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“Hold please.”
I squeeze my phone in annoyance as a series of rattles comes through the line. Then I hear her chastising her mother for giving out her phone number.
Mrs. Kelly was ecstatic when I called earlier at the insistence of my father after we were done at the vet’s office. Cole’s injury required nothing more than a Band-Aid, but it still left me shaken.
“Chase, I’m so sorry if my mother gave you the wrong impression, but I’m not—”
“You’ve already found work?”
“Excuse me?”
“When I spoke with your mom, she assured me you were unemployed.”
More silence separates us.
“Did you find a job?” I ask, looking down at my watch. “In the last fifteen minutes.”
“You told me you were on the phone with Aunt Bertie!” Madison yells, obviously not speaking to me.
“I was hoping we could meet to discuss a job opportunity.”
“Opportunity?” she asks, already sounding skeptical.
“Yes,” I say.
“I’ll think about it.”
The call ends.
I pull the phone from my ear, and stare at the offensive thing.
Madison Kelly has never been my biggest fan, but it’s been more than a decade since high school. I honestly thought she’d grow out of whatever issue she had with me. Clearly, she hasn’t.
Maybe it was my fault for thinking she was mature enough to handle a simple phone call.
I turn my head, keeping my eyes closed until my neck pops before twisting it the opposite way and getting the same result. After a handful of calming breaths, I hit redial and wait. She never agreed to meet me and this isn’t something I can wait to get an answer to. If she can’t help me, then I need to find analternative.
“What?” she snaps the second the call connects.
“I’d like to meet later today to discuss this,” I say.
“Like a date?”
“Like a job interview.”
I have to pull my phone from my ear because of the ensuing silence to make sure she hasn’t hung up on me again.
“The Brew and Chew in two hours?”
“I have plans today, Mr. Woodson. Tomorrow will work better for me. See you at noon,” she counters and then she hangs up.
Maybe she doesn’t understand just how busy the diner gets on Sunday after church, but I guess I have no other recourse than to be okay with her demands.
I feel like a damn dragon breathing fire from my nose in irritation. I don’t remember her being so combative.
Dad listed off several people that she used to babysit for and urged me to call around and ask about her childcare skills. I did my due diligence and made those calls before calling her mother to get her phone number. If she didn’t come highly recommended, I wouldn’t tolerate her attitude. Maybe she’s better with kids than she is with adults.
I head out of the living room toward the boys’ area of the house. Dad and I have been turning several of the rooms we’ve made theirs into a jungle of sorts. It was Dad’s idea, and of course, as the amazing grandfather that he is, he talked to the boys about it before discussing it with me. They rallied together to blindside me with the idea.
