About ShelfLife
If you could be someone else, who would you choose? Twenty-somethings Trent, Shanti and Gavin launch a start-up that allows almost anyone to rent a stranger’s life for a week.
Not their apartment.
Not their car.
Their entire life.
The trio risk everything they own to build what they believe will become the Airbnb of lifestyles, but nothing prepares them for the ride that follows as they chase fame, hunt funding, get deported, change lives and accidentally provoke a civil uprising.
When their start-up explodes in popularity, the founders finally get their first of taste success, just as they begin to lose control of their lives. They soon discover people are rarely who they say they are - even themselves.
Contents
About ShelfLife
Dedication
Crash cart
Keep Austin wired
All your surveillance tape are belong to us
Girl, I’ll haus you
Get into the chopper if you want to retain equity
To compile is to be glorious
I’m on a boat, you’re on a boat
Downward dog day afternoon
The land of First World problems
Milf duds
Double bonus happiness from the skies
Faux-reign correspondent
Cancel all my meetings
Everything works in theory
We can be heroes, just for one day
About Barrie Seppings
Copyright
For Sharon, Della & Izzy.
Crash cart
Trent knew if he hesitated any longer the blood-spattered man on the gurney would become a blood-spattered corpse. And it would all be his fault.
‘I could just leave him here,’ Trent thought. ‘The nurses will probably handle it.’ A sharp, rattling intake of breath focused his attention. He lifted the plastic oxygen mask from the man’s face. Glistening and pulpy, the face made a noise somewhere between a gurgle and a cough. ‘OK, let’s think this through,’ he spoke to himself, a calming technique he’d learned from a yoga teacher he dated briefly. ‘That didn’t sound too good. Probably blood pooling in the trachea. Time to go, buddy.’
He took a deep breath and pushed the gurney through the doors.
‘What is that man doing here?’
‘Sir, you cannot go that way!’
‘The bleeding’s internal, we need to address that first.’
‘What’s her insurance status? Does she have a next of kin listed?’
Some of the faces in the emergency room turned to look as Trent surged into the searing fluorescent light. Snatches of shouted instruction whizzed past his ears like tracer fire. Coats flapped as they trailed behind nurses and orderlies. Trent could barely focus. His heart snapped at his ribcage.
‘I asked you,’ said a female voice, ‘what have we got?’
The face loomed closer and came into focus. Her skin was lightly freckled, blonde hair pulled into a severe ponytail, as if sailing into a headwind. ‘Please don’t make me ask you again.’
Trent blinked, struggling to reconcile the aggressive tone with the child-like face. Since when did they let teenagers run emergency rooms?
The nurse reached across, flipped the badge on Trent’s coat and recoiled. ‘So sorry, doctor. I’ve just started residency here and it’s been one of those shifts. Can I have the patient’s status, please?’
What had he overheard the paramedic say only a moment ago in the receiving dock? ‘Asian male, mid thirties. Assault victim. Multiple facial lacerations, multiple contusions, possible internal bleeding. Pressure is ninety over fifty, falling fast. They used the paddles on him twice in the bus and administered ten ampules of morph, thirty of adrenaline. And I think…’
The admissions nurse looked up from her clipboard. ‘Yes, doctor?’
Trent swallowed hard. ‘I think he has fluid on the lungs. Blood. Probably need to drain the cavity before we attempt re-sus.’
The nurse reached for the mask and lifted it off the man’s face. The body convulsed and started coughing. A small, ragged fountain of blood shot into the air. Trent jumped back. The nurse returned to the clipboard and made a new set of scribbles.
‘Correct you are, doctor. I could get him into OR twelve in the next slot if we hustle,’ she said, glancing at her watch, ‘but I just don’t have anyone to get him to the prep area right now.’
‘I can take him.’ Trent volunteered.
The nurse looked directly at him. ‘But you’re a doctor, right?’
‘I was just on my break, trying to clear my head,’ Trent threw a thumb over his shoulder at the scrum of nurses working the ER. ‘And you guys seem pretty busy in here.’
‘You’re sure?’ The walkie-talkie on her belt crackled into life and she reached for it, fiddling with its dial.
‘There’s nothing wrong with helping each other out once in a while, is there?’ Trent smiled.
Her face relaxed and she returned the smile. ‘If you say so, Doctor…?’ she hunted for his name badge.
‘Oh, I’m Doctor, umm, just, you know, helping out…’
A violent spluttering erupted on the gurney and the nurse snapped back into action. ‘Okay, Doctor “Helping Out”, get him down to prep area B. I’ll call ahead and let ’em know the cavalry’s coming.’
‘Umm. Can you point me in the right direction?’
The nurse paused to stare at him, eyes narrowing.
‘I’m new. Here, at this hospital. Probably why we haven’t seen each other. Around. Yet.’
‘Yeah, that must be why,’ she said, hooking a single, errant strand of hair behind her ear. ‘Take the elevator on your left. Go down to B2. Straight, then right. Swiftly, doctor.’ She jabbed her clipboard at the body on the gurney. ‘I think this one’s on the way out.’
Trent pushed the gurney into the lift. The floor numbers seemed to move about at will. He blinked several times before finding B2, stabbing it repeatedly. He flipped his name badge back around to conceal the ID, smoothed his hair and leaned in to check his reflection in the lift doors. Trent straightened up immediately once he noticed the surveillance camera mounted on the ceiling and tried to check his watch casually yet professionally.
His breathing echoed in the metal confines of the lift, reminding him of the man on the gurney. Trent lifted the patient’s mask. No movement. The ‘ding’ of the lift sent him jumping backwards and the mask snapped back onto the patient’s bloodied face, provoking another desperate, liquid intake of breath.
The operating level was coated in polished steel, bathed in a soft blue glow and seemed almost deserted. Trent could hear the murmur of voices, low and measured, as he straightened up, assembled his serious face and strode along the corridor, looking for OR twelve.
He rounded a corner and discovered a small person waiting for him in a pool of light. It was difficult to tell the gender beneath the gown, cap and gloves. Trent almost turned and ran, but took the last few steps with as much purpose as he could muster. This was dangerously close to actual surgery and he was very far from being an actual surgeon.
‘You must be the amazing Doctor Helpful,’ the tiny doctor said.
Trent thought the voice sounded more female than male.
‘Kelly said you were the third amazing thing she’s seen this afternoon.’
‘I’m only third?’
‘Don’t worry, the other two were amazingly bad,’ she said, removing the breathing mask, cutting the clothing away and feeling her way slowly along the patient’s torso. ‘Help out in ER on your break often, doctor?’
‘I help when I can,’ Trent’s smile widened as he hovered near the gurney. He didn’t want to end his incredible run of being viewed a
s gallant and helpful, but also didn’t want to do any actual helping. ‘I should get back to my –’
The patient’s eyes bulged open. The body convulsed, sending charts and equipment to the floor.
‘Get me some tylenphosol and mediprosen.’ She pointed at a large cabinet behind him. ‘Then secure the restraints.’
Trent stared at the patient, thrashing, sputtering blood and turning purple.
‘Behind you, doctor.’ The woman raised her voice but remained calm.
Trent spun around and scanned the shelves, pronouncing the name of each chemical under his breath as he read it. He plucked two bottles and delivered them to the woman, who palmed them without looking up.
‘If you could secure the restraints as I asked, please doctor, I would appreciate it,’ she said, prepping the syringes and flinging the used bottles at a bin.
Trent reached under the gurney and used his body weight to contain the thrashing patient while he tensioned the straps.
‘Careful, doctor! We don’t want to break anything that’s not already broken, do we?’ she said.
He loosened the straps a fraction and stood back.
‘You’re welcome to join us, doctor, but I’m sure you have more urgent matters to attend to.’ Her voice softened as she looked up at him. ‘But seriously, thanks for being the hero on this one. I wish we had more doctors like you around here.’
Trent started in on his ‘no need to thank me’ speech but the nurse had already spun the gurney and sailed it into the blinding light of the operating room. The doors swung closed behind her.
In the sudden quiet of the prep area he heard the pounding of his own pulse in his ears. He placed a hand on his chest to help slow his breathing but felt something warm and moist. A red smear oozed from one side of his pale blue coat to the other. He didn’t want this little act to end, but he knew he should get off the stage. ‘Time to go,’ Trent thought. ‘Before I do any real damage.’
As the doors of the elevator opened to the intake area Trent felt like a diver returning to the surface. He loitered on the threshold and looked around for Kelly, the admitting nurse who had dubbed him ‘third most amazing’, but found no sign of her. He wondered if she might be in the admin section, and under what pretence he might be able to extract her phone number. Patient follow-up? Quarterly performance review? Situational de-brief?
He glanced at his watch and decided not chance his arm any further. Besides, Robert would be pissed at having to wait so long for him. Trent strode across the ER, nodded at a couple of orderlies who were arguing over paperwork and pushed through the swing doors back to the receiving dock. Only twenty minutes earlier he had been sniffing about, nosing through the racks of equipment when the ambulance lurched to a halt and the harried paramedics spilled out. Desperate to unload their cargo and respond to a fresh catastrophe, they had wheeled the gurney to the edge of the dock, spotted Trent in his borrowed lab coat, barked a quick set of instructions and left the bleeding man in his care. What was he supposed to have done? With his medical experience, didn’t he have some kind of duty to step in and help? The delivery dock was quiet now, almost deserted. Trent looked back at the doors leading to the intake area. A fresh commotion broke out on the other side. He exhaled, smiled to himself and walked on.
***
‘Where the fuck have you been? You said you were just going to leave the brochure at the procurement manager’s office,’ Robert snarled without looking up from his phone. Despite being naturally heavyset, with an additional layer that had settled over his beltline, Robert always looked like he’d just showered and changed, even in the middle of the day. He pushed himself off the wall and fell into step alongside Trent. ‘I have to be at General Mercy by three, remember? Some of us actually need to make our sales targets if we want to keep our jobs.’
‘Don’t be a dick, Robert. We’ll get there in time,’ said Trent. He didn’t naturally dislike his colleague, but the barbs about his position in the company made it easier to get there.
Robert looked across at Trent’s chest and grimaced. ‘Jesus, did you just do open heart surgery or something?’ He reached into his pocket, exchanged his phone for car keys.
Trent looked down, saw the smear of blood. His hands trembled as he unbuttoned the lab coat, the adrenaline already receding as he recalled the thrill of walking the hospital corridors, the orderlies giving him nods and the nurses giving him shy half-smiles. ‘Just some nurse, bumped into me while she was carrying a stack of plasma packs,’ he lied. ‘Must have burst one open.’
Immediately Trent started to think of a way to go back, to stay longer, but without the fear of being caught. He wanted it to be legitimate.
‘I swear. Is there anything you won’t do to get a girl’s phone number?’ Robert shook his head. ‘Except to ask?’
‘Seriously, I was just trying to get a look at what other brands they were stocking in the ER,’ Trent protested, balling up the lab coat and dumping it in an open laundry hamper. They walked out of the main entrance of the hospital and made their way toward the car park. ‘You ever heard of industrial espionage?’
‘You ever heard of due process? Why don’t you just put an information request through admin, like I do? It’s a non-profit hospital, they actually have to disclose how they spend their money.’
‘If I did everything the way you did it, then I’d be doing everything the hard way,’ Trent said as they approached Robert’s car. The sun was high overhead and the silver Lexus dazzled in the blinding light, chirping as the door locks released. ‘And where would be the fun in that?’
Keep Austin wired
Shanti made a show of checking her watch as she resisted the charms of a pod of Colombian art directors at the bar, but not to the extent they were dissuaded from buying her another drink. The low cut of her white tank top against her caramel skin kept catching eyes and detaining glances, leaving her free to choose her rate of engagement. The main lounge of The Driskill was swimming in deep leather Chesterfield couches and oil paintings of hunting scenes. The stuffed head of a longhorn steer stared balefully at the crowd as they high-fived each other and barked into their phones. Considering it was the last night of the most popular week of one of the most over-subscribed conference-cum-festivals on the tech industry calendar, the scene wasn’t quite as bad as she had expected. However, considering it was her last night before returning home to face the uncertain politics of work and the relentless pressure of family, she had been hoping for more.
If it weren’t for Trent, she would probably have fled across town to the strip of whiskey bars and music joints where, according to Thrillist, the Austin locals went to escape the ‘insufferable hordes’ of South By SouthWest. Bumping into him last night had triggered a flurry of memories from her time in London and she was keen for a proper rewind.
Trent waded through the crowd, trailing a compact stack of executive luggage on wheels. He wore a white business shirt untucked and open at the collar beneath a tailored charcoal jacket. ‘See, I told you the ’Skill would be fine. It’s so great to see you again.’
He leant down and embraced Shanti, kissing her on the cheek. Her thick, black bob swayed as she moved to kiss his other cheek, but he had already pulled away and they wavered awkwardly for a moment.
‘I forgot, you Euros with your double cheek-pecks.’ Laughing away the embarrassment he eased himself on to the barstool Shanti had been saving. ‘That was so funny when we saw each other last night, wasn’t it?’
‘Too funny. I’m standing in the queue and then I see you in another queue going past me in the opposite direction and I’m thinking –’
‘This is a scene out of a late 90s rom-com.’
‘Exactly,’ Trent slapped his thigh. ‘You should have given me your number on a slip of paper, then it would have blown away and I would have spent the rest of the night on a madcap adventure trying to find you again.’
‘I guess the net killed off that whole genre of Hollywood storylines, di
dn’t it?’ Shanti swizzled her drink. ‘Anyway, I’m glad you’re here. It’s good to see you again.’
‘You too. God, it’s been, what? Almost two years since we worked together in London?’
‘Longer. That company was total chaos.’
‘Like the world needed another share trading platform,’ Trent shook his head. ‘Too much money, not enough clues. Segways in the office. Massages and koi ponds. All those parties. Spending money like it was going out of fashion.’
‘Maybe that’s why the mood at Southby seems so familiar. I remember you enjoyed yourself though,’ Shanti smiled and finished her drink. ‘How many receptionists did you end up going through at that place?’
‘You should talk,’ Trent gave her arm a light slap. ‘Every week there was another poor little coder who’d never been that close to a girl he hadn’t downloaded, crying in the HR manager’s office because you couldn’t quite remember his name in the morning.’
‘You are such a bitch,’ Shanti returned a playful slap on the shoulder. ‘I wasn’t that bad, was I?’
‘Well, not every week, but it did seem like you were on some sort of a mission.’
‘First time away from home, in a big city, earning my own money. You can’t blame a girl for wanting to make up for lost time.’
‘Speaking of…’ Trent swivelled on his stool, hoping to snag the eye of the bartender. ‘What have you been doing with your time since London? Still in Cher-many, working for your university pals?’
‘Yes to Munich, no to the university pals.’
‘Did they implode like our London comrades?’
‘Quite the opposite. Started getting successful, brought in some Swedish management consultants who pushed them out and took control. Changed their name to Opod. Heading for IPO, apparently.’
‘Seriously? It’s just a hotel room aggregator, isn’t it?’ Trent brushed his lapel.
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