5 Highball Exit

by Phyllis Smallman

  Hadn’t Aunt Kay noticed that it was barely cooler in here? Maybe she was making nice, something I’ve yet to learn. Whatever it was, Aunt Kay was going to get a lot further with Sunny than I ever could. “I hope you can help me with a little problem,” Aunt Kay said.

  Sunny’s mouth twitched, chewing on the words to drive us out the door, but there’s something about Aunt Kay that makes people behave better than they normally would.

  Aunt Kay set down her soda. “You see, dear, my niece, a sweet girl, died last night.”

  Aunt Kay had Sunny’s attention now. She pulled Holly’s picture out of her purse and slid it across the bar. “I want to know why Holly died and I want to know what happened to her little girl.”

  Sunny looked down at the picture. She might be tough but it hit her. Emotion rippled across her face and she sucked her lips in between her teeth. Sunny hadn’t known Holly was dead.

  “How?” Sunny asked.

  Like all great storytellers, Aunt Kay took her time now that she had her audience’s attention. Using the bar, she pulled herself up onto a wooden stool and settled her behind on the seat that was undersized for her.

  Sunny was experienced in listening to thousands of stories, most of which she didn’t want to hear. She waited, without asking any questions and not showing all that much interest now she had herself under control.

  “That’s better,” Aunt Kay said, as she propped her short legs up on the top rung of the stool and got comfortable. She drank deeply from her glass.

  Sunny blinked. “How did Holly die?”

  “Suicide.” Sunny jerked back as if she’d been hit. “Oh, shit.”

  “That’s why I need your help.”

  “Holly wouldn’t kill herself.” Sunny’s angry and outraged reply was loud enough to have the drinkers down the bar looking up and taking some interest before they went back to their glasses.

  Sunny looked to me as if I might want to explain things.

  I shrugged and Sunny turned back to Aunt Kay, who said, “I need to understand what happened to her. I know so little about this last little bit of her life. I’m finding it hard to accept her death.”

  Sunny looked at me again. “Holly wouldn’t kill herself.” It was as if she was challenging me.

  “She left a note,” I said. “The police are pretty sure it was suicide but they’ll do an autopsy.”

  Aunt Kay cut in. “I had to identify her body. So distressing.” Her shoulders rounded and she seemed to shrink into herself. I wanted to hug her.

  Sunny picked up Aunt Kay’s half-empty glass, added ice and more soda and set it gently back in front of her. This time she even brought a little paper napkin to put the glass on.

  Aunt Kay smiled. “Thank you, dear. Can you tell me anything about Holly? Do you know where her baby is?”

  Sunny shook her head. “I haven’t seen Holly in months. People move on; you know how it is.”

  “Yes, but I know Holly.” Aunt Kay took a sip of her soda. “She was the kind of girl who kept in touch. Sometimes her idle chatter could be annoying, making you wish she’d forget she knew you.”

  The corner of Sunny’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile. “I’m sure she called you,” Aunt Kay said softly.

  I wondered why Aunt Kay was so sure of this but Sunny gave an embarrassed shrug. “Well, yeah, she’d call in the middle of some program I was trying to watch and talk about the new nail polish she’d just bought or some person she’d met, tell me the whole life story of someone I didn’t know. She was a hard person to discourage.”

  She looked around. “Maybe I didn’t try too hard. She was always so damn cheerful and a lot more interesting than the people that I normally listen to.”

  Aunt Kay laughed. “That’s my Holly all right.” But just as quickly her smile disappeared. “If that was true, why would she kill herself? What had changed? Was she depressed?”

  “Like I said, I haven’t talked to her in months. Before that, she’d breeze in here and chat away like a bloody bird. Didn’t matter who was here, she’d chat to them all.” Sunny almost smiled. “It was like someone blew out a wall and let the fresh air in.”

  She glanced down the bar at the three men and then took a deep breath. “I can’t tell you a lot, but what do you want to know?”

  “Did you know Angel?”

  “Yeah,” and now Sunny’s face relaxed into her first real smile, the one that revealed where she got her name. “She was beautiful. Delicate, you know, with perfect little rosebud lips. Her face never looked, well . . . it was like a perfect little doll’s. She was . . .” her voice faltered and stopped. Someone called her name from the end of the bar. Relief flooded her face. “I have to take care of these guys,” she said and left.

  “Do you think she can help us?” Aunt Kay whispered.

  “Maybe.” I didn’t add, “If she wants to.” My guess was that Sunny was not into helping anyone. That gets burned out of you pretty fast behind a bar, and you start to play dumb and stay neutral. I’ve got a friend who calls it “being Switzerland,” not getting involved. It’s the only way to survive.

  When Sunny came down the bar to join us again, sympathy and sentimentality had been flushed down the sink with the last of the booze in the dirty glasses. “All I can tell you is Angel was born just after Christmas. Couple of months later Holly was gone. She stopped coming around.”

  Aunt Kay smiled. “It’s a busy time with a new baby. So much to do. Of course she wouldn’t bring a baby in here, would she? No offense, but it isn’t the sort of place babies would be welcome.”

  Sunny picked up my untouched glass and set it in a plastic pan with the other dirty glasses.

  “Do you have a car?” Aunt Kay asked. Sunny’s yes was reluctant. “Did Holly?”

  “On what she made? No.”

  “She was working as a beautician, right?”

  “Yeah, right up until the week before Angel was born. I told her all the fumes, nail polish and stuff, wasn’t good for the baby but she didn’t listen.”

  Aunt Kay’s voice was soft and gentle. “I don’t suppose she had a choice, did she?”

  Sunny frowned. “No, no choice. That’s the problem with being poor, no choices.”

  “And she would have had so many appointments before and after having the baby. It’s so difficult with public transit and taxis are expensive—it would be so nice to be picked up and dropped off.”

  Sunny scowled.

  “You drove her places, didn’t you?”

  Poor Sunny, she so didn’t want to be caught in the role of Good Samaritan. “Yeah, sometimes.”

  “Every woman needs someone there for them when they have a baby. It’s just too hard to do alone.” Aunt Kay reached out and patted Sunny’s hand. “Thank you for taking care of Holly.”

  Sunny took her time pulling her hand away.

  “She was a good kid,” Sunny said. “Just not too bright, you know?” Again the frown. “No, that’s not right. She was bright enough. She just didn’t have common sense, just didn’t know what end was up if you know what I mean. And she didn’t seem to learn from her mistakes.”

  “Few of us do,” Aunt Kay said. “Did you ever meet the father?”

  “She didn’t introduce me but I saw him coming and going, worea uniform.”

  “What kind of a uniform?”

  “A cop, he was a cop.”

  “Ah, yes,” Aunt Kay said with a nod. “Was there only the one man in Holly’s life?”

  “She wasn’t that kind of girl,” Sunny was angry again. “She loved him, said she had since they were kids, but the bastard took off as soon as he knocked her up. Never saw him again after Holly started to show. I tell you, I ever see that guy again, cop or no, I see him on the street, I’m going to run him down.”

  “If
it’s any conciliation, he didn’t know about the baby. That’s not why he stopped seeing her.” Aunt Kay finished her drink and set it down on the sodden and tattered napkin. “The problem is no one seems to know where the baby is now. For my own peace of mind I have to know where Angel is, know that she’s safe.”

  Sunny frowned and crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t know anything more about Angel.”

  Sunny wasn’t going to win any prizes for lying.

  “How long did Holly stay in your apartment building after Angel was born?” I asked.

  Sunny gave it some thought. “Holly and I spent Christmas Day together. It was only a couple of weeks before Angel was born. I nuked two frozen turkey dinners and we watched those stupid Christmas shows on TV. No more than six weeks. Her money ran out. She couldn’t work and look after the baby. She told me she was going to move in with family.”

  Beside me Aunt Kay made a funny strangling sound. I reached out and put an arm around her shoulders and asked, “Did Holly mention any names?”

  “Naw, just said she would be in touch. She called once.” Sunny hesitated. “She sounded a bit strange, like she was pretending she was fine but she wasn’t. I didn’t push for details. Guess I should have.” She sighed and then admitted, “I didn’t want to know.”

  “That is true of all of us,” I told her. “We all have our own lives and don’t want to worry about anyone else’s.”

  Sunny nodded and turned away, heading for the other end of the bar although no one down there was ordering drinks.

  “I don’t think we’re going to get anything more from Sunny,” Aunt Kay said.

  I watched Sunny without replying. Aunt Kay said, “I think we might as well go.”

  “We’ll stay a little longer.”

  When Sunny came back she pointed at me and said, “Holly had a picture of you and her on the beach.”

  “I don’t remember it.”

  “She showed me an article about you . . . about that woman who attacked you.” She was waiting for me to add something. Damned if I knew what.

  Finally she said, “She said you two were real close, told anyone who would listen about you.”

  “She was exaggerating.”

  “She told me that you owned a fancy restaurant and that she’d worked there helping you run it.”

  I snorted. “Holly couldn’t run a vacuum.”

  Sunny grinned. “I didn’t say I believed her. I thought Holly might have gone to live with you or that you might have taken Angel.”

  “Not me.” She nodded. I said, “So where’s Angel?”

  Sunny considered the question. When she’d made up her mind she said, “Okay. Before Angel was born, I gave Holly the name of a lawyer I know. He arranges private adoptions. Holly didn’t want it. She figured Daddy couldn’t live without her and would come running back to play happy family. Wasn’t gonna happen, but you couldn’t tell Holly. She was always so naive and certain there was a happy ending just around the corner. She was going to be discovered by a big modeling agency or some big producer, never mind that she was already too old, she still thought it would happen, always having photos taken. Do you know how much those guys charge?” Anger, quick and volcanic, overflowed. “Ripping her off and taking advantage of her.”

  Sunny slapped a gray dishrag onto the counter and mopped at the damp rings left by my glass. “When Holly called me, about . . .”

  Sunny thought about it a minute, “must have been sometime around Easter, well, by then the fizz had gone out of her. She was just like the rest of us then. Don’t know what destroyed it. Didn’t ask. I did ask about Angel.”

  She reached beneath the bar and brought out a pack of smokes. With the bar about to close she was no longer worried about bylaws or health authorities who had never breached the front door. She lit her cigarette and drew deeply before saying, “Holly said she’d given Angel to friends.” She was glaring at me as though she held me personally responsible. “Holly said it was temporary, said she was going to get Angel back in a few months. I don’t know if she believed it. I didn’t.”

  Sunny’s permanent scowl was replaced by a flash of pain. “I just know Holly no longer had her baby. I hope she found a good home for Angel.”

  “We want to make sure,” I said. “Do you remember anything else?”

  Sunny shook her head. “That’s all I know.”

  “I’m going to need the name of the lawyer.” Sunny frowned.

  “Don’t worry; no one will ever know where we got the name,” I said. “If they insist on knowing, I’ll say Holly told me.”

  Sunny stared at the entrance where the old man stood with his hands shielding his eyes and his face pressed up against the glass.

  It took Sunny some time to decide. “You see that guy at the door?” She gave a nod in his direction.

  “Yes.”

  “He used to drive a school bus until he killed a kid. Seems the kid dropped something and stopped to pick it up. The driver saw the rest of the kids had crossed the road and drove off. He killed the boy kneeling in front of the bus picking up the things that spilled out of his backpack. That guy’s a no-account drunk now but Holly was kind to him. Holly gave him money. She was a good person. She . . .” Her face did a funny shift and she looked away for a moment and swiped at her nose.

  When she faced us she was strong and defiant again. “Well, in a few days . . . when the Flamingo closes Saturday night, a lot of people will have to find a new place to be miserable, including me and that guy.”

  Sunny reached beneath the bar and brought out an order pad. She wrote on it and then pulled off the sheet and pushed it towards me.

  I put my hand on the paper. “Do you have a job . . . somewhere to go?”

  “Yup, I’m going to swallow my pride and go back to a place I never should have left.”

  “Good luck to you.” I picked up the paper and replaced it with a bill. Sunny looked at it and sucked in some more smoke. She didn’t offer change and I didn’t ask for any.

  Aunt Kay stopped outside the door and pulled some bills out of her wallet. Handing them to the panhandler, she said, “This is from Holly.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Even though I was wearing sunglasses, the pounding sun made me squint. We walked slowly towards my red pickup with Aunt Kay leaning heavily on my arm as if she were about to drop dead from the skyrocketing temperature and exertion.

  “Let’s have a bite and then I’ll take you home.”

  “I’d like something to eat, but we aren’t quitting yet. I’m paying for your time, remember?”

  “When you keep mentioning it, how can I forget?” Aunt Kay said, “Let’s go see that lawyer.”

  “I’m not going anywhere until I eat.” Aunt Kay gave a huge sigh. “You never change.”

  “You either, thank goodness.” We went through our routine to get her in the truck and I promised myself I would watch for a hardware store where I could buy a small step.

  I stopped for a traffic light, still feeling for cooler air. “Please don’t stop,” I told the vent. Life without air would be unbearable.

  I held my hand over the vent, trying to decide if the thin trickle of air blowing out was any cooler than what was already in the cab and thinking about what Sunny had told us. “Why would Holly talk about me?”

  Aunt Kay fanned her face and looked out the window. “You know Holly—she talked about everyone she knew.”

  I saw golden arches in the distance and changed lanes. When I started to turn in Aunt Kay said, “Not on your life. If we’re eating out, I want somewhere nice.”

  I started to protest but she stopped me with, “I’ll buy.”

  “You just said my favorite words. Where would you like to go?”

  “Rosa’s. I haven’t been there in years. W
e used to come up oncea month for a Saturday night dinner. It would be nice to go there again.”

  Three blocks later I pulled into Rosa’s, the best Italian restaurant in Sarasota.

  But any enjoyment of Rosa’s disappeared as the door to the restaurant opened and a couple emerged. They were laughing as they turned and walked away from us.

  Bernice had put on weight. She’d always been skeletal but now, as she led the way across the parking lot of the restaurant, her ass was doing a rumba. I don’t think she used to have an ass, never mind one that could dance.

  And the hand that reached out to pat that dancing round mound of my ex-mother-in-law belonged to my old man, Tully Jenkins.

  “Why are we stopping here? Why aren’t you parking?”Aunt Kay said.

  “We aren’t eating just yet.”

  “What is it, what’s wrong?”

  “That’s what I want to know.”

  I watched them get into her BMW and back out, leaving my dad’s beat-up old pickup sitting there, and then I followed Bernice out of the parking lot. They didn’t go far, just to the Palms Motel. They parked, got out of the car, still laughing like teenagers and holding hands as they went up the outside stairs to a room on the second floor. The door closing behind them was like a kick in the gut.

  Aunt Kay pointed at the door. “That’s your father, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, that’s him all right.”

  “And the woman, do you know her?”

  “Oh, yeah, too well.”

  I’d married Jimmy Travis before I was twenty and in the end the whole sorry experience was a good reason to weep. Don’t get me wrong, it started out great but my bliss was short-lived. My idea of marriage didn’t include the groom having sex with a friend of the family after the rehearsal dinner.

  And Jimmy hadn’t been the only source of my tears. Bernice Travis, my former mother-in-law, had done her bit. Our hate for each other was deep and everlasting, growing like a cancer throughout my life with Jimmy. And even after Jimmy’s death our wars went on. Now my old man was feeling her up in public.