by Pamela Morsi
She was also embarrassed to be new on the job and forced to take care of personal business at work. But it was impossible to avoid. She’d tried numerous times to contact her lawyer. David Marmer had been their neighbor in Elm Creek and one of Paul’s closest friends, and he’d handled the paperwork for her bankruptcy. Her first coherent thought after reading Wilma’s letter from Pressman, Yaffe and Escudero was to get his help. Unfortunately, David never returned any of her calls.
“Neither one of us wants to see Jet raised out on the street,” she warned God under her breath. “If you’re going to take care of this, you need to get cracking!”
Heaven made no immediate response.
The sign in the window at Helgalita’s announced We Have Menudo. As Ellen made her way inside, she was hoping that they would also have something else.
The little restaurant had a sad collection of mismatched chairs and tables covered in orange vinyl covers. Ellen went to the high counter in the back of the room to place her order. A blackboard above the cash register listed the lunch choices of the day. She decided on the divorciados, an enchilada plate with one cheese with ranchero sauce and one chicken with salsa verde separated by a bed of rice. Ellen took her place in the line of those waiting for their food.
When she was called up to retrieve her small plastic tray of food and drink, Ellen made her way to a table tucked into the corner near the door.
She’d just picked up her fork when her attention was caught by a frail old woman, trying to open the door. She had a huge corona of blue/gray hair that dwarfed her tiny facial features. She was dressed very expensively in a chic designer knit suit. But her buttons were done up incorrectly. Her shoes and bag easily cost as much as Ellen’s monthly income, but they were mismatched and too dark and heavy for summer.
The older woman struggled fruitlessly with the door. She kept trying to pull the door open rather than pushing it in. Ellen set her fork on her plate and went to help.
When Ellen opened the door, the woman tottered unsteadily, surprised that it gave way.
“Why on earth has Lyman changed this door?” she asked.
Ellen didn’t know Lyman as it was her first visit to Helgalita’s. So her answer was only a smile.
The woman eyed her curiously.
“What are you doing here at this time of day?” she asked. “Who is watching Sis and Willy?”
Ellen was momentarily taken aback at her question, then recognized it for what it was.
“I’m sorry, you’ve mistaken me for somebody else,” Ellen told her.
“Don’t try that nonsense again, Violet,” she said. “I am sick to death of that silly game. You are Violet Mercer, Ralph’s widow and I’ve known you since you were in diapers. Where is Lyman.”
Before Ellen could respond, the woman looked around and gasped in horror. “What are all these people doing eating in the store? Get out! Get out!”
A few people glanced up, but mostly they ignored the old woman.
She raised her walkingstick as if it were the staff of Moses and struck the table where Ellen’s divorciados were growing cold.
“Get these tables out of here!” she ordered. “Violet, where is the merchandise? Lyman? Lyman? Where are you?”
A dark-haired Hispanic woman of middle years and rotund build came striding out from the kitchen. The scowl of displeasure on her face was evident and she was waving her hands in angry dismissal.
“Hush up, hush up,” she said. “Mrs. Stanhope, you’re disturbing my customers again.”
“Marjorie, where have they put the merchandise.”
The Hispanic woman blew out a puff of exasperation.
“I am not Marjorie, I’m Helgalita,” she said. “And this is not your husband’s store—it’s my restaurant. So sit down and shut up or get out.”
The old woman looked back the way she came. The tone of her voice turned immediately contrite.
“Oh my goodness, I must have the wrong door,” she said. “I’m so sorry to bother you, I must have mistaken this place for my husband’s store.”
“Your husband doesn’t have a store,” Helgalita said.
“What do you mean he doesn’t have a store?” Mrs. Stanhope asked, her anger rising once more. “Lyman works fourteen hours a day, six days a week.”
“Keep your voice down, Mrs. Stanhope, or I’ll call the cops on you again,” Helgalita threatened.
“Where is Lyman?” she demanded.
“Mrs. Stanhope, your husband is dead,” Helgalita answered. “He’s been dead for forty years.”
“Dead?” the old woman whispered the word as if it were the first time she’d ever heard it. She looked as if she might crumple to the floor. Ellen grabbed her and helped her into the chair beside her table. The woman was obviously shaken and Helgalita apparently had little sympathy left for the old lady.
“I’ll take care of her,” Ellen told the woman. “Maybe if you bring her a cup of coffee.”
Helgalita sighed, but nodded agreement. The rest of the room was beginning to return to their own concerns.
“Lyman is dead,” the woman whispered quietly. “He’s been dead a very long time.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Stanhope,” Ellen said. “Is there somebody I can call for you.”
She thought about that for a long moment.
“Irma,” she said. “You’ll have to call my niece, Irma. I don’t want to, though,” she said. “She took away all my coats. I don’t know what she wants with them, but she took every one of them out of the house.”
“Maybe she put them somewhere for safekeeping,” Ellen suggested.
Mrs. Stanhope shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t understand anything she does.”
“Do you have her number?” Ellen asked.
“No, no…” She hesitated. “I don’t know. I’m sure they have it here at the store.”
Ellen didn’t want to remind her that this wasn’t the store.
“Maybe the number is in your purse,” Ellen suggested.
Mrs. Stanhope handed the bag to her. “You look for it, Violet,” she said. “You can always find things that I can’t.”
Ellen opened the expensive bag. It was empty except for a mirrored compact and a lace hanky.
Helgalita brought the coffee and set it down on the table.
“Do you know how to get in touch with her niece?”
The woman shrugged. “You could call her, she keeps an office at home,” she said. “She doesn’t live far, just up on the edge of King William. That old lady got herself down here on her own two feet. I’m sure she can get herself home the same way.”
In the end, Ellen walked with her. She told herself, and Mrs. Stanhope, that a little bit of exercise over lunch would do her a world of good.
It seemed to help the old woman as well. The stunned silence of Helgalita’s revelation gave way to a quiet conversation and before they arrived at Mrs. Stanhope’s home, Ellen found herself being entertained with stories of her life with Lyman, their courtship, their home, his store.
“We were married at St. Mark’s,” she told Ellen. “Do you remember that? You were just a baby. It was so hot that day, so hot, I swear, I was afraid I would simply melt away in that organdy gown. I wanted to wear silk, of course. But Papa disapproved of the match and Mama thought organdy would be better. Lyman was so handsome, back then he still had hair.”
When they reached the little house on the corner at Chaffey Street. Mrs. Stanhope stopped at the gate of a white picket fence, gray with age.
“Would you like to come in for some tea, Violet?” she asked.
“No,” Ellen answered. “I’ve really got to get back.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Stanhope agreed. “Sis and Willy will be needing you, of course.”
“Are you sure I shouldn’t talk to your niece?”
“Irma? No, no, there is no need to bother her,” she said. “She gets so annoyed if you bother her when she’s working.”
At that
moment the front door opened and a neat, buttoned-down, almost masculine-looking woman in linen slacks and a polo shirt hurried out.
“Aunt Edith, shame on you,” she scolded. “You are not supposed to be outside. You’ve gone running off to town again.”
The older woman’s eyes widened. She looked embarrassed, humiliated. At first Ellen attributed this to the condescending tone of the woman on the porch. Then she realized that Mrs. Stanhope was not so far gone as Ellen might have thought.
“Oh, dear,” she said, shaking her head apologetically. “I’m afraid I’ve had another one of my spells. I’m sorry, have I behaved terribly crazy?”
Mrs. Stanhope’s expression was so forlorn, it tugged at Ellen’s heart.
“Of course not,” she assured her. “You’ve just gone to lunch with a friend. Nothing to worry about.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“All right then,” she said, obviously relieved. “I’d better go on in, Irma gets in such a huff about these things.”
The woman of whom she spoke was still scolding. She had work to do and couldn’t keep an eye on Mrs. Stanhope every minute. Irma had to be able to trust her aunt not to go running off every time she turned her back.
It was probably a reasonable complaint. But all of Ellen’s sympathies were with the old lady. As if a little devil was upon her shoulder, Ellen looked up, momentarily wishing to be her mother. Rapier-tongued Wilma would never let anyone get away with being smug or superior. Uncharacteristically, the words just slipped out of Ellen’s mouth.
“Irma, dear, you’re looking very well today. It seems an age since we’ve talked. I hope you’re well.”
She had the woman’s attention immediately. Irma scanned her from head to toe trying to find some familiarity she could recognize.
“Call me, I miss hearing from you,” Ellen added, as fuel to the fire. She turned, heading down the street toward the office. She left the crabby, berating woman staring after her.
Let Irma see what it feels like to believe her mind is slipping.
The lights glittered on the dark waters of the river along the section of the Riverwalk most renowned for noisy bars and youthful drunkenness.
Amber, with friends Kayla and Gwen stood together on the edge of the walkway. They were laughing, joking, and hopefully, looking very hot. Kayla was the most stylishly decked out. Short and verging upon downright pudgy, it was difficult to tell if her midriff was showing by design or simply because she couldn’t keep it stuffed inside her shirt.
Gwen was leaner, her long legs snugly encased in faux leather slacks. Her tight pink sweater hugged bra-free breasts that showed the impression of her nipples, one faced straight out, the other tilted slightly to the left somehow giving her chest a wall-eyed appearance. She was heavily made-up, almost garish. Her long dark hair, permed to extremes, hung around her shoulders like a cape. The hair, makeup and flashy clothes combined effectively to hide the delicate features that were her only claim to beauty.
Amber still had on her work clothes, having come directly from her job at the mall. Black slacks, sensible shoes and blended button-down were covered by a burgundy zip jacket. Work days were never her best days and, even on her best days, she could hardly afford to be a slave to style. Amber was actually grateful not to have to compete on that level. Long ago Wilma had given her wise advice.
“If you go out with girlfriends,” her grandmother had said. “Make sure that you’re always the best-looking one.”
Tonight, like most nights, she was relatively sure that she was.
“He was like such a total loser,” Kayla said, as she flexed her right ankle. The five-inch stilettos looked great, but they were hellish for standing on a stone path. “I just told him to kiss my ass goodbye.”
Kayla’s words were tough, but her lower lip trembled a little as she spoke them.
“That is too bad,” Amber told her. “I thought he was sweet.”
Gwen snorted. “He was just another loser looking for a booty call,” she said. “He has a wife and kids somewhere for sure.”
Kayla was stunned. “You don’t know that,” she said.
Gwen took a deep drag on her cigarette and nodded.
“When a guy that age doesn’t spend half the evening putting down his ex-wife,” she said. “It’s got to be because he doesn’t have one.”
Amber hated to admit it, but there was some truth to that.
Kayla’s bottom lip trembled. Amber felt so bad for her.
“He was good for a few laughs,” Gwen said. “I hope you didn’t start expecting some boring till death do us part crap.”
“Of course not,” Kayla said defensively.
Amber was pretty sure that to date, no one had ever offered Kayla any till death do us part crap. And if things didn’t pick up pretty soon, it wasn’t all that likely to happen.
Gwen, Amber thought, was like an older version of herself. She also had a kid. They both lived with their mothers, who did most of the child care. Gwen worked in hotel registration and went from one lousy, low-paying minimum wage job to the next.
Kayla’s life was better. Her father had worked for the city water system for thirty years. He had managed to get Kayla a desk job in the office. She had her own car and a little apartment in a flashy singles complex. Kayla was somewhat naive and way too trusting. But she’d managed to do a good deal better than her sharper friends.
“He just wasn’t the right one,” Amber reassured her. “There’s somebody out there who is going to be just perfect for you. You just have to hang out until he turns up.”
“Yeah,” Kayla agreed, a little too brightly.
“And if you’re going to hang out,” Gwen said. “You might as well be partying.”
Gwen’s voice had gradually gotten louder until the last word was like a celebratory cry.
“Hey, baby, I hear ya!” a guy on the other side of the river called out.
“Well what are you gonna do about it,” Gwen called back.
“We’re headed in your direction,” he assured her. “Just got to find us a bridge.”
“You’d better hurry,” she told him.
“Baby, if I weren’t so damn drunk, I’d swim.”
The pack of young men disappeared around the bend.
“Do you think those are college guys?” Kayla asked eagerly.
“With those haircuts?” Amber replied. “They’re flyboys if I don’t miss my guess.”
“Well, at least they’ll have some cash,” Gwen said.
She was forever short of money and always counted on the men they met to do the drink buying. Amber had eight bucks in her purse. For any serious drinking she would have to rely upon the largesse of some likeable guy as well.
A gaggle of teenage girls, all in an identical costume of tight jeans and crop-Ts, came along the walkway. They made the mistake of hesitating in the area near where Amber and her friends were standing.
Gwen’s eyes narrowed dangerously.
“Aren’t you kids out a little late on a school night?” she asked.
A pretty brunette with the face of an angel and a peaches and cream complexion turned to give them a once-over and then blurted out a vile expletive.
Gwen responded in kind.
The expressive dislike went back and forth for a couple of minutes. Finally one of the young girls suggested nastily, “Let’s move along. This is obviously a whore stand.”
Her words so infuriated Gwen that the incident could have easily turned into a brawl. Amber laid a restraining hand on her arm.
“Hey, the flyboys are coming,” she said, her voice both soft and soothing. “They’ll buy us some drinks, we’ll have some laughs. No need to let these infants ruin our evening.”
Gwen backed down and let the teenagers pass on unmolested, but she was angry.
Amber understood it.
The younger girls were competition. And they were competition with all the advantage. Younger, fresher, l
ess experienced with the world, they were just now making the choices that had already come to haunt Gwen and Amber.
Gwen had actually given birth twice. The first baby, when she was sixteen, she’d given up for adoption. Dwight, the child she’d kept, was eight now. The school said he was learning disabled. He mostly stayed with Gwen’s mother or with her ex-boyfriend’s parents. She and Amber had been hanging out together for a couple of years now and Amber had yet to see the little fellow. Gwen didn’t even carry a photo of him in her purse. And she never mentioned him. Kids were a big liability with most guys. Once they found out a chick was somebody’s mother, they lost interest real fast. That was even true of the ones who had kids of their own somewhere.
Gwen had kept Dwight because she’d thought that eventually his father would marry her. She hadn’t completely given up on that until he’d married someone else. Gwen was in her late twenties now. Her only life plan had been to find a nice guy and get married. She hadn’t managed to do either.
The flyboys arrived. They were obviously wasted. There were four of them and only three of the girls, but nobody commented on the math. The guys wanted to go to Howl at the Moon, but Gwen suggested they go to Swig’s. Her argument was that the place could always be counted on for a young, partying crowd, but Amber knew she was deftly avoiding the crisis of who-pays-the-cover-charge.
There was a bit of a noisy hold up at the door, but eventually they were seated at a long table outside with a group of total strangers who were already well into the obnoxious phase of an evening of drunkenness.
Among the flyboys, the short, geeky guy just naturally took his place next to Kayla. The other three took turns talking to Amber and Gwen, keeping their options open.
The waiter came. The talkative blond guy, Derek, presumptuously ordered Cosmopolitans all around. The geek asked for beer instead and Kayla followed his lead. Gwen changed her order to a vodka and tonic.
Amber decided against Derek and directed her attention to Jeff. He was a bit too thin, but he was nice looking, tan, with brown hair and eyes. Preferring dark men, she focused most of her attention on him. He was quiet and easygoing, she thought. He wasn’t a big talker, but his friend seemed to be taking care of that completely.