by Susan Oloier
“No.”
“Oh, good.”
Leah skirts around her mom toward the door. She can’t get out quickly enough.
“All right,” Lorna says. “Have fun.”
In the hallway, Leah leans against the wall, closes her eyes, and takes a deep breath. “I don’t need my Xanax,” she chants. “I don’t need my Xanax.”
The door opens up.
“Do you have your Xanax?” Lorna asks.
“Yes.”
“Since you don’t have pots and pans yet,” Lorna says, “will you pick up dinner on the way home? Maybe something exotic, like Italian.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Café Nana Banana buzzes with customers, clanging plates, and conversation. The smell of oregano permeates the air as the kitchen sizzles with a mixture of fried mozzarella, grilled chicken, and stone fired pizza.
Leah pays for and picks up her order, and then steps back into the waning light of another San Francisco day. An egg yolk of sun dips through a smattering of orange and yellow sky. She wears Grandma Gina’s whistle around her neck and a warm, end-of-January coat. Exhaustion shows on her face. Leah glances across the street and catches sight of a familiar figure—Everitt descending the steps of a mint-green apartment building.
Leah stands motionless, long enough to capture his attention. He sees her before hitting the sidewalk in stride.
A wash of headlights spreads across the smear of black road. Once it passes, Everitt scans for traffic, and then jogs across. This time he is clean-shaven. When he reaches Leah, he points to the bag.
Leah looks at it like an extra appendage. “Dinner.”
“Eating alone?”
“My parents are in town. I don’t cook, so I picked up calzones and lasagna al forno.”
“I hope the lasagna’s for you.”
“It is. Why?”
“It’s my favorite dish.”
Leah glances at the apartment building behind Everitt. “You live there?”
Everitt turns back to study the place. “Yeah.”
“We’re almost neighbors.”
She shifts the bag to her other hand, touches the whistle around her neck.
Everitt gestures toward it. “New fashion?”
“My grandma’s.”
Everitt waits for Leah to elaborate.
“She gave it to me…before I moved here. She was worried. At the same time, I think she was the only one who believed I’d make it here.”
“You miss her.” It’s a statement.
Leah looks at it, and then folds back the top part of her coat to show the butterfly pin. “This is hers, too.” She takes a beat. “I know it’s silly, but I wear it all the time.”
“It’s not silly. How’s Fur Elise?”
“Great. She’s been great,” Leah says.
“I noticed you didn’t make a follow-up appointment.”
“Well,” she avoids eye contact, shifts her feet. “I’ve been…busy.”
“About Fur Elise,” Everitt says. “I didn’t take her, not because I didn’t want her or anything, but—”
“Right,” Leah interjects. “You already told me. You lost a cat. You don’t have to explain.”
Leah’s eyes crawl back up to meet Everitt’s.
“I want to,” he says. “My girlfriend and I broke up. She took our cat—well, it was really her cat. I’m just not ready to—”
“I get it.” She thinks of the letter from Charlie.
“Listen,” Everitt says as he assesses the darkening street. “You want to come back to my place. I mean,” his face would show a blush if not for the diminishing light, “I can give you a ride home. You know, so you don’t have to use the whistle.”
“Really, I’m only a few blocks down.”
Everitt touches the bag. “It’s no trouble. I was heading in that direction anyway.”
When he realizes the potential intimacy in the gesture, he pulls away.
Leah peruses the inking sky.
“Knowing grandmas, I imagine that thing’s pretty loud. I don’t want you to wake the neighborhood.”
“It’s 5:30.”
A smile plays on his lips. Then Everitt tips his head in the direction of his apartment. “You coming or not?”
“I suppose.”
The two cross the street and stroll to Everitt’s place. But he stops mid-sidewalk, and his vision lands on a woman sitting on the steps leading up to his apartment building. She lifts her head when she spies him. First she turns the flap up on her knitted hat and brushes back a stray, blonde hair from her face, and then she stands and scrutinizes Leah, soon refocusing on Everitt.
“Can we talk?”
Everitt looks between Leah and the new woman.
“Now’s not a good time.”
The blonde’s eyes move back to Leah. This time, they are an assessment of both the situation and the competition.
“It’s about Daisy.”
Everitt lets out a deep breath, torn by what to do.
“It’s okay,” Leah says. “I was going to walk anyway.”
“But—”
“I’ll see you around.”
“Leah, wait!”
He moves to trail after her.
“Don’t worry about it, okay?” Leah glances over his shoulder at the woman. “I have my whistle.” She musters a smile and lifts it up for Everitt to see. Then Leah turns away and heads up the street.
She sniffles, which may be due to the unseasonably cold weather, maybe her hurt feelings. Either way, she puts up her hood and rushes toward her apartment, set on putting the night, and the twist of hurt in her stomach, behind her.
She sets off at a crisp gallop, but slows when the neon sign of the now-closed pawnshop catches her eye. The store is an eclectic place located on the bottom floor of a historic building.
Leah stops and glances in the window, taking in the collection of guitars and the cornucopia of antiques. In the recesses of the darkened room, Leah spies a cache of jewelry under glass.
She grasps her pin, wondering. Finally, she tucks her hand in her coat pocket, hitches up the plastic bag of food, and hurries along the walkway.
A gust picks up, and the loose strands of Leah’s hair whip around her face.
An empty water bottle bounces across the pavement like an urban jackrabbit.
Leah crosses the street on the last seconds of a pedestrian light, scuttling toward the curb. As she rounds the corner building, she feels a snag at her coat. She’s moments from the front steps of her apartment building. This can’t be happening. Between the ribbons of streetlights on the sidewalk, a figure dressed in black shoves what feels like a gun in her ribs.
“Hand it over.”
Maybe because of instinct, maybe because of the dreamlike state she seems to float in, Leah freezes and doesn’t do what she’s told. The wind carries everything away, including the sound of traffic and the memory of what to do in these situations.
She drops the Italian food. The takeout containers hit the pavement.
The guy doesn’t wait for her. He wrestles the purse from her arm, yanking on her bent elbow. It feels like it will be torn clean off. Somehow he steps on her foot, which affects her more than the possible gun in her ribs. Her shoes are expensive, designer, items she can no longer afford. The thought of them being ruined propels Leah into motion. She pulls the chain out from her jacket, sets the whistle between her lips, and blows. Over and over and over again.
“Shut up!” the guy yells. In the mêlée, he manages to capture her purse and run with it, crunching the container of food as he darts away.
The only thing keeping Leah upright is mere adrenaline. She simply watches as the man speeds off along the sidewalk with her purse. She drags her mind for the contents: wallet, credit cards, keys, and—probably worst of all—the letter from Charlie, which is totally irreplaceable.
But in the distant shadows, Leah sees the purse-snatcher trip and fall. At l
east that’s what it looks like until another figure emerges from the recessed partition of an apartment building. The second person holds something that looks like a pipe, threatening to hit the purse-snatcher with it. But then the thief clambers up from the ground and scrambles away into the night.
Leah’s apartment is down that way, but she hesitates to approach. For the briefest of moments, she looks back toward Everitt’s building, wondering if she should go back to him for safety.
No. Not with her there.
She needs to have courage. It’s the reason she came to San Francisco to begin with: to be independent, to do things for herself for a change.
She looks around. There’s nothing to be brave with except her ruined Italian meal, her whistle, and—she touches it like a totem—her butterfly pin. She undoes the pin from her shirt, holding the sharp end like a weapon. Then Leah picks the ruined dinner from the ground and proceeds up the street. Each step is excruciating.
As she nears the recessed section with the looming shadows, she realizes this is the place where the homeless man lives.
She pads closer by a few steps.
“Hello?” Her voice is hesitant and afraid.
A man steps out of the darkness. He’s weathered, tattered, and he looks cold. Leah meets his Saint Bernard eyes, which look both kind and warning. The homeless man.
“This is yours,” he says, handing Leah her purse.
She stares at it, and he has to extend it to her further in order for her to take it.
“Thanks,” Leah says on a swallow. “I don’t have any money or I’d…”
He waves the gesture off with a fingerless glove.
Leah remembers the bag. “I have this, though. If you want it. It’s a little smashed, but it should still be good.”
The man takes it. “Thanks.”
She looks him over a bit longer. “I’m Leah,” she says, extending her hand.
The man takes a step back, but then finally reaches out and takes her hand. “Name’s Ernie.”
Before Leah takes the steps to the third floor, she reaches in for the letter. Still there. She heaves a relieved sigh.
***
Darrell sits on Leah's new couch, watching television and drinking a beer. Lorna sings Barry Manilow as she comes from the kitchen. Cleaning gloves on and rag in hand, Lorna crosses in front of the television as she weaves her way to the window.
“You had to walk in front just as Intel stock comes up,” he says.
“Where is she?” Lorna says to no one as she meanders in front of the screen again.
“Can't you go through the hallway?” Darrell exaggerates the movement of trying to look around his wife.
The door clicks open, and Leah strides into the living room without the takeout bag.
“Where have you been?” Lorna asks as she rushes to her daughter’s side. “We thought you were kidnapped.”
“We didn’t think you were kidnapped.” Darrell’s words are a mutter.
“I…” Leah looks back toward the door. She cannot tell her parents a thing; they’ll insist she return home. “Ran into a friend.”
“How nice!” Lorna says. “You made a friend already. Darrell,” Lorna turns to her husband, “Leah made a friend.”
“I heard.”
“Where’s the food?” Lorna asks.
“About that,” Leah peels off her coat, looks at her dad as she conjures a lie. “It was too expensive. Best to save money.”
Lorna holds her growling stomach.
“What’d I tell you, Lorna? My girl is business savvy. She’s going to make it in the big city.”
“I never said she wasn’t going to make it.” Lorna plasters on a smile, which she hands to Leah.
“So what are we going to eat?” Lorna asks, tight-lipped. “Cat food?” She gazes over at Fur Elise, almost cringing at the idea of a feline in her living space.
“How about sandwiches?” Leah says, waltzing toward the kitchen.
“Sandwiches. How lovely.” Lorna grits her teeth.
Chapter Twenty-Five
An alarm breaks the morning silence. Leah throws a pillow over her head. The beeping continues. Lorna bursts into the room. She turns the alarm off and opens the shades. “Good morning, Sunshine! Time for work.”
Leah takes inventory. No, she's definitely not thirteen.
Lorna whips the cover off of Leah and folds it. “I took the liberty of setting my alarm.”
Leah struggles to prop herself up. She's exhausted. Lorna sits on the edge of the bed. “You don't want to be late for work.”
Leah buries her head in her knees. “Work?” She combs her mind for a real reason to get up—since there’s no job, only the occasional and going-nowhere interview. So this should be fun.
After an irrelevant shower, an egg and bacon breakfast, and a much-needed cup of coffee, Leah heads out the door with a messenger bag. The only thing inside is her cell phone and wallet.
“Don’t forget this,” Lorna stops her.
Leah assesses the item in the palm of her hands: her prescription bottle.
Leah drags herself out the door. She hasn’t a clue where to go. She stands in the middle of the sidewalk. Her outfit is rumpled and uncoordinated. She looks up and then down the street. When she glances back at the building, her parents are heading her way. Lorna wears a visor, a camera around her neck, Bermuda shorts with matching top (despite the chilly sea air), and a broad smile. Darrell’s expression is unreadable, at best.
“You don't mind if your father and I borrow the car, do you? We want to drive down the famous crooked street and stop by that park you have here. What’s it called?”
Leah glances at her car and blinks. “Muir Woods? Sure. Why not.”
She’s getting used to walking in the city, despite the nefarious personalities.
Lorna and Darrell get in, but not without episode. Leah looks on, watching her parents struggle over the seat adjustments, the rearview mirror, and the sun visors. She witnesses their inaudible mumblings and shakes her head to clear away what must surely be a nightmare in the making.
Out of the blue, Clint is at her side, munching on a Red Vine. The two watch the events inside the car play out.
The clutch on the car grinds, and both Leah and Clint grimace in sync.
“Do they know what they’re doing?” Clint asks, his eyes riveted to Darrell and Lorna.
Leah turns toward Clint as if noticing him for the first time. Clint extends a package of Red Vines. Leah looks at them for a beat, and then takes one. Who cares that it’s early o’clock in the morning.
“I have news,” he says.
“Yeah?”
“Get ready for it.” He puts his hands up in showman-like fashion. “I have an opening.”
“What does that mean?”
“A gallery is showing my work.”
Without thought, Leah jumps into his arms. “Oh my gosh, that’s…awesome.”
“I know, right? And it’s all because of you.”
Clint pulls a folded invite out of his back pocket. “You have to come.”
“Of course.”
He looks Leah over from head to toe. “I’m sure, with your sense of style, you have the perfect outfit already in your closet.”
“I have assistant buyer clothes, not art clothes.”
“Then we’ll have to go shopping.”
Dollar signs dance in Leah’s mind. “Oh I don’t—”
“And you need a date.”
“Can’t you be my date?”
“No silly. It’s my event. I don’t have time for a date.”
“Um…”
“Just ask that cute guy. The one who takes care of your cat at the place with the stuff.”
“The vet? Everitt? No way.”
“I thought you said he was cute.”
Leah reaches for her butterfly pin and fidgets with it. “I… never…said that. Plus, he’s taken. Remember?”
“I thou
ght he would have broken up with her by now.”
“I wish.” She surprises even herself with the words. And as soon as she speaks the thought, she pushes it away. “I mean, no. I don’t need the complications of a relationship. Especially not after Charlie.”
She throws a hand over her mouth. She doesn’t talk about Charlie with anyone.
“Who’s Charlie?”
“No one.” But she can’t keep tight-lipped. “My ex,” she sighs.
“The reason you left Illinois?”
“Yes. And no.”
Leah falters and finds herself confessing the things she normally wouldn’t confess. Refusing to say them always meant they wouldn’t be true.
“He met someone else. At a Laundromat. Too many of the machines at his apartment were broken, so he went to a place nearby. He wasn’t supposed to be there.”
“Or maybe he was.”
Leah frowns. “Whose side are you on?”
“Yours. It’s just…maybe you were supposed to hit Fur Elise.”
“No. I don’t believe that.”
“Still, too bad about the vet,” Clint says. “If he wasn’t taken, he could be your rebound guy.”
“I don’t want a rebound,” she says to Clint, to no one. “I want the one.”
“We all want the one. You should still come to the opening. And you should do it feeling like a million bucks.”
“Maybe.”
“Definitely.”
“When do your parents get back?”
“Not sure. They drove to Muir Woods.”
“God help the animals. I say we go shopping.”
“I do love shopping,” Leah says with a smile.
“I haven’t known you long,” Clint says, “but I know you do.”
***
Leah and Clint are on a mission. Clint pushes his way into the doors of DoTell Vintage.
On first appearance, it’s a kitschy place with a dank and musty smell permeating the inside.
As Leah skims the interior, she thinks maybe she has been teleported to the attic of someone’s grandmother, maybe sent back in time to the early twentieth century. Clothing is hung within the open doors of 1920s wardrobes, the shelves of which are decorated with antique clocks and throwback lighting fixtures.
“I’ve never shopped at a used clothing store before,” Leah says to Clint.
“Well in San Francisco, there’s a first time for everything.”
“I don’t know,” Leah says. “What about Pacific Heights? Can’t we go there?”
“I thought you were on a budget.”
Leah tugs on a fabric here, pulls out a shirtsleeve there. “You don’t really need me at your opening.” She heads for the door, but Clint catches her by the jacket cuff.