Holding Up the World

by Shirley Hailstock

  He’d driven to the strip mall and parked in front of the grocery store, intent on going in and getting a salad before returning to his desk to eat.

  And then he’d seen her.

  The woman from the children’s department. He never expected to see her again and there she was going into the same grocery store that had been his destination.

  Rhys wouldn’t allow himself to believe he was following her, but his feet moved a little faster than his normal walking cadence.

  She was a practical woman, Rhys observed. She shopped the store in the opposite direction than the way the managers had laid it out. Rhys had often wondered why they did it that way. Why was produce, fresh fruits and vegetables, the first thing you got to upon entering a grocery store? Putting them in a basket first meant they were crushed by the time you got to milk, canned goods and the all important soft drinks and juices. This woman began in the milk and orange juice area and was steadily working her way toward the front door. He found her in the frozen food aisle.

  The judge in him said she could be working that way to the door so she could slip through it, stealing a basket full of food. Quickly, he doused the theory. She looked like none of the women who came before him. He knew there was no way to tell from looking who was a criminal and who wasn’t, but he let his instincts lead him in this scenario.

  He wondered where she lived. It was the lunch hour, yet her basket had milk, ice cream, yogurt, frozen pizza, and several bags of frozen vegetables. She had to live close by. She was dressed in a business casual suit, too formal to be dressed to stay home and just short of a business suit. This had to be her lunch hour.

  She looked up and her gaze connected with his. Suddenly he felt like a stalker, a voyeur, looking through the windows, glimpsing someone else’s life without their permission.

  Rhys headed for the salad bar. It was his reason for coming to the store. He’d get his meal and return to work. Choosing a large clear plastic container, he filled it with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, broccoli, and hesitated over the cheese. He loved cheese, but his last physical said he should pull back on cholesterol-laden foods. Scooping a small amount on top, he snapped the container close. He had fat-free salad dressing in his chamber refrigerator.

  Rhys looked for her when he joined the line of other lunchtime shoppers. She wasn’t anywhere. Then he spotted her through the window, packing her purchases in the trunk of her car. He wondered where she lived. It had to be close by. She had milk and ice cream in her cart when he’d seen it. While offices had refrigerators, she had an entire cart of food. He thought it unusual for someone to buy so much food during a normal lunch hour.

  She could be off for the day and shopping before she went home. But why was she rushing to pick up things? And if she didn’t live close by, why was she shopping in this store?

  Any why was he so interested in her movements? Rhys paid for his salad and left the store. She’d already pulled out of her parking space. There was something wrong with him. He’d spent the last eight years, since his wife Christina died, thinking he didn’t need another woman in his life. He’d loved her with his whole heart and didn’t believe there was room for anyone to replace her. He was perfectly happy taking care of his children, and nursing his memory, but now he wasn’t so sure anymore. Lately, much of his free time was spent thinking of what the rest of his life would be like.

  And he didn’t like what he saw.

  ***

  Five days and five salads later, Rhys hadn’t seen the woman again. He’d gone out for lunch everyday, not wavering from the route he’d chosen that first day. Like a superstitious sports star on a roll, he’d traced the same steps, walked up and down the same aisles of the store, purchased the same salad and returned to his office, but he’d not seen her again.

  On the sixth day he decided the gesture was futile. Instead of going for a salad, he left his office and ventured outside to the listen to the lunchtime concert. He could hear it from his chambers, but today he’d sit in the sun and enjoy both the music and the weather.

  The day was warm, with large billowy clouds and a soft breeze, a comfortable day to sit and enjoy the music. Every day for the last week the courtyard was host to the summer concert series sponsored by the township recreation department. Today was the final day. Mostly people from the municipal complex were the audience, but the crow was larger due to the last performance.

  Rhys looked over the gathering for someone he knew, someone to sit with when he spied her. She was alone and his feet were already carrying him toward her before he thought about it. He smiled as he approached, but like their encounter in the department store, she didn’t even look up at him. Rhys studied her a moment. The small ensemble was playing a Paganini rhapsody, but he was sure she didn’t hear it. Her mind seemed to be far away.

  “Hello,” Rhys said, taking the seat next to her on the stone bench. “I thought I saw you a few days ago – in the grocery store.”

  She frowned.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. You don’t remember me.”

  “I do,” she said. “It was in the baby department. You were buying a gift.”

  “Are you all right?” She’d spoken flatly and appeared so differently than she had when he first saw her.

  She grinned quickly, then looked back at the musicians, her face returning to that distant looked he’d seem when he spotted her.

  “I’m Rhys Baldwin. I work in the building over there.” He pointed to the courthouse. And I’m a very good listener.”

  She never looked at the building, but turned back to him. For a long moment she said nothing. Rhys was sure she was making a decision as to what or how much she would tell him. Or if she would share anything at all.

  “I’m just going through a hard time right now.”

  “Want to tell me about it?”

  She shook her head. She looked tired as if she hadn’t slept since he’d last seen her. “You can’t help,” she said.

  “You know they say–”

  “I know what they say, but take my word for it. It’s not true. Telling you my problems isn’t going to make me feel any better. I think I’ll just listen to the music. They say it has charms...” She left the rest of the cliché hanging.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Elizabeth Russell. My friends call me Lisa.” Her smile was friendly and almost genuine.

  “Lisa, do you work around here?”

  “In the Gateway Complex.” It was an office park about a mile away. There were many office buildings within it. She hadn’t said what company.

  The music ended and she stood up. “I have to get back there now.”

  He stood up to and pulled a card from his pocket. He rarely had one on him when he needed it, but today everything had fallen into place. “If you want to talk.” He handed her the card. “Don’t forget, I said I was a good listener.” He smiled, trying to ease whatever pain she was holding in.

  She put the card in the pocket of the suit jacket she wore. With only a weak smile, she turned and walked toward the parking lot. Judge Baldwin wondered what had happened to her. Why did she look as if she was alone in the world, with no friends and no one to turn to? He knew she had at least one friend, the woman who had been in the department store with her.

  She’d long since disappeared from view and Rhys still stood in place. The audience was leaving and the small ensemble were packing up their instruments and preparing to leave the area.

  Lisa, Rhys thought. What was it that made her so sad? He wanted to know. But more surprising was he wanted to get to know her too.

  ***

  The weight of the world couldn’t be heavier, Lisa thought as she returned to her office. Paganini was one of her favorite composers. Knowing they were playing his compositions was why she’d gone to the outdoor concert. That and the fact that she had to get out of the office. But the music hadn’t soothed her. If she didn’t already know it note for note, she wouldn’t remember anything she�
��d heard. She did remember the man she’d talked to. Rhys Baldwin. His card was in her pocket. He said he was a good listener. But Lisa knew she wasn’t going to use it. She didn’t know Rhys Baldwin and contrary to belief, she wasn’t one to tell her problems to strangers.

  “Lisa, glad you’re back.” Her secretary stopped her. A usual calm individual, she looked frazzled today. Her appearance wasn’t unique. Since the rumors of downsizing and layouts started several months ago, everyone was on edge. “Mr. Collier has call three times looking for you. Where have you been?”

  “At a concert,” she answered, but she knew from the expression on the woman’s face that she didn’t believe her. “Lunch,” she said. Lisa took the message papers from the woman and looked at them. They gave nothing away as to the reason for the call. “Did he say what this is about?”

  “No, but–”

  “I’ll be in his office.” Lisa cut into the conversation before more rumors were voiced. She was tired of hearing the gloom and doom futures that everyone was about to begin. The best thing to do was go and see what the calls were about. They could be simply the jobs they were all supposed to do. In fact, that was what it was most likely to be. After all, she was the director of marketing. If anything was going to happen, surely she’d be privilege to the information before the rumor mill had it.

  Gloria’s desk was empty when Lisa got there and Byron’s door was open. She knocked to get his attention. “You were looking for me?” She stepped into the office which looked a lot like hers only larger. It suddenly hit her that Byron Collier reminded her a lot of Rhys Baldwin. She put her hand in her pocket and fingered the card. It wasn’t that the two men looked alike. Byron was fiftyish with silver hair and a ruddy complexion. He stood just under six feet and had kept to a healthy diet and plenty of exercise. He played tennis three mornings’s a week, keeping his body trim and toned.

  Rhys, on the other hand, had to be ten years younger. He had only a few grey hairs at the edges, giving him a kind of college professor look. Side by side, Rhys would be several inches taller than Byron. And his skin was dark for a white man.

  “I hear rumors are flying all over the office,” Byron began. Lisa stiffened. He hadn’t called her three times to discuss office hearsay. He offered her a quick smile. Bryon had hired her fifteen years ago and mentored her. She owed her career to him. And if her suspicions were true, she might be here to forfeit it.

  ***

  Lisa had survived another cutback. She looked down at Jade sleeping in her new bed. She was so precious and so innocent. She had no idea what was happening in the world. All she knew was hunger and happiness, and there was someone there to see to her needs for both.

  Suddenly a wave of longing hit Lisa. She wanted someone to take care of her, to see to her needs. But she’d learned long ago that she was her own prince. If there was something she wanted or needed, the only person she could depend on was herself.

  Lisa wondered if that was how life was for everyone. She thought that marriage meant sharing, leaning on each other and supporting those needs, but her marriage had proved the exception. And now she’d survived another downsizing. The layoffs, nice words for firing people, would take place next week. Byron had wanted to let her know the plan. She felt bad for those who would be going to outplacement immediately, but she was glad her own job was secure. The way things had been going, with the girls in college and Jade’s sudden arrive, she’d surely need to remain employed.

  She went to the door and looked back at the newly furnished room. She smiled at the baby. Life had made her change her plans. Lisa nearly laughed at what she intended before Jade. Rhys Baldwin’s face popped in her mind. Why him, she wondered as she closed the door and walked down the stairs and into the kitchen. As she poured a cup of tea, she thought about Graham. He should have been first in her mind, but he’d rejected her. Maybe that is why she thought of the man she’d seem this afternoon. She wasn’t attracted to him.

  Lisa stopped, holding the cup and saucer. She wasn’t attracted to him, she told herself again for emphasis. Besides, with Jade, she had no time for men. She was a grandmother. It no longer sounded as sexy as empty-nested, rested and ready.

  The ringing phone shook her thoughts away. She assumed it was Susan calling. She knew what time Jade went to bed. So nearly dropping the cup she was holding was perfectly natural when the voice on the other end of the phone was Rhys Baldwin’s.

  “I hope this is a good time,” he said.

  Lisa sat down. Her legs had gone weak and she dropped down on a chair near the phone. Her throat closed off at the surprise of hearing his voice through Alexander Graham Bell’s invention.

  “Are you there?”

  She cleared her throat. “Yes, yes I’m here. I’m just surprised. I didn’t give you my phone number.”

  “It’s listed,” he said.

  She knew that, of course. But why would he look up her phone number? She’d only seen him twice and they hadn’t made any plans to keep in contact.

  “This is kind of new for me.” He laughed slightly, but Lisa recognized it as one of those nervous laughs. The kind that came involuntarily from some people when they wanted something, but were afraid to ask for it.

  “Is there something you need?” Lisa wondered what he was calling for.

  “Dinner.”

  “You need dinner?” She wondered if it was the only word he could get out, or if he had a weird sense of humor.

  “Every night,” he said.

  She heard a smile, but didn’t really understand.

  “I wondered if you’d have dinner with me tomorrow night.”

  Lisa gripped the phone tighter. “You mean on a date?”

  “If you want to call it that. I realize we haven’t known each other long, but dinner would help us get over that.”

  She swallowed hard. Immediately the thirteen year old in her surfaced. Heat flushed through her and she mouthed the words, he’s asking me out. On a date. Then she saw the newly washed baby bottles in the drainer and remembered the changes that had taken place in her life.

  “I afraid I can’t.” She didn’t further explain, but kept her voice compassionate. The less said the better, she knew.

  “How about the night after that?”

  “Busy,” she told him.

  “Thursday night?”

  “No.”

  “Is it me? The fact that I’m white and you’re...”

  “African American. Black. Not white,” she finished for him.

  “It doesn’t mean anything to me. If it did, I wouldn’t have called.”

  She had thought of that initially, but that wouldn’t have been enough to stop her if she was free. “Racial heritage is not the issue.”

  “I didn’t notice a wedding ring,” he said. “I assumed you weren’t married.”

  “I’m divorced.”

  “Recently?”

  “It’s been years,” she said. “It’s not the divorce. I have other obligations.” She thought of Jade. She could get a sitter if she really wanted to go. Susan and Bill would jump at the chance to take care of Jade, but Lisa remembered her encounter with Graham and didn’t want it repeated.

  “I should have thought of that. You’re a beautiful woman. There has to be someone you’re involved with.”

  “It’s not that kind of involvement.”

  “What other kind is there?”

  She could tell by the tone of his voice what he thought. “I’m not involved with a woman,” she explained.

  The expanse of air that came through the line told her he was relieved.

  “I’m still not available for dinner,” she said.

  “Are you sure?”

  She nodded before saying yes. “I’m sure.”

  “I’m disappointed. This wasn’t an easy call. I haven’t asked a woman out in over twenty years.”

  “I’m flattered.” Lisa smiled, relaxing. “If it were possible, I would do it. But there are other things that require my t
ime.”

  “I suppose I’ll see you at the salad bar.”

  “What?”

  “I saw you one day during lunch. You were doing some shopping.”

  Lisa’s mouth formed an O, but she said nothing.

  ***

  Rhys replaced the phone and flopped into a chair. His armpits were soaking wet, as was the rest of his body. He’d been to nervous while he was talking to Lisa to sit still. He hadn’t asked a woman out since before he was married and it had taken a huge effort to get up the nerve to dial her number, not to mention the fortitude to act like this was an everyday occurrence. He’d looked at the phone number for hours, passed it on his way to the kitchen, pushed it under the blotter on his desk at work.

  He’d practiced his speech in the mirror. Of course, nothing had gone as planned. The moment she answered the phone, he’d broken out in sweat and forgotten everything he wanted to say. He’d sounded like an idiot. Here he was forty-five years old and acting like a teenager asking a girl out on his first date. He wasn’t surprised she’d turned him down.

  “Hey Dad, what’s going on?”

  Rhys swiveled in the chair and turned to find Eric, his youngest son, standing in the doorway. He held the jamb with both hands and wove back and forth. Eric was eighteen and rarely at home. A popular kid, he was on the basketball team in high school and practiced every night there wasn’t a game. His performance on the game floor no doubt added to the number of phone calls that came through the cell he was never more than an arm’s length away from.

  “I was just thinking,” Rhys said.

  “Thinking about what?”

  “About next year, I guess. This is a big house and you’ll be gone.”

  Eric came further into the room. It was Rhys’s home office. He leaned against the back of a chair. “You’re not planning to sell the house, are you?”

  Rhys read the expression on his son’s face and the taut stretch of his long body. Rhys shook his head. “I’m not thinking of selling.”