“Let me grab your coat,” said Teresa eagerly. “I’ll hang it up by the door with the rest of our things, and don’t worry about the snow on the carpet.”
I stared at her. Teresa was not the kind of person to offer to hang someone’s coat up.
“This is Natalie Rivers, by the way,” she called over her shoulder as she left the room, headed to the closet with Dominic Rosetti’s coat.
“Nice to meet you, Natalie Rivers.” He smiled broadly and offered me his hand. “I’m excited to be here.”
“Is it just you?” I asked, standing up to shake his hand and looking in the hallway behind him. “Do you have an agent or someone else with you?”
“Nope, no agent,” he said. “Just me.” He smiled again, and I got the impression that most people were put at ease by his smile. There was something about him – the way that he walked in to a room, the way he spoke, the way he carried himself – that made me think here was someone who strolled through life easily, making friends everywhere he went, without a care in the world.
“Oh,” I said. “Um, okay. Why don’t you have a seat... um, oh.” I looked around awkwardly since there was only one chair in the room besides Teresa’s. I glanced past him towards the doorway, desperate for Teresa to reappear. I could feel my face getting hot, and my stomach flipped. It was my first day in this new job, I reminded myself. My first meeting on my first day in my new position. Of course I was nervous.
That was when Teresa came back, ready to start the meeting. “Natalie!” she exclaimed. “You should offer him a seat!”
“I was just about to do that,” I said quickly, and hurried over to the corner where Teresa kept a couple extra chairs stacked. I tugged at the top one, and it didn’t move. I tugged harder. It was stuck.
“I got it,” said Dominic Rosetti, and he came over and nudged me aside.
I stepped back reluctantly, seething a bit inside. I hated it when I couldn’t do something quickly enough and someone else took over, but I didn’t want to make a scene in front of Teresa. The chairs had obviously been stacked in the corner for a long time, because even Dominic took a couple tugs to get the top one free. I leaned in a bit closer to see if there was something holding them together.
“Ouch!” Something smashed in to my head and I took a step back, staggering in to Teresa’s desk. I reached out to steady myself and grabbed at the first thing my hand touched, which happened to be Teresa’s open water bottle. Water splashed all over me as I fell to the floor.
“Oh, no. Are you okay?” asked Dominic, bending down. “Sorry. I was just pulling the chair off, I didn’t know your head was right there. Can I help you up?” He held out a hand.
There was no way I was going to let him help me up. “I’m all right,” I said, with as much dignity as I could manage. I felt my forehead to see if I could feel a bump. My knee hurt too, from banging it on Teresa’s desk and then on the floor. And to top it all off, I had dumped Teresa’s full water bottle all over myself.
“I’ve got a bunch of wet papers up here,” Teresa complained. “Let’s all hope that nothing too important got ruined.”
Why did you even have a wide-mouthed water bottle with the lid off sitting on your desk? I screamed in my head. Why were the chairs not already set up for the meeting?
I got to my feet, by myself, then picked up the chair that Dominic had freed from the stack. The sides of it felt sticky. “Did something get spilled on these chairs the last time they were used?” I asked politely. “And then they weren’t cleaned off before they were stacked? Juice or Coke or something?”
“Cleanup from an event would probably be something you and Claudia handled, wouldn’t it?” asked Teresa pointedly.
My cheeks got flaming hot. “Maybe, but I don’t recall the last time these were used,” I said. I wanted to run away. Run and hide from my horrible, mean boss and this ball-throwing man standing a few feet away from me, trying to contain the laughter. His mouth twitched, and I fumed.
I wanted to slam the chair down on the floor, but instead I set it down as gently as possible. “Here you are,” I said, and sat in my own chair. I picked up my notebook and pen and cleared my throat.
“Thank you,” said Dominic Rosetti politely. He shifted his gaze to Teresa. “Uh, thank you for having me here on short notice, Ms. Paulson.”
“Please, call me Teresa,” said Teresa warmly.
We all pulled our chairs in to her desk and looked at one another expectantly. Teresa seemed to be waiting for me to say something, but she was the one who had arranged the meeting, and my heart was still pumping so fast from the adrenaline of falling over I couldn’t even remember the points I’d written down in my notebook. Something about establishing a social media presence?
Teresa cleared her throat. “So, Natalie is our new director of public relations,” she said. “Natalie, would you like to tell Dominic a little bit about what makes Hartley House so special?”
“Yes, of course,” I said. “Well, Hartley House was founded ten years ago as a home away from home for the families of children in the hospital for long term care. Most of our families come from at least two or three hours away. We have a lot of families who are separated, maybe one parent and older children are at the family home during the week for work and school while another parent stays here to be with the child in the hospital. So it’s a lot of moms. Moms and toddlers, mostly. We just try to be there for them, you know, as a support system since they are in a totally new environment, dealing with a critically ill child. We offer meals and an open kitchen. Emotional support where they need it. Basically we try to take away as many of the day to day worries as possible so they can focus on their child.”
I stopped talking. I had to stop talking, I was babbling, and I couldn’t read the look on Teresa’s face. Half of what I had said was right on the front page of our website and the other half was barely coherent. “So I guess I’m wondering what kind of role you’re thinking of,” I finished. “I mean, what you see yourself doing. Here.”
“I’d just like to become part of your team,” he said. “You know, very part-time, but if I could just be one of the crew that would be great. I’m sure I can help do the things you do.” He smiled. “I’ve got about two months before spring training, so I won’t be able to be around much then, or during the regular season, but I’d honestly just want to be one of the team here.”
I wondered how many Twitter followers he had. I’d have to try and find him online later. For research. “Do you have a social media presence?”
“I’m down with confidentiality and all that. I won’t post a single picture of anybody here,” he promised.
“No, I mean, one of the ways we’re trying to raise our profile locally is by establishing a stronger online presence,” I explained. “So, while you can’t post pictures of any of the kids here, for example, please feel free to talk about us online.”
“Oh! Well, yeah, uh, sure thing. I’m usually kind of private, I don’t post a whole lot about non-baseball stuff,” He tapped his foot lightly as he tried to explain.
I shot a look at Teresa, who at least looked disappointed. “That’s okay,” I heard myself say. “I’m sure I’ll come up with something else.”
3
After work, I trudged home to the apartment I shared with two other girls. I loved our apartment. It was absolutely perfect – walking distance to work for all of us and in a safe neighborhood to walk in at night, the top two floors of a beautiful old house with three big bedrooms and a big shared living space. My roommates were great, too. I hadn’t known them well before moving in, but we had all become close friends since. We split the cleaning and cooking duties with no drama, and we were all the quieter type who would never throw loud parties or invite tons of people over. It was roommate perfection.
We were all on different schedules, but we tried to eat dinner together at least once a week. Maya was a nurse and Libby worked part-time as a receptionist at a dentist’s office and part-time
as a yoga teacher, so they were both gone in the evenings a lot more than I was. I didn’t mind.
My parents lived in the suburbs, so sometimes I visited them, and sometimes Libby convinced me to come with her and try a yoga class, but for the most part I was perfectly happy curling up with a book or TV show. It could be intense at Hartley House, and I needed to disengage completely when I came home.
That night Maya had to work a night shift, so she left shortly after I got home. My other roommate, Libby, and I ordered Thai food and stretched out in front of the TV to chill our brains with some thoughtless reality television.
“So are you going to be switching to a Monday through Friday schedule then?” Libby asked. “With the new job and all?”
“You know, I didn’t even ask. Someone has to be there on the weekend. Teresa and Ryan have those days off. I’m used to having Thursdays and Fridays off by now. But it might make more sense to switch. I’ll have to ask tomorrow if I remember. We’re getting a new volunteer so I’ll probably be walking around most of the day.”
That reminded me. Acting as detached as I could, I grabbed my phone and opened up Twitter. I wanted to see how many followers Dominic Rosetti had.
“What are you looking at?” asked Libby, leaning over to see my phone. “Oh, gracious! Who’s that? He’s cute! Really cute, from what I can see.”
I instinctively turned my phone away from her. I don’t know why. Libby was my friend. “New volunteer guy,” I said, trying to downplay it. “Just checking him out, making sure he’s not a creep.”
“Interesting.” Libby giggled. “I’ll check him out too.”
“Not like that,” I tried saying, but Libby was laughing her head off by then. “He’s a baseball player. My boss was eager to get him to volunteer with Hartley House because we’re trying to grow our social media presence. If we have a baseball player with tons of followers posting about us, that’s tons of exposure. But he said he mostly sticks to posting about baseball stuff on his public profile. So not sure how this is going to work out for us.”
It was true. As I scrolled through Dominic Rosetti’s posts, there wasn’t much to see. An article he’d shared about coming up to the Tigers, a post about how much he had loved playing in Tennessee and would miss the fans but was eager for the next chapter in the major leagues. Nothing very compelling.
“What’s his name?” asked Libby, pulling out her phone. “I’ll stalk him, too.”
“Oh, it’s okay,” I said. “Not a big deal.” I smiled at her, and tried to change the subject. “So what do you have coming up this week? What are your classes like? We should do something, go out somewhere. The three of us can try that new pasta new restaurant or something. Not that we need the carbs or anything, but a girl only lives once, right?”
“Yeah, we should.” Libby twisted her mouth the way she always did when something was on her mind she needed to say.
“But?” I prompted her and waited with my head cocked to the side.
“But I have a date,” she admitted. “On Wednesday.” She ran her fingers nervously through her long hair, twisting a piece around a finger. “Ugh, I hope he’s decent. He seems nice. I just... Well, I hope it works out, you know? I thought Sean and I were going to get engaged after we graduated from college.”
I nodded and smiled my best sympathetic smile.
“When I found out he’d been seeing someone else on the side, I just felt so betrayed. Maybe I was a little dramatic about it, but its still hard for me to trust anyone.” She laughed. “Well, not anyone. I trust you and Maya. But you know what I mean.”
I did, sort of. I hadn’t met Libby until after we’d both graduated from college. She was the sister of a friend from church and she’d been looking for a place to live at the same time as I started looking. I understood what she meant about trust. I’d dated a guy in college too, and I’d thought that I would marry Ben. We did everything together. But then he’d gotten in to medical school in California, and after we had graduated he had gone off without even asking me to come with him. Being a doctor was the most important thing in the world to him, not me.
“Anyway,” I said, trying to remember my role as a supportive friend. “What’s his name? What’s he like? Where did you meet him?”
“I met him at the dentist’s office, if you can believe that.” She laughed. “He needed several crowns, so he was coming in every week for a while. The last time he had to wait for half an hour for his appointment and we started talking. His name is Steve. He’s so good looking. Maybe not quite as much as your Twitter friend, though.” She gestured towards my phone. “But I think he’s really cute. And nice. Well, seems nice at least. We’ll see how it goes. I’m trying not to get too excited.”
But she did seem excited, and I had to admit that I was a little bit jealous. I spent my day with anxious parents, trying to do whatever I could to lift their mood and make them feel a little bit better even though they had a sick child in the hospital. Libby was able to spend a half hour flirting with a patient at the dentist’s office. How was my life going to move forward? All I said, though, was “I hope he is. Where are you going?”
Libby shrugged. “not sure. Movies, maybe? Or dinner. Maybe a movie and dinner.”
“I’m jealous,” I admitted. “I don’t even know where I would meet someone. I’m so busy with work, and I’m definitely not going to meet anybody at work.”
“What about that dude?” She once again gestured to my phone. “What’s his name? The baseball guy?”
I laughed. “No way. First of all, he’s a professional baseball player, and they only date, like, super models. Second of all, it would be totally unprofessional for me to date a volunteer. And third, he’s kind of a jerk.” I touched my forehead, which was still sore. I remembered the way his mouth had twitched when he looked at me with my pants soaking wet, trying to hold back his laughter. I’d been so embarrassed.
“No!” Libby cried. “Say it isn’t so. Don’t ruin the fantasy! Oh, you’re probably right, though. The really cute ones are always jerks, aren’t they? Look, you should come to the hot yoga class I’m teaching tomorrow.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Hot yoga? I don’t know.”
“Oh, come on,” said Libby. “It’ll be fun. You can unwind. Sweat out all of the stress. Your job is really intense, Nat. You need to take care of yourself, too. My studio is doing a guided meditation class. Maybe that would be good for you, too.”
“I don’t know about that,” I said. “I don’t think I could handle hot yoga, but if you’re teaching, you know, normal yoga tomorrow night I might try that out.” Libby was right. I did have a stressful job, and a bit of yoga might be just what I needed to unwind a bit.
“Awesome,” said Libby. “Hot yoga is at eight, but I teach a beginners class at five-thirty for the after work people. So if you bring your stuff to work and come straight over I’ve got you covered. Sweat out all the stress.”
“All right,” I agreed. “I’ll come try your class.”
“Yay!” Libby pumped her fist. “At least I know I won’t be teaching to an empty studio.”
“Oh, shut up, you’re an awesome teacher,” I told her. “That was just that one time. And the weather was like the apocalypse out there, even school was cancelled. I don’t know why yoga wasn’t. Anyway, I think I’m going to head to bed soon.” I stood up. The show that we had originally sat down to watch was over, and I wanted to decompress in my room before going to sleep.
“Yeah, okay. Good night.” Libby absent-mindedly reached for the remote to flip around the channels a bit more. “See you at yoga tomorrow. I’m sure I won’t be up when you head out in the morning.”
In my room, I stuffed my yoga clothes in my bag for work tomorrow, then got ready for bed. I sat on my bed in my pyjamas for a few minutes, scrolling through my phone contacts for someone to talk to. I didn’t want to go to bed, not yet, but I wished I had someone I could text at any hour and know they’d be up for a long talk.
&
nbsp; My sister, Alex, and I used to talk like that, but she had a husband and a new baby and a busy toddler now. While she always answered my texts I knew I wasn’t getting her undivided attention. That never happened anymore. Besides, at this hour she was either already asleep or up feeding the baby. It was best to not bother her.
I did have friends, but a funny thing had happened after we had all graduated college. We’d all drifted apart, bit by bit, taking jobs in different cities or even moving overseas. For the past couple of years there’d been a few weddings every summer when I could see everyone and catch up, but nobody I could text late at night just to talk. Libby and Maya were probably my closest friends now, and they were great and I loved them, but it just wasn’t the same.
I sighed. Dominic Rosetti’s profile was still up when I opened Twitter. I glanced at his picture once again. Okay, maybe Libby was right. He certainly wasn’t hideous – not by a long shot. But there’s more to a person than the way they look, I reminded myself, as I closed down the app, put my phone on the night table, and snuggled under the covers.
Annoyingly, I couldn’t get his face out of my mind. That annoying grin. That handsome face. And gosh… that voice. I drifted to sleep with a near stranger on my mind.
4
By the next morning, all of the snow had been cleared away. Hartley House was already buzzing when I got there, the kitchen and front entrance filled with parents getting ready to go to the hospital for the day and chasing around younger kids, trying to stuff them in to snowsuits. I said my hellos before heading to the offices in the back.
Ryan was just getting in too, settling in to his desk in the hallway. “You seen Teresa yet?” he asked me as I passed him on the way to my closet.
“No,” I said. “What’s up with her?”
“She’s all worked up about something,” he said. “Running around yelling at Jerome to fix some kitchen cabinet hinge that’s been loose for a year or so. Yelled at me for tracking snow on the floor. Yelled at Claudia because the living room was a mess. Toys everywhere.”
Good Works (Hero Hearts: Contemporary) Page 2