It took all three women to get Susan on her feet, to get a styrofoam cup of coffee in her hand and her jacket over her shoulders. Wherever Susan was, it wasn't in their shop, and it wasn't a good place.
Just fucking grow up Peter she had said, I hate that you keep acting like you're a bloody child. A child, that was the last thing she had said to her brother.
You're so immature! She had laughed this morning, tossing Basil his jacket on his way out the door. He had smiled, that crooked- unsure smile that was so rare when he wasn't being witty. But she hadn't kissed him. Almost every morning he had snuck into their room to kiss her goodbye, or she had met him at the door. But that morning she didn't- that morning she was too busy.
And now he was on a stretcher, headed for a hospital.
The manager, Cindy (she had a name after all) found her file and looked up emergency contacts- only to see that by happenstance, on purpose, that space was left blank. There was no one for them to call, no one for her to fall back on as far as they could tell. Just Basil, the person who came in and knew her by name, not much else. She was alone- and each woman was hit in a different way about that fact, New York City is a big place, and she was alone with her boyfriend on the television.
"Let's just close early okay?" "I'm hailing the cab."
"Susie, come on Susie, we're going to start calling hospitals, we'll figure out where he is, it's all going to be okay."
The three of them, like so many chickens ushered her into the cab, began calling numbers, asking for Basil Cypris, from the crash. Mid twenties, longer hair- should have a phone that has fifty or so missed calls. No? Thanks. No? Well it's his girlfriend... no we know you can't say- but she's terrified, just let us know... okay thanks.
It was one of the Saints that they ended up in, and a waiting room, and all they wanted to know was if he was okay, was he going into surgery? Was he going to be alright?