The Things We Keep
Page 3
Now Bert’s face is transformed. His eyes are soft and admiring. His lips curve into a helpless smile. At first I think he’s smiling at me, but the truth takes only a second to dawn. He’s smiling at Myrna. On one level, I find this unimaginably sad. On another, it’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever seen.
“Listen,” I say on impulse. “I’ve barely touched my soup, and I’m not hungry. Perhaps Myrna would like to … finish it?”
I brace myself, aware that Bert might be insulted by the offer of leftovers for Myrna. He frowns at me, but after a quick assessment, gives a gruff nod. “She’d like that very much. Thank you, young lady.”
I give Bert back his bowl and place mine in front of “Myrna.” I start to leave, then hesitate by Bert’s chair. “Myrna’s a lucky lady, you know that? I’d sure like to have someone to look out for me when I … I can’t do things for myself.”
Bert continues to frown at me, but it’s a little different now. Less irritated. More thoughtful. “You never know, young lady,” he says. “Maybe you will.”
3
Eve
Present day …
The man standing before me isn’t what I expect. For starters, he’s at least five years younger than me—thirty, tops—and he has a smudge of dirt on his left cheek. His eyes are deep-set, his skin is olive, and his hair is tawny. He’s … gorgeous. But in green shorts, a thin white T-shirt, and sturdy boots, he’s too disheveled to be the manager. I glance again at the small gold-plated sign next to the doorbell: ROSALIND HOUSE. GIVING THEM PEACE, GIVING YOU PEACE OF MIND. I’m definitely in the right place.
“I’m Eve Bennett,” I say. I have a brief flash of myself standing onstage, accepting the award for most promising graduate at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York, and another flash of Mother’s face when I told her I was applying for a job at a residential care facility for the elderly. “I have an interview at two o’clock. For the cook position.”
I wait for a greeting, a handshake, an Oh yes. Please come in. But the man just stares. I see a glint of recognition in his eyes and my heart sinks.
My last job interview had been a tough one, too, but at least I’d got a hello. It was ten years ago, at Benu, the hot NYC Asian fusion restaurant (back when Asian fusion was the next big thing). Simply landing an interview for an apprenticeship at Benu was nothing short of a miracle. Word among my friends at the culinary school was that Min-Jun, the head chef, hired only blood relatives to work in his kitchen, for fear others would steal his famous brown sauce recipe. I met with Min-Jun in the kitchen, and rather than shaking my hand, he’d supplied me with a knife and a bag of carrots to julienne. In the hour I spent there, he barely said a word to me. Later, when he offered me the job (which I declined, stupidly), he told me it was the way I looked at the carrot, like I was in love with it, that got me over the line.
The disheveled man still hasn’t spoken. I wait for him to curse me or slam the door in my face but instead he shuffles back and lets me inside. I step into a bright foyer with a sweeping staircase. Low polished timber side tables sit alongside well-stuffed pastel furniture. Though I haven’t been inside many residential care facilities, I suspect this is a very nice one. A three-story shuttered colonial with a huge, rambling garden. It reminds me a lot of … well, my house.
“Are you Eric?” I ask.
The man turns, gesturing for me to follow. “No.”
“Oh,” I say, relieved. “So … uh … you are?”
“The gardener.”
He disappears around a corner and I have to run to keep up. I catch him at the end of the corridor, where he is already knocking on the door.
“Eric?” he says through the door. His gaze touches mine briefly. “Eve Bennett is here to see you.”
The door swings open. The man standing there has a thick mustache and, unlike the gardner, is smiling.
“Hello,” he says brightly. “You must be Eve. I’m Eric.”
The gardener makes himself scarce and I take Eric’s extended hand. “Good to meet you.”
“Well, don’t just stand there. Come on in.” He ushers me inside. “Is that a British accent I detect?”
“East London,” I say. “But I’ve been in the United States nearly fifteen years.”
“Well, I won’t welcome you to the country, then.” He laughs, an oddly feminine giggle. “Only to my office. Please, have a seat.”
Eric pours a couple of glasses of water, and once we are sitting comfortably, picks up my résumé. “I have to say we haven’t had many applicants with your cooking credentials,” he says. “Our current cook is self-taught, and while the residents are quite fond of her, I think they’re getting a little sick of rice and beans and enchiladas for dinner every night. Gabriela’s pregnant, and her last day is Friday, so we need someone pretty desperately.”
“I’m available immediately,” I say.
“Good,” he says. “Then why don’t you tell me why you are applying for this job. With your training, I imagine you could get a job at an upscale restaurant or café!”
Eric laughs again, and I feel a bolt of encouragement. Clearly, unlike the gardener, he has no idea who I am.
“This is close to home,” I say. “And my daughter is at elementary school, so the day shifts suit better than regular hospitality hours.”
“Fair enough.” Eric’s gaze darts to the right, and then down to my résumé. “And why do you think you’d be a good candidate?”
He looks up expectantly, and I take a sip of water, buying some time. I don’t think it’s the moment to mention that this is my lastditch attempt to get an address in Clementine’s school zone. That without this address, she’ll be zoned to the far less idyllic Buttwell Road Elementary, known to the locals, of course, as Butt Road.
“Cooking is my passion,” I say finally. “I know what needs to be cooked fresh and what can be prepared in advance. I grow my own vegetables and try to use what’s seasonal both for taste as well as keeping costs down—”
“Some of our residents have special dietary requirements,” Eric interrupts. “High blood pressure, that kind of thing, so we need to keep our meals healthy and balanced, not to mention soft for those with dentures.”
I keep my wince on the inside. “I know all about cooking for high blood pressure. And I love the challenge of making simple food taste great.”
Eric smiles, threading his fingers together behind his head. The buttons on his shirt strain against his doughy belly. “And I don’t suppose you’ve done much in the way of cleaning?”
I pause. “I … er … thought this was a cook position.”
“Oh, it is. But our cleaner has just left us in the lurch, and I am hoping whoever takes this job can fill the void until I find someone.”
I swallow. “I see.”
“Have you had any experience with cleaning?”
“Of course,” I manage, even though until six months ago, Valentina, our live-in maid, took care of all the housework at our place. Since Valentina left, I’d taken over, but the standard of cleanliness had taken rather a large dive.
“Wonderful … well, it’s not a lot, really. The kitchen needs to be cleaned after meals, and the residents’ rooms need to be made up each day. There’s not much ironing, but some of the men like to wear a dress shirt on Sundays.”
I slump a little in my chair. I’ve ironed a couple of shirts before, but probably not more than a couple. When Richard and I were newly married, I’d made a great song and dance about being the one to iron his shirts. Once, I’d even done it naked. I thought there was something terribly romantic about ironing my lover’s shirt before he set off for work in the morning. But after a while, I’d handed the ironing over to Valentina along with the rest of the household chores that didn’t interest me.
“Shirts on Sundays,” I say, thinking of Butt Road. “No problem.”
“What else?” he says, clicking his tongue. “We have a fantastic nurse, Rosie, who does night shift, and we have care
givers here between eight and five. Trish is our personal care attendant, and Carole is her assistant. Angus, who let you in, is the gardener, and he also takes care of maintenance. As for the residents, we have twelve at the moment. One of our selling points is that we’re intimate. A family, really. We have to make sure everyone is a good fit before they start.”
I nod, a false smile woven to my face. The one thing I’m convinced of is that I’m the opposite of a good fit. I’m a chef, specializing in fine dining.… What do I know about being a cook and temporary cleaner at a residential home?
“We’re a private facility,” Eric continues, “one of several across the country owned by a group called Advanced Retirement Solutions. I am the administrator of this center. We are licensed and inspected annually by the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services.
“We are an assisted-living facility, not a nursing home, so our residents are all in good health—physically speaking. But we do have some residents with dementia. One of our older residents, Bert, is beginning to show some signs, and we also have two young residents suffering from the disease. Anna is thirty-nine. She has younger-onset Alzheimer’s, the memory-related type of dementia that most people have heard of. Luke is forty-one. He has a variant of frontotemporal dementia, which affects speech and word production. He finds it physically difficult to speak as well as hard to find the words he needs. He’s mostly nonverbal these days.”
“Wow.”
“Although you won’t be responsible for caring for the residents, you’ll be interacting with them daily. How do you feel about that? Do you have experience with the elderly or disabled? Grandparents?”
“I don’t have any grandparents or any real experience with the elderly. But that’s something I’d like to change.”
This part, at least, is true. I’ve become all too aware recently how tough life can be. And from the weight of Eric’s nod, I determine I’ve convinced him, too.
“Well, you’ve come to the right place,” he says, and laughs again. “Anyway, that’s enough from me. Do you have any questions?”
“Just one,” I say. “As I mentioned, I have a daughter at Elementary school. Clementine will be at school for the bulk of the day, but she’s with me in the early mornings and after school, so I’d have to bring her here. And I’ll have to walk her there and back, but it’s less than five minutes each way.”
I sit tall and try to look confident. Like this is one of twenty jobs I’m interviewing for, instead of my last hope.
“Actually, I think the residents would love having a child around,” Eric says. “As long as it doesn’t interfere with your work, of course.”
I let go the breath I was holding, and Eric rises to his feet.
“Well, then, how about a tour?”
I smile and haul myself upright, ready for a tour of my new life.
* * *
Four months ago, my life fell apart. Not slowly, like a terminal illness, but all at once, like a fatal car accident. At least, it was all at once for me and Clementine when Richard told me what he’d done. And it was all at once for the thousands of investors who lost their money. But for Richard, it was more like lung cancer for a heavy smoker. He must have known that disaster was inevitable. But he chose to keep going, in the hopes he’d be that one in a million who came through it unscathed.
It was 3:15 P.M. on a Tuesday when his car pulled up. That should have been my first clue. I’d been married to Richard for ten years, and in all that time he’d never been home at three fifteen on a weekday. The funny thing was, I remember feeling pleased. I’d tried a new ingredient in my pumpkin shortbread, and it had just come out of the oven.
“Great timing,” I’d said when he let himself into the kitchen. “You can be my first taste tester.”
He muttered something unintelligible as he landed on a barstool.
“Honey?” I said.
He bent forward, resting his forehead in his palm. He wasn’t wearing a jacket, and his tie was loose.
“Aren’t you feeling well?” I felt his head with the back of my hand. “Ricky?” He hated it when I called him Ricky in public, but in private, it usually made him smile. “Hello? Anyone home?”
The house was full of tradespeople. We were getting the place ready for the summer. A man waved as he walked past the kitchen window, carrying a ladder. I waved back.
When Richard still didn’t speak, I gave him a playful shove. His head tipped back, and that’s when I saw his swollen, crying eyes.
“Richard! Oh my God.”
I’d never seen Richard cry. Not at his mother’s or father’s funerals. Not on our wedding day. Not at Clementine’s birth. Richard was far more likely to punch a wall or drink one too many glasses of Scotch to blow off steam or emotion. “What’s wrong?”
His eyes met mine for only a second. “I’ve fucked up, Eve.”
“You’ve…” I sat down beside him and swiveled his stool so he faced me. “What do you mean? What have you fucked up?”
“My life. Your life. Clementine’s life.” He twisted away, parking his elbows on the marble benchtop. “I’ve lied about my investments, I’ve falsified paperwork. And I’m about to be caught.”
A quiet not-quite laugh came out of me. “Is this a joke?”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
It didn’t make sense. Richard didn’t need to lie about his investments or create false documents. Richard was brilliant at what he did. Still, I felt the pinpricks of uncertainty. His eyes were red rimmed, his collar loose. He’d been steadily losing weight for weeks now, drinking more. And a few days ago I’d found him in his study with a face that looked vaguely tear-stained. He blamed it on a head-cold and a lot of pressure at work. I hadn’t thought to ask any more about it.
“But … falsifying documents?” I said, almost to myself. “You mean like a—”
“—Ponzi scheme.”
A knot tied itself, slowly and painfully, in my gut.
“We’re going to lose all our money,” he said. “Our house. And I’ll go to jail.”
I rose from my stool. “Jail?”
“I thought it would be all right, as long as I reported modest returns. I thought … I thought it would be all right.…” He began to sob, and that’s when I knew this was real. When it came to business, Richard was always arrogant to a fault. I’d never seen him so defeated. With both hands, I formed a tent over my mouth and nose.
“I’ve tried to think of a way out of this,” he continued, “but I can’t.”
I began to pace. “Holy … shit. Holy, holy, holy shit! This is crazy. How could you?…” On the oven, I suddenly noticed the time. “Shit! I have to pick up Clem from school.”
I grabbed the keys and headed for the door. Then I stopped short. I had no idea of the protocol for this situation. Were the police about to turn up on our doorstep? Was he going to be hauled away in handcuffs in front of our daughter? And what then? Would we be marched out of our house?
“Richard—”
“It’s all right,” he said, strangely eloquent now that he had shared the burden. “We have time. Go and get Clem.”
I held his gaze silently for what felt like hours, but must have been only seconds. Then, with a stomach full of savage maggots, I turned and pressed through the swing doors.
* * *
My tour of Rosalind House is brief, and doesn’t include an introduction to the residents, so much as a viewing of the residents. We pass a handful of people in the corridors and a few more in a high-ceilinged living room that Eric calls the parlor. Everyone else has been planted on the vast expanse of lawn that abuts the property, probably absorbing a year’s worth of vitamin D from the brilliant, clear sky. The gardener, Angus, is standing on a short ladder, hacking at an overgrown bush.
“That’s Bert,” Eric says, pointing at a balding man in his eighties. “And over there, that’s Clara. That was her husband in the parlor, Laurie. And that’s Luke and Anna, under the tree.”
“They’re so young,” I say. “I can’t believe they have dementia.”
“It is hard to believe,” Eric says. “Some days are good and they just act like quiet, normal people. Other days are not so good.”
“Why is she in a wheelchair? Is that to do with the dementia?”
“Oh—” Eric scratches a sudden itch at his neck. “Well, no—”
“She’s dropped her scarf,” I say, stepping toward the lightweight linen dancing on the grass by Anna’s feet. Its cheerful colors remind me of the painting Richard gave me for our first anniversary, the one the auctioneer showed great interest in last week when he came to peruse our possessions.
I snap up the scarf. “You dropped this,” I say, resting it on Anna’s lap. Up close, I can’t resist taking a better look at her. She’s not beautiful—at least not in these parts, where beautiful equals blond, slim, and symmetrical. But she is something—striking, perhaps? Her skin is alabaster and thickly spread with freckles, and her arms and legs are long and lithe. But what hits me the most is the color of her eyes: a pale, clear jade. Without the eyes, she might have been plain. But with the eyes? I can’t seem to look away.
Before I can remove my hand, she cloaks it in her own and squeezes.
“Oh.” I pull back, but her fingers dig farther into mine. “I didn’t mean to alarm you. I just didn’t want you to lose your lovely scarf.”
She’s getting ready to speak, the cues are all there—the wetting of lips, the swallowing, the tensing of facial muscles. It takes only a fraction longer than, say, a thoughtful person would take, but I am hyperaware of her dementia and can’t seem to think of anything else. “Please,” she says finally. “Help me.”
A prickle travels down the length of my spine. “What did you say?”
I wait, but she doesn’t speak again.