Heart of Cole

by Micheal Maxwell

  “What’s your shoe size, hon, about a seven?” the pretty clerk asked.

  “Yes, exactly,” Hanna replied softly.

  The clerk reached under the counter and pulled out a shoebox. She removed the lid as if she was opening a treasure chest, and indeed she was. Inside the box was a pair of elegant lavender high heels. They sparkled with a glittery sheen that matched the trim on her dress. Perfect.

  “Oh, my,” Hanna said, gazing down at the shoes. “I don’t know…”

  The clerk cut her off, “Oh, you must!”

  “But I don’t have a lot of money,” Hanna replied sheepishly.

  The clerked laughed with a beautiful musical quality. “I completely forgot to ask your budget! Please forgive me. What do you have to work with?”

  “One hundred and twelve dollars.” The thrill of shopping in this fairytale store was gone. Hanna nearly ran from the store. She realized her pittance of savings probably would only pay for the shoes. “I’m sorry I think I have wasted your time.” Hanna gently laid the dress across the counter. She let her hand softly stroke the satiny material one last time. “Thank you. I’m sorry.” She turned and started for the door.

  “Where are you going? We haven’t rung up your dress.” The smile on the clerk was dazzling.

  “But…”

  “No buts. Let’s see where we are before you panic.”

  Hanna stood nervously watching as the clerk flipped through a three ring loose leaf binder. Page after page she turned. The sheets were filled with hand written lines of numbers and descriptions.

  “Here we are. Lavender Bridesmaid Gown, number 12238.” The woman turned the pages to the back section of the binder where the shoes were listed. “Lavender size seven, three-quarter heel! That’s us.”

  The woman took out a sales ticket and began to write.

  What is she doing! Hanna thought.

  “OK, here’s what we’ve got. The dress and shoes were ordered for a wedding that was canceled. The bridesmaids all came in and picked up their dresses early. But one girl was coming from out of state. When the wedding was canceled, she canceled her trip. We were stuck with the dress. We agreed to sell the dress on consignment. So you are the winner!”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I really like you, sweetie, what’s your name?”

  “Hanna.”

  “Well, Hanna, I’m Dee Ann and since this dress has been here passed the six months agreement, and she hasn’t bothered to make contact or extend the consignment, I’ve decided it should go on sale!” The clerk smiled. “I was thinking seventy-five percent off.”

  “Really?” Hanna nearly screamed with excitement.

  “So, let’s see.” The clerk entered several numbers into the calculator on the counter. “How does $106.38 sound?”

  “Oh, yes! Oh, yes! That’s awesome!”

  Just the memory all these years later, made Hanna flush with embarrassment.

  Bringing her thoughts back to the present, Hanna realized she was smiling at the memory. It was one of the happiest moments of her life but, like Lindsey’s chance at a Virginia Prep school, it would soon be shattered.

  Now, one phone call shattered the peace she felt by giving Lindsey stability, safety, and love.

  “Would you be able to provide that much money?” Penny was questioning and condescending all in the same sentence.

  “I am able,” Hanna snapped, a little harsher than she intended. “I’m not sure if it’s something I am willing to do, at this point.”

  “I see,” the counselor said flatly.

  “I don’t think you do. Lindsey has just come out of a life of abuse, neglect, and a total lack of parental involvement. I’ve taken on the task of providing stability and care. I’m not sure if it would be wise to dangle the carrot of one more dream that can’t come true.”

  “That is a very shortsighted way of looking at an opportunity like this.”

  “Is it? I will pay for the test, I can get her there, and I can certainly encourage her to do her best. The rest of the picture is very uncertain.”

  “All I can say is that this kind of offer won’t come again. For a student that lacks credits, has horrendous attendance, and frankly is in danger of not graduating, to be offered this kind of opportunity is unheard of. Think about what you would be throwing away. Have a nice day.” Penny was gone.

  Hanna was overcome by guilt, shame, and a feeling of utter defeat, just like she felt on prom night so many years ago.

  Another memory now came to Hanna. This time it was pain, when she took the dress and shoes home. Along the way she treated herself to a double scoop of Butter Brickle ice cream at the Thrifty Drug Store.

  When she got home, her mother was passed out on the couch with an empty vodka bottle lying on the floor next to her. Hanna took the dress and put it in her closet. In two days she would surprise her Prince Charming with her beautiful dress.

  The afternoon of the prom, Hanna took her dress from the closet and laid it out across the bed and set her shoes on the floor below.

  Her mother had slept in and when she awoke she was as mean as a badger. She screamed and berated Hanna all morning. Hanna did her best to avoid her, but it was a small house. Normally, her father would have been there to buffer some of the abuse, but he was on a sales trip and would be gone for a week.

  She only needed to avoid her mother for another two hours and then Michael would come to pick her up.

  “Hanna! Where have you snuck off to?” Her mother’s voice sounded shrill and angry.

  “I’m going to shower. It’s time for me to get ready,” Hanna called back.

  “Ready? Ready for what?” came the angry reply.

  “The prom, Mother! You know that,” Hanna said cheerfully.

  “No, I didn’t know that!” Her mother was drunk or would be soon.

  Hanna scurried down the hall to the bathroom and locked the door. From the other side of the door she could hear her mother yelling. Hanna couldn’t make out what she was saying, but “Prom” and “Who do you think you are?” came through clear enough. She was glad the sound of the shower drowned out the rest.

  Several times, as she showered, Hanna heard the sound of fierce pounding on the door. As she turned off the blow dryer, she could hear screaming and banging down the hall.

  Hanna stood for almost a minute before she summoned the courage to open the door.

  She quickly moved down the hall. The house was now quiet. As she stepped into her room, she let out a tormented cry from deep in her soul. Her dresser drawers were lying in various places in the room and their contents scattered. Her pictures and posters were torn from the walls and shredded. The mirror on her wall was shattered from the blow of her mother’s fist.

  On her bed, her beautiful lavender dress lay in tatters. Her mother had slashed and cut the gown with a razor or sharp knife. The beautiful lavender gown was pieced back together with a one inch space meticulously left between the ribbons of satin. The dress was destroyed. Hanna fell across the bed gathering the pieces of her gown and holding them to her breast. She howled with despair, hate, and devastation.

  Down the hall she heard her drunken mother scream, “I never got to go to no Prom! I was pregnant with your ugly ass. If I didn’t get to go, you sure as hell ain’t goin’ Miss Priss!”

  Hanna didn’t move until she heard the doorbell ring.

  “It’s your fancy-pants boyfriend! Get the door!”

  Hanna rose from the bed still clinging to the remnants of her gown. As she turned to leave the room, she saw her wonderful shoes sparkle from where her mother shoved their heels through the sheet rock. She walked to the door in a daze, still wearing her robe, clutching her dress like a bouquet.

  She opened the door to the shocked look of her date.

  “I’m sorry, Michael. I won’t be going to Prom,” Hanna said blankly.

  “My God, what’s happened, Hanna?”

  “My mother…” With that Hanna closed the door.


  Hanna wiped the tears from her cheeks and cursed her mother one more time.

  Chapter Six

  Hanna arrived at her desk shortly after 8:30. Cole was working the phone gathering background for his Sanctuary City story. He found himself hoping for facts supporting his view with each successive call.

  “Cole, there’s a News Talk radio guy on line one. Do you want to take it?” Hanna gave up completely with the intercom. She hated hearing Cole’s voice in both her ears.

  “Sure,” Cole said, pleased with the distraction. “Cole Sage.”

  “Ralph McCormick, KSFO, we’ve bumped into each other from time to time, not sure you’d recall.”

  “I do. You guys are the number one button on my car radio. What can I do for you?”

  “As the city’s leading voice in the press, I want to get your take on the buzz in town about the bloodletting at your paper. We’re doing a series on the state of the media, and newspapers in particular. OK if I record this?”

  “You know, Ralph, I’m not sure how much, if anything, I can tell you.”

  “Off the record, how bad is it, just between us old timers?”

  “Bad.” Cole Sage offered.

  “Percent?”

  “A third.”

  “Tape rolling. The current lack of trust, combined with the Internet has dealt quite a blow to radio and print news alike. The closure of newspapers nationwide, and the decline in AM listeners is reshaping the way people are finding their news. As someone who has won numerous awards, and is considered a dean of American journalism, where is all this headed?”

  “We’re in a digital age of micro-second news and misinformation,” Cole said. “Never before in the history of news has the old adage, ‘don’t believe everything you read’ been truer. Anybody with a cell phone and a blog can report any rumor as fact, or make up a story of their own. Like they used to say on KSAN news in the sixties, ‘If you don’t like the news, go out and make some of your own!’ I don’t think they had this kind of reporting in mind.” Cole laughed.

  Ralph was silent for a long moment. “But the market place is changing.”

  “Sure. Craig’s List, Facebook, and eBay have all but killed classified advertising. Drudge Report, Politico, Huffington Post, and a lot of serious bloggers report and comment on the news. Every major television network news department has a webpage.” Cole cleared his throat. “Papers can’t compete with instant. Local news, features, and human interest stories are what sustains the newspaper. Radio news has it easier, they can report up to the minute traffic, weather but so can the phone in nearly everyone’s hand.”

  “Tape off. That gives me some great sound bites and background. Thank you.”

  “I’d like to say my pleasure, but it was a pretty grim pronouncement.”

  “What do you make of all these random murders? One of my people got it from a coroner’s deputy that the killer is using an ice pick or something similar.”

  Cole panicked. He didn’t have a clue what Ralph was talking about. Murders? Ice picks? Where have I been?

  “The world’s gone nuts.” Cole figured that blanket statement would cover about anything.

  “You got that right. Are you going to be working the story?” Ralph expected a positive response.

  “I fear that will be up to the new editor,” Cole replied.

  “You sound none too happy, my friend.”

  “The times they are a changin’.”

  “Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone!”

  “Quoting Dylan lyrics first thing in the morning! And we’re both over thirty, how can we trust each other?” Cole said.

  “Old habits die hard.” Ralph laughed.

  “We are getting old.”

  “And pot is legal!”

  “Who would ever have believed it? Peace, brother!”

  “How about a smoothie at the juice bar?” Claire panted. “I’m buyin’.”

  “Yes, yes, yes!” Kelly wiped the sweat from her neck with a white towel.

  Fifteen minutes later, showered and refreshed, Kelly and Claire took a seat at the gym’s Juice Bar counter.

  “Tell me about your boyfriend’s writing,” Claire said.

  “He is a newspaper columnist for the Chronicle. He’s won lots of awards, worked at Time, Wall Street Journal, and Chicago Sentinel. Let’s see, he writes mostly about people who need help in some way. Gee, I don’t know…he’s pretty wonderful.”

  “I detect a strong dose of prejudice there,” Claire teased.

  “To tell you the truth, before he came to San Francisco, I really didn’t know that much about him. I remember reading some of his stuff. He’s my daughter-in-law’s father. I told you that, right?”

  “Yeah. That is so weird…how you two got together, I mean.”

  “Why do you ask?” Kelly took a sip of her smoothie.”

  “You promise not to laugh?”

  “Sure.” Kelly was intrigued.

  “I want to be a writer. Not for newspapers or magazines. I want to write books, mysteries. Murder mysteries.”

  “Really? That’s cool. Have you written anything? I mean, that’s ready to publish?”

  “I’m working on something. I think it is going to be really good. At least I hope so.”

  “I’d love to read it. What’s it about?” Kelly smiled.

  “You know the ice pick murders in the news? I’m writing the story as a mystery novel.”

  “Really? I’m curious. How did you decide on that?”

  “Well, it’s a cool way to kill somebody. It’s like old time Chicago mobster stuff, you know?”

  “Pretty heavy subject matter. Wow, Claire, I had no idea you had a literary side to you.”

  “There’s a lot about me you don’t know.” Claire looked down at her smoothie. “I’d love for us to get to know each other better.”

  Kelly felt a little uncomfortable with Claire’s response. “So, who is the killer going to be?”

  “She’s got to be really smart. She doesn’t get caught, and she’s killed how many people…five or six now?”

  “Why do you say ‘she’?”

  Claire laughed, “Because in my book I would make the killer a woman. I thought I could get in the killer’s mind and tell the story from her side, kind of a first person point of view.”

  “That’s creepy.”

  “Why, what’s wrong with creepy?” Claire snapped.

  Once again, Kelly got a glimpse at the rage simmering just below the surface of Claire’s happy go lucky demeanor. The whole conversation was taking an uneasy turn. Kelly wanted to leave, but she had more than half of her smoothie left.

  “Nothing. I just can’t imagine wanting to identify with someone so evil,” Kelly replied.

  “We don’t know she’s evil. There could be circumstances that drive her to kill. People are way too quick to assign good and evil to everything.”

  “I think killing people is evil. That’s an easy one.” Kelly tried to sound as cheerful as she could.

  “Is the army evil? Cops? They kill people all the time.”

  “That’s different.”

  “You said, ‘I think killing people is evil.’ Killing is killing. I’m saying this person might be under a lot of stress, have some kind of medical condition, I mean, who are you to judge?” Claire was on the edge of a full on rant.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to start an argument. Let’s just finish our smoothies.”

  “I’m done.” Claire stood and walked to the exit without another word.

  “There is something wrong with her,” the Juice Bar server said. “A few days ago she was screaming at some ladies who were chatting in the lobby. I had to call the manager. I’m sorry. I was kind of eavesdropping once she raised her voice. I’m with you…there is a difference between murder, and the army or the police.”

  “She is so angry,” Kelly said.

  The server wiped down the surface of the counter. “I apologize if she’s
your friend, but she’s about to get her membership revoked. She’s been warned twice.”

  “I just know her from school. We’ve had coffee after class a couple of times. It’s really sad when someone is so full of bitterness, or anger, or whatever brings that on.”

  “Kind of scary.”

  “Hey, really good smoothie by the way,” Kelly intentionally changed the subject.

  “Thanks.” The server moved to the other end of the counter to help a customer.

  Kelly sat at the counter until she finished her smoothie. She really didn’t want it anymore. Claire’s rant gave her a knot in her stomach. She was really just waiting until she was sure Claire was in her car and gone.

  It isn’t every day that someone can talk Cole Sage into stepping outside his comfort zone. Cole isn’t a joiner. Clubs, societies, causes, crusades, fraternal groups, or gatherings of people that pay dues, have secret handshakes, elect sergeants-at-arms, fines for people getting a promotion or, a new car, or clubs whose members wear funny hats and march in parades—as far as Cole was concerned, these groups were to be avoided at all costs.

  Cole took great delight, when invited to join such an organization, in quoting his hero, Groucho Marx: “I would never belong to a club that would have me as a member.” That usually got him off the hook.

  There were, however, always those occasions when a zealous recruiter wouldn’t take “no” for an answer and pressed Cole with “Why not?”

  “Because,” Cole would retort, “their standards aren’t high enough.”

  Somehow Hanna convinced Cole that he would enjoy Facebook. She stressed the importance of networking in today’s society.

  “It could be a great place to gather ideas for stories, reconnect with old friends, keep up with the people he left behind in Chicago, or interact with people who like your work.”

  “What if I don’t like it?” Cole asked, hoping that question was an easy out.

  “You quit.”

  “But don’t they gather all kinds of personal information about you? What about identity theft?”

  “They can only gather what you give out. I don’t think Facebook is on the frontline of identity theft.” Hanna thoroughly enjoyed giving Cole the sales pitch.