Epilogue – Pain Relief
The fire at Saxon's Junkyard was small and easily contained, but the overhaul was brutal. Evvy was sure she would never get the smell of burning rubber out of her turnouts. It didn't help that the Phantom had left a softened block of Philadelphia cream cheese in her right coat pocket, which had melted into a goop by the time the run was completed. Maybe the Phantom thought she might be pining for her hometown, was Chet's laughing comment as she stared at the pungent white mess in her palm.
The exhausted crew dragged themselves into the dayroom just after one o'clock, praying that they would be done with hard labour for the day. Stoker dropped into his favorite chair and snagged the section of the morning paper he had started hours before. Marco peered into the depths of the refrigerator, as if hoping that something more appetizing than the overly-mayonnaised tuna that John had made for lunch would magically appear. John and Roy eased themselves into chairs at the kitchen table and doggedly continued the task of organizing their run slips and updating their log.
Chet moved his head from side to side, trying to relieve the ache in his neck. "There is nothing worse than a tire fire," he complained to the room at large, as if the rest of the crew hadn't been on the same unpleasant run." They shouldn't be allowed to stack those things that high. Man, my back and shoulders are gonna be sore for days."
"Hey," Evvy said mildly, running warm water over her hands to release the last of the cream cheese from under her fingernails. "I've got some tablets, they work pretty good. Combination muscle relaxer and pain reliever. They're over the counter, so they don't make you drowsy or anything." Ducking quickly into the locker room, she grabbed the small bottle and poured a few small blue pills into her hand. She returned to the kitchen and held out her palm. "Here you go. I take them all the time."
"Oh, yeah?" Chet eyed them closely.
"You want two or three?" she asked, smiling sweetly.
"Probably three," Chet decided, "yeah, better make it three." He scooped them off her palm and grabbed a glass from the dishrack. Evvy followed him with her eyes, the sweet smile pinned to her face as he tossed back the pills and drank an entire glass of water. When he turned to place the glass into the sink, the smile melted from her face as if it had never existed. Then she dropped the remaining pills into her shirt pocket and went back to the dorm.
Roy and John exchanged worried looks. Did Evvy just poison Chet? "Might want to grab the drug box and biophone," Roy muttered to his partner.
John was relieved two hours later when the Engine returned from a reported gas leak and Chet strode into the kitchen, his usual perky self. The lineman grabbed the stack of dishes from John and began setting the table for dinner. John had finally mastered the macaroni and cheese recipe he had been struggling with for two months now, and was serving it with hot dogs. Evvy wandered in a moment later, and headed to the refrigerator to get out the milk.
Halfway through the meal, Cap pointed at Chet with his fork and observed, "I see you're feeling better, pal."
"Oh, yeah, Cap," Chet enthused, "those pills Evvy gave me worked great. I'm a hundred percent better now." He rolled his head from side to side in demonstration. "Hey, Evvy, I might just go by the drug store tomorrow on my way home and pick up some more of those pills. What did you say they were called?"
Evvy took a sip of cold milk. "Pamprin."
Chet's brow furrowed. "Pamprin? Never heard of that."
She deployed that sweet smile again, and John felt the hairs on his arms rise. "Yeah, they're for relief from cramps at 'that time of the month,'" she explained, cupping a hand low on her abdomen to indicate her womb.
Chet's chair clattered noisily on the floor as he shot to his feet. "You gave me female pills?!" he shrieked, his voice, ironically, rising an octave. "Cap, she gave me female pills!"
Captain Stanley was so shocked, even he did not have a witty comeback.
Evvy stirred her pasta with her fork and shrugged. "Relax, Chet, it's not like you're going to start lactating any time soon." She paused, her face completely expressionless. "You only took three. That's not nearly enough to make you do that."
Chet let out a strangled sound that could have come straight out of Terror in the Library, then turned wild eyes toward John and Roy. "You guys have a pharmacology book, right? Where's your pharmacology book?!" He bolted out of the room.
All remaining eyes turned toward Evvy, now silently eating her mac and cheese. She put her fork down and nonchalantly picked up her glass, letting the silence hang for a moment, then let out a helpless giggle. "Well," she said, "it looks like the Phantom will be taking a little bit of time off." She turned to John, who gave her a heart-stopping Gage grin, and clinked her glass of milk against his.
"Evil woman," John said.
"Right on," Evvy answered.
THE END
