After dinner and another brief chat
with her father Irene leaves and drives across town to her new place. She moved
most of the stuff earlier that day via a key stashed in the mailbox, but her
roommate was not home at the time and she has not met her in person yet.
Pulling up to the condo, Irene sees the warm glow of lights spilling out onto
the front lawn, announcing her roommate’s presence. The houses here are not as elaborate
as her parents, but still nice, the sort a couple wanting to start a family
could afford and be proud of buying.
With her hand on the door handle she
has a split second of doubt and thinks maybe she should ring the doorbell,
before concluding that would be foolish, after all she lives here now, at least
for the next three months. A gale of laughter peels from the dining room and
Irene mounts the stairs to greet her new roommate and guests.
"Hi," she states as she
rounds the top of the stairs.
"Hey there," a brown
haired woman, her own age or a bit younger calls back, assuming her feet,
"You must be Irene, I'm Rita." She extends her hand and Irene accepts
it noting the other three people gathered around the dining room table and a
fourth and fifth in the kitchen.
Noting the direction of her eyes
Rita continues, "This is Johnny, Jackson, Emma, Kelly, and Angela, they
all work at the hospital too. We were going to head out to a bar in a bit,
you're welcome to come if you want." Each person raises a hand or a drink
to Irene as Rita travels around introducing them.
"Is it close by?" Irene
asks.
"Yeah right around the
corner." One of the guys, she thinks Johnny answers, "Totally walking
distance if you want to come out for a bit and then leave."
Irene grins, "I think you just
read my mind. I might do that."
The guy grins back, "Do you
want a beer?" Rita offers, "You can have one of mine, I'm sure you'll
get me back for it at some point."
"Thanks," Irene slides
past the two in the kitchen to get at the refrigerator. She would have been
perfectly happy to stay home and unpack her stuff or relax that night, but
experience told her making friends sooner would help her out later.
Everybody chats amiably and Irene
begins to understand this group of co-workers and surmises their relation to
several other factions within the hospital infrastructure. The people gathered
in her house are similar to Irene herself, relatively young, optimistic, and
unattached, not surprisingly she enjoys all of their company. The group leaves
for the bar, Irene drinks sparingly and plays a few rounds of darts (which she
is terrible at) with Johnny, Jackson, and Rita before calling it a night. As it
turns out Johnny and Emma have shifts the next day and want leave about then as
well.
The chill night air swoops out to
envelope Irene as they leave the bar, freezing her through in seconds, she
huddles under her coat and contemplates buying a sturdier one in the future.
The near dark of a city at night closes in around them and snow drifts, cars
and lawn ornaments lurch out of the night at the small party.
"Why did you decide to be a
temp for so long, Irene?" Emma asks as they are walking home.
Irene shrugs, "I didn't really
find a place I wanted to settle down in, I guess. I still wanted to see the country;
I still do want to see the country."
Emma glances back at her, "The
money though, you get paid so much less. I feel like I'd rather go see parts of
the country on vacation."
Irene forces a laugh, "Yeah, I
guess I didn't get to see as much this way, I've always been working, but it's
still different to live in a place for three months than to visit it for three
days. I still managed to save some too, not as much I know, but ITG is a good
employer even if the hospitals are sometimes shady." Emma's statement
masks another question which Irene sought to partially answer. When Irene
started travelling, the positions she held were all legitimately temporary,
covering a shortfall from a retirement or illness or pregnancy, as years ware
on however, most hospitals in the country had taken to hiring temporary nurses
as a cost cutting measure. Able to pay a temporary nurse less money in base
salary and provide fewer benefits, many hospitals would continue to hire new
temporary workers long after a nurse’s retirement or recovery form illness.
Permanente nurses had no problem with temporary nurses as auxiliary, but they
did not smile at the idea of being completely replaced by them. Other problems
arose from the temps as well, many are immigrants and while most are hardworking
and well trained there every hospital has experience with one nurse that was
under qualified or had such poor English skills as to be a burden to bring down
the reputation of all the others, and of course the prejudice of immigrants
stealing American jobs did not help the situation either.
"I'm not a tweaker
either." Irene adds into the tiny silence that has elapsed.
Now Emma and Johnny laugh with an
unnatural tightness, "No one said you were." Johnny pipes up in a
cheerful voice to clear the mood.
"I know," Irene amends her
statement, "but a lot of people think it. I worked with a tweaker on my
first assignment named Gina, she was from ITG too so I know they happen everywhere,
even in my own company. Anyway, I didn't know she was a tweaker, I'm not sure
she was at that point either, but I saw her like four years later and it wasn't
a pretty sight." Tweakers were probably what brought the biggest prejudice
against travelers, drug addicts who hid their addiction by stealing from store
closets and unwitting patients. Three months was a short enough period of time
that it was difficult to catch an offender, and then they just moved on to a
new place.
"We've all seen it at one time
or another I think." Johnny says without the false cheerfulness, "In
patients or in professionals, and anyway it's not just a problem with temps, we
had a nurse get charges pressed against her six months ago, and she'd been
working there ten years. It's a nightmare for the hospital all the same."
Emma nods, "It's a sad case
that. This is my car, I'll see you tomorrow, Johnny, and you whenever,
Irene." Emma points at a car Irene barely notices than saunters off.
Johnny scowls at her back,
"That was smart of her. She parked halfway between the bar and Rita's
place." his eyes shift to Irene, "I mean your place. I'm parked on
the other side, I still have like four blocks to go, and it's getting colder
out here. I hate winter, I'll never get used to it."
"You're not from here
originally than?" Irene inclines her voice to make it a question at the
last second.
"Naw, I'm from near San Diego,
I came here for school. It was the best and worst decision I ever made. I'm
entrenched here now though I suppose, but I do miss the weather. I'm not sure
I'll ever get used to it."
Irene smiles at him, "I thought
I would be like that, go to a warm place and forget about how to deal with
winter, turns out you don't though, I think it's mostly psychological."
"Bah, live in San Diego as long
as I did and you'll be just as weak I guaranty it. Also that's your house, you
just walked past it."
Irene switches her face to study the
houses in shock, the street is a different world in the dark at night,
"Um, which one?"
"That one," Johnny points
with a giggle, "You have key right?"
"Yeah, and I was totally just
testing you." Irene peers at the dark house indicated on the side of the
street, it does look familiar.
Johnny busts out laughing, "No
you weren't I was testing you. You're in the next block over, that one just
happens to be the same layout. Rita tried to get in their one night and the
owner came out with the lights on and threatened to call the cops on her, it
was near Easter and she sent them a fruit cake to apologize, not that that's
much of an apology, come on I'll show you the right one."
Irene chortles, but cuts it off with
a frown at Johnny as they continue down the street, "You wouldn't have let
me do that right, walk up there?"
"No, I just wanted the opportunity
to tell the story, it's a good story. Rita hates it though, don't tell her I
told you." Johnny adds, glancing over his shoulder a with a mischievous
grin.
Silently, Irene concludes he is not
the most trustworthy person she has ever met, but still harmless and pretty
funny as long as the jokes not on you. He drops her off at her actual house and
continues on to his car, she is relieved all the same when the key turns in the
lock and she finds her possessions arrayed on the floor where she left them.
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