by Dan Walsh
“Thank you.”
Rick walked down the long carpeted hall, found the elevators about halfway. Didn’t see another soul. Probably just a skeleton crew on duty because of the holiday. When the elevator reached the third floor, his stomach started to tense. He stepped out and found the glass doors blocking the hallway, the entrance to intensive care. He pressed the intercom button and gave his name. One loud buzz and he was through.
He hated hospitals, everything about them. Especially the smell. He kept his gaze straight ahead as he walked along a curving hallway. To his left were floor-to-ceiling glass panels leading to the various rooms. He knew there were beds inside them and lying on them were people, all dying or about to die. He heard clicking sounds and little beeps going off at different intervals.
Who could work at a place like this?
Just up ahead to the right was the nurses’ station. A tall middle-aged woman in white stepped out from behind it and walked his way. “Mr. Bell?” she asked in a whisper.
“No, my name’s Denton, Rick Denton. My mom’s married name is Bell.”
“So, Mr. Bell is not your father?”
“No, I just came to see my mother. She asked me to. I just came in off the highway from Charlotte.”
“Your mother is the sweetest thing. If you don’t mind, could you go back through those glass doors? The first door on your left is our waiting room. We need to keep your father’s—I’m sorry—your stepfather’s room very quiet. I’ll get your mother and tell her to meet you there.”
“Fine,” Rick whispered back. “Thanks.”
He did as instructed and took a seat in the waiting room. A few moments later he heard the glass door open then footsteps. He looked up at the doorway just as his mom walked in. She looked exhausted; her eyes were red. She rushed toward him and started to cry. He held her for a few moments, patting her back. “It’ll be all right,” he said a few times.
She regained her composure a bit then looked up at his face. “Thanks for coming.”
“You don’t have to thank me,” he said. He led them to the row of chairs. “Have a seat and tell me . . . what’s the latest news? What are the doctors saying?”
She started from the beginning of the day, when she’d first gotten the call about Art being found at the store unconscious. Then walked right through the events of the entire day, providing more detail than he cared to hear. But talking seemed to help, so he didn’t hurry her. He grew more alarmed when she shared about the aneurysm development and the anticipated surgery. It wasn’t so much the added danger for Art but the added amount of time she was hinting that he’d need to stick around.
“So, you’re saying the doctor wants you here at his bedside . . . the whole time?”
“Pretty much, that’s what he said.”
“For how long?”
“We don’t know just yet. I’m sure we’ll know more tomorrow.”
“More than a few days?” he asked.
“Sounds like it. Oh, Rick, I’m so scared.” Tears began to form again.
“It’s okay, don’t get yourself all upset again. I’ve got the whole weekend off, including Monday.”
She looked down.
“What?”
“I’m afraid I might need you longer than that.” She looked up. “Is there any way you could stay longer? I’ve just got Andrea to work at the store. But this time of year it takes all three of us to keep up. And she’s only part-time.”
“You want me to work . . . in the store?”
“I didn’t mention that?”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I’m sorry, Rick. But . . . I don’t know who else to call.”
“I don’t know anything about running a store. I don’t know any of your . . . merchandise.”
“It’s mostly just books and music albums, some small gifts. Andrea knows the inventory really well. She could help you.”
“I’m not sure how much more time I could get off.” He knew that was a lie. He had over three weeks of vacation time saved up for the last two months of the year. All pegged for skiing trips.
“Any time you could spare would be such a help. I can’t leave Art. And if we have to close the store now, at this time of year . . .” She looked down. “We always count on the Christmas season to pay all our bills. Art says we make more than 50 percent of our income between Thanksgiving and Christmas.”
Rick sighed. This was quickly becoming a nightmare.
She started sobbing, almost uncontrollably. For a moment, he just sat there looking at her. He reached his hand out and put it on her shoulder. “I’ll see what I can do. Let’s don’t worry about it now.”
She reached for his hand and squeezed, then looked up. “Thank you, Rick. I’m so sorry to have spoiled your plans. If there was any other way—”
“Don’t apologize. What do I need to do?”
She reached for her purse. “Here are my keys. This one here is for the store. We open at 9:00. This one here, with the octagon shape, is for our house.”
“Just take the store key off the chain. I’ve made reservations at the Howard Johnson’s, the one on the beachside.”
“I don’t want you to spend your money.”
“It’s okay. It’s off season, they gave me a great rate. Besides, I haven’t seen the beach since I moved away.”
“All right,” she said, removing the key. “Here.” She handed it to him. “I better get back there with Art.” They stood up.
Rick added the key to his chain and put it back in his pocket. “You need anything?”
“Not right now. I’ve already spoken with Andrea. She normally works on Saturdays anyway, so she should be there when you arrive tomorrow.”
“And she knows what she’s doing?”
“Pretty much,” his mom said, a slight smile appearing. “It’s not very complicated, Rick. Nothing compared to what you do every day.” She hugged him tightly. “I’m so proud of you. How well you’re doing. You know you’re the first one in our family to ever get a degree.”
“Thanks, Mom. And don’t worry. We’ll figure this out. Is this the number I should use to call you, the one on this phone?”
“Yes, just leave a message and I’ll call back as soon as I can. Thank you, Rick.”
“It’s okay.” He hugged her again and walked out. As he rode the elevator down, he knew all his hopes and holiday plans were heading in the same direction.
7
Rick had planned to take a walk on the beach at sunrise.
Maybe tomorrow.
At the moment, he sat on one of the padded orange benches in a booth at the Howard Johnson’s, hurrying through some scrambled eggs and sausage. In about ten minutes, he’d head over to the store; he hoped Andrea would be there as promised. Howard Johnson’s looked just like he remembered, except for the part where he was the only one in the restaurant. He glanced toward the back wall at the ice cream bar, the sign above still boasting “28 Luscious Flavors.” A handwritten sign taped below it said: “Sorry, only 13 now.”
The hostess who’d greeted him and led him to the table now served as his waitress. It appeared that Rick’s tip would form the bulk of her morning salary. He saw one old fellow wearing the traditional orange and blue HoJo hat, working by himself in the kitchen. November was typically a slow season, but this seemed a little nuts. Last night the guy at the front desk told Rick things were tough at Howard Johnson’s all over the country. Gas prices had slowed tourist travel to a crawl. Last year, the Johnson family sold the whole chain to some British outfit.
There were only four other people staying at the Motor Lodge. It was kind of sad. Howard Johnson’s had been his father’s favorite motel. They’d stayed at three of them when they moved down here from Ohio, when Rick was eight. As soon as he’d see a billboard saying it was one mile away, Rick would stick his head out the window like a hound dog. His mom would yell at him to get back inside. He’d let out a shout the moment he saw that bright orange roof sticking out
in every direction, the weather vane pointing at the sky. Two wonderful things came next: ice cream and a swimming pool. All the Howard Johnson’s had them.
A kid’s dream.
Best of all, his dad always made sure they got a room with Magic Fingers. His mom hated that. But he and his dad would lie there, popping quarters in the little gray box every fifteen minutes. The bed would rattle and shake, and their teeth would chatter away. Couldn’t fathom now what was so fun about it. It just was. It was a perfect way to end a long day on the road.
Rick smiled, thinking about last night. The Seabreeze HoJo still had three rooms with Magic Fingers beds. One of them faced the ocean, cost five dollars more. The Magic Fingers bed still only cost a quarter. So Rick had just laid there, unwinding, trying to remember when his dad was still with them. Before his mom had run him off two years later.
That was the conclusion he’d come to, but, actually, he wasn’t really sure what happened. His mom would never talk about it. But he remembered that he’d had a great dad for a while, and that he was a lot of fun to be with. And he had a mom who seemed mostly concerned about doing the right thing. Bedtimes, vegetables, and chores. Toward the end, he’d hear them yelling behind closed doors, seemed like every night. He could never hear what they said, but it was clear his dad just couldn’t take it anymore.
One night, he’d just gotten up and walked out. Rick had called out to him, chased him out the door. But he sped off down the road. Rick had run down the sidewalk until his dad drove out of sight.
It was the last time Rick saw him.
“You want a refill on that?”
Rick heard the words, but they didn’t connect. “What?” he said, looking up at the waitress.
“Want me to top off your coffee?”
He glanced at his watch. “No thanks, I gotta get going.”
Their ice cream might be luscious, but the coffee was just awful.
Rick thrummed the dashboard and looked at the clock. He would be at least five minutes late to the store. He was stuck on a little drawbridge, waiting for this sailboat to mosey on by, as cars backed up for blocks on either side. The bridge tender had started opening the bridge when the guy was half a mile away. He couldn’t be going more than five mph, sitting on deck sipping his morning coffee, stopping traffic all the way down the intercoastal waterway.
Rick put his car in park; it was obvious he was going to be there a while. He barely noticed the red and silver garland wrapped around the lampposts like a barber pole. The fake boughs of holly tied just below the light fixtures, like Christmas bow ties. He looked beyond the railing toward the big houses lining the water’s edge. They were really something. He remembered doing a term paper about them back in high school.
Most were built in the 1920s. Big sprawling affairs. Wraparound porches. Manicured lawns and hedgerows. The riverfront estates of the rich and famous. They’d escape the snow and ice for a few months then head back north in the spring, leaving a small staff behind to swat mosquitoes and fight the summer heat. The crash of ’29 forced most of them into foreclosure.
They fell into disrepair from the 1930s through to the ’60s, right up until the mass production of central air-conditioning. That’s what Rick’s paper had been about: “How Central Air-Conditioning Created the State of Florida.”
Rick smiled. Got an A minus. Teacher wrote a little note: “This could have been an A plus if you’d checked your spelling.”
Now those same riverfront homes were owned by doctors and lawyers and commercial real estate developers who could live in them all year long, cool as can be. And whenever they pleased, they could shove off the dock in their big sailboats and cruise up and down the river, mocking the rest of mankind.
Suddenly, the guy behind him honked his horn. Rick jumped like someone had smacked him in the head. He looked up. The bridge was down. Cars were moving again. “All right, all right,” he said, gave a brief wave.
The bridge dumped the traffic onto the old downtown section of Seabreeze. If you took away the sun and palm trees, threw in some snow and old-timey cars, it looked just like the streets George Bailey ran down in It’s a Wonderful Life. What was the name of that town . . . Bedrock something. No, you idiot, that’s the Flintstones. What was it? Bedford Falls. That was it. He turned left at the second light.
Right up ahead was St. Luke’s. Same as it ever was. He could see the familiar little sign in the corner sticking out over the sidewalk: The Book Nook. He drove past McAlister’s, then a liquor store, a lamp store, a closed-down shoe repair shop, and a women’s apparel store, which brought him to the intersection across from St. Luke’s. He wondered how many of these stores would be here six months from now when the mall opened up out by the highway.
He’d seen what the mall phenomenon was doing all across the country. He thought it was a wonderful thing.
Rick walked down a handful of steps and through the front door. An attractive brunette looked up from the counter and smiled. She had thick, wavy hair tied back with barrettes. She wore a white, Christmassy sweater and blue jeans. “You must be Andrea,” Rick said.
“I am.” She smiled even wider at the mention of her name. “You must be Rick.” She stepped toward him, holding out her hand.
It was soft. Some jewelry but no wedding ring.
“So sorry to hear about your father,” she said, her face shifting to instant concern. “Any word this morning? I wanted to visit before I came in, but your mom said they weren’t allowing any visitors.”
Rick chafed at the father remark. He’d have to clear that up in a little while. “Nothing new that I’m aware of.” Of course, there might be. He hadn’t called his mother yet today. He brushed away a guilty thought, reminding himself of how rushed he’d been that morning.
“I was so shocked,” she said. “It came out of nowhere. He seemed fine on Wednesday.”
“Strokes are like that,” Rick said.
“You haven’t heard? They don’t think he had a stroke now. They’re saying he had a brain aneurysm. That’s what your mom said this morning.” She walked back behind the counter.
His mom did say something about that, he thought. “She was crying so much last night, I couldn’t catch all the details.” He hung his jacket up on a coatrack in the corner. “Say, what’s with Columbo out there?”
“Excuse me?”
“The guy in the wrinkled raincoat, hanging around the stairway.”
Andrea laughed.
Rick did too, then said, “He asked me if I’m the one. I said, ‘What do you mean, am I the one?’ Then he says, the one that’s bringing his Egg McMuffin from now on.”
Andrea laughed harder and put her hand up over her mouth in a cute sort of way. “What did you tell him?”
“I told him to beat it before I call the cops.”
Her face showed concern. “Oh, you shouldn’t have said that.” She hurried past him toward the door. “That was JD. He’s this homeless guy, really harmless. Your dad’s been buying him an Egg McMuffin every morning, for over a year now.”
Your dad.
“JD’s the one who found him and called 911.” She walked outside, calling JD’s name. Rick began to follow her, but she turned and came back. “He’s gone.”
“I didn’t know,” Rick said. She walked past him and went behind the counter.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m sure he’ll be back tomorrow. He might even be back in a little while for coffee. That’s the routine. He gets an Egg McMuffin and a cup of coffee, then he’s on his way.”
Or, Rick thought, you tell him to beat it or you’ll call the cops.
A better routine.
8
The morning had started off slow. Just a handful of customers by 10:30. Andrea had used the time to help Rick get familiar with the cash register. About the fourth time through, things began to click. Rick had every confidence he’d eventually master this thing, given that he had a master’s degree in accounting. He didn’t mention this achievement
to Andrea, although the urge had presented itself several times.
He knew he’d better figure out the register, because he had no business helping customers. He didn’t know where anything was, hadn’t read any of the books or listened to any of the albums, and, honestly, didn’t care about any of the religious gifts the store sold. What puzzled Rick the most was that the store had any customers at all.
He’d been to the Book Nook a few times back in high school but had never paid attention to how bad it looked. Starting with the uneven steps leading down from the sidewalk. No, back up . . . starting with the store’s location. Stuck in the basement of an old church building in the dying, downtown section of Seabreeze. An area that had become a gathering place for transients and the homeless more than tourists and shoppers.
Like that JD guy, who did come back a few minutes after Rick chased him off. “I forgot to get my coffee,” he’d said. Andrea had poured him a cup, seemed to know exactly how he liked it. Then he was gone. Who needed riffraff like that hanging around the store?
Rick sat on a stool behind the counter. Andrea sat next to him writing something furiously on a pad. She lifted the first page then a sheet of carbon paper and started on a second page. When she finished that, she began cutting the pages with scissors. “What are you doing?”
“A little project for your mom,” she said without looking up. “All our customers love your folks. Everyone who hears what happened will want to rush right out to the hospital. I thought I’d write out what happened then cut them up in little notes to give to everyone who comes in.”
Rick picked up one of the squares:
Art is very sick in the hospital—an aneurysm.
The doctor said no visitors or phone calls.
Please pray for a miracle.
She was writing this out by hand, over and over. “How many of these you going to make?”