by Pamela Morsi
“Accounting is my field,” she said. “I’ve been taking night classes for several years. It’s the kind of work I like and that I’m good at. So banking is really a natural.”
“But working for Driscoll?”
Mazy waved the question off as if it were trivial. “Tad and I get along fine,” she lied. “All of that was a very long time ago.”
Even to her own ears the excuse sounded fake.
Eli was looking very serious as he gathered his words.
“Are you hoping to get back with him?” The question was almost too quiet.
“Of course not,” she assured him. “When I’m done with a man, I’m done. I never make the same mistake twice.”
Eli’s left eyebrow raised slightly. “The way I remember it, you and I were together twice.”
Mazy almost answered, But that wasn’t a mistake! Eli had never used her, never lied to her or betrayed her. It probably hadn’t been smart to sleep with him, but she had a hard time regretting it. Even when she’d talked to the shrink, she’d never lumped Eli in with all the creeps and losers that made up her romantic history.
Unfortunately, the words that came out of her mouth weren’t exactly how she meant them.
“Oh, Termy, you don’t count.”
5
At exactly 10:00 a.m., Eli’s phone alarm went off and he allowed himself to finish the measurements that he was working on and mark the cuts with a pencil. But then he wiped his hands and offered only an absent wave to Clark as he left the shop.
He walked up the path toward the house. It was wide and worn and packed down nearly as hard as concrete. The family home, a two-story “foursquare,” had been built in the late 1880s. Keeping it in good repair was a labor of love for Eli. It was more than just a residence or a nice piece of American architecture, it was a symbol of the life that was important to him, the life that he wanted for himself.
At the back there were two doors. One where he could walk directly into the basement apartment where he lived, the other up three steps and across a small porch to his father’s kitchen. He didn’t even glance toward his place as he took the steps.
He knocked twice on the door, but went inside without waiting for a response. In the mudroom, he wiped his feet and hung up his jacket.
“It’s me!” he called out.
“Morning, Eli,” was the response.
Sunlight flooded the east side of the kitchen that was clean enough, he suspected, to perform surgery. Sitting at the table peeling apples was his stepmother, Ida, formerly Miss Ida Jakes, local spinster.
When his mother had died ten years ago, after a long-suffering struggle with a debilitating disease, her sons had not been pleased at their father’s hasty remarriage. Neither had been particularly welcoming to a woman who seemed to be a fussy and fastidious old maid. What could their father have seen in her?
It was no longer quite a mystery. The two had spent nearly a decade square dancing twice a week and flea marketing on the weekends. They were happy together, enjoying each other’s company and making the most of their time, so it was hard for Clark or Eli to hold a grudge.
“How’s Dad today?”
“His eyes are very bright this morning,” she answered. “The man must have been up to no good in his dreams.”
Eli smiled back, although it felt bittersweet.
“I’m going to fry up a batch of these apples for dinner. Do you want me to set some aside for you?”
Eli and Clark were agreed that Miss Ida was, unquestioningly, the worst cook in western North Carolina, but sometimes the taste of food was the least important aspect of an offer.
“I’d love that, Ida,” he answered. “And I’m sure Clark would, too.”
She tutted her head disapprovingly. “If your brother can’t be bothered to walk up to the house to visit his father,” she said, “then he can fix his own apples. Clark is just plain wrong leaving all his father’s care to you.”
Eli didn’t dispute her assessment of the situation, but he wasn’t about to be drawn into it, either.
“I won’t tell him you said so,” he assured her, teasing. He’d heard it before. The inequitable share of responsibility bothered other people a lot more than it did Eli.
He went through the house to his mother’s sewing parlor, which had been turned into a downstairs bedroom. His father lay on the bed looking very much like himself, only older, paler and quieter than the active man he’d once been.
“Hey, Dad,” Eli said. “How are you doing today?” He gave his father a big, optimistic smile. “I’ve been working on a pretty piece of red oak this morning. You should see it. Looks real old-growth. Are you interested in getting cleaned up? Nothing more relaxing than a nice hot shower, right?”
Eli didn’t wait for answers to his questions. He knew there wouldn’t be any. His father’s first stroke had made speaking difficult for him. With the second stroke a few months later it had disappeared completely.
The doorway to the nearby bathroom had been rerouted to open directly into the room. Eli quickly stepped inside and gathered up the towels, soaps and shaving gear that he needed before returning to his dad. He pulled his father up into a sitting position and knelt down to slide his house shoes onto his feet.
“I’m using the red oak for the top of a lowboy I’ve designed. You’re going to love it. It’s as if Stickley had an illegitimate oak son from Wales.” Eli chuckled as his own little joke.
Squatting next to the bed, he draped his father’s arms around his neck. Only one arm really worked well enough to give anything like a grasp, and it was weak. Eli clasped his dad around his pajama-clad waist and raised him into a standing position. Jonah Latham had once strode through his life with powerful grace. Now he could not even hobble to the bathroom on his own.
Eli kept up a steady stream of words as he partially led but mostly carried his dad into the shower.
“The color is nicely pinkish. I’m going to try to finish the grain as clear as it will varnish.”
His father weighed so little these days that it would have been easier for Eli to simply hoist him up into his arms like a child. Eli didn’t do that. Even if he couldn’t say so, Eli knew Jonah would prefer to be treated like a man.
He seated his father in the plastic shower chair and buckled him in before going back to shut the door. Then he undressed him piece by piece. Slippers, socks, shirt, trousers. Then Eli stripped down to his own boxers. With the help of the handheld shower and a basin of warm soapy water, he lovingly washed his father. The procedure was many faceted, including a couple of unbuckle-and-stand followed by sit-and-rebuckle. It took physical prowess to do it. But it took tenderness, as well.
As soon as his father’s body was rinsed and dried, Eli swathed him in more towels and brought out the shaving gear.
“Clark’s still finishing up those Windsors,” Eli told him. “You know how I hate doing chairs, but they’re looking really fine. The finish on them is so good, I’m afraid it’ll be mistaken for poly.”
He mixed his father’s favorite shaving soap in the ancient mug that he’d used for years and then applied the messy white foam to his dad’s face. With practiced precision, he drew the old-fashioned safety razor across the one-day growth of beard, scraping it neatly clean. All the while, he kept up the one-sided conversation about anything and everything except the crippling disability that was now front and center in his father’s everyday life.
“Mazy Gulliver came to see me last night,” he said. “Wow. Years have been good to her. She looked so beautiful, I thought my heart might actually explode out of my chest.”
Eli wasn’t sure if his father knew as much about his ill-fated relationship as Clark did. But he had confessed to being in love with her years ago.
“I am seriously going to have to watch my step,�
�� he admitted. “Clark was so right about her. She doesn’t really see me as a man.”
Eli stepped back and spread his arms. “Imagine how I feel. All my functional parts in good working order and in the prime of my life, and the only woman I care about thinks we’re best girlfriends.”
He was incredulous.
“I should invite her over to spend the night. She’d probably think it was a slumber party. We could paint each other’s toenails.”
He sighed heavily.
“You should have heard her, Dad. She totally infantilized me. I’m so sweet. I’m so cute. I’m the nicest guy she knows.” Eli shook his head. “All this time, deep inside, I kind of held out hope. What a waste. She said I was a ‘heart mender’ not a ‘heartbreaker.’ Can you believe that? It’s so...it’s so demeaning, right?”
Eli wiped the residue of soap from his father’s face. “Now you’re looking good,” he told his dad.
He dressed his father, brushed his teeth and combed his hair.
“The very worst thing,” Eli continued. “Ugh. I hate even remembering it. We were standing on the back porch. Mazy sat down on the step and patted the space beside her, like I was a trained puppy. Here, Eli. Jump, Eli. Fetch the stick.”
He made a growling sound reminiscent of a much-larger canine.
The whole daily ritual with his father took three-quarters of an hour. By the time Jonah Latham was spiffed up and seated in his recliner in the living room, his dad looked exhausted.
“Why don’t you take yourself a little catnap here in front of the television,” Eli suggested. “Rest up a bit before Ida brings you some lunch.”
His father looked up at him and made a sound. It was guttural and indecipherable. Along with it, however, his father used his good hand to clasp Eli’s and brought it up to his heart.
“You’re welcome,” Eli told him. “I love you, too.”
His dad heaved a sigh of relief, as if the effort to make himself understood was the most difficult one of all. He relaxed back into his chair and closed his eyes.
Eli looked at his dad for a long moment and then quietly walked out of the room.
In the warmth of the kitchen, the sweet smell of cooking apples permeated the atmosphere. Ida looked up at him.
“I’ve got some nice bean soup if you want some.”
“Thanks, but the apples will be enough for me,” he told her, picking up the two heavily filled plastic containers on the table.
“The big one is for you,” she told him.
Eli smiled at her. “Good. If you need me for anything, holler. I’ll be back before bedtime.”
He retrieved his jacket and let himself out the back door. Walking down the slope he allowed himself one nosy glance toward the house next door. The car that had brought Mazy home yesterday was gone now. There was no activity visible and no evidence that Mrs. Gulliver wasn’t alone as usual.
Mazy was probably at her new job. Making lovesick calf eyes at Tad Driscoll.
That thought had him growling again.
6
Tad was waiting at the door when Mazy arrived at the bank. For a moment she feared that he’d had second thoughts about their agreement, but in fact, he was there to unlock the door and let her in.
“Good morning, Tad,” she said politely.
“The employees address me as Mr. Driscoll,” he replied, setting the tone for their new relationship as crisply professional.
“Then, good morning, Mr. Driscoll,” she corrected.
In the lobby he called an impromptu meeting of bank personnel. She couldn’t miss the wary looks from the other people in attendance.
“I want you all to meet Mazy Gulliver,” Tad said, though it was completely unnecessary to introduce her. She was fairly certain that everyone in the room already knew who she was. “We are very fortunate to be able to add her to our staff. I’ve decided to consolidate all of our collection duties under one job description, and Miss Gulliver has a good deal of experience in getting past-due accounts to pay up.” He shot her a phony smile that had meaning only for the two of them. “So if each of you girls could take a few moments to meet with her this morning and turn over the delinquent loans that you currently manage, we’ll allow her to utilize her skills at asset recovery.”
Mazy was pretty certain that, unlike Tad, most supervisors did not refer to female employees as girls unless they were running a lemonade stand on the sidewalk. She let that go. Taking on the bank’s delinquent accounts was enough for her to get her head around.
If Mazy had expected any better, she quickly realized that she shouldn’t have. Credit collection and asset recovery were the two most difficult and depressing jobs in banking. Hounding people for money they owed and then seizing their cars, homes and businesses when they couldn’t pay was probably no one’s dream job.
She was to set up her “office” in the small windowless room that also housed the printers and copy machine. She was given a phone, a desktop computer and a couple of file boxes. The rest of the staff, who’d been sharing the onerous collection duties, stacked the evidence of their efforts on her desk.
Tad made it clear that Mazy was not to work the teller’s window, interact with patrons coming into the bank or even to be seen in the front lobby. She was to stay in her place and out of everyone’s way.
She knew what Tad was up to. He couldn’t risk going back on his end of the bargain, so he wanted to make the situation so miserable for her that she would voluntarily quit. He really had no idea how unlikely that would be. Mazy needed this job. She needed it for herself and for her son.
She could have told him that picking up trash by the side of the highway through a hot, humid Carolina summer can make a cramped, windowless office look like a bit of heaven. It was an opportunity. Meager as it was, Mazy was determined to make the best of it. She knuckled down immediately to get acquainted with the accounts.
Her interaction with the other employees was limited. No one went out of her way to make Mazy welcome. But she had to admit there was no particular hostility, either. In that, she decided, Tad had accidentally done her a favor. He probably assumed that the other workers would be predisposed not to like her. She was new. She seemed to be getting special treatment. And in a small town, gossip never died—it only slept lightly through other scandals. What he had apparently not recognized was how grateful each of them would be to turn over their delinquent accounts. She heard actual sighs of relief from the other women. If Tad had made her a loan officer, she would have been roundly hated. But credit collections everyone was happy to allow her to do.
The day passed more quickly than she would have expected. At noon she sat alone in the break room eating the sandwich that she’d brought. From the cleanliness of the place and the emptiness of the refrigerator, it seemed that most of the staff went out for lunch.
In the afternoon she wrote a letter introducing herself as the new collections officer. It was a cheerful, friendly and deliberately disguised dun notice, warning the bank’s past-due debtors that there was a new sheriff in town, so to speak, and they would be hearing from her.
It was after four-thirty when she finally got them all into their printed envelopes and franked through the postage meter. She dropped them into the outgoing mail as she signed out for the day.
“Good night,” she told Deandra, the teller on the ten-to-six shift.
The woman gave her a vague nod of acknowledgment. Not so bad for the first day of work, Mazy assured herself. Not so bad at all. She would walk home. Find out how school went for Tru. Eat whatever cheap, carbohydrate-heavy meal her mother had cooked, read herself to sleep and get up tomorrow to do it all over again. It was a life. A very controlled, noncrazy life. She could use one of those.
Out on the sidewalk, she was startled to hear her name called.
�
��Mazy! Oh, Mazy, hi. I was hoping I’d run into you again.”
She looked up to see Karly, former home-ec partner, now school secretary.
“Oh, hi.”
“Did you just get off work? I heard you got on at the bank.”
Karly said it innocently, as if there wasn’t anything strange about a woman walking back into town and immediately getting hired by the father of her illegitimate child.
“Yes, my first day,” Mazy answered. “I’m doing collections.”
Karly grimaced. “Wow, tough job. But somebody’s got to do it, right?”
“Right.”
“I was headed over to Local Grind. Come get a coffee with me. We’ll toast your first day.”
The last thing Mazy wanted to do was waste any of her last few remaining coins on overpriced coffee shared with a woman she hardly remembered.
“No, I want to get home. I want to find out how Tru’s day was at school.”
“Well, there’s no rush on that,” Karly said. “You know teenagers. They need at least an hour after class for decompression before they can even be expected to behave like normal human beings.”
Mazy had never considered that, but in retrospect it did seem that her son always gave her the silent treatment in the afternoons.
“Please come with me,” Karly continued. “I need adult conversation and I’m totally addicted to café macchiatos. I always let myself have one on my way home. Some days it’s the only thing that gets me through fifth and sixth periods without screaming and tearing my hair out.”
The woman was so open, so friendly, so very different from the shy silent person Mazy knew in high school. It was hard to say no to her, but Mazy had no choice. She’d moved here to make changes, to be smarter than she had been. And if that meant admitting the truth in order to avoid spending money she didn’t have, then so be it.
“I, uh, I haven’t gotten paid yet.”