Paige went in to work the next morning ready to talk to Ora. She wanted to hear her thoughts on what was happening here, and what Paige should be doing about it.
Not there.
Oh yeah, it seemed like she’d said something about a doctor’s appointment this morning. Well, she’d just have to wait until tomorrow to tell her about it. What verse would Ora pull out of her repertoire for this one? Paige smiled at the thought, certain there would be something.
She heard a rap at the door and looked toward the front. Lee Richardson stood silhouetted in the doorframe. “Hello there, Lee. Haven’t seen you in a while.”
He followed her inside but did not return the greeting—in fact, he didn’t even smile. “We need to talk.” His voice was as gruff as Paige had ever heard it.
“Okay. Let’s go back to the waiting area, where we can sit.”
He nodded and followed her, his boots clacking on the tile floor the only sound.
Paige perched in one of the padded chairs and motioned to the one beside her. She sat straight and did her best impersonation of a Miss America contestant smiling inanely when there was absolutely no reason to be smiling. “So, what did you want to talk about?”
“A few things have been brought to my attention.” He looked her straight in the eye, a steely hardness to his gaze she’d never seen before. This was Lee Richardson the businessman, the one who’d built and run one of the largest contractors in the South. “I had no idea about the incidents in Atlanta when I hired you, or I would never have hired you in the first place.”
“Lee, I—”
He held up his hand. “I’m not blaming you. I never asked, there are obviously reasons that you wouldn’t want to volunteer that information. It was my own fault and I accept that.” His face began to harden again. “What I cannot accept, however, is the apparent continuation of your carelessness that has carried over here.”
Paige heard herself gasp before she’d realized that she’d done it. “It’s not true.”
“I really thought I saw something in you, something different. You seemed to take so much time with your patients at the clinic, seemed to be so careful. I guess my instincts are dulling a bit with my increasing age, but I never would have believed it of you.”
“I’ve done nothing. Clarissa is setting me up.”
Lee stood then. “I can abide a lot of things, but a liar is not one of them. I know all about the mistakes you’ve made here. I know you lied directly to a patient about another mistake. My wife died because of negligence. I will not turn a blind eye to what you’re doing here and risk allowing someone else to face that same kind of agony. You may consider yourself terminated as of this very minute. Pack up anything from here that’s a personal item and clear out.”
Paige stood up and pointed a shaky finger toward the dispensing counter. “Every mistake that’s been made in this pharmacy since I’ve been here has been Clarissa’s. Wait, that’s not completely true. A couple have been Dawn’s when Clarissa was supposed to be supervising her, but was out at the coffee shop or in the back room on the phone instead. Not one thing that I’ve dispensed has come back wrong. I triple-check everything because of what happened to me in Atlanta.”
“What is it with you people that you always have to cast the blame on someone else, even when it obviously rests on you? I won’t listen to any more. Get your things and get out.”
“Lee, I need this job. My family needs me to have this job.”
“We need someone to work here without a track record of negligence like you have—someone who won’t come in here and lie to me about my own granddaughter. I’ve got half a mind to take you to court and get the first half of that signing bonus back, since you signed under less than honest conditions. If you say one more word, so help me, I will.”
Paige opened her mouth and took a breath. She stared at the hard anger in his eyes and knew he meant every word. She couldn’t say anything. It was over.
She nodded, reached down for her purse, and walked back into the dispensing area to retrieve her coffee maker, then walked to the door with as much dignity as she could muster. She remembered the keys in her pocket, turned and handed them to Lee without a word, and walked out.
Once outside the store, she ran through the coffee shop, currently full of customers, then down the sidewalk toward her car. She saw Clarissa’s red convertible pulling into the lot—a couple of hours earlier than usual. Obviously she’d known that her grandfather was going to do this today. Obviously she was the one who had told him about the mistakes. But why?
Time to find out. She took purposeful steps toward the car, each one jarring her as it hit the pavement with such force.
“Why? Why did you do it?”
Clarissa bent down to pull her purse and lab coat from the car. “Do what?”
“Come on, Clarissa, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Why would you lie to your grandfather like that about me? What have I ever done to you that would make you do that?”
“You’ve got some nerve calling me a liar. What you need to do is look in the mirror. You lied to my grandfather to get this job, and you hadn’t been here a week before you lied to a patient.”
“I lied to a patient to cover for you, because I wanted to protect you. And when have I ever lied to your grandfather?”
“Whether or not you stated a lie, the fact that you did not tell my grandfather the whole truth was a lie in and of itself and you know it. As for me, I’m sure if you think about it, you’ll figure that one out.” She threw her purse over her shoulder. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get to work. I’ve got a pharmacy to run.” She sashayed toward the square as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
Paige watched her go, saw the extra spring in Clarissa’s step. The way her hair bounced with each movement. How could anyone be so apparently happy about wrecking another person’s life? It just didn’t make sense. None of it made sense. Where was God in all this?
She somehow managed to cover the distance to her car, open the door, and put the key in the ignition. How was it that in spite of incredible, mind-numbing pain, the body could continue to move in a way that looked perfectly normal from the outside, while inside everything was falling apart? She drove away from the lot, having no idea where she was going.
When Clarissa got to the Theater Shops, she ordered a mocha— full caffeine, full fat. Kathy raised an eyebrow from behind the counter. “My, my, walking on the wild side today?”
“You only live once.” Clarissa laughed like she didn’t have a care in the world and went in search of her grandfather.
She found him upstairs. His face was paler than she could ever remember seeing it. She realized that this had been hard on him, and for just a moment, she felt a pang of guilt at the suffering she’d caused him. Well, maybe none of this would have happened if he’d have felt a little guilt about the way he’d jerked her around all her life.
He walked across the room. “Let’s go downstairs and talk.” His voice sounded husky.
“Sure.” She took a sip of the mocha and noticed it wasn’t quite as satisfying as she’d expected when she ordered it.
They walked into the pharmacy and locked the door behind them. He went to sit at the back desk and scrubbed his hands across his face.
“I take it that she didn’t take the news so well.”
“I’ve fired more than my share of people in my life, but for some reason, this one just gets to me. I’ve always prided myself on being such a good judge of character. The things that she did, it just doesn’t seem possible that she is the same person who was so conscientious at the homeless clinic, using her own money to buy grocery cards for her customers.”
Clarissa took another sip of the mocha, then set it on the counter. Definitely not satisfying.
“Well, I’m sure she’ll find another job somewhere and she will have learned from all this. She’ll be more careful from here on out.”
“No. I plan to report all this to the State Board of Pharmacy. We got her out of here, but I don’t want her doing the same kind of dangerous practices somewhere else. It’s people who do things like this who need to be kept out of pharmacies altogether. I plan to do my part to make sure she never practices pharmacy again.”
Clarissa flinched. This was not part of the bargain. Getting Paige out of the pharmacy, off the payroll, and away from Inspector Powell was one thing. Reporting her to the board was another. She couldn’t tell her grandfather that, though. Time for plan B.
“You know what, Granddad, you’re right. You’ve been saying that you want to really see me step up and take some responsibility, and that’s what I’m going to do. When the board inspector was here a few weeks ago, he left his card. I’ll call him this morning and report all this. I’m the pharmacist in charge; it should come from me anyway. You don’t think another thing about it.”
He nodded his head grimly. “Okay.”
“Promise you’ll let me handle it?”
“Frankly, I’m more than happy to let you handle this one.” He stood. “I’m going back upstairs.”
Paige has no idea just how grateful she should be right now. “Okay. Will I see you for lunch?”
He stopped and turned. “I’m not really in much of a lunch mood. In fact, I think I’ll head back to Nashville early. I just don’t feel like being around here right now, with all that’s happened.”
You’re not the only one. “Well okay, let me know if you change your mind.”
Clarissa looked around at the empty place, knowing that Paige wouldn’t be coming back. The regret hit her with surprising force. Still, Paige had brought this on herself. She would get another job and be fine. A few months from now, she would have forgotten any of this ever happened, and Clarissa would get her dream, as well. It would work out for all of them. This was just a bump in the road, that’s all.
Dawn came dragging in twenty minutes late, her hair a mess, her face pale. She sat down and listened to the refill line without saying a single word, then walked to the printer and pulled off the labels. “Where’s Paige?”
“She’s not working here anymore.”
“Huh?”
Clarissa drew her shoulders up tall. “My grandfather fired her this morning.”
“You’re kidding. Why?”
“There were some things going on, things you don’t need to worry about. Anyway, it’s all taken care of now.” Clarissa studied her face. “What’s up with you? You look tired. Jack have you out dancing until the wee hours of the morning?”
“Hardly.” Dawn’s voice sounded choked, like she was about to cry.
Clarissa felt sorry for her, but honestly what did Dawn expect when she chose that idiot for a boyfriend? If that’s the kind of man she chose to spend her time with, she was going to have problems, and it was no one’s fault but her own. When you made bad choices in your life, you had to pay the price. That was the truth of it.