“Mrs. Bean.” I stepped over to Lorraine’s wheelchair. “We have no intention of making you go back to the hospital, but you can’t go in there.”
“I know too much about hospitals for my own good,” Mrs. Bean muttered.
I half expected her to raise the cane and whack me from her path, but she didn’t move. Only her gaze wandered past Lorraine, up the steps, to the door.
“The fire destroyed your home. The inside is gutted. The structure is unsafe.” I mouthed the fireman’s words, but for some reason making this stand exhilarated me. Lorraine reached over and grasped my hand as a show of unity. Energy shot up my arm to my heart. “If there’s anything of value left inside, the firemen should remove it for you.”
Mrs. Bean remained very quiet, digesting all this. Finally she spoke, all her persnickety nature gone, her voice reduced to a helpless peep. “Where am I going to live?”
“I have an idea,” Lorraine said brightly.
Breaking and Entering
Breaking into Florence’s apartment stirred my blood. The tough tomcat posed in the back window, but I hissed at him and he sprang into the weeds. Bobbi had left the window open, probably for the cats. It wasn’t even screened, so I grabbed the sill, jumped to get my torso over it, and hoisted myself while my toes pushed furiously against the stucco. Involvement and concentration filled me; no room remained for small anxieties and nagging worries. I’d been hungry for this feeling of complete immersion since the day I’d locked away my writing.
As I wiggled over the sill, I stared right into a carpet decorated with smelly squiggles. I had been about to enter hands first, but changed my mind and scooted around in the small opening, scraping my elbows and pelvic bone, until I straddled the sill.
I extended the first foot, deciding finally to place it in the litter box under the window since the cats obviously were not using it.
The apartment reeked from the droppings, but otherwise Bobbi had done more than I’d imagined. Items of value had been packed in boxes pushed against the wall by the entrance, and full Hefty garbage bags waited in the kitchenette for Bobbi’s return after her chat with John Citrino. Below the sink, ants attacked a large pan of dry cat food. An old green bowl put down for water looked nearly empty.
I unlocked the front door where Lorraine and Mrs. Bean waited.
“Open the door wide and back away,” Lorraine commanded.
The wheelchair apparently gave her the power to boss people around. She took a run at the one shallow step, tilted back into a wheelie, threw her weight forward, and popped up, rolling across the landing.
I had to help Mrs. Bean. There was no rail and she needed my shoulder for leverage. The seconds ticked away as Mrs. Bean wobbled and strained. I worried that John Citrino would return and catch us. Finally Mrs. Bean shuffled across the threshold.
“It’s perfect,” Lorraine exclaimed. She fairly glowed as she turned her wheelchair this way and that in the space between Florence’s rattan chairs. “It’s furnished,” she said with a sweeping gesture. “It even has cats,” she bubbled.
Mrs. Bean’s filmy eyes inspected the dubious surroundings, the dirty walls and long strips of peeling paint that Bobbi hadn’t been able to do much about yet. Her wrinkled nose wrinkled even more as she sniffed the atmosphere like a bloodhound. “My, Lord, I’ll say there are cats.”
“I’m sure they’re housebroken,” I said. “They’re just indignant about Florence’s absence.” Only Cowlickcoo hadn’t been fully trained, but I thought better of touching that subject.
“As soon as I’m manager,” Lorraine said confidently, “we’ll get a rail for the step. Then I’ll have the wiring checked and we’ll paint the place.”
My brows lifted so high they must have hit my hairline. Here we were breaking and entering, and Lorraine had no qualms. She went about redecorating the place in her mind, plunging naively and positively onward, as though she owned the building.
Envy lumped in my throat. Where had Lorraine found this courage—this power? If I were her, I would curse my fate when people sprinted by my chair or pumped by on their bicycles, or merely sat, swinging bare, shapely legs for the world to admire. But, here I was feeling envious of her, of a legless woman in a wheelchair who burned with dreams.
“I want a pink bathroom,” Mrs. Bean said.
The Resolution for Punky, Vince and Todd
Vince kissed the sleeping Punky. She was out like a rock—a very soft rock. Since she was so exhausted from the events of the last few weeks, he reset the alarm to ensure she would wake up. Then he gazed at the kid, sleeping at a diagonal halfway down the mattress. Todd’s feet had prodded Vince all night. He’d have to talk to Punky about a separate bed for the varmint.
Today, Vince resolved as he climbed into his Datsun, he would confront Pasty Face about the deduction from his check. While he drove “over the hill,” as locals called the commute, he ran a dozen versions of the scenario but they all ended with the supervisor blowing up, an inevitability with such an anal-retentive type. Pasty Face didn’t like people and had no business supervising, but he impressed the plants’ administrators with copious and precise paperwork.
Vince flicked on the radio and heard Tainted Love. He patted the steering wheel and sang; he was strictly a car and shower singer.
Next the disc jockey selected a piece constructed specifically for break dancers. Vince had seen Bucky and Dudu with neighborhood boys breakdancing on crushed cardboard in the middle of Lostart Street. Bucky was training the dog to roll on its back and kick its legs in the air, which was funny even if it was a pain in the ass to have the kids blocking the road.
Vince enjoyed watching the kids spin on their backs or heads. They arched into bridges, hopped upright, and flipped themselves into handstands. Break dancing seemed an appropriate name.
Feeling old, Vince turned off the radio.
When Vince realized the supervisor planned to ignore him, he cleared his throat and marched to the front of the desk.
“Yes?” the supervisor said.
“I don’t think I should have to pay for that pallet.”
The man gave him a steely look. “You’re not hired to think.”
“The pallet was already cracked.”
“Do you deny you pulled it apart?”
“No, but we never would have used it.”
“I had no opportunity to assess that.” Pasty Face placed both elbows on his desk, cradling his bald head with both hands in a parody of weary patience.
Vince’s eyes burned with wrath. Vince knew the supervisor hated to have his authority challenged. Logic told him to back away, but lately he hadn’t been in control of himself. The events on Lostart Street had chipped away at his control. His emotions released and tumbled like a boulder down a steep incline.
“We have never used a cracked pallet,” Vince said.
The small, spindly man pulled upright in his padded swivel chair and his pale face flushed. “Son, you haven’t been here long enough to know what we’ve never done.”
Vince planted his fists on the desk and restrained them with his weight. “If I were the son of a mealy-mouth jerkoff like you, I’d die from embarrassment, knowing my mother was so desperate.”
The man’s squinchy eyes widened as he collapsed back into the cushions of the chair. He laced manicured, nicotine-stained fingers. “Are you finished … ?” The word son hung on the man’s discolored lips. “You seem to forget I have the power to suspend you indefinitely.”
Vince straightened, shook out the fists, and felt the boulder rumbling through his chest. “You don’t have power,” Vince said, surprised and proud of his calm voice. He wheeled around and left the warehouse.
On the patio of the Crow’s Nest, Vince slouched and sipped his third Dos XX as he glumly surveyed all the masts in the harbor poking into the overcast November sky. He had the view to himself. The tourists had gone and normal folks were at work. The lunch crowd ate downstairs.
The boulder had quit
tumbling and rested now in his gut. He’d briefly considered crawling back to Pasty Face, but instead he’d come here to drown his sorrows in alcohol. He wasn’t the type to go back. He had a forward-moving personality. Besides, in spite of the horrible lump in his gut, the tumble of emotion had cleared a swath through his system. A person had to make the best of whatever happened and proceed.
Of course, sitting here getting buzzed didn’t make the best of it. He would have gone home if Punky had been there, but she was tromping around looking for daycare.
A small sailboat puttered from the harbor. One young man hoisted the main sail as the other manned the rudder. The boat followed the curve of the jetty into the ocean and when its rocking made him queasy, Vince knew he was a bit intoxicated. What a day to sail. They were going to get soaked. He decided to walk around the harbor to Aldo’s for a burger and fries. He loved Santa Cruz, but so did too many other people. He’d have a tough time finding another job.
When Todd fell asleep in his car seat, Punky headed home. The drizzle released the smell of earth from the dry ground, but it also made her more aware of the odor of exhaust as she steered carefully along the slick Soquel Drive.
She’d had no luck. One place said they could put her on their waiting list. A year long! At first she’d marveled that people could have their lives planned so far in advance, but when she added her name, she realized others had signed with the same sense of why not, what could it hurt?
At another daycare, the woman had smoked while Punky talked to her. At the home of yet another woman, grit littered the worn carpet.
Exhausted from the search, Punky pulled into the apartments behind a smooth-rolling, metallic blue Cadillac Seville with PROPRTY plates. The unfamiliar car continued to the end of the drive. She extracted Todd from his car seat and protected him from the sprinkle of rain as she struggled up the step. His dead weight was getting too heavy for one arm, so she opened the door with her foot.
She took a last look at the Cadillac and then glanced nervously over her shoulder at Lefty’s, glad he was gone and relieved when her door slammed securely behind her. She hoped Lefty was never unleashed on the public again—yet a sad ache filled her. No one chose to be mentally ill. It must be terrifying to feel one’s faculties slipping.
Inside, she settled Todd on the bed, covering him with a flannel blanket and caressing his silky cheek with one finger. Yes, Lefty had been dealt a cruel fate, but that didn’t mean he belonged around her baby.
Dragging herself to the kitchen, Punky slit open a package of ranch-grown chicken. Vince was a meat and potatoes guy. This pinkish breast represented the compromise they’d reached for tonight’s dinner to celebrate her new job.
Something banged on the door and Punky dropped the chicken into the sink. Rushing to the bedroom, she peeked out the window. A grotesque face, its hair wet and plastered to its skull, the nose and lips flattened against the glass stared back at her.
She screamed.
“Punky!” The face backed away from the rain-streaked window. “It’s me. Let me in.”
Todd lifted his lids. She stroked his head. “It’s okay, honey. Go back to sleep. Mama’s okay.”
Punky waited for his eyelids to droop back down before moving to the other room.
She threw open the door. “What are you doing here?”
“God, Punky, I wasn’t trying to scare you. I thought my face would look funny.”
Under the greasy smell of burger and fries, Punky caught a whiff of beer. “Are you drunk? What are you doing home? Why aren’t you at work?”
“I quit,” Vince said gloomily. “Now can I come in?”
She left the room and returned to toss him a towel and a sweatshirt. “That’s the biggest thing I own so it might fit.”
“I’m sorry I scared you.”
“Me, too,” she said, still shaken. “But I get how fighting with a boss and getting drunk could impair your judgment.”
“You sound like me, and boy is that cheerless.” He dried his hair.
She laughed, hearty and full-bodied, everything suddenly seeming much better.
He smiled.
“Do you mind if I make soup instead of the fancy meal I’d planned?” she asked. “That way I can cook on automatic pilot and listen to your tale of woe at the same time.” Plus the hunk of meat would be a lot more palatable that way.
“Sounds perfect.” He stripped off his wet shirt revealing his six-pack abs and tugged on the sweatshirt. It pinched up under his arms. “What about your day?”
“You first.” She gathered potatoes, garlic, carrot, celery, onion, a cutting board, and various spices on the counter.
As Punky diced vegetables, they swapped stories. She pulled out a cast iron kettle, heated some peanut oil, and tossed in all the vegetables.
“There’s only one logical thing to do,” she said, mocking him.
Vince laughed at her mockery.
After stirring the vegetables with a wooden spoon, she slipped her arms around him and looked up earnestly.
He was falling into her gray eyes. He was the boulder tumbling. “What’s that?”
“Move in with me and take care of Todd while I start work. No commitment. Consider it a symbiotic relationship until we’re both on our feet.”
The fragrance of homemade food wafted past his nose and her cuddly breasts pressed his ribs. Symbiotic, a relationship he understood, but it scared him, too.
“A house husband?”
“I didn’t propose,” she said. “No commitment.”
Somehow that didn’t reassure him. As a matter of fact, for a moment he glimpsed the stereotyped role of the woman, keeping the house and caring for the child. It terrified him. The relationship would not be symbiotic at all. The orderly world of work was so much easier than the messy world of home.
“We’ll have to work out some bugs,” Vince said.
Cinder El
Mr. PROPRTY, John Citrino, tugged down his slick, blue warm-up jacket before sticking his slick blue legs and unsoiled athletic shoes into the light rain. He thought the attire made him look young. He bounded up the steps and rapped at the door.
Lorraine called for him to enter. She inclined her head to him. God it was a shame about her legs. She had the most spectacular face he’d ever seen, a testament to staying out of the sun, not much practiced in Southern California. Cranking those wheels had also pumped her jugs into perfection.
“I’ve been waiting for you for two days,” she said.
“Well, I had to give the offer some thought.” He glanced around for a place to sit but there was none.
“I need room to maneuver,” she explained. “My friends sit on the floor.”
“That’s the kind of thing I’m worried about.”
“My friends don’t mind,” she said.
“I mean the maneuvering. How are you going to get around?”
“You mean so I can do all those chores like Bobbi did?” Sarcasm laced her voice.
“I realize her recreation got a bit out of control, but that’s not the issue now. The issue is whether you can do the job.”
“Look around my apartment.”
Someone who knew construction had lowered everything from her counters to her towel racks. All done, he assumed, without permission or permits. He nodded in approval. “So why didn’t you have a ramp made?”
“Outta sight, outta mind.” Lorraine whizzed to the closet, tipped a windbreaker from a dowel, and slipped it on. “Let’s take a look around the place, and I’ll tell you my proposals and show you my moves.” She winked at him. “Let’s go.”
John Citrino paused.
“My boyfriend carries me.”
He examined her but didn’t move.
Lorraine laughed. “Okay, fine. Just go hold the door for me from the bottom.”
He did as directed and watched her fly from the step. The chair whomped onto the asphalt as it had on Saturday. “I’d prefer that ramp,” she said. “My chair takes a be
ating when I do this.” She wheeled to him as he nudged the door shut.
He nodded. “Okay. How did you get this door to open outward?”
“Oh, I manage.” She laughed. “No pun intended.”
The rain was letting up. He crossed to the charred remains of Mrs. Bean’s place, yanked down the caution tape, and mounted the steps. “First I want to check out this place.”
“The firemen told us not to go near it.” Lorraine stayed far back. “Walls fall outward.”
John Citrino inspected her as though she’d failed a test, stepped into the house, and yelped. “God dammit all to hell! Lorraine, get over her and help me. Prove you can manage.”
Lorraine eyed the landing, both smaller and more elevated than hers. Plus it was wet. She inhaled deeply, took a run at it, and popped up, stopping just short of the caved-in floor. One of John Citrino’s legs had plunged through the blackened wood and the other had buckled beneath him. When he tried to lever his leg from the hole, the charred wood cracked beneath his weight.
“Jesus, there’s nothing under here.”
Soot blackened him everywhere. He looked like Al Jolson down in his dramatic pose to sing the National Anthem.
Lorraine’s eyes twinkled. “Are you hurt?”
“I don’t think so, but wherever I lean, it feels like it’ll cave in.”
Citrino yelped. “And I heard a rat.”
“Can you reach my chair?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well I have an idea. We may as well give it a try. If you fall through, it’s not far to the ground.”
“Thanks a lot,” he snapped.
“You’re not very grateful. I could let you flounder around in the charcoal and be eaten by rats.”
“Okay, God dammit. Tell me what to do.”
She resisted reaching for the contractual agreement she’d typed. She maneuvered a tight turn and backed her chair as close to the wreckage as seemed safe. “I’m going to lock the brakes. Then I’ll grab the railing. If you can stretch your hands to the chair and your free leg to the concrete, you should be able to hoist yourself. Just don’t grab the walls.”
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