carnations.
“Excuse me,” Jennifer said to a pink vested female volunteer named Mary. “Do you have any more yellow carnations, aside from the six here in the cooler?”
The woman looked surprised by the request. “We had over two dozen yesterday,” she said as she walked past Jennifer. “They’re very popular.” She turned to Jennifer. “They certainly brighten up a room.”
“They do,” Jennifer agreed. “I’m just a day late.”
The volunteer studied the remaining selection of flowers. “What if you bought the carnations and a couple roses? That combination would cheer me up.”
Jennifer tried to give the outward expression of thinking about such a purchase. “My heart was set on a full dozen. Will there be a delivery in the morning?”
The volunteer returned to the counter, picked up a spiral-bound binder and leafed through the pages.
“Yes, a new shipment is coming tomorrow. Do you want me to hold twelve for you?”
Jennifer hesitated as she examined the security camera facing down from the ceiling. “If it’s no bother,” she said.
“And your name?”
“It’s Jennifer.”
The volunteer wrote the name on a pad and taped it next to the cash register. “There – in case I can’t make it in for the morning shift. Now, is there anything else, dear?”
“No, that’s it. Thank you for your help.” Jennifer prepared to exit the shop, but stopped. “This may sound like an unusual request ... Could you ask the other volunteers working earlier if they remember if the buyer was a male or female?” The volunteer was perplexed. “It’s a long story that I don’t want to bore you with – family issues, sibling rivalries – that type of thing. I just want to be sure no one from my clan bought those flowers.”
An expression of empathy flashed over the volunteer’s face. “Wasteful drama. The worst times for any family are when a parent is hospitalized or dies, or there’s a wedding.”
“That’s true,” Jennifer said with a smile. “Okay, that’s it, again. I’ll be back tomorrow morning. See you then.”
The volunteer wrote a second note to be taped below the first: Who bought a dozen yellow carnations? Important! ~ Mary.
On her way toward the front lobby escalator, Jennifer saw a middle-aged man with a take-out bag in one hand, and a helium balloon that read: Congratulations!
If he can wander around the hospital unsupervised, why can’t I? Jennifer followed the stranger to the bank of elevators, where they both entered the same car.
“Floor?” the man asked Jennifer.
She noted he’d already pushed “7” and said, “Eight, please. Thank you.”
They rode in silence until he exited, saying, “Have a good night.”
“You, too,” Jennifer replied, inching forward to hold the door open. She saw the man stroll by the nurse’s station without stopping and disappear down the far right hand corridor. She noted the wall signage indicating rooms 7101-7109 were to the left and 7110-7116 were to the right. Jennifer let go of the door, which closed in front of her. “Go left. Go left. Go left,” she repeated to herself. “Third room – 8103.”
She’d already decided there’d be no need to talk to the nurses, or anyone else for that matter. Her objective was only to get a feel for Helga’s room and the surroundings. Were there surveillance cameras installed in the hallways? Could anyone get to Helga without a nurse becoming aware of their presence?
The elevator door opened and Jennifer stepped confidently out onto the 8th floor, turning left at the nurse’s station. She noted three nurses, each busily filling out patient paperwork in green binders. None looked up as she passed 8101, then 8102 and 8103, where a housekeeper was running a mop across the floor. Jennifer didn’t see any belongings or flowers on the housekeeper’s cart. These employees don’t waste any time here.
Jennifer walked through a short corridor to the right hand hallway and back to the elevators, pushing the down wall button. Stepping into the car upon its arrival, Jennifer heard one of the nurses say that yellow carnations were her favourite flowers.
Jennifer’s immediate impulse was to investigate further, but reconsidered. Nothing useful could come from questioning staff who might not know Helga was dead yet.
Time to go home. I’m sick of this place already.
She smiled at the irony.
Back in her car, she paid another exorbitant parking fee (not wanting to bother Maryanne) and headed to her apartment.
“This dress stain isn’t going to come out on its own,” she said as she pulled into traffic.
EIGHT
In her converted loft apartment, Jennifer took off her dress and sprayed a copious amount of spot remover onto the offending area above the hemline. While it soaked she changed into a comfortable pair of jeans and casual collared top, hoping she wouldn’t be rushing out again this late in the evening. Plus, she wanted to bang out the John Doe story that Mitch had requested for the Metro section.
Twenty minutes later, she emailed the piece with the instructions: MITCH: ONLY RUN WITH THE POLICE COMPOSITE DRAWING!
While not famished, Jennifer figured she should eat something and opened her fridge that showcased take-out boxes from three different restaurants. “Thai, Italian or Greek?” she said to herself, deciding the portion of eggplant parmigiana would tie her over nicely. Reaching for the container, her mind flashed back to when she’d dated a semi-famous chef. She had offended him on numerous occasions by eating cheap restaurant leftovers before the succulent personal-sized dinners he prepared for her. “It’s force of habit. I see that food as a day closer to being thrown in the garbage and can’t do it,” she had explained. To smooth things out, as a joke she’d bought a dozen small cardboard boxes from the Chinese restaurant on her block and presented them to Oliver on their next date.
The playful idea had had a very surprising outcome.
Jennifer figured the gravy train, as tasty as it was, had left the station when Chef Loverboy started to rant about the integrity of his food and his craft, instead of smiling, kissing her and filling a box or two with his delicious food. The scene became more surreal when a tabloid newspaper quoted an unnamed source saying their budding relationship failed due to her insatiable appetite for fast food and “dirty, greasy cooks.” Following its publication Jennifer received dozens of date offers from pizza makers to short order cooks to bakers, none of which appealed to her as did the new man-boy barista at the Don’t Be Latté! coffee shop she regularly frequented. Sadly, he fell below her current off-limits age, although under the right circumstances he might be made the exception to the rule for a couple of nights.
With her food heated, Jennifer sat on her couch with the plate in one hand and the TV remote in the other. “Let’s see what I’ve been missing out on,” she said, tuning into the What’s Next? show on the National Cable Network (NCN) channel.
As the weekend came to a close, the stories were a
