Ready To Go (2 page)

“Tracheotomies,” the professor announced, and the class paid rapt attention as the process was described in detail. There were PowerPoint slides adding pictures, real and full of color. Daniel gagged, and felt a bit of bile surge up the back of his throat. He discreetly popped another Tic-Tac into his mouth to get rid of the acid taste now in his mouth.

He was focused on the lesson, although he listened instead of looking at the gory slides. He truly wanted to know another way to save a life. He wanted to be the one doctor in a crowd when someone passed out, save a life, be a hero. Just that one shining moment and maybe all this med school crap would be worth it.

The next slide clicked onto the screen, this one with a video clip. Daniel bent his head to his laptop, narrowing his eyes so he could only see his notes, not a knife cutting open skin. He had a nice, neat list of the steps for this procedure. Clean and clinical. This was much better. This wasn’t real, but it was better.

Daniel led the kids to the prehistoric exhibit. Most of them were far more interested in the dinosaur models than what Daniel had to say. At this point, he sometimes fantasized the T-rex statue coming to life and eating a kid. Today it was the kid making faces at the Stegosaurus. The parents and the one older sister listened to his speech, though. This was his favorite part—he could weave a pretty good story here. When he asked one of his standard questions, none of the kids raised their hands, but the older girl tentatively lifted her hand up.

“Triceratops, right?” she said unsurely. The question was to name a three-horned dinosaur.

“Close,” Daniel replied. “Common mistake. The triceratops never actually existed. It was the younger version of what other dinosaur? Can anyone tell me?”

“Of course the triceratops existed,” the girl said, confused. “It was in Land Before Time.”

“They only discovered this a few years ago,” he said. “I was confused, too. And I loved that movie when I was a kid.” His forced smile became a little more genuine. He could see now that this girl was closer to his age, not just a teenager. He’d guess she was twenty, maybe twenty-one to his twenty-five. She looked tired, but sort of cute. She had short brown hair, kind of pale, dark eyes, and okay, he was definitely looking mostly at her chest. But he tried to keep his eyes off of her and focused on the kids.

He lost the girl when the group went through the animal diorama room. He was a little disappointed, but he kept the smile on his face as he said goodbye to the visitors and went to the break room. The next tour wasn’t going to start for another fifteen minutes, so he had some time to sit without screaming kids around.

Nicole, on the other hand, could care less about screaming kids, as long as they were far away from her. She left the tour group without a word, just stayed behind to look at the taxidermied animals in the cases. It was interesting seeing these dead animals posed as if they were alive. She realized she couldn’t look into their eyes without getting skeeved out, but the poses were interesting.

She yawned and sat on the bench in the middle of the room. This part of the museum seemed overlooked. She could hear voices echoing back from the dinosaur exhibit, but they were muffled. She could do whatever she wanted and no one would bother her, probably until the next tour came around.

So Nicole unzipped her suitcase and pulled out a jacket. She laid down on the bench, bunched her jacket under her head, and tried to sleep. It wasn’t real sleep, but instead a state of rest that was broken every few seconds by a kid screaming. A scream, Nicole would open her eyes, groan, and try to go back to the sleep she never had. She didn’t know why she was so tired. She’d spent the night before in a hotel. She had relaxed on clean sheets, watched some TV, and even considered ordering some room service. It had felt like a vacation. No one to yell at her, no one to get away from. It was the best sleep she’d had in a long time.

In the morning, she’d gone to pay her bill and realized that she couldn’t afford to take a vacation night like that again. She’d started her trip with just under a thousand dollars, and was already down to seven hundred with the hotel and the bus trip to get there. Seeing the lack of cash in her floral-print suitcase was what made her decide to walk out to the road and hitchhike her way out of the state. She knew she should have waited longer and saved up more, but she’d burned that bridge now. No use thinking about it anymore.

Nicole shifted on the hard bench and stopped thinking altogether. She’d worry about leaving early, and where she was going, and finding a place to sleep tonight, after she left the museum.

Daniel didn’t notice the sleeping girl he’d left behind. Why should he? He was only thinking that he was eager for something to do between tours, and so he walked into the staff break room in the back of the museum. “Hey Rachel,” he said, seeing his supervisor eating her lunch.

She smiled at him. “Hey, Dr. Everett,” she greeted him, same way she did every day.

“Not a doctor yet,” he replied, same response he had every day. He headed to the schedule hanging on the wall, and flipped through the pages to find his name. He needed to know how late he was working today. Still killing time, he opened his locker and picked up his laptop case. Earlier he had dropped the case in there so fast he cringed at the reverberating BANG. He didn’t bother closing the locker, just pulled on his lab coat as he headed out the door. “Later, Rachel!”

Eventually, he led his second tour back to the dioramas. Nicole heard his voice again and quickly stood from the bench, wrapping her jacket around her waist. She knew it was too hot outside to be wearing the jacket. On the other hand, what was the chance someone would see it around her waist, remember she didn’t have it before, and somehow deduce she was sleeping in this nice, dark, quiet room? She yawned again and walked over to one of the displays, trying to look inconspicuous.

As soon as Daniel walked into the room, he saw the girl was there again, staring intently at the stuffed lion. Daniel had always found that one a bit creepy, the way they posed it like it was about to leap out of the display.

He knew he probably shouldn’t talk to her, let her see the exhibit in peace, but he walked over to her despite himself.

“You were in my group earlier,” he said. “Weren’t you with some kids?”

She jumped a bit, but glanced at him and smiled. “Not really,” she replied. “I kind of knew some of the kids, but they’re with their mom. I’m alone.”

Daniel nodded, and noted the imprint of a zipper on her cheek. “You were sleeping in here, weren’t you?”

“What?” she asked, a laugh nervously escaping from her. How did he know? “Of course not.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said with a reassuring smile. “It happens a lot. I’ve even found myself asleep in here a few times. It’s quiet, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “It’s just…I’ve had a really long day.”

“Thursdays just feel long, don’t they?” he asked. “Almost the weekend but not quite yet.”

“Uh, yeah,” she said, smiling weakly. She seemed distracted. She clearly had had a long day.

“Anyway, we are closing in about fifteen minutes,” he said. “You’re welcome to join the rest of the group on the way back to the entrance, since you missed the end of the last tour.”

“I might,” she said, glancing away as one of the kids caught her eye. A little boy was imitating the stuffed monkey, complete with silly faces.

Daniel followed her gaze. “That kid’s been trying to climb on every exhibit here. Most of them can stand up to it, but I really thought he’d break the triceratops statue.”

“I thought triceratops didn’t exist,” she reminded him.

“They don’t,” he agreed, smiling. “The statue’s old. I’m supposed to call it a torosaurus now. I got the speech memorized, but I keep thinking of it as a triceratops.”

The girl nodded slowly. She was really quiet, and it was a little unnerving.

“I need to move on now,” Daniel said, grabbing his flag. “Coming?”

She just shrugged, not answering. She wanted to sleep a bit more, but she was curious how the tour ended. And it’s not like she was really
sleeping
.

He replied with his own shrug, before turning to face the room. “All right, everyone! We’re going to see some lightning now! Those of you with very young children, you may want to skip this part. It’s dark and there’s some loud noises.” A few mothers carried whining toddlers out of the room. “Come on!” he continued enthusiastically, walking out of the room.

He noticed that the girl followed.

Daniel smiled at her when he realized she was coming. He hadn’t been too worried when she disappeared before, especially as there were no abandoned kids at the end of the tour, but it was nice to see her tagging along again.

He did have to wonder why the poor girl was so tired she’d had to sleep in the exhibit. None of his business, but he was just curious.

He brought the group into the lightning display room and told them to stay behind the white line painted on the floor. He stood behind that line of paint as well, as he did nothing during this part. This was a show, put on by a coworker. Families and other visitors who hadn’t chosen to take the tour gathered around the viewing area.

Daniel watched his tour group, ready to escort out a screaming child as his coworker set off the first crack of lightning. Luckily, no one screamed this time, just oohed in excitement. It really was an impressive show, lightning dancing around the room, coming very close to the visitors, but staying behind a glass panel. The man controlling the electricity wore a conductive suit so that the millions of volts could go through him without hurting him. He was skilled at this, and had often demanded that the museum workers call him ‘The Lightning Master’. Daniel, and everyone else, had refused.

He shepherded the tour group back to the lobby after the show. He told them the museum was now closed, thank you for coming, you’re welcome back anytime, we’re having a special exhibition coming next month. The usual spiel. He handed out the buttons for the tour before he waved goodbye, and then he turned to head back to the staff room to take off his lab coat and grab his things. He wasn’t even thinking about the girl, even though she looked very confused while leaving. Yeah, she was cute, but he saw a lot of cute older sisters. He should’ve given her a button. They’d changed the design on them recently, and they were pretty cool now, a little picture of a T-Rex. He slid one into his pocket as he left, a habit he had every time the design changed. He was starting a collection, but so far he only had four.

As Daniel headed back into the halls, Nicole stepped out of the museum. She blinked as the setting sun streamed between the buildings and hit her directly in the eyes. Where was she going to go now? She was out of the wonderfully air conditioned building and back into the sweltering summer heat. It would be dark soon and she was stuck in a strange city with no one around to tell her where to go.

Where did homeless people sleep? She had never really paid attention to them. She helped out with a fundraiser in high school for a homeless shelter, but that was about it. She didn’t want to go to a shelter, though. She didn’t want to take a bed away from someone who was
really
homeless.

Nicole glanced around to try and get an idea of where the heck she was going to go. There was a bus stop at the corner with a bench. But that would probably a bad place to sleep—couldn’t she be arrested for staying there? She needed someplace inside, that was quiet and abandoned at night. Quiet made her think of a library. That could work. She headed over to the bus stop, coincidentally the same bus stop Daniel walked up to a few minutes later.

Daniel wasn’t expecting to see the girl at his bus stop. She was leaning against the sign pole, counting out her change. He had to stand next to her anyway, so might as well talk to her.

“Do you have enough?”

She glanced up quickly, looking startled. “Um, I don’t know. What’s the fare here?”

“Dollar twenty five,” he replied.

She looked at the coins in her hand. “Just enough.” She smiled faintly.

“Where are you going?” Daniel asked.

“I don’t know,” the girl said. “I kind of wanted to go to the library, but I don’t know where it is. I was going to ride around until someplace looked interesting.”

“The library’s just on this line,” he informed her. “Sit by me; I’ll let you know when to get off.”

Her smile grew wider. “Thanks,” she said. “Why are you being so nice to a stranger?”

“You’re cute,” he said honestly.

Her smile fell. Not the reaction he had expected. “Thanks,” she mumbled again, but she didn’t actually sound grateful this time.

“Also it’s part of my job,” he said, trying to lighten the tension. “I was hired to be a nice person.”

She laughed, but it still didn’t sound genuine.

Daniel had nothing more to say. He stood in silence beside the girl, just close enough that it was an uncomfortable silence, instead of two strangers happening to be close by. He wanted to say something, but before he could think of anything and before the silence got worse, the bus arrived.

He chose a seat near the window, and she sat beside him, holding herself and her suitcase just so no part of her was touching any part of him. He had no idea what to make of her behavior. Yeah, they were strangers, but this was weird. She seemed terrified of him, and he had no idea why. Maybe terrified was too strong, it’s not like she was actively edging away from him. But she clearly didn’t want to be with him.

The bus drove through the city, hitting every possible pothole as it went. The driver, like most city bus drivers, was reckless. There were moments when Daniel noticed the girl gripping onto the edge of her seat, her fingers poking into one of the many rips in the vinyl, but he was used to the crazy driving. He trusted the driver not to crash, or at least not to kill them all if he did.

He pulled the cord for his stop. As he maneuvered past the girl, he told her, “The bus is going to make a major stop in about three or four minutes. Always lots of people, you’ll be able to pick it out. Once you’re past that one, pull the cord for the next. You’ll be able to see the library from there, but they close at eight, I think.”