The Wrong Way to Rock Bottom | UPDATES Fri/Mon

23

Present day

I'm unsure if the woman from Walmart is actually going to take me up on my free babysitting offer until she calls me on my day off and asks if she can bring Owen by. Minutes later, I get an SOS text from Amanda begging me to come to the Vineyard. She won't tell me why, but I go anyway. My other option is to spend the day at the house, with Jamie, and I've managed to avoid that for the past four days. I'd hate to break that streak.

I buckle Owen into the carseat I still have from working for the Walsh's and we take the nice five minute drive to the Vineyard. The inn is walking distance from Aunt Meryem's house, but I don't want to risk losing the kid on my very first day. 

It's hard for me to get a good sense of Owen. He still won't talk to me. Actually, I haven't heard him talk at all. He isn't afraid of me, and has no problem getting close to me, just like the first time I met him. But he's like my shadow, following me everywhere silently. If we'd tried to walk, I wouldn't put it past him to suddenly take off running and disappear. I just have no way of predicting what he'll do. So, car it is. 

When we walk into the reception area of the beautifully refurbished barn, we're greeted by utter chaos. There are bags and boxes and piles of things—fancy china, cheap toy boats, glittery Happy New Year's headbands, linen tablecloths, an old menorah—everywhere, and no clear purpose for any of it. People run across the room like there's a fire somewhere, and any time they interact with each other, an argument breaks out. I grip Owen's hand tightly. If he gets lost in this mess, he'll never be seen again. 

"Amanda?" I call into the chaos.

Amands's head pops up from behind a table piled high with mountains of tulle. She looks more rattled than I've ever seen her. Her hair is in the process of committing mutiny against the braid she's tried to force it into, and her Vineyard uniform of a black skirt and pastel blouse looks like it's been chewed up and spit out. Her top is both inside out and buttoned wrong. 

"Oh, honey." I stare at her, horrified. "What happened?"

Normally, when people are stressed or maxed out, they tend to want to cry. Amanda looks ready to murder someone.

"Remember that day I helped you move in and then I had to go?" she seethes, wrestling with a cloud of tulle that seems to have wrapped itself around her. 

"Yes." I sit Owen down on the table and attempt to help untangle her.

She speaks in gasps, her words punctuated by aggressive yanking on her prison. "I had to go because—" Yank. "—our event coordinator—" Yank. "—got into a fight with—" Yank. "—the kitchen manager!"      

On the word 'manager', she pulls so hard that something rips, and then stumbles free. She's panting, and I can't tell if it's from battling the tulle or from restraining her rage. Owen's face pinches in concern. He's going to go home and tell his mother I took him to a mental institute. 

"So the kitchen manager and event coordinator were fighting?" I prompt, handing the little boy one of the toy boats to distract him. 

Amanda takes a deep breath. "Yes. It happens all the time, but this time, I came to help break it up."

"And how did that go?"

"The event coordinator thought I was taking the kitchen manager's side. She quit."

"Oh." I look around at the mess. "So, because your event manager quit, you decided to unload all of your storage in the reception area?"

Amanda growls. "No, because my event manager quit, I had to take over her job, and apparently I'm very bad at it, because not a single person here has done what I wanted them to do."

That explains the total lack of direction the employees have. I love Amanda, but she's not exactly leadership material. She is, actually, shockingly bad at communicating. If I had to guess what exactly went down, she probably gave some temps a vague instruction about going through storage, and they were too afraid of her to ask for specifics. 

"So." I clap. "How can I help?"

Amanda looks hopeful. "Would you mind if I punched you?"

"Yes, I would definitely mind."

Her scowl returns. "Coward. Also, why do you have a kid with you?"

I ruffle Owen's curls, which he ignores, laser focused on trying to take the toy boat apart. "This is Owen. I met him at Walmart, he doesn't speak, and I'm not being paid to watch him."

She blinks. 

"Don't ask," I say, at the same time as she says, "I'm not going to ask."

"But he's going to be super quiet and really well-behaved while we handle... This." I wave a hand over Amanda, the reception, and the mayhem surrounding us. "What do you want me to do?"

"Can you please talk to the temps?" She squeezes the bridge of her nose. "I can't get through a conversation with them without wanting to strangle them. They're the reason all this stuff is out here."

"They're teenagers," I laugh. "Cut them some slack. And yes, I'll talk to them. What do you want them to do?"

"Preferably, invent a time machine, go back to an hour ago, and realize that no one in their right mind would ask you to bring every single box from the storage room and go through it in reception!" She's building up to a rant. I can hear it coming.

I hold a hand up. "What do you want me to say to them?"

She gathers up a giant fistful of tulle and throws it into a pile with more force than necessary. "I need this taken care of. All of it."

If it were anyone else, I'd get suspicious that she was purposefully trying to avoid giving me an answer. But she never realizes when she's doing this. 

"Amanda." I plant my hands on her shoulders. "Breathe. In. Out. What do you want the temps to do with all this?"

Amanda takes a few cleansing breaths. "Back in boxes. Neatly labeled. Fine china to the kitchen."

"That, I can do." I let go of her. "I'll set up out here. If anyone has questions, they can come to me. You should go fix your shirt."

She looks down at herself. "What's wrong with my shirt?" 

"Just go." 

I have to physically push her out of the room, and then watch to make sure she gets all the way down the hallway. Nothing is going to get accomplished with her psycho energy around. 

When Amanda's gone, I ask one of the temps to round up everybody and gather them around the reception desk. Meanwhile, I grab Owen and his successfully dismantled boat and bring him behind the desk with me. The temps approach like a bunch of frightened gerbils. There are four of them. One is crying.

"Hi guys." I give them my most non-threatening smile. "There was a bit of miscommunication earlier. Amanda would like you all to please put everything neatly back in the boxes and label each box with a sticker saying what's inside. The boxes with china in them need to go to the kitchen. Everything else goes back to storage. Now, what are your names?"