are indeed wearing your Bossy Pants today.”
Ollie sighed, exasperated. “Sparks, you’re a pest.” He straightened his pants. “Well?”
Sparks waited, knowing it was driving Ollie crazy with every second he didn’t have the answer he wanted. “Okay, it’s D. The new guy is going to be D.”
“You’re right. I would never have thought of hiring him. Why D? I don’t think he’s even looking for a job.”
“He’s been interested ever since you first came home talking about Ascend with the other guys. He was planning on just taking out a bunch of loans to pay for school, but ever since you got this job he’s been thinking about applying. Actually, he’s gonna end up applying for the manager position.”
“What? You’re not going to make me do it? I don’t have to be the manager?”
“Nobody ever said you did. Why did you think you had to?”
“Why? Because you never tell me anything. All I can do is assume.”
“You don’t have to assume, Ollie. But you do.”
***
D did make sense for the job. Not only did he have the right personality to work with someone like Greg, but he had the bulk. He wasn’t as big as Greg was, but he was pretty close. And of course being a psychology major, he was a great fit for manager.
“Morning, D,” Ollie said. D sat on the couch in the living room with his nose in a book. “How’d things go last night with the girls in Ivy House?”
“Good, good. Well, up and down.”
“Why up and down?”
“Depending on when Richie was talking or not,” D said.
“But whenever he opens his mouth he always makes you look smarter by comparison.”
“Too true. And how are things going with you and that new girl, the one with the curly hair?”
“Joy. Yeah, things are going great. We were supposed to go to the circus last night but plans kinda got messed up. We’re going to go today instead.”
“That sounds cool.”
“You should come with us. Seriously, unless you’re hanging out with the Ivy House girls again tonight.”
“Nah.”
“Nah, you don’t wanna go to the circus? Or nah, you don’t plan to hang out at Ivy House?”
“Ivy House. You sure I wouldn’t be in the way?”
“Positive. Actually, I was planning on tricking you into having fun with us tonight so I could convince you to work with Ascend.”
“Really? Sounds interesting. I’m in. If I do like the job, I’ll consider putting in my application.”
“Sounds like a plan. I start my shift at three, but I’m not picking Joy up for the circus until five. When do you want to go?”
“Three, if that’s all right.”
***
Once three o’clock rolled around and they drove to Greg’s, Ollie couldn’t help but wonder what he was going to find when he got there. He assumed that he’d find the morning staff worker there doing something he shouldn’t, something that just cried out for termination. He didn’t.
The guy who was supposed to be working wasn’t even there. The note Ollie had stuck in the door jamb was still exactly where he’d left it.
Ollie pulled the note out of the door, and then he and D slipped inside the apartment. He found Greg still sleeping in his bed, right where he’d left him seventeen hours earlier, now with his CPAP mask lying at his side rather than over his nose and mouth. The laundry pile was right where they’d left it, in the living room. Greg’s morning medications were still in his pill tray in the lock box.
“Hey, Greg?” Ollie called softly through the cracked door.
“Who are you?” Greg growled.
“Ollie,” he said. “Remember me?”
“No. Go away.”
“Let’s go over and talk to Lynn for a second,” Ollie said to D. “She’s Greg’s acting manager until a new manager can be put in place.”
After quickly introducing D, he and Ollie told Lynn everything from the note in the door to how Greg’s medications were still untouched in the pill tray. Lynn then brought Marie over to Greg’s place with them, pulled out the notebook that contained Greg’s information, flipped it to a page that contained the staff schedule and traced her finger to a name next to the Saturday morning shift. She then flipped to the phone numbers page, copied the number into her phone, and called the staff worker who was supposed to have come in for Greg that morning.
Ollie and D listened in on the half of the conversation they could hear, filling in the blanks with their imaginations. Lynn hung up.
“He said that he came in and Greg