Page 27 of Versions Of Us

“Oh, yes!” she replies. “I thought I recognised your face from somewhere. Small towns, huh? Everyone seems to know everyone around here.” She says this as an observation and not a complaint.

“That’s for sure,” I agree. “You must be busy. It’s so nice that you dedicate so much of your time here.”

“Well, to be honest with you, I’m on maternity leave right now and I have a baby that doesn’t sleep. So, I’m currently not working during the day. That’s freed up some of my time though to help get this place up and running.”

That explains where the dark circles under her eyes have stemmed from, but despite how insanely busy this woman must be, there’s an air of calm surrounding her.

“That’s understandable. How old is your baby?” I ask.

“Paige is already five months old now,” she says with pride. “Time goes by so fast.”

“I can imagine,” I say.

“I’m due back at the medical centre in a couple of months. That’s when I’ll really know what busy feels like,” she laughs. “I’m going to miss her every day that I’m away from her.”

“I bet you will,” I say. “I’m so glad we finally have a facility like this right here in Cliff Haven though.”

“Yeah, me too,” she agrees. “I used to work at a crisis centre in Milton but it’s just so far away. There’s no way I could travel that far now that I have Paige. And we need as much support for people in need as we can get.”

“Of course,” I say.

“Well, why don’t I show you to a desk and get you started on the online induction training.”

“Okay.” I inhale a nervous breath and survey the rest of the room. It isn’t a large space but from what I can see there are about a dozen small office cubicles scattered throughout. “How many people do you usually have working each shift?”

“Well, the helpline is still new,” she explains. “And we are one of the smaller offices, so we only have roughly ten to twelve people working at any one time. And because most are volunteers, we can sometimes have less.”

I follow Jules to a desk in the front corner of the room that looks directly out the window to the dark choppy sea below. The sky has darkened further, a storm appearing to be brewing off the ocean.

“Honestly, we’d love to take on more volunteers, but funding is low, and we just don’t have the resources or the space at the moment,” Jules says as she pulls out the padded office chair for me to take a seat. “This will be your desk for tonight.”

“Okay.” I sit down, taking in the outdated laptop and phone in front of me.

“We try to keep things pretty routine around here, but you’ll have your own personal login if you need to use a different desk next time. The first part of the induction training is completed online but you are required to do one hundred and sixty hours of mandatory workplace training before you’ll be considered ready to take calls alone. I know you’ve been studying psychology for a while now though so I’m sure you’ll breeze through it considering your credentials.”

“Thank you,” I say, nodding nervously. “I just hope I can be of help to our callers.”

“Don’t worry. You’ll be fine.” Jules waves a hand as she continues. “You will get the odd phone call where emergency services may need to be notified, but most of the time all people really need is a non-judgmental listener. Some people will prefer to contact us via online chat, but a lot actually benefit from the intimacy that comes with hearing a friendly voice.” She retrieves a small piece of paper from what I assume is her own desk and hands it to me. “These are your login details.”

She instructs me to enter my username and password and helps me find the induction course online. I thank her and then I begin the training which she informs me should take around three hours.

Jules is right. I do breeze through it, and I’m finished in just over two and a half hours. After I’ve completed the induction, she tells me to take a quick break and then she’ll let me sit in on a few of her phone calls.

I descend the stair well, stepping outside onto the cold, dark street, a sprinkling of rain droplets dancing subtly across my skin. I use the time to eat a granola bar and attempt to call Henley one more time. He doesn’t answer.

Where the hell could he be at eight-thirty at night?

He should be back by now.

I tell myself that he’s fine.

That maybe he got called to work a shift at the tavern and can’t hear his phone. Or maybe he’s taking a shower.

When I return to the office, a man around the same age as me is closing his laptop. “Sorry again for leaving early, Jules. I’ll try to stay back a bit later next time,” I hear him say.

“No need to be sorry,” she replies. “We need to take care of ourselves too.”

He nods at her and then gives me a small wave on his way out.

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