Page 82 of The Checklist
“Yes, but be gentle. I still have at least twelve minutes on my snot timer.”
Neale laughed, nudging her sister’s foot with her old sneaker. “There isn’t a gentle way to say this part. You messed up with Mike and Stacy. And I know you don’t want to hear it, but you need to fix it.”
Dylan’s chin trembled, and she focused all her effort on keeping tears off her face as her sister continued.
“All the other stuff you can walk away from. Doing nothing is an option you can respect, but you can’t leave them that way and sleep at night. It’s just not who you are.”
“I know.” Her voice was timid, but Dylan worried that if she put any more effort behind it, whatever was holding the next wave of tears back would lose ground.
“Take it from me. Some relationships are too dear to let go of without a fight.”
Dylan nodded and felt a few tears dislodge in the process. Neale reached up with the corner of her sweater, prompting Dylan to use the back of her hand to wipe them away and exhale a shaky breath. “You’re still right.”
“Like I said, tell me when I’m wrong!” She laughed and wrapped her arm around her sister. Neale was taller and her shoulders were narrower, but her arm was long enough to make room for Dylan under her protective cover. Squeezing her sister, she added, “You are good at fixing. You can do this. I wish I could fix this for you now, but I don’t know how.”
“I don’t either.” Dylan shuddered as the tears started in full force again. “I never don’t know how.”
Neale wrapped her other arm around her, pulling Dylan into a strange, crouched bear hug. It wasn’t particularly comfortable but was comforting just the same. Brushing Dylan’s hair away from her face, Neale planted a kiss on her sister’s head, her hair muffling her words. “You’ll try. And maybe fail. But you’ll sort it.”
“Thanks,” Dylan mumbled into the little pocket of space between their shoulders.
“It’s what I’m here for,” Neale said, before releasing her sister and straightening her spine. “We have to get up now,” she said, abruptly getting to her feet.
“What?”
“We gotta get up. I can see Mom and Dad coming back across the street, and you know how much Dad loves group hugs and crying together. I’m not in the mood for all of him today.” Neale cringed.
Dylan laughed as her sister pulled her to her feet and tried once more to wipe her face with her sweater. She ducked under her sister’s arm and smiled. “Any last words of wisdom, oh sage?”
Neale looked out the window, where their parents had stopped to admire the Tiger in the yard, putting on a show for the neighbors, before answering. “You should go get your stuff from Technocore on Saturday, before they march you out of there with a big stupid cardboard box on Monday. That is the worst.”
Dylan chuckled before realizing her sister was serious. “When did you ever get packed and escorted out of a place?”
Neale blinked at her sister’s question for a moment, then grinned. “Never. I saw it in a Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson movie, though, and it looked awful.” Neale put the actor’s wrestling name in air quotes before shaking her head and turning up the stairs. “You coming to hide from Mom and Dad or what?”
Dylan steeled herself and scanned her badge to get into the office that occupied her nightmares. She had to admit there was wisdom in Neale’s interpretation of the cinematic efforts of The Rock. Getting marched out on Monday would be much worse than shooting them an email sayingThanks for the headaches. The badge is in the mail.Her shoulders relaxed as the blue security light clicked. No one would be there to seeher shred an astronomical amount of paperwork and leave with a tasteful cloth grocery bag full of possessions.
The emptiness of the place was eerie as she crept off the elevator. It looked like a cubicle wasteland, the appearance of the place growing sadder as the motion-sensor lights shuddered to life. Failed employee-appreciation certificates poked out of every recycling bin lining the hallways. More than one misnamed fleece jacket was crammed into the small wastebaskets or dropped haphazardly on the floor. To her chagrin, Richard Chou’s jacket was gently placed on a hanger jammed into his cubicle wall, mocking her with its care. Shaking her head, she made her way over to her office, flipping on the aggressive overhead lighting.
“Okay, girl, you are almost through it.” She said this little reassuring number to her corkboard, then straightened her posture before pushing back her desk chair and lifting a stack of papers.
After a half hour or so, her shred bin was looking precariously full, and an uncomfortable stiffness from sitting still had settled into her bones. She stretched up with a yawn, grabbed the bin, and started toward the staff kitchen shredder. A loud thud stopped her in her tracks.
“Ouch!”
A cursory glance at the computer monitors in the cubicle jungle told her that she was supposed to be alone. Shifting the weight of the box from one arm to the other, she grabbed a stapler off a nearby desk. Creeping toward the kitchen with her stapler weapon at the ready, she poked her head around the doorjamb and said, “Hello?”
The figure with his head in the refrigerator yelped and knocked it against a shelf. Yanking his head out of the fridge, Tim turned around to face her, rubbing the spot he had bumped. Next to him stood Steve, holding a cabinet door with one hand and clutching at his collarbone like he was wearing pearls with the other. His mouth was still stuck in a terrified “Oh!”
“Sorry,” Dylan said, suppressing a chuckle at the sight of Steve. “I thought I was alone down here. Clearly, y’all did too.”
“Good morning,” Steve said, regaining his composure and letting the hand at his collarbone drop. “There is no coffee cart on weekends, so we thought we would try our hand at making some.”
“I think people have hidden the coffee from me,” Tim said, still rubbing his head.
“And the coffee machine, cups, and creamer?” Steve asked, rolling his eyes. “Man, no one is hiding anything. It just isn’t here.”
“Actually, Tim hid it from himself.” She hefted the heavy box of shredding onto the counter. “When you first got the coffee cart, you got rid of all the old machines. Then you moved the cart but never replaced the machines, which was one of my recommendations,” Dylan said, shaking her head with a resignation usually reserved for people who lost political races.
