Who: Evie (narrative, closed) What: A phone call Where: 1202 When: Backdated to last week Warnings: Language.
When the internet told her that it had finally gotten above forty degrees, Evie nearly whooped. It was about time. It was almost March and soccer season had started two weeks ago. So far though, they had only done fucking conditioning since there wasn't a soccer field within 20 miles that wasn't knee deep in snow. Evie was already in shape. She had been in shape the entire winter, long as it had been. The least it could have done was stop snowing.
So when she saw 42 degrees on her computer screen, she had ducked out of Networking earlier and headed back to Bellum Letale to get her soccer stuff and go to the park. She didn't see the blinking light on the answering machine until she was filling up her water bottle, and it made her pause. No one ever called the apartment. Why would they? They wouldn't find her dad, or Marissa. Evie had a cell phone. Jack and Nick hadn't lived here for years. She pushed the button, curious.
It was from a hospital with a name that Evie had never heard of. Words jumped out, like heart attack and next-of-kin. There was a number at the end to call.
Huh. Feeling rather dazed, Evie set her water bottle down and moved to her computer to google the name of the hospital. It was in Seattle. Her stomach lurched. Seattle. Seattle, where was her dad this month--? Forgetting about soccer and the weather and everything else, she tore through the apartment, looking for Marissa's stupid little personal planner or whatever the fuck she wrote her stupid yoga lessons and dinner parties down in. Goddamn it.
Eventually she realized that it would probably be faster to break into Marissa's laptop. The password was ridiculously simple- Marissa- and the email was already logged on, so eventually Evie was able to sort through all of the sales emails to find the one her dad had sent with his hotel name and address. Seattle, Washington. Listening to the message one more time, she managed to get down the telephone number and call, despite the erratic pounding in her chest. She was put on hold three times before a doctor actually explained what had happened. He had started experiencing chest pains during a meeting, the man explained briskly, and didn't get help until he had already passed out. He had been put into an ambulance, but experienced another heart attack before reaching the emergency room. He had been pronounced deadon arrival.
Evie didn't wait for whatever else the man might want to say, hanging up the phone and dropping it on the desk, feeling irrationally angry. That bastard. It wasn't enough to be gone for three out of every four weeks, he had to go die on her too.
She only realized that she had punched the wall when she felt the pain splinter up her hand. Wrapping it in ice, she called Marissa but hung up without leaving her a message. Evie wasn't completely sure that the bitch would even care. Later, when her hand was numb, she changed into sweatpants and a sports bra, turned her iPod on as loud as it would go, and went on a run, pounding through the city and taking her anger and sadness and frustration out on the cold sidewalks, remembering long ago memories of a happy family of five.
The one thing Evie didn't think about was the real question: what the fuck would happen now?