A Stranger's Wish (14 page)

“You’re looking at a human pincushion,” Mr. Geohagan grumped as I took my seat again, my hands safely in my lap. “Do you know that there’s one person whose job it is to go around all day and take blood from people? That’s all she does—stab people! What a job, sucking blood from already ill people. A modern day vampire. She only gets away with it because we’re too weak and sick to fight her off.”

I leaned back in my chair. “Now, you know you’re fortunate to have someone like her caring for you. You should be thanking God instead of griping.”

“See? That’s just the kind of in-your-face, cheer-me-up comment Cathleen would have made. And I need cheering up. Did you know they’re going to send me to a nursing home when the hepatitis clears up? With sick, old people! And they’ll probably try and make me stay there forever.”

“You can’t stay there forever,” I said, trying to tease him into a better mood. “You’ve got too much to do. You told me so yourself.”

“I do,” he agreed. “I’ve got lots to do, and it needs to be done now. And I can’t do it stuck in here!”

My heart went out to him. “What can I do to help? Just tell me.”

“See? Cathleen. And actually there are a couple of things you can do. I was just hoping you’d ask.” He handed me a piece of paper and a key.

I looked at the key. “Another one? Do I have to keep it for life too?”

“Don’t get all worked up. It belongs to my apartment. I’d appreciate it if you’d go over and get some books and things for me. I’ve written down everything I want, and I’ve drawn you a map.”

I read the list written in a spidery hand and looked at the map with its tremulous streets.

“You live near my school,” I said. “I have to go to parents’ night tonight. I’ll stop for your things on the way and bring them to you tomorrow. Is that soon enough?”

His appreciative smile made the slight inconvenience negligible.

“The apartment isn’t much,” he said. “Cathleen never lived there. Neither did my wife. We had a wonderful house in the country, but…” His voice trailed off.

The three of them? Or just him and Cathleen?

All the way home I thought about Everett Geohagan. Here was a man who hurt both physically and emotionally. His weakened body might or might not recover from its multiple attacks. And he deeply mourned for Cathleen, obviously much loved. How long was it since her death? How old had she been when she died? And what had she died from?

And where was Mrs. Geohagan? For there to be a Cathleen, there had to be such a lady. Was she dead too? Was that why I was the errand runner, the heir apparent? Or were they divorced and she was no longer involved in his life?

Full of unanswered questions and frustration because I couldn’t fix any of Mr. Geohagan’s real problems, I arrived home just in time to be included in dinner. We gathered around the oilcloth-covered table and bowed our heads for the silent grace. Mary’s chicken and stuffing went around the table, as did the fresh beets, beans, and tomatoes.

“Guess who I saw today?” I asked as I spread some apple butter on Mary’s delicious potato rusk.

The five Zooks asked who? with their eyebrows.

“Adam Hurlbert!”

Ruth looked at me blankly. “Who?”

“Adam Hurlbert. You know. The man who’s running for U.S. senator.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know him, either,” Elam said around a mouthful of chicken.

The cultural gap yawned wide at my feet. I’d forgotten that politics were a foible of the fancy.

“I’ve seen him on TV,” Jake said, coming to my rescue. “Tall, handsome, white hair, too many teeth. Beautiful wife. Hurlbert Construction.”

“That’s him,” I said.

“Hurlbert Construction? I know the company name.” Elam stabbed another piece of chicken from the serving platter. “I seen their equipment and projects around.”

“They’re the ones that built the motel and restaurant on what used to be Fishers’ farm, ain’t?” asked John. “They put all that rich, black soil under macadam?”

Elam nodded. “That’s them.”

John looked up from his noodles. “And you saw him today?”

“At the hospital. He was visiting Mr. Geohagan because Mr. Geohagan used to work for him.”

“Well, if you see him again, tell him to leave farmland alone.” And John returned to his food.

“Okay,” I said, though I couldn’t imagine doing any such thing. “But he’s Mr. Geohagan’s friend, not mine.”

“And how is your friend coming along?” Mary asked.

“I think he’s doing all right, but he has emphysema and hepatitis, and they’re complicating his recovery. He’s going to have to go to a nursing home, and that scares and angers him.”

I washed down a mouthful of fresh beans with sweetened iced tea. “Today he told me I reminded him of his daughter Cathleen, though I’m not as pretty.”

“He actually said that? That you weren’t pretty?” Ruth asked, aghast. “But you’re beautiful.”

“Ruth,” Mary said in quiet reprimand. Compliments led to pride.

I blushed. I caught Ruth’s eye and mouthed thanks. She grinned, and I wondered again what she really thought of me and my dangly earrings and brightly colored clothing and yellow car.

One evening last week she and I had washed the dinner dishes together. She was talking about the new dress she was sewing.

“Would you ever wear a pink or yellow dress?” I asked. I knew red, my favorite color, was out of the question. It was the color for harlots. Prints were also verboten. But soft, plain hues? “God made those colors too. Just look at the flowers.”

“Oh, I’d never wear bold things like that,” Ruth said, immediately rejecting the idea. “I wouldn’t want to wear anything that called attention to me.”

I nodded, thinking that if I dressed the way she did, I’d be doing exactly what she wanted to avoid. It all came down to whom you hung around with.

“Cathleen,” Jake said from his place across the table from me. “Cathleen Geohagan. Why does that name sound familiar?”

We all looked at him expectantly, but he shook his head. “It’ll come. Just give me a few minutes.”

I was finishing my last spoonful of corn starch pudding when Jake yelled, “Aha! I have it.”

“Tell me,” I said eagerly.

“I read about her in the Lancaster paper about six or seven months ago. I remember because she used to date one of the guys I worked with at the trailer plant before she threw him over for some other guy. Broke my friend’s heart, but that’s another story.”

“That was in the paper?” If so, it took the term “slow news day” to a whole new level.

“Very funny.” He helped himself to more pudding. “Actually, I read about her death. She killed herself with pills and booze.”

10

I
was stunned. I remembered Mr. Geohagan lying in his bed, hands resting on his stomach, eyes staring at memories.

“I miss her,” he had said. I just bet he did.

“I remember something else about her death,” Jake said. “It was her parents who found her, and it was too much for the mother.”

“She died too?” I was afraid of the answer.

“No, I don’t think so,” Jake said. “She just had a stroke or something like that.”

Just a stroke. No wonder she never came to visit.
As we bowed our heads for the silent post-dinner prayer, all I could think about was poor Mr. Geohagan.

Oh, Lord, he needs You so badly! How can I help him find You?

I left early for parents’ night so that I’d have time to detour to Mr. Geohagan’s apartment to pick up the things he needed. I wore the conservative navy skirt I’d worn when I came to meet the Zooks for the first time. I even wore the cream silk blouse. Anything to impress the parents with how trustworthy I was. However, I suspect I shot the whole conservative image with my silver-studded denim blazer, the product of another art class. I particularly liked the great appliquéd pumpkin on the back and the artfully arranged fall foliage at its base, so seasonally appropriate.

I followed Mr. Geohagan’s directions in a blue funk. I’m good at feeling depressed even when nothing’s wrong, and the circumstances of Mr. Geohagan’s life provided more than ample fodder for my blues.

“You may have a sensitive artist’s nature,” my mother used to tell me after my secret was out and during one of my melancholy moods. “But that’s no excuse to inflict your pessimism on the rest of us. Rain on your own parade if you must, but not on mine. Now shape up or spend the day somewhere else.”

There was something about lawyers that made them unafraid to speak their minds, at least the lawyers I knew.

I’ve learned to spare the general populace my blue periods as I’ve matured, but tonight I felt justified in feeling positively morose. Even my sunshine car did nothing to relieve my dark mood.

As I walked down a long, dingy hall of the unimpressive tan brick apartment building, I studied the door numbers, looking for number 10. I was nonplussed when I found two 6’s until I realized one was a 9 whose top screw had come out, causing the number to rotate 180 degrees—a great metaphor for the condition of the building. Everything was a dirty, dreary beige. Even the straw wreath someone had hung on number 5 was shaggy and uninspiring. The brass plate on number 8 was so tarnished and pitted that it looked like wrought iron.

I found number 10 at the end of the hall and turned the key silently in the lock. I felt like a cat burglar, sneaking about where I had no business. I imagined a neighbor calling the police, and I couldn’t help wondering whether my principal would see the humor if I were arrested on parents’ night. I glanced furtively down the hall, and then I carefully and quickly opened and closed the door behind me.

It was no surprise to find the apartment as depressing as the hallway. There were no smiling family pictures in gilt or silver frames personalizing the rooms. Nothing hung on the walls or sat on the end tables to lighten the dull grayness of the room. It was more than obvious that Cathleen and Mrs. Geohagan had never lived here. No woman could have stood the sterility.

I walked to the single bedroom and stood in the doorway, staring. The double bed was unmade, left just as it had been the day Mr. Geohagan became ill. A pair of gray trousers hung from the closet doorknob, the legs pooling into wrinkles. A plastic hamper held a pair of dirty blue socks and some underwear, and the dresser top was empty except for a sprinkling of small change.

I set my purse on the floor and put the pants on a hanger after hand-pressing them flat. I stuck them in the closet. After that I quickly made the bed. I couldn’t help wondering if the pants would ever be worn or if the bed would ever be slept in again. I smoothed the bedspread carefully over the single pillow and sighed. A double bed should never have only one pillow.

Feeling even more deeply melancholy, I gathered the stationery and paperback Westerns I had come for, found the pajamas and underwear, the slippers and robe. I tossed them in the canvas tote bag I’d brought. I stood by the window and looked out at the gathering night, resting my head against the pane. I felt tears very near the surface.

Suddenly, with all the sound and fury of crashing surf, the toilet in the bathroom flushed.

I froze, not even breathing. A bomb detonating beside me couldn’t have shocked me more.

Water rushed from the bathroom tap as someone—someone who shouldn’t be here—washed his hands.

Are clean thieves nicer than dirty ones?
Help, Lord!

I heard the bathroom door open, and I grabbed my chest to keep my heart from popping right through my rib cage. Where to hide?

For want of a better place, I rushed to the closet, tote bag thumping against the wall as I ran. I pulled the door quietly closed after me, hoping the muffled thuds hadn’t been audible to anyone but me. I held my breath in the small, dark space and pressed my ear to the door.

I heard footfalls as he—I assumed it was a he—came into the bedroom. And stopped. I could almost feel his surprise through the door.

The bed! I had made the bed! If he had been in this room before, he now knew someone else was in the apartment.

And my purse sat on the floor beside the bed. I might as well just yell, “Hey, you’ve got company!”

He walked from the bedroom, and I strained to hear. Maybe he’d missed the significance of the bed, hadn’t seen the purse, and was just going to leave. There obviously wasn’t anything in this place worth taking.

Then again, maybe he wasn’t leaving. Over the thudding alarms of my heart I could hear him moving from room to room, undoubtedly looking for the newly arrived maid. I was doomed.

I pulled the light cord dangling from the ceiling. I had jumped and bitten back a scream the first time I bumped it when I rushed into the closet. Now I blinked in its weak light as I looked wildly around for some clever place to hide. Hanging from the rod were half a dozen shirts and three pairs of slacks, including the ones I had just put there. No hope of concealment there. But the top shelf was completely empty. I could hide there.

Yeah, right. Even if I’d been able to scramble up there on thin air, I’d be a bit obvious when the door was wrenched open.