“Serving a different market entirely,” he said.
How many markets were there in Dunston? she wanted to ask but didn’t. He’d made her feel stupid enough.
She hadn’t been home two minutes when the telephone rang. Baxter Bain had been given her number. Could they arrange a meeting?
“I don’t think so,” Eunice said.
“I’ll keep it brief, I promise.” Baxter Bain’s voice was deep and boomed in her ear. He sounded like he knew what he was talking about. That confidence and ring could only belong to a handsome man, she decided. She agreed to meet him the following day.
Eunice’s father was skeptical. He wanted to go with her, just to make sure Bain was on the “up and up.” Eunice didn’t think that was such a good idea. While her father drank much less these days, he still loved his beer and could consume it unpredictably. She promised him she’d be wary.
“Just don’t sign anything,” he said.
Baxter Bain was tall, blond, square-jawed, a little round in the stomach, probably in his early thirties. He was also married, given the band on his finger. Eunice didn’t care. She was prepared to conquer.
He regarded her closely over the table where they were having lunch. She willed him to see inside her, to glimpse her hungry heart.
“I can tell you’re an intelligent young woman, and that you know an opportunity when you see one,” he said. His pink tie made her want to lunge across the table and shove her tongue in his mouth. She poked the cheese topping of her French onion soup with her spoon. She couldn’t believe how dumb she’d been to order something that would make her breath stink.
They got together a number of times. She loved the way he held her chair for her, opened doors, took her arm as they crossed the street. His touch was electric.
Hers must have been, too, because he fell in love with her. At least, he said he’d fallen. Something about the flowers he sent and the late night phone calls, when he’d clearly had too much to drink, rang false. Yet she found herself believing him. She wanted to. She had to.
You’re a fool, Eunice Fitch!
Baxter Bain wanted her money. That was the long and short of it. He wooed her to get it. She held out as long as she could. Sometimes Grandma Grace would whisper, Watch out, girl. Hang on tight to what I gave you! That’s when Eunice wished that what she’d inherited had been common sense instead of cash.
Her obsession with Baxter Bain caused her to split in two. Her brain still worked. She knew she was being played. Her heart wanted her to be played. Her wise self put him off, told him she had to think the investment over very carefully. She asked smart questions about how long the project would take to construct, which national stores would lease space, and what builder would be hired. Her foolish self let him drive her out to the site every day, even in the wind and snow. He talked about their fortune, their future.
One day Eunice asked, “What about your wife?”
He waved his hand to indicate that the wife was a small matter. Eunice hoped one day to be the current wife’s replacement, and even as her wise self told her to run like hell, her foolish self let him kiss her right there in the freezing wind.
Three months after Eunice gave Baxter Bain her money, spring came. The site was marked with orange spray paint and wooden stakes. A large sign with the name Dunston Heights Mall was clearly visible from the adjacent highway. She went there often, sometimes at night with a flashlight so she could find her way in the dark, or at sunset to take in the changing color of the lake, and seldom with Baxter Bain. He’d broken things off with her soon after taking her check. His wife was coming around, he said. Coming around to what, Eunice didn’t know. He promised to keep her up to date on the progress of the development. By the end of the summer there had been no progress at all. One night he called, waking her from an uneasy sleep full of Grandma Grace, to say that the money had been lost. The contractor had swindled them both and skipped town. The authorities had been contacted. Once he was in custody, there’d be a lawsuit. The bum would pay up. She wasn’t to worry about that.
Eunice digested this news and found she didn’t care all that much. She was too excited by the sound of his voice.
Then she ruined things by asking, “How are things with your wife?”
Baxter hung up, and she didn’t hear from him again for a long time. When he did get back in touch, it was from jail. He wanted to come clean, he said. Eunice, apparently, hadn’t been the only investor in the shopping center. A number of other people—all women, though considerably older than she—had put in their life savings. There had never been a contractor, just overseas accounts in the name of Baxter Bain’s wife. She, apparently, was the one who took off with all of it, and Baxter was now agreeing to testify against her in the hope that she could be found and the money recovered. Neither ever happened, and Baxter stayed behind bars.
The land was eventually sold by Baxter’s real estate company to another developer who built a retirement community there a few years later. When Eunice saw that the Lindell Home was hiring, she applied. The place oozed comfort and luxury. The carpets were thick, the furniture solid and plush. The woman who interviewed her, Alice somebody, met with her in the activity room. They sat together on a sofa that faced a wall of windows.
“What makes you want to work with the elderly?” Alice asked. She didn’t look much older than Eunice, then just twenty-five.
“I took care of my Grandma Grace for a long time after she broke her hip.”
“I see.”
“Then she died.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
Eunice focused on a little pin Alice wore at the neck of her white blouse. It was made from a slim gold bar and a blue stone at either end. The stones reminded her of Baxter’s eyes.
“You seem like a very capable person,” Alice said.
“I like to think so.”
“Why don’t we take a look around and see how you like it here.”
They toured the whole building. Long, wide halls led into common areas with aquariums or bird cages. Beautiful art hung on the walls; wide windowsills were choked with healthy green plants the residents could tend themselves if they wished to, Alice explained. The dining room had arched doorways and windows. The fitness center had a swimming pool and sauna. Alice explained that there were three levels of accommodation. Independent residents lived in the outlying cottages. As an aide, Eunice wouldn’t cross paths with them, unless she wanted to apply for a housekeeping position? That would entail mopping and vacuuming. Eunice didn’t think so. She liked the sound of actually being in the company of someone, not working by herself. Then there was the assisted living wing. Most of the people there had suffered a recent illness or injury, and needed a little extra help before they went back to their cottages. If their recovery wasn’t promising, they moved into the skilled nursing wing. Eunice would probably be assigned there.
“Now, how does all that sound?” Alice asked when they’d returned to the reception area.
“Fine.”
“Good. Come in on Monday.”
Eunice left the building feeling like she’d just been handed a prison sentence. She refused to be glum, however, and spoke of her new opportunity in glowing terms to her parents.
“Seems like an odd job for a young person like you,” her father said.
“A job’s a job,” her mother said.
Eunice suspected that her mother was secretly thrilled at the loss of her fortune. She and Eunice’s father still lived in the Eunice’s childhood home, while Eunice had had to move out of the fancy apartment and was renting a trailer along the inlet from Lake Dunston. She still had the Carmen Ghia but couldn’t afford to replace the bad muffler,
so she bought a 1965 Dodge Dart Station Wagon. A car that was almost twenty years old wasn’t anything exactly special. But then again, neither was she.
chapter twelve
For the next few years, the love in Eunice’s heart found expression in the care she lavished on the residents at Lindell. Most weren’t interested in her efforts, but a few were. Molly Moore had quite a yen for Eunice’s hair, and often asked if she could braid it. Eunice let her when her shift was over because her supervisor didn’t like her being on the clock for such a frivol. Eunice tried to make her see that it was good for Molly to use her hands, to have Eunice sit before her like a beloved grandchild, and to have someone to tell her stories to.
Molly was eighty-nine, which meant she was born at the turn of the century. Her mind was sharp. So was her tongue. She declared President Bush a horse’s ass. So was anyone who’d voted for him.
“My mother did,” Eunice said.
“Goodness! That’s all I need to know about that poor woman!”
Her voice was high, yet firm. She’d had a career in business, first as a secretary after the First World War, then as a bookkeeper for a bakery, a drugstore, and a high-end store that specialized in ladies’ lingerie.
“They gave me a great discount, though I wasn’t married yet at the time, so all those pretty underthings went to waste,” she said.
“Can’t a woman wear frillies just for herself?”
“Sure. But it’s more fun when a man admires you, don’t you think?”
Eunice did. Her love life had been nil for some time. She’d gone on a couple of dates with one of the maintenance men from Lindell. He was about her age, attractive in a brooding sort of way, and looked at her as if she were his favorite meal. She decided that on the third date she’d make her move. She stopped him as they were walking across a parking lot and kissed him. He did nothing, just stood there. She asked him what was wrong.
“Our Lord frowns on such behavior,” he said.
Six months later, she had dinner with the great-grandson of a resident. He treated her to lobster at the lake, said she was beautiful, asked if she liked Italian films, then said they should go to his place and just get it over with. Eunice was fine with that, only “it” managed to last about forty-five seconds.
She took to going to bars on Tuesdays for Ladies’ Night, and on Fridays for Happy Hour. Her results fell between awful and inane. One night, she crossed another frontier and brought someone home.
The man, Carson, had been charming early in the evening but got nastier with each drink. Once in the door, he looked around and said, “What a dump!”
Eunice wasn’t put off by his mounting mean spirit. She decided she’d reform him, and kill him with kindness. She agreed that her orange rag rug was a little old school, as was the curved back on the sofa and the print of a little girl offering a daisy to a cow. These had all been Grandma Grace’s things, which meant that putting them down upset her, but she knew that wherever Grandma Grace was, she understood. Carson dropped meatily onto the sofa, sending up a plume of dust from the ancient cushions, and told her he liked a woman who could admit that she was wrong.
Then he patted the empty space next to him, releasing even more dust. Eunice sat. He said he might be able to help her get some new furniture. He had a friend who was looking to sell a few things cheap. The friend was downsizing, moving out of state, and pretty much everything had to go. Carson leaned his head back and snored for a while. Eunice considered his offer. Carson might be the man she’d been looking for. He seemed capable, a good problem-solver. Eunice knew she was good at this, too, and that if she took up with Carson, she’d have to pretend to be inept so he could feel useful. She reflected on the stormy marriage of her own parents. Her father had been more on the ball than her mother had ever given him credit for. If she’d been gentler, more supportive, the whole family would have been calmer, with a real chance for happiness. Her mother believed in punishing people for things they couldn’t help. That, Eunice decided, was the essence of cruelty.
Carson’s friend, it turned out, was selling someone else’s furniture. The friend had another friend who worked for a moving company. The clients were out of town, already installed in their next home, not on hand to supervise the loading of the truck and the selective culling of their possessions. A lamp, side table, and a leather easy-chair found their way into Carson’s pick-up and then Eunice’s trailer. She knew nothing about their true origins. She was just glad Carson had come through. She was also thrilled that the cost to her was less than two hundred dollars. Eunice invited Carson to move in with her, since the lease on his one bedroom apartment was up soon. He said it was a serious step. He didn’t want her to get the wrong idea. A long-term relationship probably wasn’t in the cards for him. He was open about his past with women. He’d decided some time before that he had a commitment problem, but if Eunice was willing to go with the flow, not ask too much, then he’d be happy to join her in her trailer.
Got you now!
One evening, not long after, while Carson was at his place packing, a man knocked on Eunice’s door and told her that Carson needed to get rid of the hot stuff. The moving company had called the police. The friend said he was going to lie low for a while, but if things went wrong and he got picked up, he’d have to tell the cops what he knew.
“Are you saying this furniture is stolen?” Eunice asked. The man looked down at her with beady, rodent eyes.
“More like on permanent loan.”
The man told Eunice to make sure Carson knew he’d been by, and to watch himself in the next few days.
“Tell him we’ll go for a beer when it’s all over,” he said.
“What’s your name?”
“I’d rather not say, you know, if the cops show up here looking for me.”
If that happened, a physical description alone would have him tracked down. The guy was six foot five at least and had had to stoop to get through the trailer’s doorway. He had blond dreadlocks, a few of which had been died black, and a tattoo of a dragon on the right side of his neck.
“I’ll just call you Mr. X,” Eunice said.
“Just play dumb if they ask you anything. Carson should too. He knows how.”
Then Mr. X went on his way.
Eunice said nothing to Carson. The police stayed away. So did Mr. X. Eunice could tell Carson was mad about his disappearance and thought it was some selfish whim, not motivated by self-preservation. She liked knowing something he didn’t. It seemed like a fair trade, given what she’d already ceded.
Their life together was a clumsy dance. Sometimes she forgot herself and tried to lead. He stepped all over her. He lost his job at the liquor store for having beer on his breath, and didn’t see the humor in that at all. Then he decided he’d been granted a favor, since he never had liked his boss all that much. He came to enjoy staying home, in front of the television, and Eunice’s cable package, which set her back a fair amount every month. So did Carson. He didn’t contribute money. He didn’t contribute time. She was expected to cook, clean, and wash his clothes when she wasn’t working at Lindell.
Her days off were Tuesday and Thursday. Carson suggested that she ask to rearrange her schedule so that her days off were consecutive. That way she could get more done around the place.
“You just like having me around,” she said.
“That too.”
He gave her a big bear hug. He needed a shower. She didn’t mention it. He’d been down lately, bored and restless.
“I got the fidgets,” he said more than once.
She made his favorite dinner of macaroni and cheese with cut up hot dogs, splashed generously with hot sauce and paired with an ice cold beer. He ate slowly,
enjoying it. He was her work of art, she realized. Her creation. She suggested he might look for a job, a place to put his nervous energy.
“That’s just like you to throw it in my face,” he said, chewing.
“Throw what?”
“That I got fired.”
“I didn’t mean that at all. I just thought you’d feel better.”
“Don’t treat me like a little boy.”
“Then don’t act like one.”
It took her a good twenty minutes to clean up the food he’d tossed on the floor, along with the broken plate, not to mention the overturned kitchen table. Carson had taken himself out to a bar after helping himself to Eunice’s wallet. She fumed. She scrubbed. She vowed not to provoke him on payday ever again; it could get expensive.
At work, Eunice had made friends with one of the residents, Elvie Sundhurst. Eunice liked talking to her. She was a widow. She’d been married sixty-two years. That sounded like an eternity to Eunice. At the time, Eunice was coming up on her thirty-fifth birthday. When she did the math, if she and Carson got married right away, she’d be ninety-seven when she’d been married as long as Elvie. She and Carson weren’t getting married. He showed no signs of asking her. Sometimes she wasn’t even sure she’d accept, especially after the food-throwing, table-tipping incident. Carson had come home apologetic and anxious. He said he expected to find that she’d dumped his things out into the street and changed the locks. She asked him why she shouldn’t. He honestly didn’t know. He knew he wasn’t easy to live with, but hoped she’d give him a second chance.
Eunice filled Elvie in. Elvie listened while she played another game of solitaire. She had a small folding table in her room and wheeled herself there first thing in the morning. Eunice finished making the bed. Elvie shuffled her cards.
Women Within Page 10