I balance the phone between my ear and my shoulder while I finish typing up an article for next week’s paper. “Sure. What’s up?”
He starts to speak again, but the sounds of his bar muffle his words.
“Luke, I can’t hear you over the noise in the background. Are you really busy this afternoon?” He doesn’t usually start to get busy until after five on a Friday.
“Fuck,” he mutters. A minute passes before he says, “Is this better? I’m in the office.”
“Much better. Now, what’s up?”
“The woman rang about Sean’s party tomorrow. They’ve double-booked the party room, which means one party can’t go ahead. Because we booked it last, it’s Sean’s.”
I sit forward in my seat. “That sucks.”
“It’s a fucking pain in the ass, is what it is. If I wasn’t stuck at work all night, I’d have the time to come up with something else and let the parents know. That’s where you come in.”
“Oh, shit, you want me to come up with an alternative for a five-year-old’s party? Luke, I am no mother. These kinds of things are not my forte. I can ring around parents no worries, but to make plans and execute them isn’t something I think you really want me doing.”
“Callie, you’re amazing with Sean. And trust me, I have no clue on this kind of thing either. It was only because Glenda suggested that party venue that it was going to take place there. If it had been up to me, he would have been running around the park with his friends and some cake.”
I consider what he’s said and realise he’s right. Surely Google will have ideas for me. “Okay, I’ll figure something out.”
“Thank you. The list of kids coming and their parents’ phone numbers is on the fridge. I can try and find someone to do my shift tonight, but I’m fairly sure no one’s available at this late notice.” His relief is clear when he thanks me, so I decide to take this weight off his shoulders completely.
“No, don’t do that. I’ll take care of this. It’s not a problem. You just focus on work and let me focus on Sean tonight.”
I hear the breath he exhales. “I love you.”
“Love you, too, but I better go now so I can get cracking on this.” My mind is already spinning ahead trying to figure out party ideas. Pinterest is looking like a good option right about now. They have stacks of ideas on there.
As we end the call and I type the Pinterest website into my browser, I suddenly remember it’s one of my colleague’s last days at work today.
“Shit,” I mutter. I wanted to say goodbye to her and she told me to come by around four. I push my chair back and make a mental note to get back to Pinterest as soon as possible. I’m beginning to feel all kinds of nervous about this endeavour. What if I screw Sean’s party up? What if he hates it? Oh, God, the things a mother must go through in her life. No wonder most of the mothers I know drink copious amounts of wine as often as they can.
“I’m going to miss you,” I say to Marion as I enter her office. She’s my favourite person here, so I’m really going to miss her.
She smiles as she loads another file into the box she’s packing. Marion has been reporting on news and crime at the paper for fifteen years; she has a lot of files to pack. “I give it six months tops until they move you off events and start giving you juicier stories.” She picks up the next folder in her pile. “Like this one,” she says.
As she holds it up, pieces of paper flutter out of the folder and onto the floor. I bend to retrieve them and freeze when I read the headline on the article. Looking up at Marion, I say, “Did you work on Jolene Hardy’s case?”
She nods and opens the file. “Yes. That was an interesting case, that’s for sure. One I was never happy with.”
I stand and pass her the pieces of paper from the floor. “Why?”
She shifts her weight onto one leg. “I interviewed her and I honestly believed everything she told me. But as much as I believed her, all the evidence stacked up against her. It was hard to put my faith in a woman who was supposedly a cold-blooded murderer when there wasn’t much evidence in her favour. Except for the old man who was her neighbour at the time. He swore she was home at the time the murder took place. It corroborated her testimony. But the prosecution slaughtered him on the stand.” She pauses. “I still wonder about her, though. Something didn’t feel right.”