Woman of Substance

by Bower, Annette

  “I’ll record today in detail and after I’ve had other experiences, I’ll include your feedback in my notes.”

  Mavis looked at her watch. “I have to go. Susie needs a ‘show and share’ tomorrow and it’s her turn to bring snack.”

  “I need to go home as well.” Robbie yawned. “I’m beat. Thank you again for coming out on a Sunday evening.”

  “Yeah, what’s with a reunion on a Sunday anyway?” Mavis tucked her used napkin into her cup.

  “Never thought about it. The organizers must have had their reasons. I’ll email tomorrow after my interview,” Robbie promised and followed her friends out of the coffee house. The wind had picked up and she bent into it, slogging her way to her car.

  Chapter 8

  Jake drove his Mustang along Wascana Parkway and saw a woman with a yellow lab jogging in the weak dusk. The dog reminded him of Custard. As a young boy, he and his dog had been inseparable. They explored the creek together for golf balls, played Frisbee on the lawn, and ran in the early morning. One day, during Jake’s final year at Central Collegiate, Custard didn’t wake up. He didn’t tell his basketball teammates or anyone else why he couldn’t focus on the city championship practice for days afterward. His grandparents understood. They rationalized that it was for the best because Custard would’ve been heartbroken when Jake left for the university that fall. Jake would have given up his scholarship to the University of Ottawa if staying would have brought Custard back.

  He missed his routine jogs. Running into a wind helped him clear his mind. He would run again tomorrow. When he arrived at the nursing home, he went directly to Frank’s room. “Hi, Grandpa.” Frank’s blue-tinged eyelids flickered open.

  Jake gave a quick pat to Frank’s bony shoulder under the comforter before he settled his body into the contours of the brown recliner. His fingers played with the worn fabric on the armrests.

  “What did you ever do with the new chair I bought you last year?” he finally asked Frank.

  “Common Room.” Frank sat up. “Tried to but I couldn’t part with this one. When I sit in it, I feel as if Mabel’s going to walk through that door and bring me a coffee, or tell me what she heard on the news, or read me one of your letters.”

  While he was away studying, teaching, or traveling, Jake had scrounged for news he could tell the two old people he’d left behind. “I know the letters were boring, but I couldn’t tell you about the keg parties or the weekend barbeques.”

  “Not our Jake.” Frank’s brown eyes watered with mischief.

  “You read between the lines,” Jake said.

  Frank’s feet dangled on the side of the bed. “We were young once, too.”

  “It took me a few years to figure that out.”

  “So are we staying here for supper or going out?” Frank slid into his slippers.

  “If you’re up to it, let’s go out.” Jake wasn’t sure if Frank had lost his appetite, which was another symptom of the disease. He’d enjoyed his milkshake earlier today and perhaps he needed a change from the dining room menu.

  “I’ll be ready in a couple of minutes.” Frank’s breaths were uneven.

  “Do you need any help?” Jake offered.

  “No. I can still do this on my own.” Frank closed the bathroom door.

  Jake settled his body further into the chair upholstery and closed his eyes. A tiny tap seemed to feather his cheek just like his grandmother did before she would bend and kiss him and tell him that she loved him.

  The rushing of water from the bathroom tap and the glare of fluorescent light tried to pluck away his feelings of well-being. He heard Frank open the bathroom door, slide his feet along the floor, and open the closet. Jake watched his granddad fumble with his parka, pull on his gloves, then tug down the flaps of his cap over his ears. “Ready when you are.”

  While Jake retrieved his coat from the hook and took the knit cap from his pocket, Frank nodded. “You’re learning, boy. It’s cold out there.” He used the long shoehorn easing his foot into his boot. “Don’t forget your gloves.”

  “I need to find a heavy pair of boots as well. I saw all those people today who were prepared to survive in this cold.”

  “Thanks for reminding me.” Frank reached into his breast pocket. “Here, I have a handicap decal we can hang from your mirror and you can get me close to the doors.” Frank waited beside the front doors of the manor until Jake brought the Mustang around. Jake lent his arm as added support to Frank’s cane.

  A group of women in red capes edged with fur waited for them to pass through the doors.

  “Sorry, ladies, I’m going to miss your carols this year, my son is treating me to dinner.” Frank nodded toward Jake.

  “We’ll be back to sing for your Christmas dinner, Frank,” one woman replied and shook the gold bell in her hand.

  “Then we’ll plan to be there,” Jake replied.

  After Jake clicked Frank’s seat belt into position, he asked, “You really okay with missing this performance?”

  “You bet. Change helps a man appreciate what he has.”

  They drove to a mom-and-pop diner and over tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, Frank asked, “How’d the drive go?”

  “Fine, I think. It’s hard to tell with colleagues. She seemed to enjoy my company.” He swept his fingers through his hair. If I didn’t blow it because I ducked away from her advances.

  Frank leaned forward. “Where’d you go?”

  “We drove to Lumsden.”

  “That’s a pretty town. I’ll bet it’s a lot bigger now than when I saw it last.”

  “It was bustling. Dr. Clifton needed to deliver a package to a friend at a school reunion. Strangest thing though, Robin was there, too.” He tapped his spoon on the edge of the saucer.

  “Ah, Robin Bird. She didn’t name the school but she told me about her reunion. She was anxious about going. Was she having a good time?”

  The server filled their water glasses and asked about dessert. They ordered pecan pie for Jake and apple pie with cheddar cheese for Frank.

  Jake continued. “She was laughing and kidding around. We even had a bit of a dance.”

  Frank spooned the ice cream into his mouth. “She’s pretty in a strange way.”

  “You noticed, too.”

  “I’m almost dead, not dead, son.” Frank laughed and his fingers drummed on the tabletop.

  “She laughs a lot. She’s intelligent. She seems to have an inner core of strength.”

  “So you used your observation skills.”

  “That’s what I do, I watch people.”

  Country music played in the background, and a skirt covered with an apron swished by to pour coffee at the next booth.

  “I saw a woman attend her high school reunion and have a good time,” Jake added.

  Frank set his fork beside his empty plate, then gathered his gloves and hat and grasped the table the table edge and stood.

  Jake picked up the bill.

  “Glad to hear. Robin’s a good woman.” Frank fumbled in his pocket and put a couple of dollars under his saucer for the server.

  “Maybe Robin and I can be friends,” Jake said as he supported Frank to the car. “She acts more comfortable around you than me.”

  Frank leaned against the seat. “Can’t ever have too many friends but some need more care than others. Just remember that. You did accuse her of trying to steal my few dollars. Besides some women just fancy the more mature man.”

  “Is that a smirk?” His grandfather’s upper lip twitched.

  “It is what it is. I like her.”

  His grandfather’s eyes were closed when they reached Care Manor. Jake parked the car and retrieved a wheelchair from the lobby. Frank didn’t object when Jake helped him to sit and then wh
eeled him down the hall lined with paper cut snowflakes.

  Frank allowed Jake to unzip his jacket and help him with his pajamas. Frank wasn’t far away from Robin’s initial fear about of assisted bathroom duty. Jake kept his ear on the sounds coming out of the door, the flush of the toilet, the tap running. Frank shuffled to his bed and leaned his rear against the side until he hoisted himself up, dropped his slippers, and sank back against the pillow. “I tell you I feel as if I have worked a twelve-hour shift without a break.”

  Standing and watching Frank’s chest rise and fall, Jake leaned in and kissed his grandfather’s cheek. He ran his hand over the back of the recliner, then checked one last time on Frank covered up to his chin in blankets. Jake wished that he hadn’t stayed away so long. His grandmother’s voice echoed in his mind. Enjoy what you have, not what you wish for, son. She’d said it often around the time he wanted to sell his mother’s car for a motorcycle.

  Even though he should return to either the hotel or the university and work on his research notes, he needed to drive. He liked engaging the clutch and manually shifting the transmission as he headed out on the highway. He increased the pressure on the gas pedal, his hands relaxed on the wheel. In the darkness, as his headlights shone back and forth across skiffs of snow, he thought of hips swaying close to him and then away. He steered the car into the merging lane. He turned onto the overpass and slowed to reenter the city limits, passing through a new subdivision with a billboard advertising two-car garages, three-bedroom houses with family room. There were snow racers on one driveway and a failed attempt at a snowman in another yard. Wasn’t this what he’d always thought his future would be, when he’d considered that kind of future? But when was the future going to happen? He wasn’t getting any younger. Is this why he’d stayed away? He had known there was an exciting world away from home. He had thought he’d had so much more to offer the world than to stay around exclusively for the two people who loved him most. Maybe he wasn’t capable of loving in that way. Maybe he was like his biological father who didn’t love Jake’s mother as his special woman or Jake as his kid. Jake slowed the Mustang and pulled over to the curb. The engine idled, pushing warm air through the interior. Jake focused on the streetlight ahead of him. His mother died. His grandmother became his mother. He hadn’t even been there when she died. He’d been abandoned by his father and now the man who took his place and had loved Jake with all his heart was dying. How was he going to make it without breaking down? A half-ton truck drove up beside him. The driver honked and rolled down the window.

  Jake rolled down his window.

  “You lost, buddy?” the guy called.

  More than you’ll ever know. “No. Thanks anyway.”

  “Are you stalking someone?” The voice was gruffer.

  “No, I’m leaving.” Jake pressed on the clutch and slipped into first gear.

  “Have a good night.” The truck slowly drove forward.

  “You, too.” Jake suspected the guy had Jake’s headlights in his rearview mirror making sure Jake drove away like he said he was going to do.

  At the stop sign, the truck went straight ahead and Jake turned left toward the hotel.

  Robbie stacked her dinner dishes in the sink. She switched the desk lamp next to her computer. The blank computer monitor was like a bottomless hole waiting to be filled with her experiences. Maybe he’d call.

  Where did that come from? Of course he couldn’t call if he didn’t even know where she lived or her phone number. Remember this is part of the plan. I am not some schoolgirl waiting for the boy at the dance to call me.

  Robbie forced herself to gather her scattered thoughts. She had kept her promise to the women who had shared their high school memories of shame and exile. Robbie, as a woman of substantial size, attended and had fun. Yes, she’d rather not have had Nancy stare at her and call her fat or leave without saying goodbye to friends but there were moments in her everyday life she’d rather not deal with. Especially those challenging times involving critical Dr. Clifton questioning her field study. A little feeling wormed its way through Robbie’s determination. Just because I dress up, can I experience what it’s like to be seen as fat as other than ideal? No, I won’t stop now.

  When she sank beneath her eyelet comforter, she allowed herself to sink into the memory of brown eyes, tiny bits of his beard growing on a straight jaw, palms pressed and fingers wrapped around her hands. Jake circled his thumb across the fleshy erogenous mounts beneath her thumb. Her abdominal muscles tightened remembering those moments of closeness. Jake had danced with her.

  She sat bolt upright. Jake was supposed to be observant. He didn’t even raise an eyebrow when they danced. She was good but not that good. Monica had come right out and asked her what she was up to, so she had asked her to follow Robbie to the back corner of the gym for privacy and gave her a thumbnail sketch about her Fat Like Me field research. Robbie cut her explanation short when Monica’s eyes glazed over. Monica just shrugged and said ‘whatever’ and went back to the party.

  Oh, that truckload of assumptions, he didn’t really see her. When she thought about it, other than Monica, her classmate, who really saw her? This time she punched her pillows and slammed her head into them and yanked the comforter up to her chin.

  Chapter 9

  Robbie woke to Monday morning coffee aroma. Many times just before bed she almost neglected setting the timer on the coffee maker, but in the morning she was always glad she stayed up a few minutes longer. Who needed a partner when there was an electronic device that met most of her needs? She yawned and during tidying her kitchen and living room, she reviewed the company prospectus on Heavenly Treats and the qualifications for the position of assistant to the Human Resources Officer. Robbie had received confirmation that both applications, one as Robbie Smith and one as Robin Smyth, had received interview appointments.

  Robin Smyth received the first interview and was scheduled for one o’clock and Robbie Smith the following day. Part of Robbie’s field study was to present herself to one company with her identical qualifications on a résumé, but for one appointment she would present herself in the bodysuit as Robin Smyth and the other as herself. Hmmm, did Robin Smyth draw the first appointment interview because her named sounds more professional than Robbie Smith?

  After she applied her makeup, Robbie slid her feet through the padded leggings, fitted the specially designed frozen gel packs into small pouches along the abdomen of the suit and zipped up the torso. She wanted to look cool and professional inside the suit. The faux fat neck roll fit securely into position. She finished with her wig and glasses. Then she dressed in her pressed gray wool suit and crisp white blouse. She chose a gray and red silk oblong scarf and knotted it around her neck. Her shoes shone. With a perfect résumé in her briefcase, Robin Smyth was ready. She didn’t know what would happen when she appeared as a woman of size. She wanted to substantiate that not all managers disqualified candidates on body size, but they made their selection based on education and work experience.

  Robbie parked and put in coins for two hours. This would give her time to arrive unhurried and not worry about the meter running out and receiving a ticket. The air soothed her scurrying thoughts while she strolled beside other office staff on their lunch hour.

  She focused on the clicking of her heels on the tile to calm her mind. At the bank of elevators, she saw Jake’s familiar face. He noticed her at the same time. He waved and walked toward her.

  “Hi, Jake.”

  “Hey, Robin. We sure meet in unusual places.” He was smiling.

  “You’re right. This isn’t a big city but I can go weeks without seeing some of my friends.” His skin glistened in the bright lights. “You look pleased with yourself.”

  “That I am. When I was up early reading the apartments for rent, I found one close to the university and I called immediately. It’s
mine on January first. I can move out of the hotel in a few weeks.” He waved an envelope. “And you? You’re looking very professional this morning.”

  “Thanks. I have an interview for a position in human resources.”

  “Good luck, Robin. You’re good with people.” He cupped her shoulder with his hand. His long fingers pointed toward her breast. She had on a coat and layers of foam and padding, so she could not feel his warmth. It was impossible. But memories of his thumb massage slipped into her minutes-ago calmness. She realized he was expecting a reply. “Thanks. I believe we’ll see each other around town.”

  He chuckled. “You have that right.”

  He leaned forward, and her heart banged against her ribs. Was he going to kiss her? So much for a calm mind. She couldn’t let that happen. Not now. She took a step away and gave him a salute. “Say hello to Frank.”

  His eyebrows drew together for a split second. “Will do.”

  She looked at the clock on the wall. “I’ve got to run.”

  She turned and stepped into an elevator. After the door closed, she drew in a calming breath. That was close. She would not have been able to go through with this interview if he would have noticed and commented on her makeup. When the door opened, she gripped her briefcase and with her head held high she strode up to the receptionist’s desk. “Good afternoon. I have a one o’clock appointment with Mrs. Jones.”

  The woman glanced at her appointment book, nodded, and indicated a green chair situated by the wall. “Please have a seat.” Instead of picking up the telephone to announce Robbie, the receptionist walked down the hall. Robbie admired the woman’s straight-cut black suit with matching pumps. Margaret would be impressed with the receptionist’s style. I’ll have to remember every detail for her.