This Week on: Anne and Ollie

“What’d you get up to on the weekend?”

Melissa pauses, hand halfway outstretched to her coffee. Her glasses slip a millimetre down her face as she looks slowly across the staff room, searching for the man who had spoken. This conversation is hardly her business. He’s not talking to her. He probably doesn’t even realise she’s there.

But he’s got her attention.

“Nothing, really.”

Ah, there she is. The woman he’s speaking to. Melissa can’t see her from this awkward angle, but she doesn’t need to—he only ever speaks to her.

Every day, he finds her at the fridge, piping tea in hand. He asks her how she’s been. She tells him she’s alright. Living the dream, she jokes, as she gestures to her baby blue scrubs, the discardable mask hanging off her left ear. He laughs like it’s the funniest thing anyone has ever said to him, and then he makes some off-hand comment about today’s irritating patient, and she nods in sympathy. She finds her dinner in the fridge, gives him an awkward wave goodbye, and slips over to the table to eat. He bids her farewell, and disappears, leaving his untouched tea in the sink.

Melissa’s been watching every interaction for weeks, now. At first, it was out of boredom; the graveyard shift is tedious ninety per cent of the time, and eavesdropping on two strangers seemed like a good way to pass the time. Then she noticed that this exchange occurs every night, without fail, and she became unhealthily invested.

Day in, day out, the same old conversation.

Until tonight. He has never asked how her weekend was! Never ever!

What changed his mind?

“Really? You didn’t do anything at all?” His voice tilts a little towards teasing, and she laughs, shutting the fridge door. Melissa busies herself with the newspaper, pretending to be deeply interested in the stock market, the Prime Minister’s latest scandal, and the TV program for the next week. It’s painfully difficult—she hates the news, and she’s never had a very good poker face.

“Alright, Ollie, you got me. Let’s see… well, I slept ‘til noon on Saturday, since I didn’t get off until five in the morning, and then I dragged myself out of bed at about three, made a batch of pumpkin soup big enough to last a week, watched some terrible slasher film with my son, and went right back to sleep.”

So, his name’s Ollie. And she has a son. Melissa makes a mental note, and turns the page of her paper. Chris Hemsworth’s face stares back at her.

“Pumpkin soup!” He exclaims with glee. “Aw, man, I haven’t had pumpkin soup in years!”

“Oh, well—I don’t mean to brag, but I make a pretty good one.”

“I don’t doubt that at all! Well, if you need to get rid of any, I know someone who’s happily take it off your hands.”

“I’ll keep it in mind! How was your weekend, then?”

“Eh, it was fine. I finished a book. Started a new one. Slept the rest of it away.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah…”

And just like that, disappointingly, it’s all over.

Melissa sighs quietly, and pushes her glasses back up the bridge of her nose, folding the newspaper shut. Tonight’s entertainment has concluded—please exit the theatre slowly and orderly. Get back to work. Steady, now—the cheque is worth it.

Mr Harrison is cranky with her when she returns.

“I’ve been calling for a nurse for five minutes, now!” He complains. She bites back the urge to call him something truly unprofessional, though there are plenty of words all starting with C that she wouldn’t mind letting slip. “My leg’s itchy, and I can’t reach it!”

When she was younger, Melissa dreamed of saving lives. She wanted to be the nurse everyone was excited to have by their bedside, the one who made the dreary, antiseptic-soaked days a little easier for the ill.

It’s getting harder to remember that dream with every day that passes.

--

When Melissa drops her salad in the fridge the next day, there’s a round container with a sticky note slapped on the lid sitting on the top shelf.

To Ollie. From Anne :)

--

“Please, Anne! I need the recipe!”

Melissa hides a small smile in her blistered hand. They’ve been arguing for ten minutes, now—he’s so in love with her pumpkin soup that he can’t stop thinking about it. It’s a family recipe. A secret that she’s held close to her chest for thirty-five year.

But he really wants that recipe. Like, badly. Because it’s been ten minutes, and he hasn’t made a single move to leave this lunchroom.

Today’s newspaper comics are awful. Melissa skims over them for the hundredth time with glazed eyes as Anne giggles, and shakes her head no, whipping her head of brown ringlets into a messy ponytail.

“You only get it if you’re family, Ollie.”

For a moment, it sounds like Ollie is going to say something. He starts—makes this funny little noise in the back of his throat—before cutting himself off, and sighing. Melissa’s ears twitch.

Eventually, he opens his mouth once more.

“I’ll find a way to get that damn recipe, you mark my words. I’ll break into your house if I have to!”

“If my kitchen’s a mess when I get home, I guess I’ll know the culprit.”

“I guess you will.”

Tonight, as the conversation dribbles off into long breaths and the clink of a spoon against porcelain, it seems as though no-one is in any rush to go anywhere. Anna hesitates, her head turned to the table in the corner of the room, her knees facing Ollie. Ollie looks toward the door, and rubs at the back of his neck, his feet planted firmly in the ground.

Eventually, Ollie clears his throat.

“I probably have to get back,” he murmurs, his voice soft. Gentle. “See you tomorrow?”

“Of course,” Anne promises. Her voice runs through the air like water, sweet and deep, and if Melissa isn’t mistaken, it’s… sad. Dejected, at least. “Bye, Ollie.”

“Yeah. Bye, Anne.”

A disappointing silence echoes through the staffroom once more. Melissa closes her newspaper, and spoons the rest of her chicken alfredo pasta past her lips, scraping every last smidge of sauce off her spoon with her teeth. Mr Harrison has made it back home, and now, a young woman named Grace awaits her patiently, her right arm in a sling and her left leg bandaged around the ankle.

Melissa likes Grace. She doesn’t mind going back to her.

But she wonders when this job is going to start feeling like the dream she worked her ass off to achieve, and not a relentless, exhausting chore.

--

In the kitchen sink, Melissa pays no attention to the mug. She’s too busy thinking about how much she misses her bed.

If she had, though, she might have noticed that Ollie’s tea is only half-full.

--

It’s a Sunday night, and Melissa isn’t supposed to be here.

Her co-worker, Andy, had come down with a nasty cough and a scratchy throat two days ago, and stuck a long, plastic swap up his nose just to be on the safe side. His test results came back positive for it.

They don’t say that word. Not here. Not if they don’t have to.

Melissa was here when it all started. Fresh out of university with spotlights in her eyes and a bounce to her step, she hadn’t been worried when the whispers rose from the ground, muttering about a feverish virus that had just arrived on the shore. She hadn’t stressed about it. Ebola had come and gone fast; she’d assumed this new illness would be much the same.

But she blinked, and when her eyelashes separated again, every bed was full, including those in the morgue. The patients kept piling in, pleading for something, anything that would fix their chest and let them breathe once more, and time and time again, Melissa saw them recede from life until they were just another body to hand back to some poor family. The elderly. The middle-aged. The twenty-something students with plans too big for their little lives. The teenagers. The children.

The fatalities just kept fucking growing, and it didn’t even matter how old you were, how healthy you were a week ago. They knew nothing about it. Not a single fucking thing.

Three years on, it’s not such a big deal. You get your jab, you’re good to go. If you sneeze, just cover your mouth with your elbow. You can even leave your house if you’ve got it—provided you’re wearing that little blue slip of fabric, of course.

Unless you work here.

So, Andy has that dreaded disease, and someone had to cover his Sunday night, and Melissa’s been eyeing a new guitar that’s a little pricier than she’d usually care for.

It’s cold, tonight. Freezing, actually. For some reason, nobody’s come to fix the break room heater yet, and you can feel it right down to the marrow of your bones, blowing a chill throughout your whole body. Melissa’s got stockings beneath her scrub pants just to keep the goosebumps off her thighs, and a snow jacket zipped right up to her chin. Her leftover roast beef lost its heat the moment it left the microwave.

It's a pretty disappointing dinner.

Not that it matters—Melissa’s been chewing the same mouthful for a quarter of an hour, now, entirely engrossed in Ollie and Anne, who are sitting down across from her, shoulder-to-shoulder, laughing through chattering teeth. There’s a bowl of steaming pumpkin soup between them, and they keep dipping the crusts of cheap white bread right into the middle, stuffing it in their mouths before it loses any heat.

“So, what’s your son up to at the moment?” Ollie asks, rubbing his arms. “I hope he’s alright in this cold.”

“Oh, please, he’s fifteen. He’ll be fine.” Anne sucks a drop of orange goop off her thumb. “He’s probably watching another gory movie to scare himself before bed. Bet you anything when I get home, he’s up with all the lights on, pretending he’s as brave as his father.”

“His father.” Ollie pauses. Melissa can feel the tension stretch tighter in the air, as he sets down an unbitten piece of bread, and gives a casual toss of his head. “What’s he up to?”

“Oh.” Anne’s face flushes bright red. “He, uh—well, I don’t know. We got a divorce a few years back. I don’t really speak to him anymore, unless it’s about Kit.”

“Kit… your son?”

“Yeah! Yeah.”

“Right.” Ollie picks his bread back up. Almost dips it in his tea, before Anna reaches over and moves his hand. Melissa swallows a snort. “Um. I’m sorry if this is too personal, and—well, of course, you don’t have to answer, but—why are you not with his dad anymore?”

Anne shrugs. “Good question. We were perfect, for a long time. Nineteen years, in fact. Perfect, until he went and knocked up Kit’s teacher.”

Nothing has ever been more difficult than not reacting to Anna. Melissa nearly bursts a blood vessel. To cover up her near-error, she grabs at her energy drink and guzzles half of it in one go.

“Oh my god!” Ollie covers his mouth. By the shine in his eyes, it’s obvious he’s holding back laughter—Anne’s bluntness is too comedic for such a situation. “I’m so sorry. Oh my god, I—”

“Ollie, it’s fine,” Anne snickers. “It happened a long time ago. I don’t mind if you think it’s funny—in retrospect, it sort of is. The point is, it doesn’t matter anymore, because I haven’t been with him for a long time. Haven’t been with anyone, really.”

And then she looks at Ollie very pointedly.

And Ollie almost chokes on his soup.

--

By the time she gets home, the buzz of Anne and Ollie has disappeared. All that’s left is an aching dread for tomorrow’s shift.

--

On the first day of spring, Melissa sits alone in the lunchroom.

It’s not a fun hour.

Perhaps it’s a little sad that she’s grown so accustomed to Ollie and Anne, two random adults who don’t know her. Perhaps it’s a tad depressing that when Melissa attempts to distract herself with social media, she realises she hasn’t received a single text from anyone three weeks.

Whatever. She won’t think about it.

Twenty minutes before her break ends, someone wanders in, and her cheeks twitch with the beginning of a smile, and her glasses slip askew with how fast her head shoots up—

But it’s only Andy.

“Oh,” Melissa grumbles. Andy frowns. “Sorry, that was so rude—I didn’t mean to be, like, ugh, Andy’s here, I was just—never mind.”

“No, no—tell me what’s going on.” Andy grabs the chair across from her and straddles it, drumming his fingertips on the backrest. Andy always has this nervous energy about him that Melissa kind of feeds off—when he gets antsy, she feels calmer. Like they take each other’s negatives and transfer them into positives. It’s a nice little dynamic. “You’ve been odd the past few weeks. Months.”

“It’s stupid—”

“It’s not.” Andy narrows his eyes. They’re a charming blue, as bright as seafoam. Melissa has never noticed that before. “It’s the job, isn’t it?”

“It’s not the job, Andy.”

“Is so. Don’t think I haven’t noticed! You walk in every morning with a frown, and you get all miserable when the new roster comes out, and you get sadder the longer your shift goes. You’re tired, aren’t you?”

“I…”

She can’t. She just—there’s no air left in her lungs. No energy left to use it on if there was any in the first place.

The truth is, Melissa has been tired for years. She used to have this brilliance about her, a hopeful gold glimmer in her heart that lit up any room she entered, and permanent dimples in her cheeks, right in the corners of her sparkling grin. She would show up early to every class, and would stay late in the library studying; she would count down every day until graduation, until she finally got to call herself a nurse, and not a student. She lived every day like it was a lifeline, and bubbled with excitement for the next day.

She can’t say what took it all away. She knows, of course. But she can’t say it.

Just like she can’t say what kept Andy at home, back in June.

Like she can’t say what killed all those patients, old and young, back in the longest March on record.

Like she can’t say why she still flinches when someone next to her coughs.

“It hasn’t been the same since…” The lump in Melissa’s throat grows twice in size. “You know.”

Andy’s face falls. “Oh, Mel…”

“I don’t know if I’m even happy here, anymore.” Melissa laughs, but it’s an awful wet sound, like she’s gargling swamp water. “It’s just so… like, every room is a reminder. Every patient is a reminder. You can’t get away from it, no matter how hard you try.”

“If you aren’t happy here, then…” Andy bites his lower lip “Maybe it’s time to go.”

She wants to scream, no! She wants to fight, wants to remind him and herself how hard she worked to get here.

But there’s nothing left of her. Nothing at all.

So, she just asks him:

“If I leave, we’ll keep in contact, right? You’re sort of my only friend.”

Andy smiles. He slides his phone across the table.

“Better put your number in there, then.”

--

“Andy Sommers told me you’re leaving!”

Melissa curses, jumping half a mile out of her seat and knocking her water bottle to the floor in the process. She scrambles to grab it as Anne continues to stare her down.

“Well?” She asks, tapping her arm, her brows knitted. “Is it true?”

“Um—” Melissa sets her bottle right on the table. Why is Anne speaking to her? How does Anne know Andy? Why the hell did Andy tell her she’s leaving? “Yeah. I mean, yeah, it’s true, I’m leaving. Uh—with all due respect, why do you care?”

“Oh, please.” Anne’s cheek twitches. “Let’s not pretend we didn’t spend every day in the same lunchroom for, like, three years. Like you didn’t listen to every single conversation I had with Ollie.”

“Oh, god, I’m—Anne—”

“Hey.” Anne reaches out, and clasps Melissa’s arm in a gentle grasp. “It’s okay. I really don’t mind. I’m just sad to see you go, is all.”

“Well, I—I appreciate that.”

“Ollie is, too. I thought you’d like to know.” Anne pats Melissa on the shoulder, and turns to go. Melissa tries really hard to keep away the realisation that the first time she ever spoke to Anne will be the last. That by tomorrow, she will no longer be employed here. That by tomorrow, she won’t be a nurse anymore. “By the way, honey, it’s only fair if I tell you I’ve been watching you, too. Keeping an eye on your own blossoming relationship.”

“I—huh?”

“With Andy?” Anne’s eyes glimmer. She stops at the doorway for just a moment. “Everyone knows. Ollie and I have been betting on you since January. I’ve got fifty bucks on you being the first to ask him out.”

“But—”

“Keep in touch, Melissa. Otherwise, I’ll miss you.”

For a moment, Melissa’s not quite sure what to say. Maybe, goodbye? Maybe, I’m sorry I spent so much time obsessing over your conversations with a man I also don’t know?

Ah, to hell with it. She’s spent all this time saying nothing. Why break tradition?

Melissa waves, feeling a familiar poke at her cheek where those old dimples once stood.

The newspaper sits collecting dust in the corner.