by Pamela Morsi
But age didn’t have to be an obstacle. Wilma knew her daughter was far too decent to judge a man by his years. And for a man of sixty-seven, Ellen would be a young beauty.
But in all honesty, it didn’t sound as if the two had one dad-gummed thing in common. In fact, Wilma thought she seemed much more suited to the old fellow than her daughter.
That thought stopped her in her tracks.
It was too late for her, she reminded herself. She was old. She was tired. She was sick.
Did a woman really ever get that old, that tired, that sick?
Well, maybe some women did. But Wilma had spent an entire lifetime not being anything like some women.
She made her way to the bathroom and checked herself out in the mirror. It was bad, plenty bad. She was definitely a sixty-something with no makeup and a desperate need for hair color.
Wilma knelt on the bathroom floor, unhooked the childproof latch and rummaged through the unpleasant items that she kept under the sink. There were ten-year-old sanitary napkins, an economy-sized Polident, and a box of medicinal douche packets, a huge jar of menthol suave, a container of drain declogger and bottles of every possible type of bathroom cleanser. Amongst this bounty, near the back, Wilma found one faded yellow box of Lady Clairol Ash Blonde.
Momentarily, she wondered how much the chemicals had deteriorated or altered after years on the shelf. Then she shrugged.
“If my hair falls out,” she mumbled to herself, “then I’ll stay home.”
She dug out her reading glasses for a refresher on the directions.
“What you doing, Wil-ma?” Jet asked.
“I’m going to color my hair,” she answered. “You want to help me?”
The little girl nodded eagerly. Between the two of them, the process would take up the rest of the morning.
All in all, it worked out pretty well. It had been a while since Wilma had really dressed up. She felt better, younger, stronger, just surveying the result. As a young woman, she’d resembled the actress Lauren Bacall. She’d probably never get Bogie to whistle today, but, still, she was humming “In The Mood” by the time she was ready to go.
“You look pretty, Wil-ma,” Jet told her.
“Thanks, sweetie,” she replied. “You’re a great little confidence builder.”
“Are we going to the grocery store?”
“Better,” Wilma told her. They were seated in the living room, watching the street.
“Here’s Brent,” Wilma told her.
The Chevy Tahoe pulled into the driveway. Brent got out and walked around the hood. He’d come straight from his job and was dressed handsomely in a suit and tie.
“Hi!” Jet called out and waved, excited to see him.
He made a giggle face at the child. When he caught sight of Wilma, he gave a resounding “Wow!”
“You looking marvelous,” he said in his best Billy Crystal imitation.
“We colored the gray in her hair,” Jet explained. “Not with crayons—with goopy stuff.”
“Well the goopy stuff looks great.”
“Thank you,” Wilma told him. “Thanks for coming on such short notice.”
The young man shrugged. “When a guy’s got two gorgeous ladies to escort to lunch, he’d better not be late.”
“Lunch?” The child’s eyes turned wide and expectant.
“Where are we going?” Brent asked.
“The Empire Bar,” she answered.
Brent’s brow furrowed, curious. “Kind of a strange place to take a three-year-old for lunch,” he said.
“You’re absolutely right,” Wilma agreed. “Why don’t you just let me off outside and you can take Jet somewhere, just the two of you. Give you both a chance to bond.”
“Bond?”
Wilma didn’t begin to explain and Brent was wise enough not to question further. He drove her downtown and let her off at the curb in front of the Empire Bar, an old, seedy but highly touted San Antonio tradition.
“Be back here in one hour,” Wilma told him. “Just double-park and wait. Don’t come inside looking for me.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Brent agreed. “Let me get the tank out for you.”
“I’m leaving it here,” Wilma insisted.
The young man’s puzzled expression turned to worry.
“Wilma, you might need it,” he said.
She waved away his concern. “I can live an hour without the damn thing,” she assured him. “It cramps my style.”
Brent didn’t look happy, but he didn’t argue.
“Okay, I get it,” he said. “I know when I’m the third wheel. I’m leaving and I’m taking the little training wheel with me. We’re going to McDonald’s, so there. We’ll be back at this spot at exactly one-twenty-eight.”
As he drove off Wilma made her way to the front door. Chin high, shoulders back and a bright smile. This was how she’d won a hundred cowboy hearts.
The Empire had never been one of her hangouts, though she’d been inside many times. It looked much the same as it always had. Dark pine floors, bead-board ceiling with a half-dozen fans stirring a light breeze above the patrons seated at the long, heavy, brass and leather trimmed bar.
The last time Wilma had passed this way, it had been a place for serious, work-hardened drinking men to spend an honest dollar. Now a lighted salad bar stood where the shuffleboard table had been, and the tough experienced barmaids had been replaced by fresh-faced college kids in T-shirts and jeans.
Wilma seated herself at the very first bar stool. She fished a cigarette out of her purse as she surreptitiously checked out the other patrons.
“May I get you something to drink?”
Wilma looked up to find a pretty little blonde, probably no older than Amber.
“Give me a minute, honey,” she told her. “I’m casing out the joint.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’m trying to decide where I want to sit,” Wilma explained.
The girl still didn’t look like she understood, but she did walk away, giving Wilma a chance to check out the rest of the people in the place. There were thirtysomething bankers in conservative suits and exuberant tourists with maps and cameras. There was even a table full of secretaries having a birthday party. She didn’t spot even one aging cowboy accountant with a turquoise bolo tie and boots.
She was beginning to think she’d made the effort for nothing, when a Stetson hanging on the hat rack above a very secluded back booth caught her attention. There was no way that she could assure herself of the identity of the person in that booth, without walking across the room. That hardly seemed to be worth the subterfuge. It was either him, or it wasn’t. And he was definitely nowhere else.
Wilma got the waitress’s attention.
“I’ll take a Shiner Bock,” she told her. “And I’ll be seated in that back booth.”
“Oh!” Now the young woman was very puzzled. “That table is already occupied.”
“I know,” Wilma said lowering her voice to a husky whisper and adding a bright smile. “Lucky fellow, I’m going to join him.”
She made her way across the room, elegantly. Dredging up all the natural femme fatale that she’d kept in mothballs for so long.
I can do this, she assured herself silently. I can do this.
She kept at bay all thoughts of her age, her health and her track record. He was just a man, and if there was anything in the crazy world that she understood, it was men.
Wilma walked straight up to the booth, not stopping to observe its occupant until she was at the edge of the table.
This was Max Roper, she decided. This was definitely Max Roper. A big, long-limbed cowboy, thick white hair, fancy white dress shirt with snap flap pockets. Peering up at her through the top of bifocals was the most beautiful pair of true blue eyes that Wilma had ever seen in her life. It was easy to imagine that he’d been a rounder. What woman would have been able to resist him? She almost lost her nerve.
Then the moment was ov
er. He suddenly seemed to realize where he was and that she was standing next to his table. The civilities of his upbringing came charging in upon him and he attempted to stand. A feat not easily accomplished in a narrow booth. He was momentarily awkward and clumsy.
Wilma relaxed.
“Keep your seat,” she told him. “You don’t mind if I join you.”
She didn’t frame her words as a question.
She seated herself opposite him. Withholding the smile that other women undoubtedly bestowed upon him so easily, she eyed him speculatively, as if she were taking his measure.
The waitress came.
“Here’s your beer. Do you want some lunch?”
Wilma glanced at the man’s plate. “What is he having?”
“He always orders the special,” she replied.
Wilma raised a questioning eyebrow. “Really? A little boring, don’t you think?” she asked him.
He shrugged. “I’m a boring guy,” he answered.
She smiled at him—broadly.
“See, it’s just like I told you,” Wilma said to the waitress. “His lucky day.”
Amber grabbed up her purse and hurried out to lunch before anyone had a chance to stop her. She’d asked for the time yesterday and mentioned it again this morning, but she didn’t put it past Carly to come up with some excuse at the last minute to sabotage her plans. She was supposed to meet Gwen and Kayla at the Hole in the Wall for lunch and she could hardly wait.
She slipped out the mall’s back doorway onto a brick-lined alley of little shops that catered to Alamo visitors. They sold papier-mâché armadillos, gaudy fake silver belt buckles and tiny ceramic replicas of the five Spanish Missions. Flags of Texas flew everywhere. They were a hot item. Amber always wondered what all those tourists from Wisconsin and Indiana did with their Texas flags when they got them home.
When Amber got to the street, she didn’t wait for the light, but hurried across, dodging the slow moving downtown traffic. By the time she got to the café, her girlfriends had already snagged a table.
Amber waved at them, but stopped in the line in front of the order window.
“What’s the soup?” she asked when it was her turn.
“Corn chowder.”
Amber wrinkled her nose. “Then give me a turkey with avocado on seven grains, no mayonnaise or mustard.”
“You want something to drink?” the guy asked as he wrote her request on a paper ticket.
“Water.”
He rang it up on the register. “Two eighty-nine.”
Amber had to count out the eighty-nine in change, using up her bus fare, but she wasn’t going to worry about that now. She hurried over to her friends. They’d started lunch without her. Gwen was dawdling over a salad. Kayla was already finished, as evidenced by the abundance of empty plates stacked in front of her.
Amber seated herself, hanging her shoulder bag over the back of the chair.
“Hey, girlfriend,” Gwen said. “You seem positively pumped to see us.”
“I am,” Amber told her. “It’s a zoo at work. Must be fiesta in Mexico or something, the place is swarming with Nationals.”
Both her lunchmates made sympathetic noises.
Nationals, shopgirl slang for Mexican nationals, were the good news/bad news of San Antonio retail. Most visitors to the city from the contiguous forty-eight states were buying up Lone Star spoons, brightly colored tortilla warmers, or eclectic one of a kind craft articles. The middle class from south of the border wanted to shop in the mall. A Pennsylvanian could visit Gap or Victoria’s Secret any time, but for the Mexican tourist these stores were unique, interesting and affordable. They kept mall retail healthy and growing. Unfortunately, they tended to arrive in mass on long weekends, holidays and school breaks, straining the workforce.
“You should call in sick tomorrow,” Gwen suggested. “Let the other girls do it.”
Amber shrugged off the suggestion. “Oh, I don’t really mind,” she said. “My commissions will be way up.”
“I’m glad I don’t get commissions,” Kayla said. “Some days I feel so bummed I just sit at my desk faking it all day long.”
“Let’s not talk about work,” Amber suggested. “How did it go with the flyboys?”
“Fine,” Gwen answered. “But I’m sure you were right about that Jeff guy, real loser. And cheap, way too cheap. He didn’t have a car and wasn’t willing to spring for a motel. He tried to get me down on my knees behind some bush in the park. I’ve had enough of that kind of shit to last me a lifetime. That’s why I like the guys I meet at my job. At least they all have a room!”
Gwen laughed delightedly at her own hotel humor.
Kayla sighed heavily.
“Well, I really liked Brian,” she admitted. “He was too sweet. And he really liked me, I’m sure of it.”
“So are you going to see him again?” Amber asked her.
“I wish,” she said. “He was only here for five weeks of special weapons training and we met them on their very last night in town.”
“You are kidding?” Amber said.
“It was so totally awful,” Kayla told them. “I was like fixing some breakfast for us, eggs and bacon even, and I go ‘we are just great together’ and he goes, ‘yeah, but the timing is like all wrong for me and you know timing is everything.’”
“Timing is everything,” Gwen agreed. “That’s why he didn’t say anything about how short-term he was until after you’d answered the booty call.”
Kayla ignored that reality.
“He’s already back in Biloxi,” she continued. “And he expects to be deployed overseas in the next few months.”
“Bummer,” Amber commiserated.
“I’m so sick of having nothing work out,” Kayla admitted.
“Oh, get over it!” Gwen complained. “Like men ever work out for anybody. It’s a loser’s game and if you let yourself get wrapped up in it, you’re just a chump.”
“I don’t care about being a chump,” Kayla said. “I’d just like…I’d just like a guy who was mine.”
“Gag me!” Gwen exclaimed. “The next thing we know you’ll be whining about a white dress and a veil. This is the new millennium, girlfriend. It just doesn’t work out that way anymore.”
Kayla looked so gloomy, that Amber felt sorry for her. Amber agreed with what Gwen was saying. She had yet to run into any guy who was looking for any happily-ever-after. But she also understood just exactly how Kayla felt. If she were being honest, she wanted the same thing for herself. A man who could love her and be devoted to her the way that her father had been devoted to her mom. That would be a pretty wonderful thing to have. But it wasn’t realistic. Amber wanted to be realistic. But she wasn’t sure that Kayla had to be.
The guy from the window called out her name and Amber hurried to get her food. When she returned to the table, she took the opportunity of the diversion to change the subject.
“I may be moving again,” she said.
“You’re kidding.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know yet,” Amber told them. “My grandmother is being thrown out of her house by her stepchildren. If she goes, we go.”
Amber took a bite of her sandwich.
“Can they just do that?” Kayla asked.
“If they’ve got money they can,” Gwen replied for her. “If you’ve got money you can do anything. If you don’t have money, anything can be done to you. It’s a screw or be screwed world.”
Amber hadn’t reached her friend’s stage of cynical.
“Ellen’s got us a lawyer,” she said. “She’s trying to make the whole thing just not happen. She tells me not to worry, everything will work out, but Wilma, my grandmother, acts like it’s a done deal. So, I don’t know.”
“I’d believe your mom,” Kayla said. “I know she’s like weird and all that, but she’s really smart in a business sort of way. She knows how to do lots of stuff. It’s probably just a matter of getting things straighte
ned out. She can do that kind of thing. Your grandmother is like way old. What can she know?”
Amber shrugged. “Wilma’s actually pretty cool. I suppose Ellen knows more about real estate and whatever, but she’s…I don’t know…she’s just such a Goody Two-shoes. Her standard m.o. is the golden rule and she hasn’t figured out yet that the rest of the world isn’t up to the job.”
“That’s not a bad thing,” Kayla said.
“It’s not great,” Amber told her. “Try to imagine being raised by Glenda, the Good Witch of the North! Believe me, growing up with that always look on the bright side crap can make you want to buy an automatic weapon and start taking hostages.”
“Oh, she couldn’t have been that bad,” Kayla said.
“She was that bad,” Amber assured her.
“How bad was she?” Gwen asked, like a comedian’s response line.
“Okay, okay, let me think of something,” Amber said, taking another bite of lunch and pondering her answer for a long moment.
“Okay, what do mom’s tell you when you find a penny on the street?” Amber asked.
“That it’s good luck,” Kayla said.
“Only if it’s head’s up,” Amber said. “Didn’t your mother tell you that? Heads up.”
Kayla and Gwen both nodded.
“Yeah, it’s good luck if it’s head’s up,” Gwen said.
“Is it bad luck if it’s tails?” Amber asked.
The two girls looked at each other and shrugged.
“I don’t think so,” Gwen answered.
Amber nodded. “If it’s tails up, it’s just a penny. No luck attached at all and worth only one small cent in your pocket.”
“So.”
“So, from the time I was a little bitty girl, when I would find a penny and it was tails up, she wouldn’t let me take it and put it in my pocket. Oh, no, she taught me to turn it over and make it lucky for some total stranger.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Who would kid about weirdness like this?” Amber asked. “And there’s more.”
“No.”
“Yes, to this day, if she drops change out of her purse she’ll stoop down—not to pick it up, but to be sure that every coin is all heads up.”