Letting Go

by Pamela Morsi

  “Max?”

  “Max Roper, he’s my dad. Do you mind if I sit down?”

  She shrugged and he eased himself into the booth across from her. He was a nice-looking man in his late forties. He moved confidently as if he was easy with himself. He looked prosperous, even more than that, he was rather distinguished with just a touch of gray at the temples. He appeared to be a man who was accustomed to having things his way.

  “Is Max all right? Why didn’t he come himself?”

  “I guess he thought if we met alone, we’d get to know each other better and faster,” he said.

  Wilma couldn’t imagine why, but she didn’t say so.

  “I’ve been coming every day for a week now,” he told her. “I was beginning to think you were a figment of Max’s imagination.”

  Wilma raised an eyebrow. “I don’t believe that Max Roper has figments of the imagination,” she said.

  The man chuckled. “Sounds like you know him,” he said.

  “Yes,” she answered. “Is Max…how is Max? I haven’t heard from him in a couple of weeks. I’ve been sick myself. That’s why I haven’t been here.”

  He glanced at the breathing hose attached to her face. “I trust that you’re feeling better now.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Wilma told him. “I’m almost ready to take on a ten round bout for Wrestle World. I’m just waiting on a ruling about whether dragging an oxygen tank into the ring is covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act.”

  He chucked. “Max said you had a wry sense of humor.”

  “Oh, really?” Wilma responded. “And what else did he tell you?”

  “That you know more about fruits and vegetables than any green grocer in the universe. And that you can talk about it in a very engaging and entertaining manner.”

  Wilma snorted. “Well, the truth is, if your favorite topic of conversation is produce, you’d better talk in an engaging and entertaining manner or you’ll be talking to yourself most of the time.”

  He laughed out loud at that.

  Wilma liked the sound of it. It wasn’t the deep bass that his father had, but it was a nice, genuine, straight from the heart, kind of laugh. She decided that she liked the younger Mr. Roper. He was a chip off a very fine block, and he was okay on his own as well.

  The waitress came by and brought Wilma her mixed greens salad.

  The man passed on lunch, but ordered an iced tea.

  Wilma tossed the vegetables a little to distribute the vinaigrette dressing more evenly.

  “What kind of lettuce is that?” he asked her.

  “Sangria.”

  “What are those purple things?”

  “That’s radicchio.”

  “Do you ever see things in your salad and you don’t know what they are?” he asked.

  She chuckled. “Sometimes,” she said. “But I always try to find out. It’s amazing what people will tell you if you ask.”

  He smiled.

  “I’ve got a question for you,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  He set his briefcase on the table and opened it. From the inside, amidst the neat organization of papers, he pulled out an almost heart-shaped plant product with a pitted, leafy-looking skin about the color of artichoke. He set it on the table before her.

  Wilma eyed him curiously as she speared lettuce onto her fork.

  “So?” she asked.

  “Do you know what this is?”

  “It’s called sherbet fruit,” she answered. “Some people call it custard apple. The real name is cherimoya.”

  The fellow was visibly surprised, but pleased.

  “What can you tell me about it?” he asked.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Whatever you know,” he answered.

  Wilma chewed her lettuce for a moment while she thought about it.

  “It’s called sherbet fruit because it has the texture of sherbet when it’s chilled.”

  “Is that the way you eat it?”

  “You can,” she agreed. “But more often it’s either cubed up to be combined into a fruit salad or it’s pureed for a dessert topping.”

  “Can I just wash it off and stick it in my kid’s lunch box?”

  “Not if you like your kid,” Wilma warned. “The skin and the seeds are not very digestible. His teacher would have to give him a bathroom pass that would last all afternoon. But if you cut it up and put it in a container, he’d probably love it. And it’s high in fiber and vitamin C.”

  “If I was going to buy one of these, how would I know which one to pick?” he asked.

  Wilma continued to eat her lunch, but she reached over to examine the piece of fruit on the table.

  “You want to avoid the brown, discolored skin,” she said, indicating a small patch with her finger. “But this time of year, there is going to be some. Just stay away from any moldy stems.” She turned it up and examined it. “I think this one will be fine.”

  He nodded. “May I borrow your knife?”

  Wilma handed it to him. He set the knife to the skin as if he were about to peel it. She stopped him.

  “Cut it in half,” she said. “Then scoop it out and eat it with a spoon.”

  He did as she suggested. “Tastes pretty good,” he told her.

  She nodded in agreement.

  “Supposedly they were highly favored by the ancient gods of the Andes,” Wilma said.

  “Really?”

  “It’s the oldest known fruit of the western hemisphere,” she explained. “It gets its name, cherimoya, from Quechuan, the language of the Incas.”

  “The language of the Incas,” he repeated thoughtfully as he savored the fruit’s flavor.

  “There are still native speakers of it in Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, high in the mountains.”

  “So that’s where this came from,” he said. “South America.”

  “Sherbet fruit is grown mostly in Chile,” Wilma said. “But this particular one actually came from Spain.”

  The man’s expression was incredulous.

  “That’s right, that’s what the produce manager told me,” he said. “But how can you know that?”

  Wilma shrugged and smiled, evasively.

  “Are they different colors? Different sizes?”

  She shook her head.

  “You didn’t taste it,” he said. “How could you possibly know?”

  She chuckled.

  “You’re going to hate yourself when I tell you,” she said.

  “Tell me anyway.”

  “Because the growing season is in the summer. It’s winter in South America now.”

  He hesitated only an instant and then groaned.

  “You’re right, I do hate myself,” he said.

  “I hope it doesn’t last long,” she said.

  He smiled. “No, with a find like you, I’m sure I’ll recover quickly.”

  “That’s what all the guys tell me,” Wilma scoffed sarcastically.

  “You’ve passed the test with flying colors,” he said.

  Wilma gave him a long look. “I didn’t realize I was taking a test,” she said.

  “Max said you were a whiz,” the man told her. “But I wasn’t going to take his word for it.”

  “So you brought your cherimoya down here to play Stump the Old Lady?” Wilma asked.

  “I just wanted to make sure that Max knew what he was talking about,” he said. “He was right, I really can use somebody like you.”

  Wilma was completely baffled.

  “Use somebody like me? Besides being Max’s son, who in the hell are you?” Wilma asked.

  “You don’t know?”

  “Would I be asking if I did?”

  “I’m Homer Dilly,” he answered. “Max told me that you were a big fan of my stores, especially my produce department.”

  “Max Roper is your father?” Wilma was stunned.

  “Yes,” he said. “It’s…ah…a long story.”

  Wilma remembered it. The girlfrien
d he got pregnant and never married. The son whose life he stepped out of when he was four and stepped back into when his stepfather got a divorce. The son who had “done well.” Dilly’s wasn’t the biggest grocery chain in town, but it was locally owned and run, and a well-known supporter of scholarship programs and health-care research.

  “I’ll tell you the truth,” Homer said. “If you were fifty instead of sixty, I’d hire you today.”

  “Hire me for what?” Wilma asked. “What in the devil are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about a job,” he said. “Max told me that you were looking for a job. And I’d like to give you one.”

  Wilma was astounded. Max was mad at her. But he’d asked his son to give her a job.

  “Let me get this straight. You’d like to give me a job,” she said. “But I’m too old.”

  He nodded. “I know it’s not p.c. to say this, but I honestly think you’re too old to work full-time in a busy produce section,” he told her.

  “It’s not just un-p.c. to say it,” Wilma pointed out. “It’s against the law. Haven’t you heard of age discrimination?”

  “I have and I’m against it,” the man said. “Anyone who can work and wants to work should be judged by their abilities, not by their birthdays. But unless you’re hiding a body builder’s physique under that slim silhouette, I think it would be very hard on you trying to load, stack and cull a full-service produce department. Especially while rolling that tank behind you.”

  He was right about that, of course. Wilma could hardly keep up with a cooperative four-year-old for a few hours a day. There was no way she could work on her feet for forty hours a week.

  “Even if you were in better heath, the physical requirements alone would probably do you in. And a woman your age working under those conditions is just a workman’s comp claim waiting to happen.”

  “Well, thank you very much,” Wilma said. “I didn’t ask you for any job. I’m not even sure I’d want one if you offered, but it’s nice to know that you’d be able to turn me down with a clear conscience.”

  He chuckled.

  “You’re feisty,” he said. “I should have expected that. Max always likes the feisty ones.”

  Wilma didn’t comment on that.

  “Besides,” Homer said, “I’m not turning you down. I think it would be a waste of your talents to have you doing grunt work in a store. I have a better idea I want you to think about.”

  “What better idea?” she asked.

  He spooned himself out another bit of the sherbet fruit. “I need a new promotion vehicle for my stores,” he told her. “I know that my edge on the competition in this town is the produce.”

  “Absolutely,” Wilma agreed. “You have the best by far.”

  “Thank you,” Homer said, smiling at her. “So how do I highlight that? How do I make that difference so important that people will drive past another store intentionally to go to mine?”

  “You have to let them know,” Wilma said.

  He shook his head. “The people who care do know,” he pointed out. “We’ve been touting it in commercials for years now. Everybody who cares about produce knows about our produce.”

  “I see.”

  “So what our challenge is,” Homer said, “is to make more people care about their produce.”

  “And you have a plan?”

  Homer nodded. “For most people an apple is an apple. If it doesn’t have a worm in it, then it’s fine. You only know the difference if you know the difference. What we, at Dilly’s Fine Foods, need to do is educate the consumer. Learning is a good thing, we all believe that. Nobody can be opposed to it.”

  “So you want to have classes about fruits and vegetables?” Wilma asked.

  “I thought about that,” he said. “I thought about it, but who would come? The same people who shop in our stores. No, we need new people. People who aren’t volunteering to learn anything. Where do you get people like that?”

  “I haven’t the vaguest idea,” Wilma admitted.

  “You get them on television,” Homer said. “I want to buy a minute a day spot, five days a week during the local news. Not to show our stores or announce our bargains. I want them to feature the Dilly’s Produce Lady.”

  “The Dilly’s Produce Lady?”

  He nodded. “Yes, Wilma, that’s you.”

  19

  “Just tell your mother to go fuck herself,” Gwen insisted when Amber filled her in on the ultimatum. “You can’t let her run your life. She’s a snarly, controlling bitch and you’ve got to set her straight.”

  “This is not about my mother,” Amber said. “It’s about my daughter.”

  “She’s a kid,” Gwen pointed out. “Kids do fine. Somebody always takes care of them. If not your mother, somebody else.”

  “I don’t want somebody else taking care of Jet,” Amber said.

  “Well, you sure as hell can’t do it,” Gwen said. “Maybe you can stash her somewhere during the day, but are you going to drag her around to the bars with you at night?”

  “No, of course not,” Amber said.

  “So you’re just giving up on your own life?” Gwen asked.

  “I’m not giving up my life, I’m just giving up an apartment,” Amber said. “It’s not that big a deal.”

  “It is!” Gwen told her. “This is probably your very last chance to get out and be on your own. You’re never going to get enough money together to have your own place, not if you take that kid with you. And it’s not like the kid should even be your problem.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “If your mom hadn’t spent all the money, lost your house and screwed things up so badly, then you wouldn’t have got knocked up in the first place,” Gwen said. “It’s her fault and she’s the one who ought to suffer with the kid.”

  “No one is going to suffer with Jet,” Amber said defensively. “She’s a great kid and we’re lucky to have her.”

  “Yeah, right,” Gwen scoffed. “So lucky to have a ball and chain dragging you down forever.”

  “You’re full of it,” Amber insisted. “My life is better because of Jet.”

  “Your life is over because of Jet,” Gwen yelled at her. “And what am I supposed to do? I’ve put down money for this apartment and now you’re just stiffing me for your share.”

  “I’m sorry, Gwen,” Amber said. “I’m truly sorry about that. Maybe you can find another roommate or…”

  “Just don’t call me anymore,” Gwen said. “I don’t need losers like you. You think you’re better than me. You always have. You think I’m wrong about everything. But I’m going to be the one with my own place and lots of parties and friends and all of it. You’re going totally nowhere, just so you can take your kid with you.”

  “She’s my kid,” Amber said. “I don’t have any choice.”

  “Oh, gag me,” Gwen replied. “You know, you’re always bad-mouthing your mother, but you’re just like her, trying to do the right thing, like there is some right thing. I get screwed in the process. You make me sick.”

  Gwen slammed down the phone.

  Amber hung up her receiver more thoughtfully. She could hardly blame Gwen for her anger, but surprisingly she felt no regret. If she allowed herself the truth, she wanted to be with Jet. She wanted to be her mother. Amber just wasn’t convinced that she was up to the job.

  “Troubles?” Carly asked.

  Amber startled. “I didn’t realize you were here,” she said, glancing down at her watch. Carly had shown up early. Amber had thought she and Metsy were in the place alone.

  “Is your grandmother all right?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Amber answered. “She’s back to her usual self and taking care of Jet already.”

  “Oh, that’s good,” Carly said. “I heard her name mentioned and if there was a problem with like baby-sitting, I was going to offer help.”

  “You were going to offer to baby-sit?”

  Carly made a comic face feign
ing terror. “No, not that,” she admitted. “But I can be flexible.”

  Amber gave her a look and shook her head.

  “Carly,” she said. “I honestly don’t get you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You are always on my case about something,” Amber said. “But lately you’re suddenly into trying to help me out. What’s the deal?”

  Carly looked at her eye to eye. “The deal is, you’re a good employee,” she said. “I don’t mind filling in when you’ve got someone sick in the family or issues with your child’s day care. But I hate like hell covering for you coming in late ’cause you’ve been out drinking all night. We don’t need that kiddie-crap at this store. We need people who want to sell product and make money.”

  Amber shrugged. “I can sell the product,” she said. “But I’m sure not making much money.”

  “You’re making the highest commissions in this store,” Carly pointed out.

  “But it’s not enough for me to live in my own house and support myself and my kid,” she said.

  “People do it all the time,” she said. “It’s a struggle, but they get by. They just keep working at it and they get by.”

  “I want more than that,” Amber said. “I want more for myself. I want more for Jet.”

  “What exactly do you want?”

  “I want the kind of life I had,” Amber said.

  The words were out of her mouth before she’d even had the time to think about them.

  “What do you mean?” Carly asked.

  Amber hesitated only for an instant. “I mean the life my parents had, before my dad got sick,” she answered. “I want my own business and a nice house in a good neighborhood, my own car and a saving account to send Jet to college. My parents had all that.”

  Carly nodded. “Where did they get it?”

  “Where did they get it?” Amber repeated. “What do you mean?”

  “Did they inherit a bunch of money? Did they win the lottery?”

  “No, of course not,” Amber said.

  “Then where did all that come from?”

  “Well, my mom worked to send Dad to college,” she said. “When he got out, they saved money until he could open his own CPA firm and then they worked and saved and invested and made a lot of money.”