Duty Calls
'Rachel, sweetie,' Ross stumbled.
'Is there something wrong?' Rachel at the same time that Emily said,
'Would you take that call somewhere else please?'
'N-no nothing's wrong sweetie,' he said to Rachel. He wondered if any of Emily's voice had carried through to her and if Rachel would recognise it. He knew – or remembered – or at least he didn't remember Rachel being around Emily much, so he didn't know if recognition was likely.
'You sound anxious,' Rachel said.
'Do you mind leaving my office?' Emily said, annoyed.
'Is someone there?' Rachel asked.
'Just a minute sweetie,' Ross said, covering the phone with his hand, and then to Emily, 'This won't take long.'
'Is that what you say to her in bed?' Emily taunted, unable to resist the cheap shot.
'I'll have you know,' Ross began, getting heated, 'I've got great staying power. I know you never complained.' Emily narrowed her eyes.
'I'm complaining now. Do your domestics somewhere else. I've got work to do, and we've finished our conversation.' Ross let himself be shooed out of the room and went into his own office, shutting the door and sitting down. He spoke into the phone.
'Rach?'
'I guess I'm still here,' Rachel said, sounding irked. 'I don't have anything better to do with my day than hang on the phone waiting for you to finish whatever it is you think is so important.'
'Wait!' Ross exclaimed, suddenly realising something. 'Hang up, I'll call you back.' He disconnected the phone and dialled the home number. He had to do it twice because Rachel was too slow on her end in hanging up.
'What did you do that for?' Rachel asked.
'The phone bill. You should have called the office phone, not the cell phone. We can't afford to run up huge phone bills.'
'Well sorry,' Rachel said, not sounding sorry at all. 'And I'm sorry I'm not as important as your work.' Feeling self conscious about Emily, and the fact that he was hiding her existence from Rachel, Ross was unusually sensitive to Rachel's feelings.
'I'm sorry sweetie.'
'That's the fourth time you've called me that. What have you done?' Rachel demanded.
'Nothing!' Ross exclaimed. That was true, anyway, and what was more, the idea that he might do anything that Rachel could have cause, genuine cause not imaginary cause, to complain about it was unthinkable. 'I was just talking to the PhD student.' He hoped that Rachel wouldn't ask for the name again because he couldn't just then remember the fake name he'd used.
'That didn't sound like a man,' Rachel said.
'The cleaner was there too.' That would serve Emily right. Why couldn't she be a cleaner, somewhere else, and not cause him this trouble?
'The cleaner?' Rachel asked in disbelief. 'What did this have to do with the cleaner?'
'W-well exactly! Exactly! That is exactly what I said. It had absolutely nothing to do with the cleaner, but she was there, in the room, cleaning! And we didn't want her there. Me and – and Scott.' He'd remembered a first name. He wrote it down on a post it note for future reference, hating the situation as he did so. How did it come about that he had to lie? Why did Emily have to come here? Why did Emily have to be involved in palaeontology? Why wasn't she happy doing what she did before, when he'd known her? He couldn't remember what she'd done for a living then, but it was unambitious, unremarkable. 'So we had to get rid of her.'
'I don't care about the cleaning woman,' Rachel said flatly. 'I wanted to talk to you about Emma.'
'What about Emma?'
'I took her to the doctor today.'
'What? What did you take her to the doctor for?' Ross asked, surprised.
'If you'd been at home on time just once this week you might be aware that she hasn't been well. She's had a cold and she keeps pulling at her ears. The doctor wants her to see a specialist.'
'What can a specialist do about the common cold?' Ross asked. The first time Emma had been sick he'd been scared, but there had been so many colds and other childhood illnesses since then.
'There's something wrong with her ears. She gets fluid in them,' Rachel said.
'In the bath? I get water in my ears in the shower all the time,' Ross said.
'No, it's a medical condition. It affects her hearing and she gets pain in her ears. The doctor wants her to see a specialist to see if the problem can be fixed.'
'Oh,' Ross said. 'When is she going to see the specialist?'
'In two weeks,' Rachel said.
'Two weeks!' Ross exclaimed, 'What do you mean two weeks?'
'That was the soonest I could get,' Rachel said. She had already called other mothers from the children's playgroup and she had heard that she had done well to get an appointment so soon.
'You can't have told them how serious it is!' Ross exclaimed, 'Emma could go deaf.'
'Well, why don't you call a few specialists, see if you can do better, if you can find the time,' Rachel said, severely annoyed now. She hung up on him and Ross tried redialling with no luck. He slammed the receiver down. She wasn't being fair. It wasn't his fault if he was busy – he was trying to make a secure future for the three of them, and he needed advancement. However he was in no mood to do any more work that day, so he packed up and left.
