by Nella Tyler
Gilda had bundled up the baby and wrapped a towel around Scott’s head before driving to the emergency room. As they wheeled him down the hallway to x-ray, she turned on her heel and left the hospital, the keys to the truck in hand. She stopped by the house long enough to grab her money and the suitcase she kept packed and hidden behind the washing machine.
With Carson howling, she drove to within five blocks of the train station and abandoned the truck there, the keys still in the ignition. She bought a coach seat for herself, and Carson’s fare was free, as long as they weren’t crowded.
Gilda sat in the depot to wait. They were bound for New York City — where no one would know her.
Chapter 3
Gilda fell across the bed of the cheap room and could smell things she didn’t want to think about. Her money wouldn’t last long, and she needed work immediately. There was also the problem of daycare for Carson.
Although she was exhausted, she pulled out the newspaper she’d taken from the train terminal seat and the map of the city. She was considering domestic work, hoping she could find a family who wouldn’t mind if Carson was included in the deal. She hoped perhaps she would be lucky enough to snag something that included lodging.
She was about to turn off her light when there was a knock at her door. Startled, she flipped off the lamp and sat quietly. The knock came again; this time more loudly. She saw Carson stirring and stumbled to the door. “Yes?” she whispered loudly.
“It’s me, Barry,” came a drunken voice and when she looked through the peephole, she saw him stumble and hit the wall. She knew Carson would awaken if he kept this up, and she was too tired to deal with that.
What is he doing here? she asked herself. “Go away!” she whispered furiously. She felt the familiar fear, the instinct to run, but there was no escape. The fear was so strong, she wasn’t entirely certain whether the man at the door was actually Scott. Had he followed her?
“Nope! Figure you need help with the little guy and you’ve got no people here. I’ll be your people,” came Barry’s recently familiar voice. Gilda mentally slapped herself into reality.
The situation was getting quickly out of hand. Gilda threw herself across the bed and reached for the phone, dialing for the front desk. There was no answer. She dialed 9-1-1 and when it was answered, she quickly explained she was being harassed. They said they would send a car, and she hung up the phone to wait, sitting at the end of the bed near Carson in his drawer bed. The knocking continued and the baby awakened. Gilda had no formula left and put water into the bottle for him. She tried singing a soft lullaby, but the knocking was drowning her out.
Why doesn’t someone get him to leave? she wondered.
She heard male voices in the hallway and peeked through the peephole. She could see someone in a uniform and there came a more polite tap at the door.
“NYPD, responding to your call. Please open the door, ma’am,” came his voice as a hand held a badge up to the peephole.
Gilda obliged and opened the door, leaving the chain in place.
“You called in a complaint?” he said in a matter-of-fact tone.
“Yeah,” she responded. “That man is trying to get in my room.”
“I need you to open up and sign a complaint, ma’am. We have the suspect in temporary custody, and he’s headed down to the squad car.”
Gilda obliged and after signing the report, she closed the door, triple-locked it, and got Carson back to sleep before climbing beneath the cover and falling into a deep sleep.
She’d been dealing with people like Barry for a long time; she only felt relief. She’d been Scott’s victim and had felt powerless. Or had she? She realized then that she’d taken her life back into her own hands — and that was very empowering.
She sat up in bed as the realization began to fill her with a positive outlook. Yes! She had taken back her life! Her deep-brown eyes, previously colored with pain and hopelessness, now lightened. She looked at baby Carson, peacefully asleep. He would never grow up with Scott’s drinking or hearing his mother cry.
Something was nagging at her — something she’d seen in the want ads. She had passed over it quickly, not taking it seriously. Now, however, it made all the sense in the world.
She scrambled across the bed and sank to the floor, pulling the lamp with her and grabbing the discarded paper. She found it again — and every light in the world couldn’t have been brighter at that exact moment. The ad was offering a secretarial position at the New York City Police Department. It was perfect! Not only would she be protected from Scott and others like him, but she would be a part of helping other women who had come from similar circumstances.
She had her plan; she had her life. She was so excited, she could hardly get to sleep. Even if she couldn’t land that particular job, there had to be others like it. This was a big city. It was now her city.
Chapter 4
Four Years Later
Cole looked at the city from his vantage in the descending jet. He saw it not with the eyes of an excited tourist, but scanned the familiar horizon for the unusual. Was there something or someone out of place? he tried to reason mentally, although he was far too high over New York City to make a valid judgment. He felt like a new recruit, filled with nervous anticipation, his senses on high alert as he considered the enemy waiting below.
He would make the difference; he could feel it in his gut. It wasn’t arrogance that fueled his conviction, but a confidence that he was fresh upon the scene and not war weary. He understood the state-of-the-art weapons and his tactical awareness was newly briefed from headquarters. He was keyed up and ready to go.
Passengers seated nearby saw only a very fit man with a military haircut. He held himself erect, and his features were constantly on the alert. They felt his tension and wondered whether there was a purpose to his being on that plane.
Few people could approach New York City without some sense of apprehension; it was a fabled town with a vivid past. It was the land of territorial immigrants and mobsters, murders and terrorism.
The pilot’s voice came on and announced their approach to LaGuardia, as did the “Fasten Seatbelt” light. The passengers began an anxious chatter. Some were looking forward to meeting friends or family; others were just business travelers, home from another trip.
The voice broke through Cole’s reverie, and like a command he’d just received, he relaxed and began to collect his things. He had arrived at the destination and his mission was about to begin.
* * *
Cole signaled a taxi and requested to be taken to East 20th Street, the main precinct of the New York City Police Department. Just days before, he had finished his last tour of duty with the U.S. Army and was moving on to his next career dream: to be a cop in one of the most dangerous, exciting cities in the world.
Cole was a man who sought out challenges. The opportunities had never been few; growing up with his father had seen to that.
With his military service in his pocket, he had already qualified for the department and now just needed to begin his pre-hire interview. The medical and psychological exams would come later. He felt no anxiety over the process — his military career had seen to that.
The taxi stopped before the entrance to the eight-story building, and Cole paid the toll and stepped out, looking upward and around. He was always aware of his surroundings and checked in at the identification booth before proceeding inside the NYPD building for his appointment.
“Cole Stephens, reporting for my pre-hire interview,” he spoke tersely through the grate of the bulletproof glass separating him from the on-duty officer.
“ID?” The man barely looked up. Cole held up his driver’s license and slid it through the revolving tray in the base of the window. The man looked it over, made some notations on his clipboard, and glanced at the picture and then at Cole before sliding it back. “Third floor, room three-eight-six,” he barked, and Cole grabbed his ID as he heard the lock click.
The interview was brief, and there were several candidates there at the same time. He was seated with a few others and given packets of information for the upcoming interview steps, the next being a medical exam. He had no doubts about that, nor any of the rest of it for that matter. The U.S. Army lost one of their finest when his tour ended.
Cole pulled out the file folder from his briefcase and extracted the information he’d collected regarding short-term housing to get his new address for a form. He wanted to remain fairly mobile until he knew whether he’d made it onto the force.
Before leaving the building, he headed for the small medical unit the NYPD maintained for physicals and other non-emergency treatments. He realized it was considered a secure area as it was a counter behind a wire mesh door. A young woman in her mid-twenties with blondish hair was typing at a computer behind the counter. Cole tapped on the glass of the door and held up his ID and visitor’s pass. Huge brown eyes regarded him, nodded, and buzzed him in.
“May I help you?” she asked, and he instantly recognized a southern inflection in her voice.
“Yes, ma’am. My name is Cole Stephens, and I need to schedule a medical exam as part of my application to join the force.”
“Mr. Stephens, now if you’ll just have a seat over there, please,” she pointed, “and we’ll see when they can schedule you in?”
Cole nodded and sat as indicated, shuffling his folder to straighten his papers repeatedly.
“You a military man, Mr. Stephens?” asked the young woman, nodding toward him.
“Yes, ma’am — that is, I was,” he answered, puzzled.
“Call me Gilda,” she laughed, “and I see lots of you guys in here. I can always tell when one of you is freshly out.”
“Ma’am?”
“Oh, yeah,” she began and stood up to lean over the counter. “That’s the first sign: you address me politely. The next is that you’re shuffling your papers to keep them orderly, and then, well, then, there’s your haircut. That isn’t something you got in a salon,” she added with a grin.
Cole’s hand instantly smoothed his hair and he looked self-conscious.
“Now, don’t worry about that. It looks good on you,” she drawled, and he liked the sound of her voice. His attention, however, was on her full breasts that seemed to flood her shirt onto the counter; the buttons strained from the weight of her. He could feel himself becoming hard and quickly looked away to regain his composure.
Gilda smiled, knowingly. She knew the attraction she drew from men, and those around the precinct knew she was not “easy.” They looked after her like a kid sister. It had afforded her a certain ability to be her natural, comfortable self — a quality many men found flirty and appealing.
“Could I get you to pee in this cup?” Gilda asked Cole, holding a plastic vial.
His head popped upright. “Ma’am?” he asked, unsure he’d heard her correctly. When he saw the urine sample cup, he knew he had. He rose to his feet and with a flushed face, gingerly accepted the cup and followed the direction she pointed.
“Thank you. They’ll need time to check that out. Around here we like to surprise the guys…we call it random. When you’re done with that, you’ll want to leave it on the sink and I’ll see to it. Then I’m going to poke you for some blood.”
Cole acknowledged her instructions with a curt nod as he went into the small bathroom. When he returned, Gilda opened a door behind her and motioned him inside. “Roll up your sleeve,” she told him and picked up the tray with equipment for drawing blood. “So, you want to be a cop?” she asked, making conversation as she normally did. She’d learned that despite bravery under fire, a burly cop could still be afraid of a needle. Cole didn’t seem to have any problem, however. He immediately did as asked: bent his elbow and stoically looked straight ahead. Gilda nodded her approval.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You can call me Gilda. If you work here, you’ll be one of the guys, and they all know me.”
“You didn’t grow up in New York, Gilda?” he said, making it more of a statement than a question.
“No, you noticed that, did you?” she responded, exaggerating her drawl.
“How did you end up here?” Gilda seated the needle but Cole didn’t even blink.
She hesitated. She wanted the past left where it was and preferred to think of her life in New York City as the beginning. “Came to visit and decided to say,” she offered, withdrawing the needle. “Here, hold this over that, and it should stop bleeding in a few seconds.”
She turned and went about her business. He felt drawn to her for some reason and it was more than the fact that her breasts rested against his arm as she drew the blood. She smelled of lilac, and for a moment, the image of the huge flowering bush in his mother’s backyard came to mind. He felt the momentary softening and instantly drew himself upright. There was no room for sentimentality in his future. In his mind, he was simply trading one army for another and awaiting his orders.
“Well, there you go,” Gilda concluded cheerily as she put a small bandage over the spot. “You’ll get a phone call after these results are in. If everything is fine, they’ll set you up for the remainder of the physical.”
“Any idea how long?” Cole asked. It wasn’t as if it really mattered; he just felt like sticking around a bit longer. She made him feel good.
“Hmm…probably three or four days. Be sure we have a number for you.” She set about tidying up the room.
Cole nodded and turned to go, but had another thought. “Is there a number I can call here?”
She nodded and pressed past him to get to her desk. He smelled the lilacs. “Here you go. This is our card. It rings right here to this phone directly.”
“Thank you…Gilda… An unusual name,” Cole commented.
“My mama watched too many movies,” she answered in what he considered an absolutely charming drawl.
“I like your mother’s taste,” he offered and gave her a short salute before leaving. Gilda finished tidying up the small laboratory room and had a smile on her face as she sat back down at her computer.
Chapter 5
“Mama!” cried Carson, running for his mother’s arms. He leapt upward and she caught him, realizing those days were numbered. He was growing like a weed and before long, she wouldn’t be able to carry him.
“Was he good, Mrs. Crutcher?” she asked.
Mrs. Crutcher looked up from her crocheting. “Yes, yes, as always,” she smiled, the gold cap in the German woman’s teeth gleaming in the light from her lamp. “He is always good,” she affirmed.
Mrs. Crutcher lived a floor above Gilda and Carson in the very modest apartment building Mrs. Crutcher’s husband had bought when they first immigrated to America. Without grandchildren of her own, she was only too glad to watch Carson while Gilda was at work. In return, Gilda helped her keep up the place, scrubbing floors, washing windows, mowing the postage stamp backyard in summer, and so forth. Gilda had become like a daughter to her.
“See you in the morning, Mrs. Crutcher,” Gilda said as she hugged the rotund woman goodnight before she and Carson headed downstairs.
“Macaroni and cheese for dinner, please, Mama?” Carson pleaded, holding her hand down the shallow stairs.
“I think we can manage that,” Gilda laughed as she let them into their apartment with her key. It was a very small, two-bedroom apartment, and the furniture was the odd piece that Gilda had been able to drag home from the Goodwill on the corner. She’d done her best to make a home for them, but things were so expensive in New York City.
Her first year working had gone toward putting together their apartment home. The second had gone to pay for the lawyer who maneuvered through her divorce from Scott. That had been tricky as Scott didn’t want the divorce, and wanted to see her face-to-face. She knew she wouldn’t get a second chance to escape, so she had vehemently refused and operated totally from a post office box relay set up with her girlfriend at home so he couldn’t t
rack her.
Eventually, her lawyer had prevailed when she gave up all rights to child support, alimony, and any property they’d had. Scott didn’t know that she didn’t want anything from him, regardless. Her attorney had bargained down from the maximum in order to appeal to Scott’s sense of having taken advantage of someone.
She made dinner while Carson set the table and turned on his favorite cartoon to watch until it was ready. Gilda went through the mail, sighing at the growing stack of bills. She knew she was going to have to take on a second job to get caught up, but was trying to delay this until Carson was in school come the next September. In the meantime, she paid on her balances and hoped that she’d somehow skate through. She knew she was behind in her rent to Mrs. Crutcher by a month, but the kindly old lady said nothing about it.
Gilda owed her a great deal, not only as a landlord, but as a surrogate mother figure. She had taken Gilda and Carson under wing as her own family, and together, the three of them contributed their individual richness to one another’s lives.
Carson sat next to Gilda on their stiff, shabby sofa and watched the movie To Kill a Mockingbird.
“Mama, why do those people talk funny?” he asked, lifting the crook of her arm to snuggle more closely to her side.
“That’s set in the South, baby… That’s where we’re from.” She loved these times they spent together.
“We are?” There was wonderment in his voice. “Where is the South?”
“Ohhhh, baby, it’s far, far away from here. It’s hot in the summer — so hot that you can’t hardly stand it. The people there move slower, and even talk slower, because it’s so hot and they got to take things easy. Almost everyone lives in houses, not apartments like this. Most of them drive cars or walk, or ride bicycles.”