Chapter 2 miss doolittle2

As we got out, Jane happened to walk by us to the lockers, her haughty eyes that were glaring at me flickered away when she noticed the chilling look Mrs. Doolittle was sending her way.

Janet was a pretty blonde woman in her mid thrities, she was the closest one to my twenty two years of age in the cleaning staff. I had no idea what I did to her, if I ever offended her in someway, which I could have done without being aware of because of my condition. Anyway, she kind of didn't like me.

Okay, didn't like me might have been a sort of an understatement. Hated my guts and wished she threw me from the rooftop of this building was a much closer description of her feelings towards me. 1

"I'll see you later, Irene", Mrs. Doolittle said while I waved with a smile. Ever since I lost my hearing, I liked tp imagine how people's voices sounded. Mrs. Doolittle probably had one of those voices that reminded you of home, warm and comforting but a little worn out and wavery due to her age. A grandmother's voice.

We parted ways, each going with her own cleaning supplies to the floor she was assigned. Jane and I worked on the same floor, which was why we tended to cross ways. Though she gave me a wide berth more often than not. Fortunately.

I dragged my fully equipped cleaning cart to the elevator. 10th floor, I pressed the button and waited, well aware of my empty surroundings. We had to get to work earlier than the employees of the company so we would not hamper them, although a big chunk of work still had to be done when the employees were around.

I reached the floor I had grown accustomed to for a year now. Finance was written in an elegant cursive writing on the wall facing the elevators.

I went about my usual routine, sticking to my side of the floor. The gray marble flooring was already shimmering under the lights that reflected of the beige walls, along with the early sun rays streaming through the gigantic glass windows around the whole floor.

The offices of this floor were only cleaned twice a week under the supervision of an employee, since they probably had sensitive information for the company, being the Finance department's and all. Today wasn't an office cleaning day so I happily skipped them.

I had finished cleaning around the cubicles and almost finished the luxurious bathrooms that were double the size of my apartment when I heard employees started trickeling in.

Just kidding. Of course I couldn't hear employees coming in. I knew because when I was finishing up, two women in dress shirts and pencil skirts came into the bathrooms to fix their already perfect make up. 1

I quickly finished up and got out of there, unnoticed like always. It always amazed me how the cleaning staff was almost invisible for regular employees. We were like walking cleaning machines to most of them. Although cleaning machines would probably get more attention.

Not that it bothered me. I liked being left in the shadows. It made things easier, not having to struggle to communicate with others; they would always be too impatient than to wait for me to write a reply, anyway.

Another eason why I liked being in this line of work. Being left alone.

As I walked through the floor, staying close to the wall, I noticed that the atmosphere was more tense than usual. People in the cubicles were sending nervous glances to each other and to the offices, especially one of the offices. It was the department's head's office.

I didn't like that man, his eyes always wandered whenever I had to clean his office under his supervision. Creepy old man.

Was something happening there?

STORY CONTINUES BELOW

I decided against satiating my curiosity and headed the opposite way to the elevators again. I had read somewhere that elevator buttons were dirtier than toilet seats. So I got to work again and started cleaning the outside button panels, making sure to get out of anyone's way when they wanted to use the elevator.

I thought I was paying attention. I really did. But I made a mistake and did the one thing I had always told myself to never, ever do. Ever.

I zoned out.

I was cleaning around one of the button panels- those corners were tricky- when my mind wandered to Jim, my little brother.

I didn't know what I should do to get him focused on school again. He was such a good kid. He had been when my parents were alive, and when we lived with my aunt when my parents died. Even during the first year after we had moved to the city, he was adjusting pretty well.

But suddenly it all changed, he started hanging with the wrong crowd. I couldn't blame him, really. The area we lived in, it was difficult not to stray off the right way. But that was all I could afford.

If it was just some partying going overboard, I would have been okay with it. He was a teenager after all, and he had just come into a big city when his whole life before he had lived in a small town.

But it wasn't just that. He was skipping school, doing poor at it when I knew how smart he was, and was drinking too much for a normal teenager.

Sometimes I doubted he was doing drugs. One night he came home high, too high, even with my inexistent experience in that matter I could tell it wasn't just alcohol or weed. It was something much more, something that scared the crap out of me.

Maybe I was so caught up in providing him an education and ensuring his college tuition that I didn't pay attention to him anymore? Maybe if we had stayed in our old town nothing like this would have happened? But how would I have been able to support us? I couldn't find work there, and my aunt only took us in because I had begged her. If she hadn't, Jim and I would have been separated in the system. But then, maybe he would have found a better place to live in than what I was offering? Maybe it would have been better for him? After all, what would a deaf twenty two year old girl be able to do for him?

I was so caught up in my thoughts that I didn't realize the panel was squeaky clean, and that someone was trying to catch my attention.

I blinked out of my daze. When I realized I had been day dreaming, my heart started hammering in my chest in fear of what could have been happening.

I was about to turn when a hand roughly grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the elevator.

1

I was so disoriented that I almost toppled off my feet. Luckily the grip that the woman in a crip red suit had on my arm was steel like, so I stayed upright, now facing a small crowd of four people. Three of them looking at me with wide eyes that showed fear. For me, I realized.

But my gaze fixed on the fourth person. He was by far the most imposing of the bunch. A man most likely in his early thirties, sporting a custom tailored three piece dark blue suit, slick brown hair and a short, neat beard that covered a strong jaw. I caught all that in one fraction of a second before my eyes met icy blue ones. Empty, hardened eyes that showed no emotion, of a color so blue that the sky would be jealous.

He looked at me then at the lady, still griping my arm, his eyes a blue void.

I managed to get my eyes off the people who I realized wanted to get in the open elevator. Just as the door closed they opened again, a man already inside the elevator was holding the door for them. And the only thing that blocked their way was my very own, very yellow and blue cleaning cart.