Crunch Time gbcm-16

by Diane Mott Davidson

  Arch lit up as Yolanda walked over. “Cool! Is this the aunt who smokes cigars?”

  Yolanda grinned at him. “Yup. But you’re not allowed to have any.”

  “I’m in training,” Arch joked. “No smoking, no booze.”

  “Arch!” I cried.

  “Gotcha, Mom.” He surveyed the food. “Looks great. I need to ask you for something. One of the kids on our team? He’s been diagnosed with leukemia and started his treatment. Could I bring him some lunch?”

  “I’ll do it,” I said, and swiftly put together cutlery and a dish full of food.

  “He’ll never eat that much,” Arch warned as he blinked at the loaded plate. “He’s here because he missed being with the team. But he doesn’t want the other kids to stare at him in the gym, so the team is gathered in one of the halls with him, and his mom’s going to pick him up by a side door.”

  “Just lead the way.”

  Arch did. We entered a warren of hallways and eventually came to a tunnel of lockers with a clutch of boys at the end. A pile of sabers, épées, and foils indicated practice was over. The kids were seated around an emaciated, bald classmate whose skin was a terrible color. I got down on my knees, introduced myself, and handed him the plate. Arch had brought a bottle of water.

  “Thanks,” the boy said as he looked at me with eyes that looked huge. “I’m Peter.”

  “Well, enjoy,” I replied.

  Peter’s forehead wrinkled. He said to his teammates, “So am I going to eat this while all of you are watching me?”

  “Yeah,” replied one of the kids, “and after that, we’re going home to shave our heads, so we can look like you, too!”

  They all laughed, then started talking, apparently to divert attention away from Peter so that he would not, indeed, be embarrassed. Several of the boys began to gather the equipment, while a couple got to their feet to open their lockers. Then there was a crash and a whoop of pain.

  Everyone stopped moving and looked at Peter, who swallowed what was in his mouth. “It wasn’t me, guys.”

  “It was me!” shouted one of the boys, whom I couldn’t see. “What the hell, Boats,” the kid, still invisible, shouted, “can’t you look where you’re opening your locker door?”

  Boats, aka Alexander Boatfield III, closed his locker door, revealing a kid holding on to his nose, which was bleeding profusely. “Oh, Jesus,” said Boats. “I’m sorry, Mikulski. I didn’t see you there.”

  “That’s obvious!” cried the offended Mikulski. I did not know this kid, whose last name was Mikulski. He must have been a new member of the team. What worried me more at the moment was that his hand could not contain the red flood from his nose. Blood dripped down his shirt and onto the floor.

  “All right,” I said authoritatively, “I want to take you to the nurse. Arch, give him a shirt. Mikulski, sorry I don’t know your first name—”

  “Brad!”

  “Brad,” I said calmly, “we need to see if your nose is broken. Let’s go.” I took Brad’s free arm and signaled to Arch to lead the way back.

  “This sucks!” Brad howled as I guided him down the hallway. “I’m going to look like shit for the school picture!”

  “Cool it, Mikulski,” Arch said in a low voice once we’d turned a corner. “Peter’s a lot worse off than you, and you don’t hear him crying.”

  “Jesus, Arch, I’m in pain here! Have a little compassion!”

  Arch looked at me and rolled his eyes. The three of us tried to hustle along, but since Brad had his head tipped back, it was slow going. Just before the next hallway corner, I heard a clanking that I could not immediately identify. Then Sean Breckenridge, carrying all his photographic equipment, hove into view, and before Arch and I could pull Brad Mikulski back, Sean banged right into him.

  “Jesus H. Christ!” hollered Mikulski. “Is this the blind leading the blind or what?”

  “Omigod,” murmured Sean Breckenridge, looking at me. “I’m sorry, I was in such a hurry that I didn’t pay attention to where I was going. Goldy, have you seen—” In midquestion, Sean happened to look over at Brad Mikulski, who had lowered his chin to see who’d plowed into him. Brad’s blood was everywhere at this point—on his face, his shirt, Arch’s shirt—and it was dripping onto the floor.

  Sean Breckenridge’s mouth dropped open and his cheeks paled. His eyes rolled upward as he keeled forward.

  “Arch!” I shouted. “Catch him!”

  Arch deftly stepped into Sean Breckenridge’s trajectory, absorbed the weight of his fall, and lowered him to the floor.

  “I swear, this is getting out of hand,” said Brad Mikulski, staring down at an unconscious Sean Breckenridge. “We’re going to have to open a ward on hallway B. Somebody needs to call a priest.”

  “Sit down on the floor, Brad,” I ordered. “Arch, run and get us some help, would you, please? Ask them to bring compresses and ammonia salts.”

  Brad Mikulski sat on the floor, lifted his chin, and cut his glance sideways at Sean Breckenridge. “It’s just a little blood, man. Why do you have to be such a wuss?”

  Moments later, Arch reappeared with two nurses. One was fortyish and slender; the other, young, bulky, and blond, appeared to be an assistant. Both wore the blue PJ-type scrubs common these days among their profession. Unsure of the extent of the injuries, each was carrying a first-aid kit. The older one gave instructions to the younger, who held a small tube of ammonia salts under Sean’s nose. He jerked awake, looking confused. The other nurse shook her head at Brad Mikulski, who, in turn, was watching the goings-on with Sean Breckenridge with interest.

  The older nurse said wearily, “What have you done to yourself this time, Mikulski?”

  While Brad Mikulski was in the middle of his protestations that he hadn’t done anything, the problem was what had been done to him, the nurse interrupted him. She told me she and her colleague would handle the situation, and that Arch and I could go back to whatever it was we’d been doing before the collision.

  “Do you know how to get to the gym from here?” Arch asked me.

  When I said that I was sure I did not, my son began to lead me. As we walked along, I asked about Peter’s condition.

  “We don’t know much,” Arch said protectively. “Please don’t ask me a bunch of questions I can’t answer.”

  “Oh-kay.” Was I that nosy? Well, probably yes.

  Arch furrowed his brow, as if he were trying to remember something important. “Somebody said that—outside?—it’s snowing to beat the band.”

  “It’s coming down in Aspen Meadow,” I said. “You won’t be home too late, will you?”

  “Gus’s grandparents invited Todd and me over for dinner. They said they’d bring me home, too. Remember, my car’s in our garage? You were afraid the radials weren’t going to be good enough to get through the winter, and you wanted to get real snow tires for it.”

  “Right, we’ll get to that. Speaking of which, I’m worried about the weather. The snow is coming down really hard, so please ask the Vikarioses to bring you home early. Like nine at the latest?”

  “Sure.” He deposited me at the door of the kitchen. “Thanks for being nice to Peter. And to Mikulski, too.”

  “Arch, of course I would be nice to—” But my son had taken off. As I watched his retreating back, I wished I’d asked who Peter’s mother was. I simply couldn’t imagine being in her shoes. The pain she must have been feeling . . . I wondered about Peter’s prognosis. Arch was always accusing me of nosiness, so it sure didn’t feel right to be digging around in this.

  Then again, what about Brad Mikulski? Was his mother Hermie, the one who might have hired Ernest to look into the puppy mill, over her son’s supposed objections? Brad didn’t come to church, so I hadn’t seen them together. Still, I shook my head at the fact that I’d been too preoccupied by Brad’s blood and Sean Breckenridge’s reaction to it to ask. I took a deep breath and focused on the work at hand, which was feeding a big crowd of athletes, parents, tea
chers, and medical personnel.

  When I returned to the gym, Tony Ramos was speaking into the bullhorn, and the kids were organizing themselves according to his instructions. The physicals would continue through lunch, Tony announced. When Yolanda and I started to serve at quarter to twelve, two lines of more or less disciplined kids moved along both sides of the tables, piling their plates high with salads, buffalo wings, sandwiches, and cookies. The school provided the drinks: water, milk, and juices—no pop, thank goodness—so that was one less thing to deal with.

  As I spooned a refill of Caprese salad into one of the buffet bowls, I saw something that gave me a start. It was a kid, a boy, not very tall, overweight, with tufts of light brown hair sticking out at all angles from his head. He was holding himself somewhat apart, which made his lumpy stomach stand out even more. I’d never seen him at CBHS, and if he was from our church, I didn’t recognize him. But I knew him, somehow. Arch had reentered the gym with his team, so I caught his eye and motioned him over.

  “Don’t look now,” I said surreptitiously as I deposited the last few tomato slices into the bowl, “but there’s a heavy kid nearby, and he looks familiar. Is he from Aspen Meadow? Is he new to the school?”

  Arch leaned over the salad bowl. “I don’t need to look. It’s Otto Newgate, and he was a year behind me at Aspen Meadow Elementary. I tried to talk to him, you know, welcome him to CBHS, but he said he didn’t want to be here at all, that his grandmother insisted he come. And get this. His grandmother wants him to try out for the basketball team, so he’s getting his physical. This school won the state championship last year. One member of the team is thinking of skipping college and going straight to the pros. Even CBHS’s junior varsity beat other senior varsities. Otto has exactly no chance of making either basketball team.”

  “Oh, no.”

  Arch said, “I mean, I feel sorry for Otto. I do. But if he doesn’t want to be here, then he should just tell his grandmother, no dice. Can I go now?”

  “Yes, buddy. Thanks.”

  Charlene Newgate! It was ten minutes after noon, and I’d been so busy worrying about Arch’s sick teammate, and dealing with the buffet, I’d almost forgotten I was due to meet her. And I certainly hadn’t put much thought into what I was going to say when I saw her, beyond bluffing about invitations to a doctor’s catered event. I knew I needed to ask questions that wouldn’t scare her off or do anything else to upset Tom.

  I asked Yolanda to take over, which she did. I scanned the gym bleachers for Charlene. Would I even recognize her? I wondered.

  Finally I caught sight of her, up high, wearing a fur, yes, fur coat that she had wrapped tightly around her. It wasn’t particularly cold in the gym, either. What with all the animal lovers in the Denver area, Charlene was running a risk wearing real fur anywhere outside her house. Still, the CBHS kids were not, I thought, the paint-throwing types. At least, I hoped they weren’t.

  To the best of my knowledge, Charlene hadn’t come through the line, so I made her a sandwich and put large servings of Caprese and potato salads next to it. Then I double-timed it to the top bleacher.

  “Charlene!” I greeted her, gasping from the exertion of climbing. “Sorry I didn’t make it right at noon. Please have some lunch.” I handed her the plate.

  “I was beginning to wonder if you’d remembered, Goldy.” She shrugged off the coat. Charlene looked older than someone in her fifties. No doubt, the stress of being both a single mother and a single grandmother had taken their toll. Like her grandson, she had thin, light brown hair that formed uneven tufts around her head. She was a bulky woman, but instead of the jeans and T-shirt I’d always seen her in, this day she was dressed stunningly, in charcoal wool slacks with a matching sweater. Her thick ankles were swathed in black leather boots.

  “Charlene,” I said, “you look like you’ve won the lottery.”

  She spooned a bite of salad into her mouth, taking care not to get any on her clothes. She chewed, nodded her approval, then said, “I have a new boyfriend.” Her whole face seemed to twinkle as she smiled at me. “He’s good to me.”

  “How nice.” I meant it. “Is he here? Can I meet him?”

  Distrust flared in her eyes. “No. He has lots of business projects. You wanted to talk to me about those invitations you need addressed?”

  “Well, actually,” I said, improvising, “it was a Halloween party, for a dentist? Drew Parker? He called just as we were leaving the house to come here. He’s in Hawaii—it must have been the middle of the night there—anyway, his practice isn’t doing so well, so he’s not having me cater the party after all. In fact, he’s not even going to have a party.”

  Charlene snorted and looked away. “All these years, I’ve been slaving away running a secretarial service. I’ve watched the doctors, dentists, lawyers, and businessmen I work for get richer and richer. Now I’m the one doing well, and I have no sympathy.”

  I ignored her very palpable resentment, sat down next to her, and pretended to focus on the kids in the gym. “It’s so good your business is doing well. So, do you know Drew Parker? I mean, do you ever do work for him?”

  She eyed me again, and I put on my most innocent-looking face. She trained her gaze on the gym floor. “I’ve already talked to the police, if that’s what you’re getting at—”

  “Oh, no!” I lied. “The police? About what?”

  Charlene looked away. “My service has worked for a lot of professionals in Aspen Meadow. Practically all of them, if you want to know the truth. I told the police, Drew Parker’s name doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “I understand. I have a lot of clients, too. By the time I’ve finished serving dessert? I can’t remember half of their names.” I paused. “My business is suffering, though. I’m glad yours is doing well.”

  She gave me a look that would have curdled cream. “You have enough money to send your son here,” she rejoined. “Now Otto can have all the advantages that other kids have.” She lifted her wobbly, stout chin. “He’s going to do real well.” She opened her light brown eyes wide at me, and I blinked. She leaned in toward me, and I got a whiff of her powdery scent. “Who says money can’t buy happiness? Not me!”

  Tony Ramos interrupted us with his bullhorn. He announced that the athletes had to finish their lunches and get their physicals, if they had not already done so, because the doctors and nurses needed to leave.

  “Goldy Schulz!” A harsh female voice interrupted my visit with Charlene.

  “Oh, Christ,” said Charlene under her breath. She picked up her plate and handed it to me. “Keep me away from that crazy woman, will you?”

  I said, “What crazy woman?”

  “Go!” Charlene told me. “Get out of here!”

  I held the plate carefully with both hands, turned around so as to face the gym, and scanned the bleachers.

  “Goldy Schulz!” the abrasive voice called again. The parents who sat all around, instead of paying attention to Tony Ramos, turned to look at me. Even some of the kids out on the gym floor stared upward.

  At length I saw the woman calling me. My heart plummeted. Hermie Mikulski, her prematurely gray hair crimped in sharp curlicues all around her head, her tall, commanding body encased in a tube of pale gray wool, stood at the bottom of the steps, her hands on her hips.

  “Coming!” I called weakly. I hadn’t seen Hermie Mikulski since the annual meeting of our parish, the previous January. Whenever I’d greeted her at church, I’d received a cold nod in reply, which I figured was just her way. But now she was screaming at me? Why? Was she blaming me for her son’s bloody nose?

  When I reached the gym floor, I clutched Charlene’s plate between me and Hermie, like a kind of shield. To forestall a verbal attack, I quickly said, “Is Brad your son? I’m sorry that he—”

  Hermie tossed her head. “I’m not here about Brad.” The area between her gray eyebrows furrowed. “Why were you talking to that woman?” When Hermie pointed up at Charlene, I noticed something that mad
e my mouth fall open. Where two of Hermie’s fingers on her left hand should have been, there were only stumps.

  “Hermie?” I asked. “When did—” In my mind, I could hear Arch’s voice saying, Being nosy, Mom? I had the presence of mind to say, “What woman would that be?”

  “That welfare cheat, Charlene Newgate! Look at her up there, wearing a fur coat. I pity the animal who died for that woman. Oh,” she trilled, squinting and nodding ominously in Charlene’s direction, “Charlene’s got herself a sugar daddy now. Never mind that he’s a criminal.”

  “A criminal? Who is he?” I asked breathlessly.

  When Hermie turned her angry, trembling chin at me, I felt something like wool at the back of my throat. Hermie said, “I heard on the news that Ernest McLeod was dead. I take it your husband is looking into it?”

  “Well—”

  Hermie drew herself and her massive bosom upward, and took a deep breath. “Ernest was working for me.”

  I swallowed. Was I supposed to let on that I already knew this? I said, “Oh? Doing what?”

  “How far along is your husband in the investigation?”

  “I don’t know,” I said truthfully.

  “Have him call me,” Hermie said. With that command, she turned on her squat heels and marched away.

  “You could always call him,” I said to empty air.

  I had wanted to ask Charlene Newgate more questions, and I now certainly wanted to ask Hermie Mikulski more questions, such as What happened to your hand? But it seemed both women had dismissed me. I dashed across the gym to help with the cleanup.

  Yolanda was already hard at work, washing the metal serving dishes. We’d used paper plates and cups, as the school didn’t want even the possibility of broken china or glass on their expertly sprung gym floor. The washing-up operation took less than an hour. A few stragglers were still in the gym, one doctor, three kids, and assorted parents. Sean Breckenridge had left. Brie Quarles was still there, and once again she was hanging on to Tony Ramos. What in the hell was going on with them? I wondered. Maybe Brie wanted her son to make the basketball team. Well, Marla would know.