Waiting for Daybreak (25 page)
When Clarissa got to the Theater Shops, she ordered a mocha— full caffeine, full fat. Kathy raised an eyebrow from behind the counter. “My, my, walking on the wild side today?”
“You only live once.” Clarissa laughed like she didn’t have a care in the world and went in search of her grandfather.
She found him upstairs. His face was paler than she could ever remember seeing it. She realized that this had been hard on him, and for just a moment, she felt a pang of guilt at the suffering she’d caused him. Well, maybe none of this would have happened if he’d have felt a little guilt about the way he’d jerked her around all her life.
He walked across the room. “Let’s go downstairs and talk.” His voice sounded husky.
“Sure.” She took a sip of the mocha and noticed it wasn’t quite as satisfying as she’d expected when she ordered it.
They walked into the pharmacy and locked the door behind them. He went to sit at the back desk and scrubbed his hands across his face.
“I take it that she didn’t take the news so well.”
“I’ve fired more than my share of people in my life, but for some reason, this one just gets to me. I’ve always prided myself on being such a good judge of character. The things that she did, it just doesn’t seem possible that she is the same person who was so conscientious at the homeless clinic, using her own money to buy grocery cards for her customers.”
Clarissa took another sip of the mocha, then set it on the counter. Definitely not satisfying.
“Well, I’m sure she’ll find another job somewhere and she will have learned from all this. She’ll be more careful from here on out.”
“No. I plan to report all this to the State Board of Pharmacy. We got her out of here, but I don’t want her doing the same kind of dangerous practices somewhere else. It’s people who do things like this who need to be kept out of pharmacies altogether. I plan to do my part to make sure she never practices pharmacy again.”
Clarissa flinched. This was not part of the bargain. Getting Paige out of the pharmacy, off the payroll, and away from Inspector Powell was one thing. Reporting her to the board was another. She couldn’t tell her grandfather that, though. Time for plan B.
“You know what, Granddad, you’re right. You’ve been saying that you want to really see me step up and take some responsibility, and that’s what I’m going to do. When the board inspector was here a few weeks ago, he left his card. I’ll call him this morning and report all this. I’m the pharmacist in charge; it should come from me anyway. You don’t think another thing about it.”
He nodded his head grimly. “Okay.”
“Promise you’ll let me handle it?”
“Frankly, I’m more than happy to let you handle this one.” He stood. “I’m going back upstairs.”
Paige has no idea just how grateful she should be right now.
“Okay. Will I see you for lunch?”
He stopped and turned. “I’m not really in much of a lunch mood. In fact, I think I’ll head back to Nashville early. I just don’t feel like being around here right now, with all that’s happened.”
You’re not the only one.
“Well okay, let me know if you change your mind.”
Clarissa looked around at the empty place, knowing that Paige wouldn’t be coming back. The regret hit her with surprising force. Still, Paige had brought this on herself. She would get another job and be fine. A few months from now, she would have forgotten any of this ever happened, and Clarissa would get her dream, as well. It would work out for all of them. This was just a bump in the road, that’s all.
Dawn came dragging in twenty minutes late, her hair a mess, her face pale. She sat down and listened to the refill line without saying a single word, then walked to the printer and pulled off the labels. “Where’s Paige?”
“She’s not working here anymore.”
“Huh?”
Clarissa drew her shoulders up tall. “My grandfather fired her this morning.”
“You’re kidding. Why?”
“There were some things going on, things you don’t need to worry about. Anyway, it’s all taken care of now.” Clarissa studied her face. “What’s up with you? You look tired. Jack have you out dancing until the wee hours of the morning?”
“Hardly.” Dawn’s voice sounded choked, like she was about to cry.
Clarissa felt sorry for her, but honestly what did Dawn expect when she chose that idiot for a boyfriend? If that’s the kind of man she chose to spend her time with, she was going to have problems, and it was no one’s fault but her own. When you made bad choices in your life, you had to pay the price. That was the truth of it.
Paige drove to her parents’ home but didn’t pull into the driveway. How could she think of going into her mother’s house, knowing that she’d just lost the means to help her fight against cancer? The next payment would come due next week, and while they might make that one, those following would be almost impossible. She needed to keep moving; she needed to talk to someone.
Of course, the pat answer would be to pray and tell it all to God. That solution rang hollow. She’d been reading and claiming His Word, and He still allowed this to happen. No, this time she needed someone who could actually tell her what to do, give her some direction. Give her the strength she needed to break this news to her parents.
Rachelle was the obvious answer, but she didn’t want to do this over the phone. It was now that she realized she didn’t have a single friend here. Not one. Except . . .
Ora.
That crotchety lady had become the dearest person in her life right now, and it took a crisis like this to make her realize it. She remembered Ora saying something about living on the corner across from the junior high. Maybe she would just drive by and see if anything looked like it might belong to Ora. She was definitely not in any shape to start ringing odd doorbells.
When she got back to the city of Shoal Creek, she took care to take side roads and avoid downtown. The last thing she wanted to do was have Clarissa see her crawling back into town.
The ancient brick building of the junior high came into view up ahead. The old place looked like it needed a bulldozer; not a single part of it appeared worth saving. Paige understood how it felt.
What would Ora say about Paige showing up on her doorstep crying about some problem like this? She’d probably have some obscure verse that wouldn’t make sense at first but would ring true after Paige spent a little time thinking about it. And Paige longed for anything to ring true for her right now.
She looked at the corner of Lafayette and Granger. On the left stood a small brick house, aluminum awning, and a front porch with wooden posts that had seen their better days. The other corner held a little yellow house covered in vinyl siding, flowers in the window box. Which one would Ora most likely live in? Paige had no idea what kind of car Ora drove, so looking in the driveway didn’t help.
She slowed to almost a stop, trying to decide which, if either, house she should try, when she saw Ora come around the corner of the brick house, dressed in dirty jeans, spade in hand. Paige whipped her car into the driveway, thankful that she’d seen her.
Ora looked up from beneath the brim of a pink visor covered in Hawaiian flowers and waved. She wore bright orange gardening gloves with a big Tennessee T on them. She set her spade on the steps to the front porch and walked over to Paige’s car. “Morning there, young ’un. Where you been?” She put her hands on her hips and sized Paige up. “You’re looking like you just found boll weevils in your last forty acres.”
“I don’t know who else to talk to.”
“Hmm. Well, it’s not over flattering to be the last choice, but since I’m the only choice I guess that makes me first, too. Come inside, let’s get a cold drink and talk about what’s bothering you.”
“Thanks.”
Ora stopped at the doormat to wipe the dirt off her clogs, then removed them before entering the house.
The wood floors were slightly uneven and creaked with every step, but they were waxed to a perfect shine. The wallpaper had probably been in style thirty years ago, but something about the place felt homey and comfortable. Inside the kitchen, green linoleum flooring contrasted with faded yellow countertops.
Ora went to the refrigerator and removed a giant pitcher. She put ice in two glasses and poured tea into both, handing one to Paige.
“Now sit down at the table here and let’s start from the beginning. What’s going on?”
“I got . . . fired today.”
“Fired?” Just the sound of the word made Paige flinch. It felt sharp and hard, like broken glass. “So that’s where you were. I went in there just a bit ago with a prescription from my doctor’s visit. I asked for you, and the redhead acted kind of funny and said you weren’t there today. I thought maybe you were just playing hooky or something. What happened?”
“So many things, I hardly know where to start.”
“Try the beginning.”
When had it all started? The first day at work really. “From the beginning, Clarissa has made it clear she didn’t want me there, I’ve never really understood why.”
“Did you ever ask her?”
“Not in so many words.”
“Kids.” Ora shook her head. “No wonder there are so many problems. No one ever talks to each other anymore. So today she just up and fired you?”
“She didn’t. It was her grandfather who hired me in the first place and he’s the one who fired me. He drove all the way from Nashville this morning just to tell me to leave.”
“Did he say why?”
“Clarissa’s been using some questionable practices at the pharmacy, some mistakes have been made, a lady filed a lawsuit.”
“You make any of the mistakes?”
“No.”
“I may be a little dense here, but I’m still not getting how that gets you fired.”
“She’s blaming it all on me. She told her grandfather everything that happened in Shoal Creek was my mistake, not hers.”
“Can’t you prove who filled the prescriptions?”
“You can look at whose computer initials are on them. Apparently, she’s learned how to change the code though, because one of the prescriptions mysteriously changed initials. It was for a date when I wasn’t even at work. When the lady first came in to report the mistake, Clarissa’s initials were in the computer, I think even Dawn saw that. There was another that was misfilled, but I think I filled it correctly, then for some reason she changed it to make me look bad.”
“Why didn’t you tell Mr. Richardson what you just told me?”
“I tried to, but he doesn’t believe me over his own granddaughter.”
“Maybe you should have Dawn call him. If she did see that first one, he’d have to take her word. Right?”
“I found a file Clarissa’s been keeping on me. It details all sorts of stuff about me—from patient complaints to one of her mistakes that I covered up for her.”
“You covered up one of her mistakes?”
“Well . . . yeah. It was when I first started working there. The lady hadn’t taken any of the pills yet, so no harm was done. ”
“Why would you have done something wrong to cover for her? Girl, you been learning anything from those verses you been carrying around?”
“What about ‘love others as yourself ’? I was going out of my way to help Clarissa. Doesn’t that count for anything?”
“Maybe you need to ‘trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding,’ hmm? I don’t see anything in there about helping God out by lying.”
“I . . .” Paige rested her forehead on her right palm. “I wasn’t trying to help God out by lying, I was just . . . just . . .”
Ora reached over and patted her arm. “You’re not the only one who’s failed when the pressure was on. Everyone’s done it—I’ve done it more times than I care to remember. But what you’ve got to do now is look back over all this and see where you do carry some blame, lay it all out there. Face up to the truth and determine that you’re going to trust Him no matter what comes.”
Paige stood up. “I don’t think I can do that anymore.” She walked out the door and to her car, started the engine, and drove toward home.
There was more truth than she cared to admit in her statement to Ora. She couldn’t trust anymore. She’d prayed and trusted, and claimed verses and trusted, and God had let her down. Over and over again. Daybreak never came.
It was midafternoon before Paige worked up the nerve to call her parents. There was no easy way to do this; might as well get it over with.
“Your mother’s not here, she’s down the hall having a meeting.”
“A meeting?”
“You know how she is. There’s a woman a couple of doors down—not nearly as sick as your mother if you ask me—and she’s always carrying on about how terrible things are. Leave it to Doris to start spending time with her, trying to cheer her up, talking about hope. Soon enough, word gets out on the hallway that she’s some sort of positive-thinking guru or something. Now she’s got three other women she meets with every night—every night that they’re able, anyway. Some sort of Bible study going on.”
“How can she do it, Dad? She’s so sick, her world seems to be falling apart, and she’s still out there trying to help other people as if her own problems don’t even matter.”
“Got me.”
“I’m actually glad she’s not there right now, because I have something to tell you.”
“Secret, huh?”
“Dad . . .” Sobs choked back any further words. Her entire body convulsed with the pain of having to tell her father this news. What would happen now? She knew they counted on her monthly rent checks to help them get by, and where would she get that money now? It wasn’t like there were tons of openings in the rural area of Shoal Creek.
“Paige, what’s going on?”
“I . . . got fired today.”
“Oh, Paige.” His voice was firm, calm. Understanding. He’d always been. “What happened?”
She started from day one and told him everything about the mistakes, and the list, and the setups. Somehow, she couldn’t bring herself to tell him that she’d lied to cover for Clarissa, and it really didn’t matter at this point, anyway. “Dad, I’m so sorry. I know I’ve let you down again. Don’t worry though, I’ll get a job fast.” Of course, they both knew better. It had been almost impossible to find a job after the Atlanta debacle. Add the Shoal Creek mess, and she would be lucky to ever work in pharmacy again. And the hospital payments weren’t just going to vanish.