Blue Fur

Chapter 2

"Please have a seat", the Director said as he pulled my chair out for me, offering me all kinds of refreshments and snacks as he made a fuss over me.

I felt uncomfortable as I had never been doted on in such a manner before. I didn't know how to feel about it.

With his insistence I took a chicken mayo sandwich and a Mountain Dew, both of them going into my backpack before he was dismissed by the so-called investor who sat across from me.

"Ms. Clark. First off let me start by introducing myself. My name is Faolán O'Brien and my colleague, the man with whom you saw me with this morning, have come to request your help", he said, sliding over a thin black folder. "I'm unfortunately going to have to ask you to sign that none disclosure agreement".

I read through the none disclosure, and sure enough, all it said was that I could not disclose what was said to me that day in the conference room, not to a single soul. I didn't have anyone to tell anything to and after that meeting, I assumed I would never meet that man ever again so the topic of what was discussed would never pop up again.

I signed it with no further questions and slid the folder back across the table and Mr. O'Brien slid over another one.

"What do you need my help with?", I asked, opening up the folder and reading what seemed to be a job offer.

"Yes, we quite desperately need your help. You see, about 2 months ago, myself and my employer, along with his family had come to you're small town on a business trip. My employer's family took the opportunity to see the sights as they had never been to America before and did what all tourists do, saw the sights, did what the locals did, and ate whatever foods seemed interesting".

I followed along with Mr. O'Brien, not that he was saying much yet.

"They took a trip to the national wildlife center nearby and for most of the afternoon, things were going great, until my employer's son tripped down a small set of steps. Normally, he would've been fine, tripping down a step or two would've bruised your arse or rolled your ankle but unfortunately, he had been born with Hemophilia".

I sucked air in through my teeth as part of my Cosmetology training I had taken an additional course on disorders and diseases of the skin and how to help treat them with topical creams or washes. I didn't learn much about Hemophilia and more about eczema and other flaky skin conditions but it was briefly mentioned in the waxing section of my textbook that waxing someone with Hemophilia was extremely dangerous and was not recommended.

"He landed on his right side, bruising what I could only assume, was everything from his ankle to his temple. Naturally, we rushed him to the hospital nearby, calling ahead so that they had the treatment ready for when we arrived as his internal bleeding had caused him to become unstable on the way here".

"The bump to the head would've been extremely dangerous in this case", I said, sitting up straight in my seat.

"Precisely. Fast forward to us getting him to the hospital and into the treatment room. We were lucky enough that day as you had just donated and you're blood was still available for us to use. Normally, it would've easily taken the boy 2 months to recover from such a fall but miraculously, with the help of your blood, the swelling and bruising went down by that evening and he was discharged the next afternoon".

"I'm glad I was able to help him recover but why didn't you approach me then? Why now?", I asked, reading through the contract again and liking what I was seeing but that made me even more skeptical.

"We had to run a few tests before we made any concrete decisions. There were so many factors we needed to account for and we had to go back to Ireland as our visas weren't valid for a very long time. So we had to return and before we knew it the test results came back and 2 months had passed", he said, his eyes watching my hand as I twirled the pen around my index finger.