Page 51 of Her Only Hero
Ursula didn’t agree or disagree.
“There are SOPs online so you can familiarize yourself with what we do here. Have you been given a password yet?”
“I have,” she said.
“That’s good,” I said. Moments of awkwardness were almost palpable, but I fought through them and kept talking about work duties. “For obvious reasons, it’s especially important at this stage of sample prep not to cross-contaminate.”
Ursula nodded, as if she knew everything already. That was good. At least she was engaging.
“Do you know if Aram is in today?” she asked out of nowhere.
“He is,” I said as I screwed on the test tube lid, trying not to sound surprised or annoyed.
“I’ll have to stop by his office and say hi,” she said. “We had such good times together at St. Eugene’s.”
“I’m sure he’d like that,” I said and pulled off my gloves, wondering how good those times really were.
“You know, June, things went to shit after you left St. Eugene’s.”
I paused. “Really? How?”
“We were understaffed, and everyone became stressed and bitchy. And of course, Victoria kept making mistakes, right up to her suspension. Thank God, you reported her. She would have killed someone.”
“Thank you,” I said, assuming that was a compliment. “Still, it was a tough thing to do.”
“I’m sure it sucked, being labelled as a snitch,” she said.
I bit my lip.
“Victoria was pissed,” Ursula continued. “I’d never seen her face as red as when she came out of the boss’s office. I’m glad to be out of that place.”
“Me, too,” I said. Finally, we were in an agreement about something. In her own way, I sensed Ursula was being respectful and cooperative. But only time would tell.
I showed Ursula the various instruments and briefly explained their function. We sat at a computer terminal, and I orientated her on the software program.
Ursula checked the clock on the wall.
I hadn’t realized it was almost noon. “You’re welcome to go for lunch. We can meet back here in an hour.”
She got up and bustled out of the lab. The upside to training her was I didn’t have to tell her things twice.
I remained seated at the computer and checked my work emails. I leaned back in my chair and thought of the mystery list on the USB I had found. I stood to retrieve it from my locker.
Halfway down the hallway, Ursula and Aram stood near each other. They were all smiles and giggles, and I said, excuse me as I walked by.
I rushed into the locker room and let out a breath. Their brazen flirting irked me. Maybe it was because Aram had seemed to have moved on so easily. It didn’t matter now. That part of my life was over. Gone. I wasn’t feeling any form of jealousy right now. I opened my locker.
What was wrong with me? Aram and Ursula were probably just catching up because they hadn’t seen each other in a long while. I rummaged through my handbag and retrieved the USB stick.
The main door opened, and Aram sauntered over. “How are you?”
“Awesome.”
He looked at my hand. “What’s that?”
“Just a USB drive.”
“Are they photos? Any of us?” He raised his brows and smiled.
