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She seemed thrown. Like she didn’t realize she had friends or some shit. And this didn’t surprise me. This girl didn’t know her worth.
“This place fired her,” I told someone. “She moved to Aberdeen with me, but she’s been here taking care of her sick aunt. The one she cut her hair to make a wig for.”
I only said that once to someone but there was an audience of elderly people watching television and so it got shared repeatedly by a couple residents who followed us around.
After we’d gotten almost all the way through the place, having a group with us near the end as we’d picked up several who followed along for the tour, a thirty-something woman in a beige suit with short blonde hair nearly ran into me coming around a corner.
She sized me up and made a judgement immediately. Then her eyes bounced to Gigi, and it took a beat before recognition hit her eyes.
“Oh. You’re… what are you doing here?”
Georgina spoke up. “I’m just takin’ her round to say goodbye to the residents and her colleagues who all miss her.”
The woman made a face of distaste.
“I really like all the pictures on your skin,” a little old lady with a walker said to me.
“Thanks, ma’am,” I replied, then looked to the bitchy blonde. “She’s also here for her last check. It’s about three months late.”
The woman looked at me like she couldn’t believe I deigned to speak to her.
“I’m sure I mentioned it was mailed to you, Gianna.”
My girl shook her head. “I’ve left voicemails and sent a couple emails. I haven’t heard anything back from you.”
“Pay this girl her money,” an old lady who was knitting in a nearby rocking chair called out.
“Yeah!” an old man chimed in. “She shouldn’t have been fired. You should be fired! We like her. You’re a sourpuss.”
Gigi looked horrified.
That Carolynn bitch was red-faced.
Georgina was failing at hiding her amusement.
“How about you cut her a check now and we’ll be on our way,” I suggested.
“The check was most certainly issued and mailed to her,” the woman replied with a puckered-up face. Yep. The old dude was right. Sourpuss.
“She doesn’t live there anymore,” I said.
“We’ll have to file an inquiry with the bank to see if it was cashed. Then, if not, we’ll have to re-issue-”
“She said she didn’t get it. Right, G?”
My girl cleared her throat and said, “I definitely didn’t get it. I didn’t hear from you stating it was mailed and told you in my message that I needed to pick it up because I was in the process of moving.”
“Perhaps you can call the office tomorrow and I’ll look into it,” the woman tried to dismiss us.
“We’re on our way out of town. We’ll take the check now,” I advised.
“I’m sorry, but this isn’t how it’s done.”
“Give the girl her money!” the old man called out again. “My family pays good money for me to live here and if I tell ‘em you people aren’t paying your staff, they’ll have something to say about it!”
“Mister Marsden, it’s all in hand, I assure you,” Carolynn attempted to soothe, “Gianna, we’ll have to take this up later. I have another meeting.”
She attempted to usher us toward the door that’d take us back to reception.
“Where’s her office, G?” I asked.
Georgina helpfully advised, “It’s right there.” She pointed to the door to the left of the door that the woman was trying to usher us through.
I tagged G’s hand and went toward that door.
“We’re goin’ into your office, lady, and you’ll either show us the check details from your check register that shows the date that check was made out to Gianna Jones, or you’ll write us a new one. How much does this place owe you, baby?”
“Four hundred and forty-nine dollars.”
“I’m sorry, but you’ll need to leave,” Carolynn insisted. “I won’t be intimidated.”
I leaned forward and spoke low. “My girl just wants what’s owed to her. I haven’t begun to intimidate you.” I gave her a pointed look, then added, “Yet.”
“Please wait here,” she said and then she slipped into her office.
She tried to shut the door, but my motorcycle boot prevented her from doing that.
Gigi and I stepped in.
The woman was flustered, clicking through shit on her keyboard and rifling through files. We stood there. Gigi chewed her lip, looking about to laugh while I stared, gunning the bitch with my eyes. Every time she looked up to see if my eyes were still on her, she got increasingly shaky and nervous.
Three minutes later, there was a stack of cash in Gigi’s hands and the woman said nothing further about a previous check being lost, canceled, or investigated. She only had Georgina come in, presumably as a witness, before having Gigi sign a petty cash note stating she’d received the money.
