Keeper of the Keys

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  Ray said, “I’ll be right back.” He left the living room. Kat took out the notebook and read some more of Leigh’s love poems. In five minutes he returned, loaded down. “A couple sweaters,” he said. “Two sleeping bags. It might get cold up there at night, even in summer, and I sure don’t expect sheets. Bring another bottle of that French stuff from the fridge.”

  “Yessir,” Kat said, scrambling up from the floor. “Don’t forget toothbrushes.”

  19

  I ’m outta here,” Eleanor Beasley said, walking past Esmé’s station. “See you tomorrow.”

  “Wait a second, Eleanor.”

  Eleanor waited while Esmé finished checking through a big shopping cart, whizzing through the bar-coded items and bagging them with efficiency born of long experience.

  “Thanks for shopping at Granada Market,” she told the customer, who nodded. Esmé swiftly fastened the chain to her station. While she finished her closing-up chores, Eleanor talked to the bagger at the next register about his new Prius. Eleanor wasn’t a hurrier; this could be a problem in a grocery store, but the customers liked how she noticed when they were tired and asked how they were doing.

  Granada Market had started out as a small specialty health food store in the seventies. Over the years, as people became educated about the virtues of healthy food, the store had tripled in size. Granada gave Safeway and even Trader Joe’s a run for their money. The store had twelve full-time clerks, but since it was open until midnight, they all worked long shifts during extra-busy times or vacation times. Esmé most appreciated the ten percent employee discount on food items.

  “Where are you going tonight?” she said as they pushed open the double doors and entered the cool, dim rear of the store.

  “Jackstraps,” Eleanor said, “same as every Friday night.” She pulled her scrunchie off and her blonde hair stayed put until she ran her fingers in and out a few times. She had the thin, hard-living face of a smoker and drinker and had been divorced for decades from her rodeo-rider husband. She pulled lipstick out of her bag and ran it over her lips without checking a mirror, then traced her work with a finger.

  They punched out. “I thought-maybe I could join you?” Esmé said.

  Eleanor’s eyebrows went up and she smiled. “You changing your ways, Esmé? It’s pretty rowdy there.”

  “I feel rowdy,” Esmé said. She felt like exploding, was how she felt, after the latest call from Ray. Something had torn between them like the tear on a piece of fabric that continues straight across, all the way across the cloth until the piece is neatly halved. If she went home now she would call him, apologize, say things she shouldn’t, anything to try to mend this tear.

  And besides, she couldn’t stand the thought of going home right now. She couldn’t contain all she felt right now. She had to get out, right now, but not alone. She didn’t want to be alone.

  Their boss, Ward Cameron, a small man who liked to cut a big swath, sneaked silently up behind them. “Not so fast,” he bellowed, startling them. He chuckled at their reaction as they turned to face him. “Rotation tomorrow, Saturday morning. You two, eight a.m. Don’t be late.”

  They both maintained smiles for as long as he was looking, then Eleanor rolled her eyes.

  “We oughtta unionize.”

  “He beat back a union vote twice.”

  “Then I oughtta quit. I hear they might open a new Safeway across the street from the Whitwood Center.”

  “Ellie, you love it here. You’re so sociable. I admire how friendly you are with the customers. You love getting people laughing.”

  Eleanor smiled, appreciating the compliment. “I love the money.” They walked into the employee lunchroom, where each employee was allowed a small locker for personal items. Eleanor pulled off her work shirt, a modest blouse, replacing it with a green tank top and hanging a string of beads around her neck. “Voilà,” she said, and laughed.

  Esmé wondered at her changing in this room, but no men arrived to applaud her.

  “Ward likes me,” Eleanor was saying. “Have you noticed? Whenever he gets a little bored, he drops something just so he can watch me bend over. What would he do without me?” She already knew the answer. “Hire another one. I guess that’s why I’ve gone through two husbands already. I think I’m special but they think different. You ever married, Esmé? I always wondered.”

  Although she had worked at the store for many years, Esmé had always kept her distance. She never went out with the other clerks, and kept to herself at lunch. She preferred to walk somewhere, to the dollar store to browse for little household things, or to a nearby park where she could escape the store, which had no windows, no natural light, and a lot of talk about very personal things.

  “I’m a widow,” she said.

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “Long time ago,” Esmé said, changing out of the thick-cushioned shoes she wore to protect her feet from the day of standing. Everything important in her life had happened so long ago, but Ray was now on a rampage through the past. She remembered the phone call again and this uncontainable anger returned-against Ray, for his pigheadedness, and against Leigh, who had dealt him a massive and destabilizing blow and set him on this course.

  “Let’s go, Eleanor!”

  “We’re gone.” Eleanor snapped her purse shut and gave Esmé a glossy smile.

  They joined a crew of three other female coworkers, all finishing shifts at six o’clock that day. Even for those on an early shift, Friday had that glow. Even Esmé felt it, a hopeful electricity as if this weekend would bring all they desired. Chatting and laughing, they walked toward the cafe-bar, which was only a block from the grocery store.

  Esmé worked hard to enjoy the walk. The hot yellow of the day had drifted away, a burning sun low in the sky now at its sweetest and most benign. The heat of the sidewalk radiated up through the thin sole of her sandals.

  She tried to hear what Eleanor’s friends were saying, but one thing about evening, every car for thirty miles around had hit the boulevard. Drivers squinted against the long low rays. She saw angry faces behind the windshields. She crossed her arms.

  “You cold, honey?” Eleanor asked. “Here.” She removed her thin crocheted sweater. “Take this. I’m hot enough for both of us.” She expanded her chest and everybody laughed. The other women were younger than Eleanor and Esmé and in pretty good shape. You couldn’t hold a job at Granada ’s unless you could stand for eight to ten hours.

  Esmé looked down at her blouse and black pants and thought, I look older than I am. She felt a little ashamed, as if she was letting down the other women, detracting from their beauty. She wished she had put on some makeup, or a skirt-her legs were still good-oh, what was she doing? She’d given up cocktail lounges years and years before. She felt like turning around and going home, but it had been such a long time since she had let herself live a little-there would be a long bar, shiny bottles, low light. She could relax, have a refreshment-

  A long long time.

  Jackstraps had flashed its green sign for a lot longer than Esmé had worked at the market. A long wooden counter with shiny black marble inlays made a wide half-circle through the center of the room. Two immense flat screens blasted quick-cut images of Nascar racing. The place had begun to fill up. The women sat down along the far end of the bar, Eleanor choosing to stand.

  All the men at the counter had swiveled to watch them enter. Several continued to check the group out. The air practically glittered around the women as the sexual energy in the room rose. Esmé felt increasingly uncomfortable.

  “Shoot. Too far from the bartender,” Amy said, opening her purse and taking out a mirror. She fluffed her hair and returned it to the bag. “I’m in a hurry. Craig’s picking me up later.”

  Multicolored halogen pendants lit them festively, and the bartender came over right away, bantering with all of them equally, although Esmé saw immediately that he focused the gleam in his eye on Eleanor.

  “Jack, this is Es
mé,” she said.

  “Welcome, darlin’.” Jack, as well-seasoned as his bar, put an arm around Eleanor’s waist.

  The other women all had special drinks.

  “Esmé?” Eleanor asked.

  “Coke,” she said.

  “Coke?” Eleanor leaned over and patted her on the knee. “Don’t tell me you came with us tonight thinking you’d get away with that. I never saw a woman who needed something stronger. You leave it to me. I’ll pick something’ll knock your socks off.”

  “I don’t drink.”

  “Why not? Not healthy?” asked the youngest one.

  “I have to drive home. It’s just a bad idea.”

  A few of the women looked offended. “One drink is not illegal,” said one. “Nobody has to come out of here any drunker than they want.”

  “You live over on Close Street, right? That’s not too far from me on Ceres,” Amy said. “Craig’ll give you a lift home and I can pick you up for the early shift in the morning if you’re worried about driving.”

  No driving. That meant she could drink whatever she liked. Anything. Why not? She had come out tonight because she wanted a drink, so there. Esmé said, “Okay. Wine?”

  Spirits restored, they laughed at her. “This is no place to drink wine.” A debate ensued over which lethal mixture Jack might serve. “Oh, I know,” said Amy, the slowest clerk with the fastest smile. She kept the customers and the boss happy on sheer charm. “Give her the stoplight tease.”

  “What’s that?” one of them asked.

  “Show her, Jack.”

  “That’s strong stuff for a lady don’t like to drink much,” Jack said.

  “Too true,” Eleanor said. “Maybe a beer’s about the right speed.”

  “Who said I don’t like to drink?” Esmé said, rallying to the mood. “Now I’ve got a ride home. Okay, barkeep, I’ll have a stoplight tease. Please.”

  Jack left them. They watched him flip bottles around sparkling glasses, dashing a little of this and that, pouring some of the other, but quickly turned to each other to catch up on gossip.

  The moms complained about their kids’ crowded schedules, ex-husbands late with child support, nasty landlords. The unmarried discussed various dates, almost all bad but some humorous. Eleanor, the senior checker at Granada ’s and the most-married so far, ruled the conversation, kidding around, taking the worst situations and wrestling some fun out of them.

  One of the grizzled guys with hat hair on the other side of the bar came over and Eleanor drifted away with him. Esmé sat on her stool, smiling at the right times. Her mind wandered as she looked into the mirror behind the bar and watched the headlights of the cars on the boulevard, the red, white, green colors blurring like watercolors as the evening darkened. The noise level rose as more people came in, and she was vaguely aware of a sleeve brushing against her, someone leaning briefly into her back, bursts of laughter.

  Esmé blew out a long breath. Where was her damn drink? Let it come. The bottles glittered. There she was in the mirror, dark-haired, neat, almost sixty years old. Not like thirty-six years before. She wondered what her friends would say if they knew this would be her first drink in all that time.

  She sped up the road toward Avonbury Street, her foot pressed all the way down, singing as loud as she could, radio blasting, windows open. You couldn’t think back and remember an event like that, you recalled it in flashes, and that’s how she recalled it. A curb rising up to meet her, the sudden realization that she was on the wrong side of the road and that her tires were up on the curb of a central divider.

  “Shit!”

  She swung the wheel hard, slammed on her brakes, and backed up the empty road. Thank God, nobody there to witness this ridiculous thing. Back on the right side of the road again, she drove slowly, methodically, and when the car drifted across the center line she corrected carefully. She didn’t have far to go, only a couple of blocks to get home and make dinner. He’d be home in an hour.

  How did she get so drunk? Oh, yeah. Mad at him. Stopped at the bar, saying to herself, to hell with being a responsible person! To hell with my screwed-up life!

  In those days, she drank manhattans. To this day, she could not tell you what went into them. She had liked the name. Also, the drink had an attractive color, and came in a triangle-shaped glass she thought sophisticated.

  Four. Five. She drank so much so fast she passed out for a second or two on the bar. When she awoke she ordered another one and was politely invited to leave. Someone wanted to call her a cab. She told him she would walk home, no problem.

  She climbed into her car, the cheapest used automobile on the lot that day she and Henry went to buy one together.

  They had fought, but Henry prevailed, as he always did. Logical, solid, respectable, smart, he could outtalk her, outsmart her, and leave her laughing while he did it. So things had been in the beginning. Later, they had skipped over the part where he made her laugh. He looked at her differently, and the way he looked at her made her dislike herself, and that made her act badly.

  She hated this dinged-up car almost as much as she hated being married to a man named Henry, whom she called Hank because it sounded more manly. Everyone, right down to the flakiest housewife on the block, drove cars like this because of their fuel efficiency and budget pricing.

  In those days, she didn’t care about money or budgets. She expected life to have some flair, drama. She never expected to get stuck in a mundane house in a suburb. What happened to that girl who planned to move to San Francisco as soon as she got out of school?

  Giving in on a more glamorous car was giving up on her idea of herself. She smacked the wheel. But Henry, handsome Henry, talked her into everything, a fast wedding in Las Vegas when she had always pictured herself in a white satin gown, maybe getting married at a chic hotel overlooking the beach. Having a child. She had never thought of having a child, but along came Ray. And God, she loved little Ray.

  Hurry home. She had taken longer at the bar than she’d expected. Now, weaving, she panicked a little. Where was their street? Squinting into the late afternoon sun, she tried to read the street signs, but she was seeing double.

  A car honked behind her and she realized she was crawling along. At the next big intersection, eureka! She realized that she had gone too far by a few blocks. She pulled into the far left lane, careful to leave some space between herself and the divider, congratulating herself on finding her way back. Easy to miss the turn, an honest mistake anyone could make on a hot evening like this, when you’re upset, when the sun rakes through the windshield and directly into your eyes when you’re trying to drive straight, do an easy thing, get on home.

  She waited for the green arrow. Arrows took so long. Turned up the radio again and sang a little, then sang a little louder. Why not have a good time? She was fine, fine, on her way home after a long day. Happy for her husband for once. He used to say he loved her smile. Even now, he didn’t want her to complain. He wanted happy. So, tonight she’d give him happy!

  One hand on the radio tuner dial, one on the wheel, she pulled into the intersection. The U-turn cut too wide and again she found herself heading for a curb. She put her foot down.

  On the accelerator.

  The last thing Esmé remembered hearing was not the crash, not the windshield shattering: she heard a baby’s wail.

  Jack placed three small shot glasses in front of her with three colored liquids, one green, one yellow, one red. “Here’s your tease. A stoplight.”

  “Tell Esmé what’s in it,” Amy said. Esmé, caught up in the frenzy of noise around her, the high spirits, the cars outside, had already knocked back the first one, green, absolutely vile.

  Jack explained. “Step one,” he said. “The green drink. You mix an ounce of melon liqueur or Apple Pucker schnapps and an ounce of vodka into a shaker. Heave it to and fro. Then you strain the mixture into a rocks glass.

  “For the yellow shot, the halt, caution, do not enter the intersection
stuff, you mix an ounce of vodka into a shaker, best available stuff that’s yellow-tinged, or add a little food coloring, shake well with a little ice, and strain that into a shot glass or rocks glass.

  “Step three, you add an ounce of Hot Damn or Cherry Pucker to one of Bacardi 151 rum. Put those two ounces in a shaker, bounce ’em around, then strain them into a shot glass or rocks glass. That’s stop, baby,” Jack said, leaning close to Esmé, almost whispering. “For some reason, people who drink this stuff never do stop. Careful.”

  By then she had thrown the murky bile to the back of her throat, swallowing a few times to get it all down.

  “Hey, honey, sip that stuff,” Eleanor’s friend Carmen said, putting a restraining hand to her wrist, “or Ward’ll be calling in a replacement for you in the morning.”

  Esmé shook her off. The red went down sweeter than melted butter.

  “I’ll have another,” she said. “No. That was awful.”

  “Now that is the truth,” Jack said. “I’ll fix you something nice to get the taste out.” He gave her a manhattan. Esmé felt herself loosening, as though rubber bands had been holding her brain in place and were popping off one by one. Now she was laughing, too. She felt young and adventurous.

  “Another.”

  “Sure, honey.” Jack mixed it for her. There were peanuts on the bar, but she ignored them even though she hadn’t had dinner. Eleanor had disappeared and her friends were all involved in their own conversations, but Esmé no longer felt alone. She was part of all this shifting light, this lubricated bonhomie. Everybody happy, like life should be.

  “More.”

  Amy and her big hunky friend Craig stuffed her rather awkwardly into the back seat of their car, Craig holding one arm, Amy the other. Craig drove her home. She had trouble opening her front door, so Craig worked the key.

  “You sure you’re okay?” Amy asked, watching from outside of Craig’s car.