10
Ginny
Drinks were at a bar and grill downtown, just a few blocks from our office building. Several people in the office left early, including Allison, but the meeting invite Michael sent out said that it started at 5:00. I also felt weird leaving early my first week in the office, so I stayed until 5:02 before packing up.
I called my parents on the way there. Mom was unhappy that I was bailing on our Friday dinner, but Dad told her to calm down. “Go have fun with your coworkers. Do a bunch of networking. Be your usual charming self. We can do dinner tomorrow instead.”
“I, uh, have plans tomorrow night,” I replied. I always went live with my Saturday shows at 7:00pm, and I needed at least an hour to prepare.
Mom suddenly chimed in: “Is it a date? Please tell me it’s a date. A girl your age shouldn’t be single. People will start askingquestions.”
“Who are these people asking questions about my love life?” I asked. “And no, it’s not a date.”
“You can tell me if it’s a date,” she replied. “I’m your mother. I just like to know what’s going on in my daughter’s life.”
Trust me, you don’t want to know about this.
The bar had a lively Friday crowd. Televisions around the outer walls showed various baseball and basketball games. I searched the room until I saw Michael standing at a high top table by the bar. He was tapping on his cell phone when I walked up.
“I thought I was late,” I said while putting my bag down on the table. “Where is everyone?”
“Allison has a choir thing with her grandson,” he explained. “Has she talked about her grandkids yet?”
I chuckled. “Oh, I’ve heard all about Blake and Carmen. I think she told me more about them than she did about processing grant requests.”
Michael’s laugh was deep and rich. “Liz and Harper both said they would swing by for a drink, but I haven’t seen them. I invited four people from other departments too, but I didn’t hear back.” He raised his glass. “It might just be us until then. Get whatever you want—it’s on the foundation’s dime tonight.”
The bar had some fun cocktails, so I asked for one of those. Michael put in an order of spring rolls for the table to share. There was an awkward silence as we waited for my drink to arrive.
“Do you care about sports at all?” he asked.
“Afraid not. I have an Albuquerque Isotopes cap from a game my dad took me to ten years ago, but that’s the extent of my knowledge.”
My drink arrived, and Michael tapped his glass against it. “To hopefully a long and successful career at NMCF.”
“Cheers to that!”
He took a long pull of his beer and stared down at me. His blue eyes glowed in the reflected light of the nearest TV. “You have family around here, I assume?”
“My parents live in Fort Perth. I’m an only child.”
“What do they do?”
“My mom cleans houses for a living.” I hesitated, wondering if I should continue. But Michael was smiling at me, and I felt like I could open up to him a little. “Dad’s been unemployed for ten years. He’s on disability.”
“Oh. Wow, okay. Do you mind if I ask what happened? Is that a shitty thing to ask someone I’ve only known a week?”
“It’s really shitty,” I teased. “How dare you try to get to know me?”
He glared at me, which made me laugh.
“Dad used to work in a warehouse in Albuquerque. He was a forklift driver. He was paranoid about safety, much more than his coworkers. He was the only employee whoalwayswore his harness in the forklift. They made fun of him for it. Well, one day, he was lifting a pallet from a high shelf. The load wasn’t secured the way it should have been, and it shifted on the pallet. The forklift started to fall over sideways. He was wearing his harness, of course, but because the universe can be cruel sometimes, the harness lock snapped open. He fell out of the forklift… and then it landed on him. He was paralyzed.”
Michael put down his beer and touched my hand. His fingers were thick and warm. “Oh my God. Ginny, I’m so sorry.”
“I haven’t even gotten to the worst part,” I said with a wry grimace. “The company tried to claim it was his fault. They said he wasn’t wearing a harness at all, and that it didn’t malfunction. They tested the harness but weren’t able to reproduce what happened. Or at least, that’s what they claimed. And since it was his fault, insurance wouldn’t cover the medical bills. He couldn’t get worker’s compensation. They hired an employment lawyer, but the warehouse company dragged things out. My parents went bankrupt long before they could have won a settlement from the company. I was just a teenager at the time.
“It’s been tough since then,” I went on, realizing I had already finished my cocktail. I gestured to the waitress for another. “There aren’t a lot of places that will hire a guy in a wheelchair, and my dad didn’t have much experience outside of warehouse work, and no degree. He got a job as a Walmart greeter for a little while, but then they cut costs and he lost that job.”