The Ring

by Florence Osmund

  The next day at The Busy Bean, Jessivel immersed herself in making coffees for an endless stream of customers. Close to two o’clock, when it finally died down, Paige walked into the shop.

  What the hell is she doing here?

  “May I have another one of those raspberry coffees?” she asked.

  Something inside of Jessivel began to quiver as she took her time making the coffee, not wanting to have to turn around and face her again. Calm down, she told herself. Treat her like any other caffeine addict with enough money to blow a fiver on a cup of joe.

  “Here you go, ma’am. May I get you anything else today?” Like a punch in the face?

  Paige stared into her eyes for one agonizingly long moment without saying anything. “No, that will be it.” Then she stepped closer to the counter and leaned in. “Except I really need to talk to you,” she whispered.

  Ignoring her comment, Jessivel rung her up and quickly moved on to the next customer while Paige took a seat at the bar. It was one thing dealing with her outside of work where she could walk away, but in here, she had to endure her presence, and she was proud of herself for handling it so coolly. When she had waited on the last customer in line, she glanced down the bar. Paige was staring at her.

  “What are you staring at?” she mouthed.

  “What?”

  Jessivel walked to where Paige was sitting. “I said, ‘Stop staring at me.’ Okay?”

  “I just thought we could talk for a minute. Do you get—”

  Jessivel walked away from her.

  “Oh, Miss?”

  That did it. With her heart picking up speed in her chest, Jessivel marched down to where Paige sat and faced her.

  “Look, you tight-ass bitch,” she said, her arms flailing and her insides pulsating with rage. “If you don’t stop stalking me, I’ll call the goddamn cops. Not that they’d do anything to a privileged piece of shit like you. Why don’t you take your—”

  “Jessivel!” Audrey shouted at her from the doorway to the back room. “Come back here…now.”

  Ignoring her boss’s demand, Jessivel threw off her apron, grabbed her backpack from under the counter, and stormed out the front door. Once outside, she bolted to her car and drove away, heat rising from within her body and up her neck, into her cheeks. Now that godawful woman had gotten her fired. Damn bitch.

  When she arrived home, she found Kayla busy at the kitchen table doing her homework.

  “You’re home early,” Kayla said.

  “So?”

  “Geez. Sorry I said anything. But now that you’re here, can you help me with something?”

  Getting stumped by one of Kayla’s homework questions was the last thing she needed. “Go ahead. What is it?”

  “We’re studying the Declaration of Independence and we have to write a paper on what ‘All men are created equal’ means. I’m stuck on this.”

  “It means shit. That’s what it means.”

  “Mom, I can’t write that.”

  She sat down to join Kayla. “All it means is that at birth, we’re all the same. It doesn’t mean we’re treated the same afterward. It should read all rich men are created equal.”

  “But it says here we all have the same rights.”

  “Sure we do, but that doesn’t mean we’re all going to be able to get the same things in life. Oh, we all have the same rights alright—what we have to work our ass off for, others are handed. Does that help?”

  “Not really. If I wrote that, I’d probably get a ‘D’.”

  “Sorry. I’m not in a ‘created equal’ kind of mood.”

  Jessivel went into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her. She rubbed her throbbing forehead and fantasized about how an unfortunate downfall for her irritating half-sister Paige would have such a satisfying outcome. Like losing her business or something. Might be enough to even the playing field. Or maybe having her house burn down. Or being attacked by a pack of rogue coyotes. Show her how it feels to struggle for everything you have. Course she probably had a ton of money in the bank, and her father’s inheritance, so it wouldn’t make any difference anyhow. And she was sure her name wasn’t in Paige’s mother’s will. Otherwise, Paige would have said something.

  After the self-pity started to wear off, Jessivel winced every time she thought about her hysterical behavior in the coffee shop. She had overacted when she’d lit into Paige. She should have done it outside of work or better yet, not at all. She, “the help,” should have shown restraint when provoked, suppressed her anger, just like all the good little poor folks are expected to do.

  “C’mon in, Kayla,” she said responding to the knock on her door.

  Kayla peeked inside her room. “Is it safe?”

  “Come here, kiddo. I’m sorry for snapping at you. It’s not your fault.”

  “What’s not my fault?”

  “That I’m in such a shitty mood.”

  “Whose fault is it?”

  “Mine, sweetie. All mine.” She stroked Kayla’s hair. “It’s just that I’m so frustrated these days.”

  “With what?”

  “Everything. Everyone. But not you. And I need to learn not to take it out on you when I get this way. There is no reason for you to feel the way I do when you had nothing to do with it.”

  “Okay.”

  “Am I forgiven?”

  “Yep.”

  “C’mon,” Jessivel said taking Kayla’s hand. “Still want help with your homework?”

  Chapter 27

  Paige stayed seated at The Busy Bean while rehashing Jessivel’s reaction to her wanting to talk with her—Jessivel’s resentment glaringly clear but not understandable. But despite everything, surprising even herself, she still wanted to help her.

  Paige had never viewed herself as a snob. In fact, she considered herself much like her father who was the most down-to-earth, unpretentious person she’d ever known. Apparently, Jessivel had a different perception, and since she knew that someone’s perception was their reality, this unsettled her.

  Audrey came over to apologize for Jessivel’s behavior.

  “Don’t be too hard on her, Audrey,” Paige said. “She’s obviously got issues and a lot going on in her life.”

  “No one talks to my customers that way,” she said.

  “Can you give her a break on this one? Give her a second chance?”

  Audrey hesitated. “I’m sorry, but I can’t take the risk that she’ll do it again. She has to learn how to control her emotions, but not on my watch.”

  “How was her work otherwise?”

  She shrugged. “Great. She caught on quickly and even had a few good suggestions, ones I implemented. That raspberry-infused coffee you have in front of you? That’s her concoction. We sell a lot of it.”

  “Did she have any specialized training?”

  “I paid for her training at the Chicago Barista Academy.”

  “Interesting. Maybe her outburst was singular? Never to happen again?”

  “I hear ya, but I’m not willing to take a chance on her. Sorry.”

  “I appreciate your stand on this. I honestly do. I just wish the whole incident had never happened. I feel like I’m responsible for it.”

  “You did something to provoke her?”

  “I came in here.”

  “Not enough. She’s gone.”

  The unfortunate scene replayed itself the whole way home, like a relentless video in Paige’s head that she couldn’t turn off. She pictured in her mind her father’s two families, wanting to understand the differences. Paige’s family had lived in a three-story brownstone in an affluent neighborhood with wrought-iron fencing surrounding a sizeable yard complete with multiple flower gardens, two patios, and a fire pit. She had gone to a private college-prep high school and then Northwestern University where she had earned a double-major bachelor’s degree in business and finance while maintaining a 4.0 grade-point average. Once she had decided that real estate would be her lifelong career, she earned a mast
er’s degree in sales and marketing.

  Jessivel, her daughter, and her mother lived in a modest brick bungalow in a lower middle-class community. With Jessivel’s father no longer there to support them, they had lost their home, with Jessivel first ending up homeless and now in government housing.

  Justification for such bitterness? Paige wondered.

  Maybe.

  Probably.

  Likely.

  Paige pondered her next move. Staying away from her newfound half-sister—away from all the hostility, anger, and drama—would be the safest and easiest thing to do. Jessivel hadn’t given her even the slightest opportunity to become a kindred spirit, even though in some ways, they were going through the same things, and it should have been clear to Jessivel that Paige was trying to help. Turning her back on her seemed like the wrong thing to do, but maybe the time had come for Paige to call it quits on her.

  She recalled a quote she’d heard years earlier: “You live in the image you have of the world.” Maybe Jessivel was doing just that.

  And now Jessivel had lost her job. Paige understood enough about public housing to know she had three months’ free rent where she resided before she’d have to pay a percentage of her income. Jessivel needed another job, and the likelihood of her getting a good referral from Audrey was uncertain at best.

  She called Cassandra at the CDFSS offices and asked if she knew of any other coffee shops besides The Busy Bean that were willing to take a chance on someone who didn’t have much of a work history.

  “Are we talking about Jessivel?”

  “No, just a hypothetical question.”

  “Mm-hm. I’ll find out sooner or later, you know.”

  “I’m banking on later.”

  “You’re pretty funny.”

  “I try.”

  “I can’t think of any other shops offhand, but she could call Renaldo Vargas over at Goodwill Industries. He might be of some help.”

  Paige thanked Cassandra and called Renaldo, who gave her the name of the owner of a coffee shop just outside of Jessivel’s neighborhood that had hired inexperienced workers in the past, even ones with criminal backgrounds.

  “Do you have any openings for an entry-level employee, someone who’s gone through training at the Chicago Barista Academy?” she asked the owner of The Daily Grind.

  “Part-time, I do.”

  “She could come in and fill out an application any time?”

  “We’re open from six A.M. to three in the afternoon. Tell her to ask for me.”

  That was the easy part. The hard part would be getting the information to Jessivel without antagonizing her.

  “You’re not going to die, Mother,” Paige said. “Your doctor is saying you’ll fully recover from this.”

  “He doesn’t know, not for sure.”

  “Well, I guess one could say that no one knows anything for sure when it comes to life. But the odds are in your favor.”

  “Have they told you when I can go home? They’re not telling me anything.”

  “As soon as your vitals are stable.”

  “And when will that be?”

  “We don’t know—it’s a wait-and-see thing.”

  “How many of my plants have died?”

  “None.” Two were on the brink. “Have you been in touch with Natalie since you’ve been in the hospital?”

  “No. Why do you ask?”

  “Because she’s at your house.”

  “Oh?”

  “Mm-hm. I’m not sure how she got in though. Do you have any idea?”

  “What is she doing there?”

  “I was going to ask you the same question. She led me to believe that you and she had an agreement that she could stay there.”

  “She must have found the key under the fake rock by the back door.”

  “You removed that when the house was burglarized, remember?”

  “I put it back. You never know when—”

  “Then, how did she know how to disarm the security panel?”

  Her mother didn’t respond.

  “Did you give her the code?”

  “It’s her house too.”

  “I know. And I’m fine with that. I just thought since I’m taking care of it while you’re here, you might have mentioned it to me.”

  “Is that worthless boyfriend of hers with her?”

  “She said they broke up.”

  Her mother closed her eyes.

  “Mother?”

  “I’m tired now. Can you come back some other time? If it’s not asking too much.”

  “There’s something you need to know about Nat.”

  “What’s that?”

  “She’s pregnant.”

  Her mother’s eyes flew open. “No.”

  “She is.”

  “That’s the last thing she needs.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “How far along is she?”

  “I don’t know, but she hasn’t been to a doctor, so…”

  “She needs to get to one.”

  “I agree. Maybe she’ll listen to you.”

  “You can handle it,” she said closing her eyes.

  “I don’t think—”

  “I’ll talk to you later.”

  Paige drove to her mother’s house speculating what it must have been like for Natalie during the last years she had lived at home. She had to have felt very alone with their father gone so much, their mother heavily involved in charity work, and Paige in college. Natalie’s accident just weeks before her high school graduation was a huge setback and the beginning of her downward spiral. But neither Paige nor their parents realized until much later the long-term effect it would have on her.

  Today, at thirty-nine, Natalie had been an addict for so long that even though she might have been able to overcome the physical part of the addiction, Paige thought it would be difficult for her to unlearn the bad behavior that had gone along with it.

  And now, a baby? How could she possibly fit a child into her life?

  She found Natalie asleep on the sofa when she arrived at their mother’s house and quietly went about the business of watering her mother’s plants and going through her mail. When a knock on the door interrupted her chores, Paige went to answer it and found two young men dressed in suits and ties standing before her. She pointed to the NO SOLICITING sign.

  “Did you not see this?” she asked them.

  “We’re not soliciting,” the taller of the two said. “We’re looking for Elaine West.”

  “She’s not here. How can I help you?” she said while lessening the space left by the open door.

  “My name is Tim Noor, and this is my brother Hank.”

  Their nationality wasn’t readily apparent—the one doing the talking had a heavy accent which could have been East Indian, and each had a similar tawny-brown skin tone. While the name ‘Noor’ sounded vaguely familiar, their presence didn’t feel right to her, and she promptly closed the door in their faces.

  “Ma’am, please don’t shut us out,” the man said through the closed door. “We just want to talk to Mrs. West. She was married to the late Ryan West, our father.”

  Chapter 28

  The way she had left The Busy Bean gnawed at Jessivel and caused conflicting emotions. She knew what she’d done had been wrong, but no matter where she was or what she was doing, she wasn’t going to put on airs for anybody. I am who I am. Then she recalled something her mother had told her about her own job—it’s something I have to do, not something I have to love. She considered the alternative—going back to living out of her car; lack of private bathroom facilities; wearing wrinkled, dirty clothing; not feeling safe; and putting Kayla into that unhealthy situation again.

  She swallowed her pride and called Audrey.

  “I appreciate the apology, Jessivel, but you have to control yourself at all times in front of customers, even if you don’t like—”

  “Look, I was…” Jessivel caught herself from getting defensive.
“I’m really sorry that happened. It won’t happen again.”

  “I have no tolerance for that kind of behavior, and don’t forget that you walked off the job. That’s when your employment here ended. Learn from the experience, Jess. I wish you well in the future.”

  Jessivel clicked off without saying anything more, then flung her phone down on her bed, where luckily it stayed—she couldn’t afford to replace a busted phone. She figured it would only be a matter of time before Cassandra at the CDFSS office found out about her losing her job, since she and Audrey knew each other. She’d been in the apartment a month and expected to pay rent in sixty more days. Damn rules. Damn father. Damn life!

  Her phone rang.

  “Jessivel? This is Marlene from work. I only have a minute. I’m on break. Listen, we heard about you losing your job here, and we’re all so sorry that happened. We really liked working with you. But here’s the thing. That lady you yelled at? Well, I overheard her asking Audrey to take it easy on you. She didn’t want you to lose your job over it. I just thought you’d like to know. That’s all.”

  Stunned, Jessivel was speechless for several seconds before she responded. “Thanks. That’s good to know. Hey, do you know of anyone else hiring?”

  “Not really. But if you want to use me as a reference, you can. You know your shit. Hey, you taught me how to do latte art without any splitting. I was terrible at it before. Oh, and something else. I understand getting mad at the customers—some of them are so rude. But you gotta learn to hold back when you’re waiting on the public. Take a deep breath. Kill ‘em with kindness if you have to. I make a game out of it. That’s how I get through it.”

  “This wasn’t just a rude customer, Marlene. It was personal.”

  “Well, all I know is that woman was sticking up for you. Just sayin’.”

  Jessivel hung up and flopped down on her bed, tired of having to deal with things that were out of her comfort zone. Marlene had some nerve telling her to calm down when she didn’t know the circumstances. She called her mother.