Nastannah and the Living Daylights 1

Chapter One

Two Weeks Prior: Ebon Blood Donation Clinic

“Remind me,” Anastasia requested as she shut off the engine of her shiny new blue convertible at the curb. “What are the rules?”

“Stay in sight at all times, don’t leave footprints on the furniture, clothes stay on my body and don’t hold hands with strangers,” the woman in the passenger seat replied dutifully. “So if I ask their name first, is that okay?”

Anastasia agreed with a slight smile and turned her attention to the building before her. She’d bought it over twenty years ago with the money she’d saved through university and quickly turned it into the business she’d come to know and love. Only in recent months had she begun to take an active part in the running of it, however, choosing to work from the sidelines through an experienced business manager by the name of Darren Haimes. He’d done a splendid job of keeping the company running smoothly, but in light of recent illnesses, had decided to retire, leaving Anastasia to step in and pick up the reins. She didn’t mind, she’d been looking for a change, and felt that this was a well-fated turn of events.

Her lifelong friend, Hannah, on the other hand, had been less than enthused by her new found interest in the company. As far as Hannah was concerned the company would run itself. It had, in fact, been running itself since the day it opened. There was no point in Anastasia inserting herself into the inner workings now when things were fully routine. To demonstrate her opinion, Hannah had taken a spontaneous disappearance to Goddess-knew-where a week ago. Only to return this morning as tight-lipped as Anastasia had ever seen the woman about her time away.

“Why are we doing this again?” Hannah asked, checking her flawless face in the rear view mirror and fluffing her gorgeous auburn hair. “It all seems a little redundant. You haven’t been doing a thing for this company for twenty odd years and it’s been going fine. It doesn’t need you.” Hannah had never set foot inside the building, and had planned on keeping it that way, but in an attempt to keep her temper tantrums under control Anastasia wasn’t letting her out of her sight for one moment. “I hate this place.”

Angling out from behind the wheel and stepping onto the sidewalk, Anastasia took a deep, calming breath. Must not kill best friend in the world. “Hate it all you want, Hannah dearest, but you’ll be spending as much time here as I will until you learn to control yourself. And besides, the only reason it has been running itself for so long is Darren. You do remember Darren don’t you?”

The one time Hannah had met Darren she’d been dressed in nothing but a bikini and had managed to embarrass the poor man in little more than a few seconds.

Fact was, Hannah liked to touch. Everything. Everyone. A lot. And it didn’t matter to her what reaction she got, she’d continue to touch until she got bored and moved on. The day of the Darren meeting, it just so happened that she’d been in the mood for touching inappropriate areas. This only happened around every three months, so it was an unfortunate coincidence that Hannah should touch him in places such as she did, but it had lead to an unhealthy (for Darren) yet ego boosting (for Hannah) obsession. Even as recent as a year ago, Darren had asked after the woman every time Anastasia had called for an update. The answer, no matter what, had been the same. She’s a handful in every sense of the word. At this Darren would sigh blissfully and get on with business.

“Of course I remember Darren!” Hannah exclaimed, leaping – literally – from the car and landing with the grace of a dancer next to her friend. “He was such a sweetie. Too bad he’s mortal.”

“Yes, too bad.”

An idea hit Hannah at that moment. “We should turn him! Then he’d be cured of all his ailments and he could take over running the company again and you’d have more time to spend with me!” Before waiting for Anastasia’s opinion on the matter, she practically skipped into the building. “Let’s go find his records so we can look him up!”

Anastasia trudged in behind her, stuffing four gummi bears into her mouth at once. She was sure Hannah had adult Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, but was too afraid to take her to get diagnosed because there was a good chance that drugs would be involved and Hannah was notorious for avoiding mandatory drugs in favour of the recreational kind. Pot was her favourite, but she would settle for anything else that was available in the seedy little alleys she often visited. She wasn’t an addict, her condition prevented such an occurrence, she only actually took the drugs when she was supposed to be taking prescription drugs, which was practically never, but she was nevertheless more unmanageable when she was on them. And considering how hard it was to manage her when she was sober, Hannah on drugs was not a concept she wished to contemplate in any distanced future, near or far.

In the moment she had been out of sight, Hannah had managed to sidle up to, and presumably introduce herself to the office manager, Arnold Davidson. She was sitting on the desk in front of him, one arm around his neck, the other hand stroking up and down his face. Arnold was apparently not sure what to do as his eyes darted between the computer screen and Hannah’s ample bosom. She leaned in and whispered something in his ear that prompted him to abruptly attach his hand to her left breast. No sooner had he done this than his entire arm began to convulse and a shocked expression came over his face.

“What the hell?” he exclaimed, using his free hand to remove the other, still shaking, from Hannah’s chest.

“You brought that on yourself,” Anastasia heard Hannah inform him merrily as she approached the desk. “I told you you didn’t want to touch them.” She seemed to notice Anastasia’s presence at that moment, as she hopped down from the desk and adjusted her pink, mid-thigh length skirt and arranged her breasts into a more presentable formation. “Nasta! This is my new friend Arnie! He’s offered to show me the donation room, isn’t that neat?”

Nasta smiled despite herself. Arnold was a nice enough guy, but he seemed to have some people issues that ran bone deep. Maybe Hannah would be able to shake a few of them loose. It was a long shot, but Nasta was an optimist. “That’s great, Hannah. You’re due to give blood anyway.” She turned her attention to Arnold. “I have some phone calls to make, so if you could keep an eye on her for an hour or so until the crowd dies down then take her back to donate, that’d be great. She’s got a rare medical condition, her body produces too much blood; she needs to donate more than the usual amount. Jill should already know about it, but remind her just in case.”

Arnold looked shocked and confused at the same time. “Don’t you have that same condition?” he asked, trying to shrug off Hannah’s hand on his shoulder.

She nodded. “That’ll teach you not to share needles.”

With that she made her way toward her office, pausing at the door to the hall and calling over her shoulder, “Don’t take your eye off her, she’s like smoke once she’s escaped your sight.” She waited long enough to savour Arnold’s whimper, stuffed another three gummi bears into her mouth and made haste away from the scene.

An hour later, she was on the phone to the local hospital about their blood supply when there was a tentative knock on the door and Arnold poked his brunette head around the door jamb. Nasta held up a single finger to indicate she’d be with him in a moment and ended the call. “What is it?” she asked exasperatedly, knowing exactly what would come out of his mouth before he even opened it.

“I... er.... I.... I... um.... How’s your day been?” he stuttered, wringing his hands and sweating bullets at the mere thought of broaching the subject he’d have to broach.

“My day has been fine, Arnold, how has yours been?” Nasta had been taught always to return the kindness of others, and even though she knew he was just stalling for time at this point, she couldn’t go against her mother’s teachings.

When he spoke again his voice had risen approximately an octave and a half and his right eye had developed a twitch. “I... um... yeah... I’ve... you know.... had... er... better.”

She sent him a reassuring smile and folded her hands on her desk. “You seem tense. Is there something you want to tell me?”

Arnold’s eyes widened at the very suggestion and shook his head wildly from side to side. “No. No, of course not. I was just wondering how you were. Didn’t get to ask you when you came in earlier. Um...” He bit his lip, obviously wondering what to say next. “How... um... how long have you been friends with Hannah?”

A small, tight smile appeared on Anastasia’s face as she finally gave into the nibbling insistence of her conscience and acknowledged the poor man’s problem. “You’ve lost her, haven’t you?” He gulped and nodded his head, having apparently lost the ability to speak. “I told you not to take your eye off her. I warned you she was like smoke.”

“I... I know,” he exclaimed, utterly distraught now. “I just looked away for a moment to print off the form for Mrs Banks to sign and when I turned back she was gone! I asked Mrs Banks which way she went but she’s blind in one eye and didn’t even seem to notice Hannah was there. I don’t know what to do, I’ve looked everywhere and I can’t find her! I thought I’d be self sufficient and find her before you noticed she was gone, but I was never any good at hide and seek, or that Where’s Wally book, or spot the difference, or -.”

“I get it,” Nasta interrupted his rant. “You’re not good at finding things, and your attention to detail leaves a lot to be desired. What do you want me to do about it?”

He thought for a moment before answering. “Go easy on me. I have a low pain threshold,” he finally said, cringing involuntarily.

“Have you tried calling out Ollie, Ollie, Oxen free?” she asked, turning her attention casually to the papers in her inbox and picking up her pen. Arnold just stared at her blankly for a moment before asking why. She sighed and put the pen down, staring straight into his slightly wide, brown eyes. “You said you weren’t good at hide and seek. I thought you’d have known that that was what you called out when you gave up looking.”

A look of dawning washed over his features and he quickly backed out of the room. As soon as the door was closed she heard him calling out the juvenile phrase like it was his last chance at life.

The sound faded as he moved through the many halls that made up Ebon Blood Donation Clinic and very quickly died out. Not a minute later there was a familiar giggle in the hall directly outside Nasta’s door and Hannah came bouncing in, wavy locks flying about her face in a flurry. Without pause for thought she jumped up on one of the visitor chairs and promptly tumbled into a handstand on Nasta’s desk.

“Guess what!” she cried, landing with a hefty thump on her rear end, obscuring the blotter from view. “Guess what! Guess what! Guess what!”

“What?” Nasta asked with a resigned sigh.

The grin that crossed Hannah’s face was almost maniacal in its fervour. It caused Nasta to move her chair back just a little. “You guessed it!” she squealed. “You guessed ‘what’!!” She clapped her hands together excitedly for a moment then crossed her legs under her, a serious expression taking over. “That’s not what I wanted to tell you.” Silence fell between them while Hannah tried to regroup her misplaced thoughts. This happened often enough that Nasta knew to keep on with what she’d been doing until Hannah spoke again, the problem here was that Hannah was sitting on top of what she had been doing, so she had to wait out the pause in conversation by twiddling her thumbs uselessly.

Finally a look that can only be described as “Aha!” fell onto her face and she applauded herself excitedly once more. “I lost your little mortal minion!”

“Arnold?”

“Yes! That one! He wanted to take me back to the needle and bag room, but some old woman in dark glasses distracted him and I skittered out of there faster than cockroaches when the light comes on.” Hannah shifted uncomfortably where she sat. “You need to get a comfier desk for me to sit on. Can I have a gummi bear now? Eww, what this?”

Nasta tried not to laugh as Hannah pulled a pen from under her bottom and dangled it between them. “That would be my pen,” she replied with practiced patience. “And I’ll give you an entire bag of gummi bears if you go and find Arnold and donate some blood.”

She dropped the pen on the pile of papers next to her and crossed her arms defiantly. Nasta braced herself for the counter offer she knew was coming. “A bag of gummi bears and you’ll come with me to lunch after I’ve donated. I need lunch and I need it soon.”

“You just had breakfast not an hour and a half ago, how can you possibly want lunch?” Nasta asked almost incredulously. She could never be entirely incredulous when it came to Hannah antics, having lived through enough that they were starting to repeat. The day Hannah shocked her was the day she committed herself to a psych ward.

“Nasta, one margarita can hardly be called breakfast. Four maybe, but never just one. And if I don’t get some Snap, Crackle and Alcopop in me soon I’m gonna have to scream.”

There were probably three things that you never wanted Hannah to do in your presence, and at the top of the list was screaming. She had the ability, Nasta was sure, to reach that dog whistle pitch that no one could hear, but deliberately chose a level just below that to screw with everybody’s ears. Not only was the pitch unbearably high, but she could keep it up for minutes at a time without losing her breath. It was a truly treacherous experience.

Watching Hannah’s total disinterest in her surroundings, Nasta decided that she was nowhere near screaming just yet, so she took a deep, calming breath and denied her the things she asked for. “I don’t have time for lunch today, but I promise I’ll take you out tomorrow if you tell me where you’ve been for the last week.” This caused Hannah to pout and flounce off the desk to the door, but the good thing was, she wasn’t screaming. “I love you Hannah, you know that right?” She nodded silently. “Good, go donate and then you can come back here and annoy me some more.”

A certain excited light entered Hannah’s eye at the prospect of being allowed to annoy her and she skipped from the room in search of Arnold.

As soon as she was out of the room Nasta laid her head on the desk. There was an odd throbbing pressure behind her eyes that was all too familiar. It came from knowing that the coming weeks, maybe even months, would only get worse as Hannah became increasingly bored with her new surroundings. The woman, who was  fifteen years Nasta’s senior, had the attention span of a sugar crazed eight year old with ADHD and much the same interests. Indeed, she would much rather spend the afternoon sitting on top of the monkey bars, eating a Nutella snack than staring at a chalkboard listening to spelling rules.

Though she was great entertainment, problems arose when Nasta, or anyone else, tried to get work done. Try being the operative word. Hannah stuck her nose where it didn’t belong on a regular basis. Trouble was like a Hannah magnet. Or was it that Hannah was a Trouble magnet. Either way, she was a distraction, and staying on task for the next however-long-it-would-take-Hannah-to-come-to-terms-with-the-situation was going to be a struggle.