I run my fingers through my tangled curls and pretend the challenge in her eyes is about my hair. “Sorry. It’s this crazy wind.”
She stares at me for another heartbeat before she turns away to fasten her seat belt. “There’s a storm coming,” she says. “Can’t you feel it?”
I do a quick inventory of my feelings: queasy, bloated, and . . . hmmm. Underneath, maybe I do feel something else. Tension, a straining spring, a fraying rope. In my mouth, the salty, metallic taste is back. I wonder if it’s fear.
“I don’t feel a thing,” I reply.
On the outside, Reunion Plaza looks like a resort. On the inside it smells exactly like I expected a nursing home to smell, like disinfectant and burnt onions and pee. For a tiny woman, Fritter walks impressively fast down the hallway, her crepe-soled shoes squeaking on the waxed linoleum tile. I follow with my own sneaker squeak and try to time my steps with hers. When she stops suddenly, I come within inches of slamming into her back.
“What are you doing?”
“Following you.”
“Well, stop tailgating,” she says, continuing down the hall. I drop back a bit, leaving a couple Fritter-lengths between us.
We stop in front of a half-open door. The old woman steps into the doorway, blocking my path, but it’s easy enough to peer over her shoulder. Inside, the curtains are closed, and a lamp illuminates a white-haired man in a recliner. He’s holding a book, but from the way it’s resting on his lap it looks like he’s been doing more napping than reading.
He looks up. “Who’s there?”
She hesitates for a second, then replies, “It’s me, Jonah.”
I open my mouth to remind Fritter of my existence, but before I can get a sound out, she turns and shoos me away from the door. “Strangers upset him. Why don’t you go introduce yourself to the director and tell her you’ll start the reading.”
I linger nearby, but can’t make out words in the murmur of voices within, so, reluctantly, I go find the director. When we get to the activities lounge, there are already several seniors waiting, so I walk through the rows of chairs and wheelchairs to get to the seat in the front that’s facing everyone else.
The book I’ve been handed, Anna Karenina, happens to be one that I’ve read a time or two. It’s bookmarked on page 106, well into the story, but before I begin I can’t resist turning to the first page and looking at the novel’s famous opening line: All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. I can still remember how strange I found that sentence when I first saw it as a teenager. I had limited experience with happy families, but even then I understood that unhappy families are less unique than Tolstoy believed. You peek behind the curtains of any household headed by an underemployed single mother with an escalating alcohol problem, and you’re going to see a lot of the same sad, angry shit going on.
I’ve been reading to the group for twenty minutes when I see Fritter slip into the back of the room and take a seat by the door. Her brother is not with her. I clear my throat a few times, and then put on what I think is a pretty convincing coughing fit. As I anticipated, Fritter stands and threads her way through the wheelchairs to my side. She has one brow raised in a what-are-you-up-to expression, so I work hard to maintain a who-me-up-to-something? look on my face. She’s not buying it, but she takes the book and sits in my spot, while I work my way through the napping crowd and out of the room.
I’m guessing from the look on Fritter’s face that I won’t have long before she comes to find me, so I hurry. When I reach Jonah’s room, an aide is just leaving. Her coffee-colored skin is smooth, only the strands of gray along her hairline hint at her age. She looks tired and has a yellow stain across her midriff that I hope for her sake isn’t what it looks like. She acknowledges my presence with a smile. “Are you here to see Mr. Jackson?”
I nod, and she holds the door open for me to enter. “He loves visitors,” she whispers.
“Why doesn’t he go down and listen to his sister reading?”
“He doesn’t care for her current book selection. Every time she comes now, he starts in about the evils of communism.”
“Tolstoy was a communist?”
The woman laughs softly. “I have no idea. But I’d avoid the subject if I were you.”
“Not a problem,” I tell her, and it’s true. Russian politics are the last thing I came here to talk about.
His lamp is off, and the room is in twilight, illuminated only by the edges of the curtains and the television. Fritter’s brother is in bed now, propped up on pillows, the hospital-bed back raised to almost ninety degrees. On the television, a plump chef chops a zucchini.
The old man blinks at me as I enter from the bright hallway. “Back already from reading your manifesto?”
“Hello.” I walk to his bedside, extending my hand. “We haven’t met but I’m—”
“You came!” His eyes are wide, as he takes my hand in both of his.
“Um . . . yeah. I did.” I’m a little taken aback by his reaction, but that aide did say that he loves visitors. I continue with, “I was in the hall earlier with your sister—”
“I thought you’d never come.” He’s much too excited to see me. He’s shaking, his eyes tearing up. He grasps my hand hard with his knobby fingers. “I thought I’d never have a chance to apologize.”
I feel a little out of breath in the overheated room. “I . . . uh . . . I think maybe there’s been a mistake,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m the one who’s sorry.” His voice is hoarse. “I am so sorry. I promise that I never knew. Never. Not until I saw her—”
“What are you doing in here?”
Mr. Jackson and I both startle at this. I twist around and see Fritter standing in the doorway. She’s angry. Very angry. I try to step away from the bed, but the old man tightens his grip on my hand.
“Say you forgive me,” he pleads. “I have to hear it.”
“But—”
“Please. I’m so, so sorry.”
I glance at Fritter for help, but she’s not looking at me, she’s watching her brother, shaking her head slowly. I look down at the old man’s trembling hands, nothing but blue veins and bones. I don’t know what’s going on in his crazy head, but I do know what it feels like to be so, so sorry. I step closer and set my free hand on top of his. “I forgive you, Jonah,” I say. “Everything is going to be okay.”
At this, Fritter steps up and takes her brother’s hand from mine. “Enough of this nonsense. It’s time for us to go.” She turns to her brother, and her voice softens. “I’ll come Sunday. I’ll bring fudge.” She then takes me by the elbow and begins marching me to the door. I have to press my lips together to suppress a whimper as she pinches my skin between her bony knuckles. This little old lady has a mean streak and pretty impressive hand strength to go with it. I make a decision to never challenge her to a thumb war.
We’re almost to the door when I notice that the vice grip she’s got me locked into has our path lined up with a leg of a portable potty by the door. If she keeps glaring up at me, she’s going to walk right into the rolling toilet. As tempting as it would be to let her fall, I’m a little worried she’ll take me down with her. Besides, even a mean old lady doesn’t deserve a broken hip.
“Fritter, don’t—”
“Don’t you tell me what to do,” she hisses. “I leave you alone for five minutes—”
“You need to look—”
“I’m looking, all right. At an ungrateful—”
“Watch it! You’re going to trip—” The words are no sooner out of my mouth, than she catches an orthopedic shoe on the edge of one wheel. She lets go of my elbow at the same moment I grab on to hers to steady her balance, so for both of us, the situation improves. She straightens, yanking her arm from my grasp, but thankfully doesn’t try to reestablish her death grip.
We’re in the doorway when from behind us Fritter’s brother calls out, “Trip? Trip?”
Fritter and I reply in unison. However, I say, “We’re fine,” while she responds, “He’s not here.”
CHAPTER 45
Fired?” Luke pauses with a bite of salad halfway to his mouth. “After four days? How did you manage that?”
“It wasn’t easy,” I admit.
“I’ve never heard of Fritter firing anybody.”
I shrug and bite into a slice of cucumber. Greek salads are my favorite, and, with the exception of Wednesday night’s somewhat charred dinner with Father Barnes, it’s been almost a week since I’ve eaten anything that wasn’t stale, freezer-burned, fast-food, or rubbery soup-kitchen fare.
“With all those teenagers she takes in . . .” He’s shaking his head, looking at me incredulously. “Every single one of them a tremendous pain in the ass. Hell, back in the day, I drove her crazy, and she never fired me. Never once have I heard of her firing someone.”
“I have my ways,” I reply, mysteriously.
Luke grins.
“I have ninja skills when it comes to screwing things up. It’s like a superpower only lamer.”
He laughs and finally takes that bite of salad.
Luke has gone all out on this dinner, and I am glad to be sitting here eating it. Fritter fired me in the parking lot of the nursing home and then just got in her car and left me there. I had to hitchhike back to my grandmother’s house. To add insult to injury my jeans were still damp—stupid antique dryer—so I was faced with a choice of a tweed skirt or velour sweatpants for my date. I almost called Luke to cancel, but then I remembered that all my groceries were still sitting in Father Barnes’s refrigerator. In the end hunger trumped embarrassment.
Now, sitting here eating and laughing with this man, I’m ridiculously grateful for the food and the company. He’s flirting shamelessly and it feels so good to be wanted that I’m finding it easy to focus on him rather than my itchy wool skirt and my ever-present vague nausea.
Luke’s apartment is sleek and modern with everything from kitchen to bathroom set up to accommodate his wheelchair. There are enough pictures on the wall and books on the bookshelf to make it look homey, but the overall effect is a feeling of efficiency and ease. We’re both laughing while I tell him the story of how I got sacked. I certainly don’t tell him everything, but I do mention Fritter’s reluctance to answer questions about my family, and I talk about my visit with her brother in the nursing home. I consider telling Luke about his aunt Fritter’s orchestration of Tawny’s break-in, but he seems so genuinely fond of the old lady that I hate to be the one to tell him she’s a criminal mastermind. Besides, I have the feeling that would just get Tawny in trouble, not Fritter. Who are the cops going to believe—an elderly do-gooder librarian, or a pierced-up juvenile delinquent?
“Let me get this straight,” he says. “Fritter fired you for talking to a lonely old man in a nursing home?”
“Well . . .” I equivocate, “it’s possible that she interpreted my visit as more of an . . . um . . . questioning, and less of a social call.”
“I thought he had Alzheimer’s.”
“He seemed pretty sharp to me.” I decide that mentioning that Jonah mistook me for someone else will not help my case.
“So, did you learn anything useful?”
“Maybe. I found out that Trip is Jonah’s son.”
“That’s someone’s name?” Luke asks.
“Yup. Trip is one of Fritter’s nephews. He was one of her summer projects—maybe the first. And, according to Karleen, he was my mom’s boyfriend that summer she left town.”
“So Jonah told you about Trip?”
“Not exactly . . .” I sketch out Fritter’s almost broken hip, making sure to play up my heroic measures. “And then after she told him that Trip wasn’t there, I asked her what that was supposed to mean, and she explained.”
“I’m surprised she told you anything after catching you interrogating—”
“Visiting.”
“Questioning.”
“Okay, questioning,” I concede. “Although I never got a chance to ask any questions. Honestly, I think she only told me about Trip because she was a little shaken from her near fall. Did I mention that I saved her from a broken hip?”
I polish off the last new potato on my plate and eye the few remaining on the platter. Luke notices my empty plate and my glance, and pushes both the salad bowl and the platter in my direction.
“Eat.”
I serve myself just a tiny bit more, and then say, “So, you were one of Fritter’s projects?”
He nods.
“How did that happen? I can’t picture you as a juvenile delinquent.”
“Why is that?”
“Well . . .” Too late, I realize that I’m thinking of Luke as he is now, neatly trimmed hair, clean nails, wheelchair, wheelchair, wheelchair. What the hell do I know about him or his past? I finally limp in with “You have too many freckles for a trouble-maker,” but I’m pretty sure we both know what I’d been thinking.
“Actually, I was a pretty good kid in high school. I partied, but it never got out of hand.” He notices that I’ve finally stopped eating, so he starts to stack the dishes. “After my accident, though, I was a mess.” He sets the plates in his lap and pushes back from the table. “Coffee?”
“No, thanks.”
“I have decaf.”
I shake my head.
“Or would you like a drink? I don’t drink, but I’ve got some brandy here somewhere I bought for a recipe.”
“I’m actually not drinking right now either,” I tell him.
He glances at me over his shoulder. “AA?”
I shake my head, tempted to answer “PG” but instead I say, “I’m just taking a break.”
He grins. “One day at a time.”
“Don’t you get all twelve steppy on me.”
He laughs and wheels into the kitchen. I follow.
“So, Wednesday night I had dinner with Father Barnes.”
He glances over his shoulder with one brow raised. “Uh huh . . .”
“No, no, it was nothing like that.”
While Luke rinses the dishes in the sink, I describe my evening with Father Barnes, not mentioning my flirting with the priest, but instead discussing his prodigious alcohol consumption.
When I finish, Luke turns his chair to face me. “It’s not like he doesn’t know where to turn for help. There’s an AA meeting twice a week at his church.”
“He needs to quit drinking.”
“Does he want to quit?”
I shrug.
“I’m happy to talk to him, Mattie, but keep in mind, needing to change your life isn’t enough. You have to want to change it.” Luke’s got a funny look on his face. I wonder if we’re still talking about Father Barnes.
“I understand,” I tell him, and it’s true.
“Alcoholics Anonymous saved my life. Well, AA and Aunt Fritter.”
“Sounds like a hell of a story,” I say.
“It’s an awful story,” he replies. “But I don’t mind sharing it if you want to hear it.”
I’m not sure I do, but I can’t think of a way to gracefully decline, so I nod.
“I was riding pretty high at nineteen. I’d gotten a baseball scholarship to a junior college that had a good record of getting players into the minors. A month before I left for school a group of us were out driving around.” He sighs. “You’ve heard this story a million times. We were all drunk. The car missed a turn . . .”
“Shit,” I whisper. He’s right—everyone has heard this story.
“Once I got out of the hospital, about all I did was drink.”
“I can imagine.”
He gives me a sad smile. “I hope not. I wouldn’t want anyone trying to imagine me the way I was back then. So full of self-pity and rage.” He rolls to the Keurig coffeemaker and puts a pod in the basket. “The two in the backseat were just a little banged up, I was thrown from the car. The other kid died.” He pauses for several seconds befor
e he adds, “I spent a couple years wishing I had, too.”
I take a step closer and put my hand on his shoulder. He covers my hand with his own.
“Well,” Luke says. “We’ve talked about me and about Father Barnes.” He looks up at me and smiles. “It’s time to talk about you.”
I laugh. “No way.”
“Oh come on.”
“I’m not interesting.”
“Okay, then just one thing,” he says. “Tell me one thing about Mattie Wallace that not everybody knows.”
Luke is smiling, his hand still resting on mine, and I know he’s showing an interest in me because he’s a nice guy and nice guys are interested in more than themselves. Maybe that’s why I don’t date nice guys. What he doesn’t understand is that my past is a lot like the couch in Nick’s apartment. On the surface it’s fine, reasonably comfortable, the Naugahyde a little scuffed, but presentable enough. But the last thing you ever want to do, and I mean the very last thing, is stick your hand down between the cushions and start feeling around.
Luke, however, has gotten personal—his was certainly a between-the-cushions story—and this puts me a little off balance. Frantically, I rummage through my past, searching for an honest story I’m willing to tell, all the while trying to think of a way to sidestep his request without lying or coming off like a total jerk. And then suddenly, Luke provides me with the answer. He begins to trace a slow circle on my wrist with his thumb, and I shiver, feeling my nipples grow hard.
“Not everybody knows I’m good in bed,” I say.
He pulls me onto his lap. I have one hand resting on his chest, and I can feel his heart racing beneath my fingers. I’m a little surprised to find that mine is beating fast as well. He runs a hand up my back to my shoulder blades. I lean forward and kiss his mouth.
When I pull away to look at his face, he frowns slightly and averts his gaze. I’m not sure what he’s thinking, but there’s some worry brewing under that carrottop.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Charlie Franklin called today,” he says. “We need to talk about it.”
The Art of Crash Landing Page 26