by Rita Lakin
Ida thinks to herself, she will have many new things to tell the girls about this state they live in; so many places they’ve never seen. But not to visit here in March. She hates crowds.
Julio turns down a quiet street. Small houses, but with many pretty flowers. People sitting on steps in happy groups. Oddly, though, many cars are parked on lawns.
Julio pulls over and parks in a driveway, blocking a garage. ‘This is where my grandmother lives. Abuela is the word for grandmother. I address her that way out of respect.’
He gets out of the truck, then turns to look at Ida through her window. ‘Won’t you come inside and meet her?’
‘Shouldn’t I just wait here?’
‘It would not be good manners not to include you.’
Ida is indifferent. She climbs out, not wanting to insult her driver. She is pleased. Add this little stopover to part of her new adventurous life.
Before they enter, Julio gives Ida ‘a tour’. He remarks on the windows on all the houses; all with wrought iron bars.
Ida comments, ‘A lot of crime here to keep the bad guys away?’
‘No, they are not for safety; barred windows are the style that comes with us from Cuba.’
He opens the door; they step inside and Ida’s eyes are caught by a little elephant statue leaning against a wall. Julio explains, ‘Elephants are for good luck.’
The grandmother’s house is small, but it is charming. As Ida looks around, Julio comments that all the walls are painted bright colors. ‘Notice mango green and papaya yellow. Also quite Cuban.’ He spots her looking at the shelves. ‘All for family pictures. I have four brothers and three sisters; so, many, many photos.’
And on one wall a single photo has a place of honor. It is a country scene, a small shed, bare of greenery, and with one scruffy tree. ‘That was our home in Cuba many years ago.’
He calls out and tells his grandmother that he is here. A voice answers back. Julio tells Ida his abuela will come soon.
Ida peeks into the living room. Julio laughs. The furniture pieces are all covered in plastic. ‘Nobody ever goes into the living room. It is for company only. Go into any former Cuban living room. They are all the same.’
He takes her to the kitchen. Along the way, Ida recognizes artifacts that are religious. Julio, reports, ‘Those are crypts of favored saints. That one is Caridad de Cobre. The patron saint of charity.
His grandmother appears. She is tiny, bird-like and extremely old. Late nineties, Ida guesses. Dressed in a pale, long-sleeved, fragile-looking dress. As fragile as the woman herself.
‘Abuela.’ He bends way down to kiss her forehead. He hands her a package. Julio explains, ‘My grandmother has what you call the sweet tooth. Chocolate is her favorite treat.’
‘Gracias, mi hijo,’ she says smiling.
Julio introduces Ida. Ida bows, guessing that is the right thing to do.
In this tiny, immaculate kitchen, the grandmother asks, ‘Has desayunado?’
‘Grandmother asks if we’re hungry. She always cooks many things expecting one or more of the family will always show up.’
Ida panics. ‘No, no, we haven’t time for this.’
‘Sientase a comer,’ says Grandmother.
Julio indicates a chair. ‘She wants us to sit down and eat.’
Ida starts backing out the door. Eyes in headlights kind of look. Ida is scared that they will be trapped here forever.
The old woman is surprised. Nobody ever turns down food in her house. ‘Quien es Ella?’
‘Abuela, La llemo en algun lugar.’
‘I’m telling grandmother I need to drive you someplace.’
He doesn’t mention her query; what’s wrong with this woman? ‘Ella nunca soneir?’
Julio doesn’t translate that either. His grandmother wonders if this woman ever smiles.
He directs Ida. ‘Go outside and wait for me. I will say a few words and then I’ll join you.’
Ida hesitates; she understands that respect is very important. She bows again and says, ‘I really would love to stay and have a lovely meal, but I have a big problem to solve.’
Julio translates and the grandmother nods.
Ida waves at the old woman and rushes out, calling, ‘It was nice to meet you, maybe some other time. A rain check.’ To Julio, ‘Hurry up!’
Grandma shrugs. She doesn’t understand this funny lady in the big raincoat. She wants to come back when it rains?
Sitting in the truck, Ida taps at her watch in annoyance. It’s already fifteen minutes and Julio is still inside. All around her children are playing, people are chattering and laughing, music is playing from someone’s boom box; but Ida is a woman who knows how to focus. She stares straight ahead, seeing nothing except the hands of her wristwatch going around.
Though she does see that the garage door in front of her opens and a young man steps out. Before the door slides down, she glances at furniture. He walks around Julio’s car, paying no attention to it, or her, and gets into a car parked in the street; and drives away.
Julio finally comes out. She is tempted to tell him about her other rules; like you don’t keep your boss waiting; but Julio is all she has to get her to Hy.
Julio apologizes, explaining it was all about his grandfather, who no longer lives at home. He lives in an assisted care retirement home. He goes to visit often and he promised his abuela he would go again very soon.
Blah blah blah, Ida tunes him out.
Julio resets the GPS and they start out. Ida has one more comment. ‘Someone opened the garage door and came out. He walked around your car and drove away in his. The garage looked full of furniture.’
Julio says, ‘I’m sorry I missed him. My brother, Jaime; he lives in the garage.’
Ida is shocked. Julio is amused. ‘Almost half the families around here have a relative living in their garage. One of these days I’ll tell you about how we came from Cuba and how we live.’
Ida, strong, ‘But not today.’
‘Agreed. It is a long story.’
Ida leans back and smiles. Finally, off to the kill.
TWENTY-SIX
At the Beach for Instant Tan
The girls and I are at a local beach, with our long sundresses and pantsuits rolled up, so we can sit at the water’s edge and dangle our toes in its delightful coolness. None of us thought to bring bathing suits, but at least we have sun hats. We are enjoying our ice-cream cones, licking the sides of the cones as the sweet cream drips down, in a race to whether mouth or dress will receive the stain. Perfect weather: hot, but bearable. Not a cloud in the sky. A deep and startling blue all-pervasive sky. And a sun beating down; relentless in its radiance. The air smells like seaweed.
Two busy little kids with parents lying next to them are building sand castles. I’m wondering if the children have been oiled down with sun block. I hope so.
Sailboats passing by, with gentle winds guiding them. The whole effect like a pretty watercolor by Claude Monet.
I think of the Wassingers’ hurricanes; when this water would be dark, icy and frenzied. When ninety miles away, Cuba and the other islands would batten down for whatever terror will come.
The beach is half full; probably tourists. Doing the touristy things, writing postcards of the wish-you-were-here cliché. Snapping photos for later memories, eating hot dogs, ice cream and whatever else the beach sellers with their ice chests on wheels are offering. The men can be seen pushing their way through the coarse sand, calling out their wares.
A couple of teenagers stand by the lifeguard stand, holding their surf boards, looking wistful. Wrong day. Wrong beach; no surfing for them here today.
How nice to be doing nothing but enjoying being alive, in a beautiful place. ‘Carpe diem,’ I say. Evvie smiles, she knows what it means – seize the day.
I think of my grandchildren. I miss them. One of these days Jack and I should hop on a plane and visit the family in New York. Both of our families live close to one another an
d are dear friends. We keep putting it off, and we shouldn’t. Time goes by too fast.
My sister can often guess what I’m thinking. We’ve always had this connection of similar thoughts at the same time. We used to say that we had ESP with one another. Like when I’m just about to pick up the phone to call her, my phone rings, and there’s Evvie calling to say she’s thinking about me.
‘Jack on your mind?’ she asks.
I nod. ‘Joe on yours?’
‘I wonder how the guys are doing on their safari.’
‘Shooting photos of amazing animals. They’ll be back with dozens of pictures for us to see.’
‘Having a better time than we are, I’ll bet. This case is a conundrum. I don’t see any answers to our problem.’
I sigh. She can’t stop thinking of our case, either.
I change the subject. ‘Surprising, we haven’t heard from Ida today. I wonder how she’s doing with Lola. And what on earth can Hy be up to?’
‘We can always call her and find out.’
‘Nah, let’s leave it to her to handle whatever it is. It can’t be too complicated.’
Bella sits a foot or two away from us, still feeling like a pariah because of her ‘relationship’ with the Wassinger ghost. No one speaks to her, and poor thing, she can’t stand being left out. I feel sorry for her.
‘Ah, this is heavenly,’ says Evvie, kicking her feet out in a circular motion.
Sophie agrees splashing water on her face, ‘I like this a lot. Why don’t we ever do this at home?’
‘Why don’t we?’ whispers Bella from her purgatory.
I say with sarcasm, ‘Why not, indeed? Especially since we live a ten-minute drive from our own gorgeous, famous beaches? In twenty-five years has anyone ever visited our beach? Anyone ever sat near the water, dangling their toes?’
Evvie laughs. She imitates Sophie in a nagging voice. ‘What? And drag sand back into our apartments?’
Sophie sulks. ‘I never said that.’
Bella, now feisty, ‘Oh, yes you did. I heard you.’ And feeling guilty for turning on her best friend, adds, ‘And so did Ida. She says she never wants to sweep sand out of her apartment.’
Sophie ignores her and says, ‘I’m enjoying our day off, but what next?’
Bella, ‘Yeah, what?’ She’s trying so hard to get back into our good graces.
The so-called ‘elephant in the room’ is on their minds as well.
Sophie adds, ‘Have we got a tan yet, so we can prove we vacationed on the beach?’ Plaintive, ‘So we can go home.’
Bella jumps on her bandwagon. ‘I feel tan.’
I ask, ‘So, you’re saying you still want us to go home and quit the case?’
Sophie says, ‘What else can we do? We have a murder to solve and our only witness is … a spirit. A spirit with a temper,’ she adds.
Bella speaks softly, ‘He’s a guy. He’s a famous dead guy.’
Evvie is annoyed. ‘Yes, A dead guy, Bella, even if you’re the only one who can see his ghost, it doesn’t help us.’
Bella getting more confident, ‘But Louie and Sadie can see him, and besides I liked Louie’s speech about justice.’
Evvie agrees, ‘Yes, he made a poignant plea about wanting justice for Mr Strand, but there seems no way to get that for him.’
Silence, all deep in their own thoughts.
Evvie pokes me. ‘Something’s going on over there.’
I look to where she points. At first I don’t see anything unusual. I turn. I see what she’s staring at. It’s the couple with their two children playing in the sand. The parents are now standing up with arms crossed; it seems like they are shouting at each other. I look at the children, with their hands over their ears; they do not want to listen.
‘My guess is they’re having a fight,’ Sophie says, looking also.
Bella agrees. Then gasps. ‘He hit her!’
We stare, shocked. This husband has just smacked his wife in the face. She holds her hand over her cheek and is crying.
Bella says, ‘That’s awful.’
Sophie asks, ‘I wonder what’s going on.’
Bella asks nervously, ‘What should we do?’
Sophie says, ‘Nothing. Keep out of it.’
Bella continues, ‘But we should do something. What if he hurts her again or kills her?’ Bella can sometimes be quite bloodthirsty.
The mother has dropped down on the sand, looking down and … digging? The father is pointing at her and shouting. The children are looking away. They are crying.
Sophie now worried, ‘Or maybe we should call the police?’
Evvie wonders, ‘I don’t know. It feels wrong to just sit here and watch.’
Sophie says, ‘Why don’t we get one of the lifeguards. Guys to handle a violent guy.’
We look, but no one is at that stand. Lunch hour break? If they were here, would they interfere?
Bella says, ‘They’ll tell us to mind our own business.’
Evvie agrees, ‘I’m sure they will.’
I try to see if anyone else is witnessing this family argument. No. No one else is near them. ‘The most ironic thing,’ I say to Evvie, ‘a quotation just popped into my head. From, of all people, Ernest Hemingway. As corny and illiterate as it sounds. “I know what is moral, it’s what you feel good after and what is immoral, you feel bad after”.’
Evvie jumps to her feet, patting the sand off her skirt. ‘We can’t just sit here and do nothing.’
As she heads for the family, slogging across the sand, Evvie turns and calls out to me, ‘The quote that pops into my head is “We are on this planet to help others”.’
‘Who said that?’ I ask as I get up, toss my napkin that held my ice-cream cone into the trash and follow her.
‘I don’t remember,’ Evvie says back at me, ‘but we are in the business of helping people, so here goes nothing.’ Now, she’s hurrying.
It is our business. We are in the business of helping people. ‘It is the business of anybody who sees a wrong that needs righting.’ Another quote. And I am hurrying after her.
‘Wait for us,’ I hear behind me. Both girls are coming with us.
We reach the scene of the drama. Without anyone suggesting it, we encircle the couple. The couple is surprised to see us.
‘May we be of help?’ I suggest quietly.
The father fairly snarls. ‘We don’t need any help.’
The wife turns away, trying to hide her face. ‘It’s nothing. Really.’
The little boy, about eight years old, I guess, cries out, ‘My daddy hit my mommy!’ The tiny girl who is younger, cringes in fright.
The father raises his hand, then shouts, ‘Shut up, Josh.’
Bella asks sweetly, ‘Are you going to hit him, too?’
Right on, Bella, I think. Amazing, she said that in all innocence, not realizing how powerful a statement that is.
The father is startled; his hand drops down to his side.
Evvie asks the mother quietly, ‘We really would like to help if we can.’
She shakes her head, in misery. ‘I dropped one of my contact lenses.’
For a moment the father forgets we’re here. ‘You have any idea how much those damn things cost? You’re always losing things. You’re hopeless.’
She looks up at him, beseechingly. ‘It’s because you make me feel so useless.’
He is furious. He yells at us. ‘Get the hell away from us!’
Evvie drops to her knees. To the mother, ‘Where do you think you dropped it?’
‘Somewhere near here,’ she says timidly. ‘I wouldn’t bet on finding it.’
As if on cue, Bella and I join her. Sophie, who has knee problems, takes longer, but she manages to plop down. We dig and dig and dig. The two children join us and dig, also. They can’t look at their father. Their father glares at all of us.
A few moments later, Bella holds up the missing lens, ‘Here it is!’ She hands it to the mother, who sobs in gratitude.
Evvie, who pulls no punches, says to the father, ‘See how easy that was. Now if you were a real man, you would have helped your wife.’
We have put him in a precarious place. We have embarrassed him in front of his family. We wait, I admit nervously, for his next move.
But Evvie is taking no chances. Without any qualms, she tells an outright lie. ‘Just to let you know, sir, I have it all on my iPhone. Once I find out your name …’
His crying son jumps in, ‘It’s Larry Fulbrite,’ the little boy says bravely. His father’s face seems to collapse.
Evvie completes it quietly. ‘Thank you, Josh. As I was saying, Facebook will have a party with my video. Oh, and the clicks that pick it up. It’ll go viral!’
I am amazed that my sister has a clue what those tech words mean; I hope to God, she got them right. Evvie, an actress all her life.
The children go to their mother and she hugs them. From the look on her face, we have given her the strength she needs.
I come close to her. ‘I suggest that your husband should go into Anger Management. If you ever get hit again, you leave the house with the children and get to a women’s shelter. And call the police.’
The man is totally shaken. He goes to his wife. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Evvie and I know better. That’s what they all say. Until they do it again.
I admit to myself, what we did is dangerous. If the man is psycho, he is capable of real damage. Another quote pops into my head. ‘Doing the right thing for someone occasionally feels wrong to you.’
We leave the four of them hugging.
We hear Sophie calling to us. ‘You gonna leave me here all night?’ We didn’t realize she can’t get up with those bad knees.
To our amazement, the father comes over and lifts her gently to her feet. She thanks him. Wow!
We return to our original place on the sand. My small gang looks to me. What now? ‘First I want to congratulate you all for a job well done.’
High-fives all around.
I continue. ‘On one hand we have the choice to go home, dragging our failing tails behind us.’
Sophie interrupts, ‘And don’t forget we’re gonna say we came here on a case, which didn’t pan out so we stayed for a vacation.’