend, and my nephew.”
“Oh,” Brown says, awkwardly shuffling his feet. Alice can tell that he’s not quite sure how to go about firing her in front of this family, especially now that one of the men is vigorously shaking his hand and the mom is sobbing all over Alice’s favorite shirt, babbling about how Alice is a hero. “Err, right,” Brown finally says, backing away from the desk. “Uh, goodwork, I guess.”
“I—thank you?” Alice gingerly pats Nolan’s mom on the back. She’s torn between needing to clear up this whole girlfriend thing immediately and wanting to wait until Brown’s out of earshot. The family angle is definitely the only thing keeping her employed right now, and she’s not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
“Come back to the hospital with us,” Nolan’s mom says, tugging at her. “He’ll want to see you when he wakes up.”
“Oh no. No, no, no,” Alice says quickly. He certainly will not want to see her when he wakes up. He doesn’t know her name, and probably couldn’t pick her out of a lineup. She’s pretty sure he doesn’t spend all week breathlessly waiting to catch sight of her. She can’t imagine how weird it would be to wake up after an aneurysm or whatever this was and see the loving faces of your entire family plus someone you can barely place.
Also it’s a hospital. Alice doesn’t do hospitals, not anymore.
