Take a Number

by Janet Dawson

  This second woman wore the uniform I’d seen all too often these days, the attire and accessories of the homeless. A shapeless blue dress, several sizes too big, hung loosely on her bony frame. Over this was a baggy green cardigan sweater. Like the first commuter, she wore socks and sneakers, but the elastic in the cuffs had stretched, causing the socks to slip down around her ankles. The shoes had once been blue and white, but now they were gray with dirt and sported a hole in one toe. The woman’s hair was covered by a wide-brimmed straw hat with a pink sash tied under her pointed chin, a bedraggled pink cloth rose decorating the front brim.

  The woman in the gray suit gave the homeless woman a wide berth and a troubled look, stepping past the grocery store shopping cart that was full of the second woman’s possessions. In the cart I saw a green sleeping bag, rolled up and tied with a length of rope, a blue nylon tote bag, a large black plastic trash bag, and a wooden dowel about three feet in length, a nail affixed to the end. I’d seen homeless people use similar tools to probe refuse containers for cans and bottles to sell at the local recycling centers. But I hadn’t seen many in this neighborhood. The homeless were more visible downtown.

  As she approached the corner, the homeless woman stared at me from under the brim of her straw hat. The eyes that skewed my way were younger and sharper than I’d expected. I felt a chill of realization preceded by the phrase, “There but for the grace of God...”

  She was humming, an aimless little melody punctuated by a whispered dialogue with herself. She pushed the shopping cart down the shallow curb cut at the corner and walked directly into the path of a car that had made a running stop and was now attempting to turn right. The driver yelled at her but the woman ignored him as though he were an insect buzzing around her hat.

  She continued her ragged diagonal progress until she reached the opposite corner, pushing her cart up the curb cut from street to sidewalk, then onto the uneven dirt surface of a lot that wouldn’t be vacant for long, judging from the construction equipment and the pile of building materials on the site. Did she sleep there? Bushes along one property border offered limited shelter. As I watched I wondered what had brought her to this life. What separated her from the commuter in suit and sneakers? Or Ruth, starting over? Or me, self-employed, stretching my income to cover rent, health insurance, car payments, and other expenses? Sometimes I think life is a big poker game. Some people get a full house and others have to fold. Mostly we just break even.

  My eyes left the homeless woman and I saw Ruth walking toward me. She waved as she crossed the street, reaching into her shoulder bag for her keys. She unlocked one of the glass doors that led to the paneled foyer of her building. I followed her and waited while she checked her mailbox. “I must be on every mailing list in the world,” she said, sifting through an array of junk mail before netting one bill. “And I haven’t lived here that long.”

  “We need to talk,” I said, echoing Sam Raynor’s words.

  “Sure. Do you mind if we do it on the fly? I have to change clothes and pick up Wendy.”

  Ruth’s third floor unit was directly opposite the elevator, fronting on an open area about ten feet square. As we stepped out of the car, the doors to units 301 and 302 were on the left. Immediately to the right of the elevator a short hallway led back to a trash chute and the stairs, which were behind the elevator shaft. Beyond that hallway a door opened onto a narrow laundry room. As we reached Ruth’s door I looked to the right and saw a longer corridor with doors on both sides, leading to the rear of the building. An elderly woman wearing a bright pink sweat suit emerged from the first apartment on the right side of this hallway, carrying an empty plastic basket, her apparent objective the laundry room.

  “Hello, Mrs. Parmenter,” Ruth said as she opened her door.

  “How are you, dear?” the neighbor said with a smile and a sharp look at me. I had a feeling she didn’t miss much. “Where is little Wendy?”

  “I’m going to pick her up in just a few minutes.”

  I followed Ruth into her apartment. “That’s Mrs. Parmenter,” Ruth said with a low chuckle. “She’s lived here forever and she snoops. She knows everything about everyone. Or so I would guess from talking with her.”

  Ruth’s new home was a one-bedroom unit, all she could afford right now. Through the bedroom door I glimpsed a set of twin beds covered with matching flowered comforters. While Ruth changed out of her work clothes, I explored. It was a typical generic apartment, with medium-brown carpet to go with the plain white walls. A small walk-through kitchen with beige linoleum and countertops led to a dining area furnished with a round table and four chairs. The living room’s only source of light was a sliding glass door opening onto a tiny balcony that overlooked Forty-first Street. The room seemed bare compared to my own cluttered apartment. The furniture looked new, basic and inexpensive. A plain brown sofa was enlivened with colorful toss pillows. Beyond the sofa I saw a low bookshelf holding a portable CD player and a few compact discs, as well as some books. Along the opposite wall was an oak rocking chair with a blue-flowered cushion and a low wooden cart with wheels and two shelves, holding TV and VCR.

  “Not much, but it’s home,” Ruth said, joining me in the living room. She wore a loose-fitting pair of red cotton slacks with a blue shirt, her feet in a pair of red canvas shoes.

  “It all looks new,” I said.

  “It is. Recently bought, or borrowed from Mom and Dad. When I left Guam, I didn’t want to tip Sam off that I was leaving him, so I didn’t pack much besides clothes and linens and a few personal things, like photo albums and Wendy’s favorite doll. I had to leave all my kitchen stuff and furniture in the household goods shipment, which is in storage someplace. I hope I can get some of it back when we settle this.”

  “It’ll be over soon,” I told her.

  “Not soon enough.” We left the apartment. Ruth hit the button on the elevator, then she turned and said, “Let’s take the stairs. This elevator is so pokey.”

  We detoured down the abbreviated corridor, pushed open the metal fire door and started down, our footsteps echoing on the concrete steps and walls of the stairwell. At the bottom another fire door opened onto the building lobby, just a few steps from the glass doors we’d entered earlier. As we crossed Howe Street, walking along Forty-first toward Piedmont Avenue, I glanced across the street and saw the straw-hatted homeless woman with her cart and her probe, foraging through a garbage Dumpster behind the block of shops that fronted on this section of Piedmont.

  “Poor thing,” Ruth said, following the direction of my eyes. “I see her around here all the time. I think she lives in that lot across from me. I even left some food for her once, just like you’d leave food for a stray cat.”

  Talking about the homeless woman made me feel uncomfortable. Abruptly I moved the conversation to another equally disturbing subject “Sam called me this morning. He wanted to talk, so I had the dubious pleasure of meeting him on his lunch hour.”

  Ruth stopped, her face alarmed. “Oh, no. He knows I’ve hired a private detective.”

  “He was bound to find out. I’ve been questioning his friends. No doubt one of them told him.”

  Ruth clutched her shoulder bag to her side and started walking again, frowning as she stared ahead of her. “Now that he knows I’m looking for the money, it will be harder to find.”

  She sounded so grim I tapped her on the shoulder and gave her a wide smile when she looked up at me. “Hey, I like to think I’m smarter than he is.”

  She smiled back. “You’re right I should have confidence in you. Mom does.”

  Never mind Dad, I thought, visualizing the Admiral’s stern face. “It’s not as though Sam’s got a Swiss bank account. He’s not in that league. I’m sure he’s given it to friends, disguised as loans or gifts. If I can just prove it.”

  We waited for the light at Piedmont Avenue. It turned green and we stepped out into the crosswalk. “With everything I’ve found out about Sam,” I said, “and after
finally meeting him, I have a little trouble understanding how you wound up with him in the first place.”

  Ruth didn’t answer until we reached the sidewalk on the other side of Piedmont. “Sometimes I wonder myself.” She slowed, hand playing with the strap of her bag. “I’ve tried to make sense of it over the past few months. There are lots of reasons. You want to hear them all?”

  “Just give me a history lesson.”

  “How far back?” she asked, glancing at our reflections in a store window.

  “After you left home.”

  Ruth looked at her watch. “I guess Wendy can stay at day care a while longer. This is a long story. I don’t want her to hear any of it.”

  We detoured to Peet’s Coffee, the smell of freshly ground beans wafting out the open door. Inside, Ruth ordered a cappuccino and I asked for a caffe latte. Someone had vacated a couple of stools at the far end of the chest-high counter that ran across the front window, so we grabbed them.

  Ruth sipped her cappuccino for a few minutes before she started talking. “I went to college at Parkville, Missouri. That’s a small liberal arts school in a little town on the Missouri River near Kansas City. Mom and Dad are originally from Kansas City and we’ve still got relatives back there. After I graduated, I taught first grade in a suburb of K.C., for three years.” She sighed and was silent for a while, as I inspected the layers of foamy milk in my latte.

  “I was engaged. We were planning a big June wedding. A month before the wedding, he decided he wasn’t ready for marriage. I heard later he’d met someone else. It really hurt. I was numb. I guess that’s how I managed to make it through the rest of the school term, canceling all the wedding plans and returning wedding gifts.” Ruth sighed and bit her lip.

  “After I took care of all those things, the summer just loomed at me, like some big void. I was so depressed I quit my job and gave up my apartment. I couldn’t bear the thought of staying in Kansas City. Mom and Dad lived in Alexandria, Virginia, then. Dad was in his last tour, at the Pentagon. I didn’t want to go there. I didn’t want to be with my parents. So I called my brother. Kevin was stationed at Pearl Harbor then, and he had a two-bedroom condo in Pearl City. He said I could stay as long as I wanted. I went to Hawaii. The plan was to spend a couple of months relaxing, seeing the islands, then maybe look for a job there. That’s where I met Sam.”

  Vulnerable and on the rebound, I thought, looking at the fragile woman next to me. Sam Raynor must have circled her like a shark smelling blood in the water.

  “I dated a few of Kevin’s friends, young officers, all fairly respectful and nonthreatening. Then one afternoon I was at Waimea Falls on the north side of Oahu. It’s very beautiful and peaceful. I was sitting by myself on a bench, looking at the gorgeous tropical flowers and listening to the waterfall. Suddenly Sam walked up and introduced himself. Sam’s very charming when he wants to be. And I guess I was ready to be swept off my feet.”

  Ruth looked at me, brown eyes full of pain. “If I sound as though I have any insight into this, it’s because I’ve had a lot of time to think about it over the past four years, wondering how I ever got myself into this mess. I’ve been going to a therapy group for battered women. Blair suggested it.”

  “I hope it helps,” I said.

  Ruth nodded. “It is helping. I’m finding out some things about myself... well, I won’t go into that. I realize now that when I went to Hawaii, I was looking for excitement and romance. Sam provided that.”

  She took a sip from her cup, and her mouth twisted into a bitter smile. “We went for moonlight swims on the beach. Just like Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity. I guess Sam saw the same movies I did.”

  “We all need a little romance. But why did you marry him?”

  “I got pregnant, Jeri.” Ruth laughed and shook her head, but there wasn’t any humor in her words. Her pale face reddened and she lowered her voice.

  “In this age of contraception and AIDS, I climbed into bed with Sam and didn’t use any birth control. I wasn’t taking pills because they caused breakthrough bleeding and messed up my cycle. Of course Sam never uses anything. He trots out that line about how condoms dull the sensation and don’t feel as good. And diaphragms—well, you’ve got to stop in mid-embrace and go put the damn thing in. Creams and gels are so messy.” Her voice roughened. “All that pillow talk about loving me and wanting to feel himself inside me. And I went along with it. Two months later I missed my period.”

  “You didn’t have to marry him. You had other options.”

  “I’m the good little girl who always does the right thing.” Ruth set down her cup and stared through the window. “By the time I realized I was pregnant, I was in love with Sam, or thought I was. And he wanted to get married. If he hadn’t, I might have considered an abortion, though I’ve always been ambivalent about that. I wanted children. When I told Sam about the baby, I really thought he’d run the other way. But he surprised me and said, let’s get married. So we did, a small wedding in the base chapel. Mom and Dad flew out for the ceremony.”

  “How did your family react?”

  “Kevin was supportive. My parents are very traditional, of course. Mom was prepared to make the best of what she perceived to be a bad situation. That’s the way she is. I know she was upset that I was pregnant, but she figured getting married was best for all concerned. Now Dad...” Ruth shook her head.

  “Dad hated Sam from the start I thought he was angry because I was marrying an enlisted man instead of an officer. I know that was part of it. Those things are important to my father. Now I know Dad realized what Sam was. But he didn’t try to stop me from marrying Sam. There was the baby to consider.”

  “When did it turn sour?”

  “On Guam. Things were fine in Hawaii. We got an apartment in Pearl City. I was all caught up in impending motherhood, decorating the nursery and buying baby clothes. My big brother was nearby, to keep an eye on me. Mom came out to stay with us when Wendy was born. So I had my family around me. Then Sam got orders to Guam and we moved, six months after Wendy was born.”

  “What was it like on Guam?”

  “It’s an island with lots of military bases. Not a very big island at that.” Ruth sipped her coffee. “You can drive around it in a few hours. We just had one car and Sam needed that to get to and from work. The Navy has several housing areas. Ours was a two-bedroom duplex on the naval station. It was all right at first. Being a new mother kept me busy. Then I started to miss my family. You know, I was a Navy brat. We moved around a lot while I was growing up. But now I was the military wife. It really gave me a new perspective on what my mother went through. I don’t think I handled it as well as she did.”

  “The circumstances were different,” I told her. “Your mother wasn’t in an abusive relationship.” I knew from my investigation last March that Admiral Franklin had certainly coveted—and had—his neighbor’s wife. But I doubted he’d ever struck Lenore. She might put up with the old man’s guff, ego, and infidelity, but not that. “When did Sam start hitting you?”

  “When Wendy was about a year old. We were supposed to go to a party. It was a Friday night. Sam said he had a few stops to make after work, and he’d pick me up at six. I’d made arrangements for Wendy to spend the night with a couple who lived down the street After I took Wendy to their place, I came home and got ready. Sam didn’t show up. I sat there in my fancy dress until almost eleven o’clock. Then, as I was getting ready for bed, he came in, reeking of liquor and some other woman’s perfume. I flew off the handle and started screaming at him.”

  Ruth stopped and covered her face with her hands. After a moment she dropped her hands and leaned toward me, her voice a whisper.

  “He hit me, over and over again. In the stomach and on the chest, not in the face. He shoved me back against the dresser. I had a big bruise on my back. Then he stormed out of the house. I huddled in bed most of the night and the next morning. It was so unexpected, I didn’t know what to
think. Saturday afternoon, after I picked up Wendy, he came home again, this time with flowers and a box of candy. He apologized and said he’d had a terrible day at work and that’s why he’d been out drinking until all hours.

  “I believed him, Jeri. I guess I wanted to. We got a babysitter and he took me out to dinner and we came home and made love. It was like when he was courting me in Hawaii. I thought it wouldn’t happen again. But it did. Over and over again, until I realized the only way to escape was to leave. Maybe I could have left sooner, but I was afraid of him. I’m still afraid of him.”

  I understood why. Just standing face-to-face with the man earlier that day put me on guard.

  Ruth looked at her watch and jumped off her stool, nearly upsetting it in her haste. “Oh, Jeri. I have to pick up Wendy. She gets upset when I’m too late.”

  We left Peet’s and walked quickly down Piedmont Avenue, past Fenton’s Ice Cream Parlor, which was doing its usual brisk trade. We turned onto a side street and I saw Wendy waiting at the front window of a large stucco house. I stayed on the sidewalk while Ruth went inside to collect her daughter. She came down the steps a moment later with the child, who wore a crisp blue playsuit that didn’t look played in, and carried her yarn-haired rag doll clutched to her chest.

  Wendy stared at me as she had that night at her grandparents’ house, eyes wary. She was only four, but kids are observant. They know when something bad is going on, and I was quite sure Wendy knew things were terribly wrong between her father and mother. Perhaps she’d even seen Sam hit her mother, though Ruth didn’t think so. In my first meeting with Ruth and her lawyer, Ruth said Sam was a disinterested father—until the divorce papers were served. Then he suddenly became devoted enough to demand visitation. As I looked at the little girl, she seemed to cling to her mother emotionally as she now clung to Ruth’s hip.