Mickie slipped behind the counter and returned with a terrycloth hand towel and gently laid it across Cole’s head and hands. She quietly moved to the back booth and scooted the young woman and child out the back door. Like a little elfin spirit, she noiselessly glided across the floor, flipped the Open sign over to Closed, and flicked the left panel of lights off over the booths where Cole sat.
Cole had no sense of being. A black hole just swallowed him up as he fell deeper and deeper into his grief. He had no sense of the time when he finally inhaled a deep lungful of air and let it out in jerking bursts. He pulled the soft white towel from atop his head and held it to his burning eyes. It was then he came to the realization where he was. Weak and still shaking, he lowered the towel to look around him shamefully.
“You gonna be okay, Sweetie?” Mickie said softly. A glass of water and a cup of coffee sat between them. She had slid into the booth across from him unnoticed.
“Yeah,” Cole whispered. He felt a panicked need to run but was too embarrassed or ashamed to move. He wiped his face.
“Sometimes it just comes out. We can’t control it. It’s okay. Just sit still, nobody’s gonna bother you. Have a sip of water.”
Cole put the soft damp cloth back up to his eyes. He felt like such a fool, yet this little waitress across from him knew his grief. Mickie had probably heard a million and one stories of heartache and pain, and yet, knew each one mattered. He lowered the towel and looked at her. Lines unseen before crisscrossed the face beneath the beige pancake makeup and bright red bee-stung lips. How old is this woman? he thought.
“Ya know, my Will never cried that I saw,” Mickie said. “He was a man. Men don’t cry. Big joke. Many a morning his pillow was wet with tears. When my Mikey got killed in Vietnam, Will was like a rock. But at night sometimes our bed would shake to where I thought I would fall out. He thought I slept through it, the silly goose. But I knew. He was broken. Never got over it. Mikey was his boy. Sometimes I think I should have let him know I knew he was cryin’; I should have held him and we should have cried together. Of course, he would’ve had none of that.” She paused and looked down at the top of the Formica table.
“I had a customer in here last week who died. Right over there in number six. He was 82. Came here from the hospital. Just minutes after his wife passed away. We didn’t know. Came in and ordered a chocolate milk shake. I teased him about a second childhood. Strangest thing, he wrote a sweet little note on a napkin. Said how much he loved his Gwen—and he just died.” She smiled and said, “Finished his shake, though. Yep, finished his shake.”
“Thanks, Mickie,” Cole said.
“You want to talk? Don’t have to. Tell me to scram and I will. You just sit there as long as you need to. Ain’t no business this time a day, so don’t worry about it.”
Cole looked across the table and wanted—no, needed—to talk. For more than an hour, he told this little coffee shop confidante about Ellie. It was a celebration of her as he had loved her. How they met, favorite dates, trips together, it was a stream of consciousness flight through the treasured memories he carried so close for so long. To his amazement, he even told her of the last time they made love. Cole felt a glow as he told how afterward Ellie held onto his arm with both of hers as they walked back up the beach to the car, and how she fell asleep on the way home still holding his arm in hers.
He told his new friend how in college Ellie disappeared for almost a year after the first time they broke up. She just vanished. He asked everyone who knew her where she had gone. No one knew a thing. Not being on the best terms with her parents, the call to her family was met with a curt, “She’s away for a while, she’s fine, thanks for calling.”
Then, one day while he was crossing campus, there she was. Of all his memories of Ellie, this was his greatest regret, far more than losing her when he went on the Asian assignment. He knew what fate’s hand dealt him. This memory, so vivid, so real, that as he told Mickie the story, he even saw the colors.
It was spring, not just the month of April or May, but the spring of rebirth, blossoms, sunshine, and life. And there she was. After a year of wandering, there she came, 100 yards away, walking towards him. But not just walking, she literally bounced. Dressed in a kaleidoscopic ankle-length skirt that billowed like some psychedelic pop art poster and exploded with blues, reds, greens and purples that seemed to shoot out color with each jump and twirl as she raced towards him. Her hair had always been cut short, now it was falling, cascading over her shoulders in big flowing curls. As she drew closer, he saw her beautiful smile. Beaming and laughing, she twirled again. She jumped up and wrapped her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck. With her cheek pressed tight against his, she giggled, “I’ve come for you!”
The momentum of her weight caused Cole to drop his books and do a spin in the middle of the commons.
Ellie jumped to the grass and again said, “I’ve come for you, Cole!” For the briefest moment, he thought she had lost her mind. Her smile told him otherwise. He looked at her up close and realized she was wearing a very thin, gauze peasant blouse. She wore no bra and her nipples showed clearly through the see-through material.
“Where have you been?” Cole demanded.
“Everywhere! New York, California, Toronto, and a million other places! I’ve been everywhere and now I’ve come for you! We’re going to Mexico.” Ellie’s glee was like a child discovering the butterflies in their own backyard.
“Mexico! How can I go to Mexico?”
“My friends have a van,” she replied.
“No, no, wait. Are you nuts? I have four weeks left this semester. I have finals. I might get an internship. I can’t go to Mexico.” Cole nearly stuttered from the absurdity of her suggestion.
“I have traveled six hundred miles out of our way to get you!” Her tone was a mix of hurt and astonishment.
“You have been gone almost a year! I have been worried sick. Nobody knew where you went. You parents wouldn’t tell me where you went! Now you just drop out of the clouds and say ‘Let’s go to Mexico’? And what the hell kind of hippie getup are you wearing? The whole world can see your tits! Have you lost your mind? What am I supposed to think? Who’s in the van, the Manson Family?” Cole’s voice was rising with every question.
“When did you become my father?!” Ellie screamed. “And when did you become so uptight? You are the one...you are the one who always goes with the flow. Take chances, reach for your dreams... was that all bullshit? Who are you?”
“Who am I? Who the hell are you?” he shot back. “Ellie, are you strung out?” His voice and tone softened, “I’ll get you help. We can beat this thing. I love you. I’m here for you.”
“You think I’m high? That’s it? You’re here for me! I am here for you! I came to get you! I am here to save your soul. Free yourself of this material obsession you have. Join us! Live life for a while, free your mind. Get high on life. That’s where I’m at. Dance in the grass, swim in the sea...each day, Cole, take each day, make love to it, caress it. Tomorrow it’s gone. You don’t own it; you just get to use it. It’s not yours. Come with me. We’re leaving at 4 o’clock. Please.”
“I want to be a journalist. I want to write. The Sun is reviewing my internship app. That could mean a job, a real job, on a real paper. You know that’s what I have always dreamed of. I can’t just drop it and go dance in the sun! Get real.”
“I am real. Realer than I have ever been. I have friends who love me for me. Not some clique, but real thinking, living, loving people. Everything is shared, everything is free. If we run out of money, we stop and work for a while. I cooked during wheat harvest. We boxed shoes at a factory in New Hampshire, cut cane in Louisiana, and danced in the cane breaks at night. We painted apartments in Bakersfield and picked hops in Oregon. We got dirty, we felt the earth, and we discovered America. Not the one in books or on the 6 o’clock news but the real America, with real people, beautiful people. People with families who sing while
they work, who laugh at the end of a hard day because they are free. At night, around fires in the fields, they play guitars and banjos and little accordions and sing and dance and tell stories and—”
“What next? How long can you just ramble and pick fruit? You sound like a commercial for the Woody Guthrie Travel Agency. Okay, let’s sing ‘This Land Is Your Land’! Come on, Ellie, come home. You have lived the great experiment, you have touched the land. I need you here. Please let your friends go on without you, and you and I will go later. Next month, school will be out. We can take off after finals.”
“That won’t happen.”
“Sure it will. We can have a whole month if you want.”
“You are part of the machine. You have—”
“Where did you get all this crap? Me? Part of the machine! I have always been more involved than you. I have marched more miles, given more money, manned more tables, passed out more flyers. I have even been arrested for fighting the Imperialist War Machine. But I want to really change things, not just make a lot of noise, and I can do that through the press. I’ve got a real chance with this internship. If they like me, who knows where it will lead. Come on, Ellie, think.”
Tears streamed down her beautiful tanned cheeks. “This time is for me. If you really care about me, you’ll come. You can always get a job. You can always finish school. But now, right now, this is for me. You decide. We need this. If we are going to be together, we need this time. Free, free to get up and lay down where and when we want. To touch, to feel, to really live life and see life, together. Don’t you see?”
“I guess not,” Cole said softly.
“I really thought you’d come. I don’t know you anymore.” She turned and took about five steps, before turning to face him again. Without taking her eyes from his, she returned to where Cole stood motionless, and softly put her arms around his neck. She kissed him. With all the warmth of her being, she kissed him deeply, as if to speak from her soul to his. Then she turned and ran back across the commons. Ran like she was being pursued by a pack of dogs. All the colors seemed to have dimmed, the joy and beauty gone. Just a dark-haired girl fleeing the scene of an accident.
Cole watched her go. He finished the semester, did well. He made the Dean’s List. The internship at The Sun fell through. He didn’t see Ellie for almost a year.
“You marry her?”
“Nope,” Cole said matter-of-factly.
“Boy, howdy, you sure can tell a story.” Mickie laughed.
“It has tumbled around in my heart for so long it’s polished like a stone.” Cole smiled for the first time. “Now, doesn’t that sound like a writer?”
“Yeah, a bad one,” Mickie teased. “But you’re a good man to come looking for the girl. And Jessup is the end of the trail?”
“Erin is here, I think. She doesn’t know her mother is ill. They haven’t seen each other in about four years. Ellie’s husband was pretty rough on the girl, and she bolted. I need to let her know Ellie’s sick and try to get her to come back, before it’s too late. Three years ago, she called her mother on her birthday. Wouldn’t say where she was. A friend of mine, a cop in Chicago, traced her here. He said she’s a nurse. Funny, Ellie trained to be a nurse.”
“The hospital is just up the road. Shouldn’t be hard to find out.”
“That’s my next stop.” Cole smiled. “Mickie, you’re okay.”
“Stop. Don’t be getting all grateful on me. Been enough cryin’, don’t get me started.” She gave a theatrical giggle and covered her mouth with a napkin like the ingenue in a melodrama. “Just part of the service here at the Hillside Cafe.”
“Just the same...” Cole’s voice trailed off and he looked out the front window. “Looks like you’ve got some customers.”
“Oh yeah, Ben and Ruby. They come in every day about this time for coffee, and they share a doughnut. Better let ‘em in.” Mickie slid out of the booth.
Cole took a business card from his wallet and a $20 bill. On the back of the card, in pencil, he wrote, “For psychological services and thoughtfulness above and beyond the call of duty” and signed it “Cole.” He slipped it and the $20 under the corner of his water glass, slid out of the booth, blew Mickie a kiss, and left the cafe.
TEN
The hospital was only a mile and a half outside of town. The three-story red brick building sat on a slight rise surrounded by acres of grass, trees, and small ponds. Sprinklers chattered back and forth across the broad stretches of green. It was like a little oasis in the dry, dusty surroundings. A large old-fashioned white sign with crisp black lettering on the front lawn read “Santa Felicia Regional Medical Center.”
Welcome to Happy Acres, Cole thought as he parked facing the front entrance. The sign said “Visitors, 30-Minute Limit.’ He hoped he wouldn’t need much more.
The tall glass doors glided open with a modern efficiency you wouldn’t expect from such an old building. The air inside hit like an Artic blast and made Cole shiver. The walls in the lobby were covered with overblown enlargements of the hospital in years past, former directors, and a big map of the service area provided by the hospital. Green chairs and couches surrounding short sterile chrome and glass tables looked like they had been there since opening day.
In a chrome stand was a hospital directory and map. “Cafeteria and food service, follow the yellow line.” At Cole’s feet were six colored stripes painted on the floor. He followed the yellow line with his eyes to where it rounded the corner of the lobby. He pursued it down corridors, around corners, through swinging double doors, across a breezeway, and arrived at a sign that read “The Gardens Cafeteria and Coffee Shop.”
Inside the cafeteria were round tables with white tablecloths, each one topped with a vase of fresh-cut flowers. At the rear was the service area, and at the register sat just the kind of person Cole was looking for. One look and he knew she was a fountain of information.
Since he hadn’t eaten, Cole picked up a turkey sandwich and a bottle of grape juice. He mustered up his best smile and made his way to the register.
“Good afternoon.” He beamed.
“Good afternoon to you. Will this be it?” The woman sitting at the stool must have weighed 300 pounds. Her salt-and-pepper hair was covered in an industrial strength hairnet. Her white uniform was starched brittle, and her nametag said “Biddy.”
“Well, you look like the lady who knows what’s going on around here. I could use your help.”
“I don’t know about that.” Her smiled faded slightly.
“I don’t need to know what doctor’s foolin’ around with what nurse or anything like that.” Cole winked, and he could have sworn her cheeks colored a bit. “I’m looking for a friend of mine’s daughter. I was passing through town and thought I’d say ‘hi’ if she was on duty.”
“Who might that be?” Biddy frowned.
“I’m not serving papers, not a private detective, or signing people up for Amway. Just a social call. Her name is Erin. Don’t know her married name.” He didn’t know if she was married or not but needed a reason for not knowing her last name. “She’s a nurse.”
“Erin Mitchell, she’s the only Erin here. What a sweetheart. Always brings me peanut brittle. She makes the best peanut brittle you ever tasted, with me trying to diet, too.”
“Diet! What on earth for? I always say a girl isn’t worth huggin’ without a little meat on her bones. Do you think she’s here?” Cole grinned.
“She was in here for 10 o’clock break. Have you seen her little girl? What an angel. She brings her in sometimes and gets her an ice cream. I don’t charge her, but don’t you tell.”
Cole made the motion of turning a key on his lips and tossing it over his shoulder. “What department is she in?”
“Why, maternity, of course. She just loves the babies.” Biddy pulled a drawer out under the register and took out a Ziploc bag of peanut brittle, “You just have to taste this.” She opened the bag, took out a piece and put it on Cole’s
tray. “No charge.”
“Gee, thanks.” Cole smiled at the round-faced woman.
“Way to a man’s heart, ya know.”
“You are a charmer, Biddy.”
“A girl’s gotta have a few lures in her bag if she wants to land a big one.”
“I gotta come here more often. The service is great.” Cole was slightly embarrassed of his shameless flirting, but it always seemed to work. Besides, he thought, it always brightens their day.
Cole made his way to a table just far enough to end all conversation, ate the sandwich absentmindedly and downed the grape juice. He thought of the times he ate meals with Ellie while she was in nursing school. He used to set his alarm so he could get up and go have lunch with her at four in the morning. Now her daughter was a nurse. Ellie will be proud, he thought, and smiled. She doesn’t even know she’s a grandmother.
Maternity was at the end of the blue line on the second floor. Cole approached the nurse’s station. He felt a little shaky and wasn’t sure just what he would say to her. “She’s Ellie’s daughter, so it shouldn’t be tough. She’s a caregiver. That says a lot,” he whispered to himself.
“Yes sir?” A woman in a pink flowered uniform looked up from behind a computer monitor.
“Hi. Is Erin Mitchell on duty?”
“Yes, she is.”
“I would love to say ‘hi’ if I could.” Cole once again turned on his best smile. This time it was met with a cold stare.
“She gets off at 3.”
“I need to speak to her. It is very important, and will only take a minute. Suppose you could let her know I’m here. I’m an old friend of the family.”
“We had three deliveries this morning—”
“Boys or girls?” Cole broke in.
“Two boys, one girl.”
“I don’t have any kids of my own. Sure wish I did. Is Erin a delivery nurse?”
“Natal care, and she does the new mother training.”
Diamonds and Cole: A Cole Sage Mystery Page 10