When tomorrow comes, p.12
When Tomorrow Comes, page 12
“He’s been working at the vet school cleaning, feeding, exercising animals, and anything else they need him to do. He is also very strong, as you can tell by his size, so they would call him in to the clinic if they needed someone to hold the large dogs to doctor them. He especially loves pit bulls and has a sixth sense when it comes to knowing if they’re friendly, scared, or dangerous.”
They all turned to see him sitting on the ground and letting Buster lick his face while John stood nearby.
“Here’s the thing. He lives in a group home near the vet school and walks to work. But the school is renovating their clinic and kennels. They’ll operate in a smaller, rented building for the next year but will greatly decrease their client numbers so the students can manage the reduced workload. Short story is they laid him off. He’s been working there almost ten years and is devastated.”
“Poor Tommy.” Baye’s heart hurt for him. “Does he have family who’ll take him in?”
Bruce shook his head. “His parents had him very late in life and have passed away. The vet school was his whole existence. He doesn’t like the group home because they have fights there and the other men sometimes bully him. Even with his size and strength, he’ll crumple into a ball and cry before he’ll hit anyone. He’s still living there because he’s not capable of being on his own. He doesn’t know how to cook or wash clothes and has to be told to shower. I was going to take him to a barber and get him cleaned up before I brought him over here, but I was afraid you’d give the job to someone else if I took time to do that.”
John joined them. “Tommy says Buster wants to play with the puppies and won’t hurt them.” He turned to Bruce. “If Buster does go after one of the puppies, or if a dog fight broke out between two of the big dogs, would he be able to step in and break it up, or would he panic?”
“Like I said, he’s very strong and has been taught how to break up a dog fight. He’s shy with people but very commanding with the animals…like they’re his children.” Bruce turned and shouted at Tommy. “Go ahead. Buster’s leash is hanging on the gate.”
John nodded and looked to Baye and Teague. “I like him. My wife and I had a son with Down syndrome. He was twenty-eight when he was killed in the same car wreck that took my Martha. How about we hire Tommy on a trial basis? I’ve got two bedrooms in my cottage. He can stay with me.” He pointed to the small house on the edge of the woods behind the kennels. “I’m not getting any younger, and he could help me.”
“Are you sure, John?” Baye asked. “Taking him into your home is asking a lot.”
John nodded. “I’ve been lonely for years without Martha and Kenny. My daughter lives five hours away, and I don’t want to live with her family. They are too busy, and I’d feel useless there. This farm has been my home for most of my adult life, and I’d welcome the company.”
“Baye is only looking for part-time help,” Teague pointed out. She squinted, rubbed her temples, and moved so the sun was at her back.
“We could maybe pay him less than we were going to offer, since he’ll be getting room and board,” Baye said, warming to the idea. “John can manage his money for him and keep some to pay for his groceries.”
Bruce cleared his throat. “Uh, this only came up today when they told us about the vet-school renovations. They’re farming out the senior students—those of us who’ve reached the clinical part of our training—to other vet schools or big clinics. I’m being sent to Raleigh in August to finish my education at the North Carolina State vet school.” He looked to Teague. “I think Tommy could handle your place and this one when I’m gone.”
Baye was unsure how Teague would respond, given her ridiculous notion that she was going to die before her next birthday, and was surprised when Teague nodded.
“The animals and I will miss you. You have been a good worker,” Teague told Bruce. “I trust your recommendation since you have worked with Tommy at the university.”
“Look!” Tommy called to them. “Look at Buster.” The big dog was lying in the middle of the wading pool while the puppies crawled all over him. One puppy was trying to catch Buster’s tail as it wagged and splashed in the water. The big dog licked each one’s head in turn.
Bruce laughed. “You might have found a good puppysitter.”
“Looks that way,” John said, chuckling at the dogs’ antics. “I think that old dog might have been lonely, too.”
“Tommy is definitely hired,” Baye said, laughing along with John and Bruce. She instantly liked the big man-child and could see that John did, too.
“On a thirty-day trial,” Teague reminded her, rubbing her forehead.
“Okay,” Baye said. “But I’m betting he’s a perfect fit for Heavy Petting.”
“I will leave it to you and John to work out when he can come over for you to teach him how to care for my animals,” Teague said to Bruce. “You should start by putting a gate in the fence on this side of the pasture so he can walk back and forth.”
Baye’s heart swelled at this immediate kindness from her outwardly stoic girlfriend, and she applauded the decision. Wait. Girlfriend? Her heart did a happy dance. Yes. She just hoped Teague felt the same way.
They left John and Bruce to show Tommy the ropes and take him to Libby so she could fill out the employment paperwork.
“Are you okay?” Baye kept her voice soft. “You keep rubbing your forehead.”
Teague closed her eyes and squeezed the bridge of her nose. “I wanted to go over some of the adoption contracts I have completed, but I woke up with a headache that is getting worse. I think I should go home and lie down.”
Baye’s heart skipped a beat. Had Teague been right about the family curse? “Maybe we should go see your doctor.” She took off her sunglasses and placed them on Teague’s face.
Teague heaved a sigh. “Thank you.” She shook her head carefully. “No doctor. This is a sinus headache because a storm is expected later today.”
“Then let me go home with you. If it gets worse, you’ll need someone to drive you to a doctor or the emergency room.” She gripped Teague’s hand when she started to protest. “You need a cup of hot tea, then to lie down in a dark room. Do you have something to take for your sinuses?”
Teague gave another cautious shake of her head.
She was careful to speak softly. “We have some Tylenol sinus pills because Libby gets those headaches, too, when it rains. I don’t see your car, so I’m guessing you walked over.”
“Yes.” Teague’s answer was almost a whisper.
“Okay. I’ll grab the medicine from the house, then drive you home.” She cupped Teague’s elbow and guided her toward the farmhouse.
* * *
Teague sank into the cool dark of her bedroom. The hot ginger tea Connie had made for her helped a little, and the pills were beginning to ease the throbbing in her face. Now, she lay on her back with a super-soft throw blanket covering her. Connie had helped her through these headaches before, but her new nurse was so much better. The weight and warmth of the body lying next to her after a gentle head-and-neck massage was draining the pain and the tension from her entire body.
“Is this okay?” Baye whispered into the dark as she entwined their fingers.
“Yes.” She felt groggy, like she was floating after Baye’s massage. She’d manipulated a pressure point just above the hairline that helped open swollen sinuses, and to Teague’s surprise, it really worked. “Stay?”
“Yes, unless my being in your room keeps you from relaxing enough to sleep.”
“Mmm.” Her mouth felt dry and her head foggy. She tightened her fingers around Baye’s. “I like you here.”
“Then this is where I’ll be when you wake up—tonight or tomorrow. I’ll be here.”
“Soon, there might not be a tomorrow for me, Baye.” She closed her eyes and finally allowed sleep to take her.
Chapter Eleven
This place is disgusting.” Libby gathered mail scattered in different places around the downstairs and shoved it into her messenger bag. “You’re unreal. This is why you can’t keep a roommate, and why I can’t live here with you in a house that’s half mine.” She picked up a stack of mail from the living room coffee table and uncovered a plate of half-eaten Chinese takeout beginning to grow fuzz. “You are so gross. I’m taking this mail back to my apartment. I can’t work in this stinking chaos until you clean it up.”
“I don’t have time. I’m going with Teague to get her MRI.”
“I hope you’re picking her up, because if she sees how you live, we’re going to lose that contract. And right now, that’s the only thing keeping Heavy Petting in the black.” She picked her way through the debris of takeout cartons and discarded clothes to the front door. “I can’t run this rescue and take care of you, too, Baye.”
“It’d be easier if you moved back in here.” Baye popped a peppermint into her mouth. It pretty much drowned out the smell.
“You mean it’d be easier for you because I’d spend half my time cleaning up your messes. It’s a good thing Grandma left us this house, because you can be so disgusting, white trash with a yard full of beer cans and cigarette butts wouldn’t even let you live in their neighborhood. You need help, and I’m tired of begging you to get some.” Libby slammed the door behind her and drove off in a cloud of dust.
Baye could feel her meltdown building. She stomped around the room, kicking at the debris of dirty clothing, pizza boxes, and discarded shoes while chanting a long string of inventive curses. “Like she’s Miss Perfect.” She opened the back door and the front door to air out the smell, then sat down on the sofa after moving another greasy pizza box with a dark fungus growing inside.
Her agitation wasn’t just about Libby’s criticism. She hadn’t seen Teague for almost a week. When she tried calling, Connie answered Teague’s phone, explaining she was holed up in the cottage working on some new project and never took her phone there when she didn’t want to be interrupted. Baye had waited three days before she marched across the pasture—through the new gate Bruce and Tommy had installed—and knocked on the cottage door before opening it.
“Anybody home?” She could see Teague was indeed there, a plate of uneaten food on the desk and Teague rapidly writing on the whiteboard while intermittently turning to adjust something on the contraption that covered most of her desk. She looked like she hadn’t slept or bathed in several days. “Hey, you. Did Connie tell you I’ve been calling?”
Teague didn’t look up or answer. She kept writing numbers on the whiteboard, mumbling as the equation grew longer. She turned toward the desk and pulled a pair of weird goggles down from the top of her head to cover her eyes and finally looked at Baye.
“You can’t be in here. The laser will hurt your eyes.” She came around the desk and pushed Baye toward the door. “Out, out,” she said, closing and locking the door once Baye was outside.
Baye was shocked and turned to bang on the door but stopped when she realized Teague had pulled a heavy shade over the door’s glass panes. Only then did she realize none of the animals were with Teague. Because of the laser?
So, Baye went home, rolled a bag of marijuana into joints, and ordered takeout to be delivered. Three more days had passed without a word, much less an apology, from Teague. She obviously was just a business contract to her, not a girlfriend.
She started to cry—an angry cry, not sad. “Nobody understands me,” she screamed into the room.
She wiped away her tears when she heard Tommy noisily shuffling up the back steps with a bucket and mop.
“Miss Baye, is it okay to come in?”
Baye’s anger drained away, and her control started returning with his tentative request. She would not be mean to Tommy because he also suffered a handicap that undoubtedly had made him a target of bullies in the past. “Please come on in, Tommy.” She could tell John had already taken him under his wing. His features were a bit coarse and his expressions childlike, but he wasn’t bad looking. “John took you to the barber shop, didn’t he? Your haircut and beard look very nice.”
He lowered his eyes, and his face flushed red. “Thank you, Miss Baye.” His eyes went wide as he scanned the downstairs, then looked at a corner in the dining room where a puppy she’d brought up to the house had relieved himself. “Did you have a party here? I can clean up the dog stuff now and come back later to help you. John told me to go to Miss T’s when I finish this.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “Have you seen Teague since the day we hired you?”
“Miss Connie said she was very busy working, but she better get done soon because the animals are missing her.” His face transformed into wonder. “She has a monkey and a big, big parrot.”
She couldn’t help but smile at him. “And a pig.”
“Yes! I like Flower. Miss T says Flower paints pictures, and I can watch her do it sometime.”
“I’d like to see that, too.” Baye sighed and went into the walk-in pantry to hunt for garbage bags. She might as well clean this up so Libby would come back and work at the house. Even though they argued endlessly, neither had any close friends, and their mutual loneliness always drew them back together. Her pantry search fruitless, she knelt to look through the cleaning products under the sink. Damn. She’d have to walk down to the kennels and get a new roll of bags.
“Miss T! You’re here!”
Baye froze. Shit. Teague was going to see the mess. She silently berated herself for not cleaning earlier. She peeked around the doorless arch between the kitchen and dining room. She couldn’t avoid Teague, who could see the open arches at either end of the kitchen from the front door where she was standing. Maybe she could hide in the pantry.
“Miss Baye was asking about you, and here you are,” Tommy said. “She’s in the kitchen.”
Shit. So much for hiding.
“What happened here? Did someone break in and vandalize this house?”
Baye winced at the alarm in her question, then decided she should go ahead and face Teague’s scrutiny. Anyway, how could Teague criticize her after rudely throwing her out of the cottage?
She stepped out from the kitchen. “Nobody broke in. I’m the vandal.” She turned to Tommy. “Go check on the animals next door when you finish mopping, please. I’ll clean up the rest here.”
“Yes, ma’am. I like Cappie and Mac.”
“Their pens are still clean after your visit early this morning, but I have not had much time to spend with them lately. Take Cappie and Mac down to the barn like I showed you—Cappie on your shoulder and Mac on your arm—so they can have a change of scenery, and you can spend some playtime with all the animals.”
“Okay, Miss T. I can play with them until John calls me.” Tommy dug a cheap pay-in-advance phone from his pocket and held it up for them to see. “John gave me a phone,” he said, “so he won’t have to yell to find me. Anyway, I’m going with him to the store later to get dog food. His back hurts when he picks up the big bags, so I’m going to do that for him.”
“Thank you, Tommy,” Baye said. “I don’t have to worry about him working too hard since you’re here to help him.”
“I like living with John. He helps me a lot, too.”
“Good. That’s good, Tommy.” She turned back to Teague, who hadn’t stepped more than two feet inside the open front door. She was haggard, her dark eyes dull and cheeks sallow. Was she sick? “Are you ready to go to the hospital for your MRI? Give me five minutes to change clothes.” A quick PTA bath—pussy, tits, and armpits—with a washcloth and pulling her hair into a ponytail should make her presentable.
Teague shook her head as she backed out onto the porch. “Can we talk out here?”
* * *
Teague was reeling at the chaos she’d seen in the house and had to get out. Her calm, her sanity depended on keeping order in her life. Her agitation had ratcheted up every minute she stood among the detritus. Did Baye always live like this, or was this an episode of some sort? Her stomach felt hollow from days of working and eating little. Her thoughts were swirling in a dizzy turmoil. She took a deep breath and propped against one of the porch’s supports to wait for Baye to join her.
Baye stood in the doorway, separated by an emotional chasm that hadn’t existed before.
“If you don’t want me to go with you, just say it.”
She shook her head again. The MRI appointment wasn’t what she wanted to talk about. “It has to be rescheduled because of a series of emergency cases.” She studied her feet, unable to even glance at Baye. “It is okay if you have decided not to go with me.”
“I want to be with you, but after the way you treated me when I came to the cottage last week, I have to wonder if you still want me with you.”
While Teague’s differently wired brain was an asset when she was solving work problems, it constantly failed her when forming relationships with people. That brain was now seeing an alternate path to answering Baye’s accusation. “Please explain why your house looks like a hazardous-waste site.”
Baye scowled. “Libby just chewed me out. I don’t need another critic to list everything that’s wrong with me.” She turned to go back into the house.
“Please. I am not judging. I want to understand.”
Baye stopped and turned, her eyes boring into Teague’s peripheral vision. After a moment, her face relaxed and her gaze turned to searching.
“I want to understand,” Teague repeated.
Baye visibly swallowed and averted her gaze. “I don’t know. Sometimes I struggle to do anything more than sit on the sofa and order food deliveries. I start to clean up, then get distracted and move on to something else before I’m even halfway done. It’s like I don’t even see it piling up because I can’t stay focused. When the mess gets too big, I’m overwhelmed by it and don’t know where to start cleaning. It’s like I’m immobilized by it all.” She slumped against the side of the house. “Nobody understands how I struggle.”
