Cast Me Gently (10 page)

“No, it’s fascinating,” Teresa said. “Things like surgical hardware and artificial joints. Synthetic ligaments.”

“Yes!” Sullivan said, leaning forward. “I have so many ideas about how joint replacements could be so much better than they are now. And we’re just starting to explore how computers and robotics—”

“Oh, don’t get him started,” Ellie said. “Talking about this stuff is like drugs for him. He won’t sleep for days. Teresa is a pharmacist.”

“So you know what I’m talking about,” Sullivan said.

“Only a little. Things I’ve read in journals.” Teresa looked at her watch. “I really should go. It’s late.” She stood. “Nice to meet you, Sullivan.”

“Likewise,” he said.

Ellie walked her back out to the kitchen. “Thanks again for asking me to go with you tonight. I had a really nice time.”

Teresa looked into her clear eyes and felt lost. She stood there, not wanting to leave, but unable to think of any reason to stay.

Ellie impulsively flung her arms around Teresa. This time, Teresa held her tightly in return, breathing her in for several seconds.

Suddenly, she let go and reached for the door. “I’ll see you soon,” she said and nearly ran down the stairs. By the time she got to the VW, tears were running down her cheeks.

She got into the car and turned the ignition. She started to reach for the gearshift and then put her hands over her face and cried.

Ellie looked up as KC meowed and placed a gentle paw on her knee. Wincing, she uncrossed her legs and looked around at the drawings scattered all over the living room floor. Her eyelids felt like sandpaper. She squinted, surprised to see sunlight coming in through the windows. She hadn’t meant to stay up all night.

She leaned back against the couch and closed her eyes. After Teresa left, Sullivan had shown signs of wanting to settle down for a long visit. “I’m really tired,” she’d said with a yawn, ushering him back to his own apartment as soon as she politely could. Only, once she was alone, sleep had been impossible. She was filled with a restless energy. Going to a dresser drawer, she’d dug out a drawing pad and an old cigar box filled with her charcoals, pencils and a kneaded eraser. She wasn’t even sure what it was that she was going to draw, but the sketches took shape—hands, eyes, a bowed head with dark, wavy hair. Looking at the images now, she flushed as she realized they were all images of Teresa, or at least her impressions of Teresa. She picked up a sketch of hands and remembered watching Teresa’s hands as they’d worked on the store window, fine fingers tying fishing line to the pretend-balloons. Such a contrast to the awkwardness of her large body. Last night, she’d been watching Teresa—the way she lowered her eyes when she was thinking about something, her dark lashes grazing her cheek, her strong profile with a prominent nose, something so sensuous about the curve of her lips, her hands as she twisted the stem of her wine glass. She was such a curious mixture of strong and…
what?
Delicate
wasn’t the right word. Maybe sensitive suited her better. Ellie had looked up once to see Karen watching her watch Teresa and she had known in an instant that here was someone who saw everything, and that if she and Karen ever were to talk, it would do no good to hide or lie.

Ellie flipped to the back pages of her drawing pad, to images she hadn’t looked at in years. They were only sketches—the line of a cheek and nose; an eye, smiling and coy; a head of short, pixie-ish hair and the graceful curve of a neck—but they were instantly recognizable. Ellie reached out and traced a finger along the curve of that neck. Katie was the Lockes’ youngest daughter, just a couple of months older than Ellie.
“She’ll be good company for you,”
the social worker had said when she placed Ellie with the Lockes. The two girls had bonded quickly. Katie was an athlete and knew everybody. The Lockes’ sons were away at college, and so Ellie was given the boys’ room, connected to Katie’s by a Jack and Jill bathroom that became a secret passage, one that let Katie come to Ellie in the night. Nights spent with the girls’ lying in the two twin beds, talking and giggling, had been like an endless slumber party. But that had all changed the summer between their junior and senior years of high school, the night Katie crawled into Ellie’s bed—“You won’t tell, will you?” Katie had whispered.

Ellie’s heart had raced, and a part of her knew she’d been wanting this for a long time as she felt Katie’s soft lips on her own, better than any boy’s kisses, Katie’s hands sliding under her pajama top to caress young breasts. She got to touch Katie’s body as well, the wondrous feel of Katie’s hard nipples pressing into her palms. They never strayed beyond teasing little tugs on the waistband of their underwear, but with Katie lying on top of her, their thighs pressing against each other’s crotches, Ellie had experienced her first orgasm as she bucked against the pressure of Katie’s leg.

But then, one day just before they were to start their senior year, Mrs. Locke said, “Come with me.”

Mrs. Locke had looked unusually stern as Ellie followed her. They got in the car. Ellie remembered how her heart had pounded, thinking maybe she was being returned to social services, but all her clothes and things were still there at the house… They had driven to St. Ignatius, the Lockes’ church. Ellie had been going to Mass with them there and thought old Father Patrick looked a little like a beardless Santa Claus, fat and kind of jolly-looking, only he, too, had worn a very serious expression when Ellie was ushered into his office that afternoon.

“I’ll wait outside,” Mrs. Locke said, backing out of the office and closing the door.

Nervously, Ellie had stood as Father Patrick came around from behind his desk and invited her to sit in one of the two chairs there as he took the other.

She had only seen him in the robes he wore to celebrate Mass. In his black shirt and collar, he looked different, more somber. Ellie remembered how her heart had continued pounding so fast that she could hardly breathe, wondering why she was there.

“Ellie,” Father Patrick began. “I understand this is a delicate situation.” He folded his hands together, and Ellie thought his fingers looked like fat sausages, with nails that were too long for a man. “Katie went to her mother and told her everything.”

It took a moment for his words to sink in.
Katie told?
“We understand that you’ve been through a very traumatic time, losing your mother, and maybe you come from a different kind of family,” Father Patrick continued, his voice taking on the tone it did when he was giving a homily. “But the Lockes are a good, Catholic family. Katie likes you, but not in that sinful way.”

Ellie felt her face go red and hot, and she dared not look up at him. She stared at his fat fingers and said nothing.

Father Patrick cleared his throat. “I’ve spoken to Mr. and Mrs. Locke, and they have agreed to let you stay in their house, but with the stern warning that you must not go into Katie’s room again, and you can never…” Here, even Father Patrick seemed not to know what to say. “You must not draw Katie into sin again. If you do, the Lockes will have no choice but to send you back to Social Services for a different foster placement.”

The ride back to the house had been a silent one. When Ellie got to her room, she found that the door from her bedroom to the bathroom had been fitted with a lock, so that the only way into the bathroom was now through the hall. The Lockes were taking no chances that Ellie might slip into Katie’s room again—“except I never went to her room!” Ellie wanted to scream. She couldn’t even look at Katie. For days, she stayed in her room, leaving only to go to school, where she avoided Katie. At the house, she refused to come down for meals, surviving on a bowl of cereal scavenged during the night. How could she sit at the table while Katie pretended it had all been Ellie’s fault? That was when the Lockes got her KC, thinking the kitten would be good company, and she was. She kept Ellie company through the long, lonely nights. She kept her company when the Lockes went to church on Sundays—Ellie refused to go back there. KC became her lifeline, her confidante. Ellie kept a calendar on the wall over her desk, counting down the last six and a half months until she turned eighteen and could leave their house for good.

“But it’s only March,” Mrs. Locke had said. “What are you going to do about school?”

“I’ll manage,” Ellie insisted, and since Social Services couldn’t legally make her stay once she was eighteen, there had been nothing any of them could do.

Ellie packed her few things, put KC in a carrier, and left Duquesne Heights without a backward glance, and without ever having said another word to Katie. She had to dig into her paltry college fund, just enough to rent that first room back in Squirrel Hill, promising herself she would pay it back when she could. She got a part-time job, registered herself for school—anywhere was better than where Katie was. She soon had to get a second job and then a third to earn more money, and even then, she had to borrow from her college fund which was getting smaller and smaller. Her grades suffered, but she graduated, thanks to Louise.

“Oh, God,” Ellie said now, pressing her hands against her eyes. It had been ages since she’d thought about Katie. KC crawled up into her lap. Ellie picked her up and squeezed her tight. “What would I have done without you?”

She gathered up all the scattered drawings and stuffed them into the drawing pad. She put all her pencils and charcoals into the cigar box, and tucked everything back in the drawer.

Her bed called to her. She glanced at the clock. There was nowhere she really had to be today. Next weekend, she would start her holiday hours at Kaufman’s, but today, she could do whatever she wished. She lay down on top of the covers and pulled the quilt over her. As she lay there, she could feel an upwelling of emotion—none of it good—and she knew thinking about Katie had not been a good thing.

“It never is.”

CHAPTER 10

Anita was shuffling around
the kitchen. She stopped when Teresa entered and set down two large pans of lasagna and took her coat off.

“You’ve lost weight.”

She grabbed Teresa and made her face her, placing a hand on either side of Teresa’s face as she inspected her anxiously.

“Are you sick? Do you have cancer?”

Teresa chuckled. “No, I don’t have cancer.” She had lost some weight, though. After her evening with Ellie—
Why do I keep wanting to call it a
date?
—she had bought a bag of dog food, safely stashed under the front hood of her VW. Each evening, she had halved her dinner, placing a plate of food for Dogman and a bowl of dog food for Lucy on top of the trash cans behind the store. Every morning, the plate and bowl were empty, neatly stacked up. Her stomach had complained initially at only getting half of what it was used to, but she was getting accustomed to it now, and actually felt better eating less at night.

“You sure you’re not sick?” Anita’s sharp eyes probed Teresa’s face.

“I’m fine,” Teresa said with a smile. “Happy Thanksgiving, Nita.”

Further conversation was impossible as Sylvia and the other aunts came into the kitchen, all talking loudly. Teresa gathered her mother’s coat, along with her own, in her arms and carried them upstairs to drape them across Aunt Luisa’s bed. Downstairs, she could hear the arrival of more people. They were expecting about twenty today. Gianni was supposed to bring Angelina, and then they would go to her family’s house for a later dinner. Their cousin Dom Jr. and his family were coming along with Aunt Betty and Uncle Dom.

Teresa sat on the side of the bed, wondering what Ellie was doing right now. She felt nauseous and her face suddenly flushed hot, and she briefly wondered if she wasn’t sick—except the same thing had happened every time she remembered how she had nearly run from Ellie at the end of their evening. She tried to imagine having Ellie here with her today, introducing her to everyone, and had to laugh at the absurdity of the idea. “There’s no way.” It was impossible for her to picture the crowd downstairs welcoming Ellie. Angelina would be welcomed as Gianni’s girlfriend and someday fiancée, but she knew her mother would say, “Thanksgiving is family time. It’s not the right time to bring a friend.” Vaguely, Teresa knew that “friend” wasn’t precisely the right word for Ellie. She heard her name being hollered and, with a sigh, went downstairs.

Francesca, bigger than ever, was doing a slow-motion fall backward into the sofa. Privately, Teresa thought it looked as if the sofa might swallow her, but she smiled and waved hello to her sister. She would have offered to get Francesca something, but Aunt Elisa beat her to it.

“What can I get you? Wine? No, you can’t have wine. How about some nice tea?”

Francesca shot Teresa a “Help me” kind of look.

“What do you really want?” Teresa asked as Elisa bustled off to get the tea.

“I don’t want tea,” Francesca said desperately. “I already have to pee every ten minutes. I’m dying for a pepperoni roll. Are there any?”

Teresa laughed. “Are you kidding? When are there not pepperoni rolls in this house? Be right back.” She went into the kitchen and found Anita just taking a fresh batch of pepperoni rolls out of the oven. Teresa reached over the kids who were waiting to grab them and took three. “For Francesca,” she said at her aunt’s reproving glance, but she had one in her mouth before she left the kitchen. “Hot,” she warned her sister as she handed her the other two wrapped in a napkin.

“Thank you,” said Francesca. She stuffed one of the rolls into her mouth like a starving woman, closing her eyes as she savored it.

Teresa thought briefly about warning her sister against eating too many of those. Francesca had gained more weight with each pregnancy, and wasn’t getting it off in between, but
who are you to talk to anyone else about being heavy?

She looked around. Most of the main floor furniture had been pushed to the outskirts of the rooms, making room for four extra tables that snaked through the dining room into the living room. The men had all disappeared into the basement where there was another television. She could hear their voices echoing from downstairs.

The television in the living room was tuned to the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade, but it only made Teresa think of Ellie again. She went into the kitchen. “What do you want me to do?”

The next couple of hours were spent in a kind of organized chaos, getting all the food cooked, warmed up, spooned into serving bowls for each table, warmed up again, and placed on the tables and then trying to get the men and kids all seated while Sylvia and the aunts hovered, making sure everyone had some of everything on their plate. Teresa sat at a table with Dom Jr.’s three kids, cutting up their turkey and lasagna into smaller bites for them.

“Oh, thank you,” said Gina, Dom’s wife.

Teresa remembered that she was pregnant again, also, and getting big enough to show. “Sit down,” she said. “I’ve got this.”

Gina gave her a grateful look as she sank tiredly into a chair at the main table while Dom stuffed his face, oblivious to what the kids were doing.

Teresa showed the kids how to use their forks to make ditches in their lumps of bread stuffing so that when she spooned gravy on, the gravy could run sluggishly through the channels. “Then you scramble it all together and eat it,” she said, taking a forkful.

She saw Ana Maria walking around the tables with a platter of turkey, asking everyone if they needed more.

“Have you sat down at all?” Teresa asked her, taking another piece of dark meat.

“Of course I have,” said Ana Maria as she hurried over to the next table.

The kids were soon done eating and were only playing with their food, so Teresa told them they could leave the table. She sat there alone, looking at all the food left on their plates, and had a sudden thought.

She carried their dishes into the kitchen and found three foil pie plates. One, she filled with uneaten food scraped from the kids’ plates. The other two, she filled with food from the platters, a little of everything. She covered each with aluminum foil and carried them out the back door to her car. Hurrying back inside, she helped clear the tables and began doing the dishes while her mother and the aunts cut the pies—pumpkin, pecan, apple—arguing as they tried to remember who wanted what. While they carried plates of pie out to the tables, Teresa quickly wrapped two pieces of apple pie in plastic wrap and took those out to her car as well.

“What were you doing?” Sylvia demanded as Teresa came back into the kitchen.

“Taking some garbage out to the cans,” Teresa lied. She went back to the sink and scrubbed the roasting pan.

“Didn’t you have any pie?” Francesca waddled into the kitchen, carrying some empty plates.

“I’ll get some later,” Teresa said, wringing out the dishrag and wiping down the stove.

There was a parade of women in and out of the kitchen, carrying more dishes and platters. Teresa filled the sink with fresh soapy water and continued washing until all the dishes were done. She tried to figure out how to get her coat from upstairs without anyone noticing. She knew the men were already heading back down to the basement to watch football, and she could hear the kids running around upstairs.

With the dishes done, she dried her hands and slipped out of the kitchen. Anita and Luisa were taking the tablecloths off the tables to shake the crumbs off and put them back on the tables for a second round of eating later in the afternoon.

“I’ll do that,” she said. “Just let me run upstairs for my coat.”

She hurried up the stairs and was back in a moment. “Be right back.” She gathered the tablecloths in her arms and carried them outside to shake. No one noticed as she brought them inside and then went back out the front door. She retrieved her car keys from her coat pocket and slipped around the back of the house to where her VW was parked.

You are really going to catch hell for this,
said a voice in her head as she started the engine.

“I don’t care,” she answered.

Late afternoon dusk was falling as she drove down the alley and parked behind the store. There, Dogman and Lucy were arranging their sleeping bag, settling earlier than usual since everything was closed for the holiday. Lucy trotted over to Teresa and received a pat on the head.

“I thought you two might like something a little special, since it’s Thanksgiving.” Teresa opened the hood of her car and retrieved three of the wrapped parcels there. “This one is for Lucy,” she said, handing him the foil pie plate with the kids’ leftovers, “and these are for you.”

Dogman looked at her. “Why are you doing this?” It was the first time he’d ever spoken to her. His voice was hoarse and raspy, as if it didn’t get used very often. “I don’t see you doing it for anyone else.”

“I don’t.”

“Then why?”

She gazed into his stony eyes. Up close in daylight, she could see that he was younger than she had thought, though his face was lined and his hair and beard were streaked with gray.

“I’m not sure,” she said. Lucy sat down beside him and looked up at her. Teresa smiled. “I think maybe it’s because of her.”

“Because of my dog?”

“Because you care enough to keep her warm and dry,” Teresa said. “Because you feed her before you eat.” She shrugged. “It just made me want to help out, if I can. I figure you’ve got to work a little harder to keep two fed and warm.”

“I don’t need help,” he said.

“I know that,” Teresa said quickly. “I know you don’t. But we have extra. And it’s one less thing for you to worry about.”

With a curt nod, he accepted the foil packages, and he and Lucy turned back to their makeshift shelter. Teresa got into her car and started it up. Driving to Ellie’s apartment, she could feel her heart thudding in her chest, but was it anticipation or apprehension? She sat at the curb, her hands gripping the wheel, trying to decide whether to go up.

“Don’t be stupid,” she whispered. “You’re just bringing some dinner.”

The apartment looked dark as she got out of the VW, and she suddenly wondered if Ellie really did have somewhere else to go for Thanksgiving. She’d been certain, when Ellie said she had plans, that she’d been making it up so Teresa wouldn’t feel bad, but maybe not. She retrieved the plates of food from under the hood and climbed the stairs to Ellie’s kitchen door. She knocked, but there was no answer. Tentatively, she knocked again. When there was still no response, she stood there, undecided about whether to leave the food at the doorstep. Finally, she set the plates down and dug in her coat for a slip of paper. The only thing there was a bank deposit slip. She found a pen in another pocket and scrawled a note telling Ellie what time the food had been left.

Reluctantly, she headed back down the stairs. She was nearly down on the second floor landing when she heard movement in the apartment above. She paused.
Ellie was there, but didn’t want to see you.
She turned to continue descending the steps, her heart plummeting faster than her feet. A door opened above her.

“Teresa? Is that you?”

Ellie’s voice carried down the stairwell. Teresa stepped out on the landing to where she could see Ellie standing outside her door, holding the two wrapped dishes.

“I thought I heard something,” Ellie said. “I was over in Sullivan’s apartment, feeding his fish. Come on up.”

Teresa’s heart lifted as she climbed her way back up to Ellie and followed her into the kitchen.

“What’s all this?” Ellie hefted the pie tins.

“I didn’t think you really had plans for Thanksgiving dinner, and we always have enough to feed an army, so…” Teresa’s voice faltered as Ellie turned away suddenly. “Are you okay?”

Ellie nodded, standing with her back to Teresa. She set the dishes of food on the counter and busied herself with getting a couple of plates down from the cupboard. “I’m fine. This was really nice of you.”

Teresa thought she heard a catch in Ellie’s voice. KC came trotting in, meowing and winding around Teresa’s ankles. Teresa bent down and picked her up.

“Can you stay and eat with me?” Ellie asked.

“I’ve already eaten,” Teresa said. “This is all for you.”

“Just a bite or two,” Ellie said, turning to her. “Keep me company.”

I’ll keep you company forever.
Teresa had to bite her lip to keep from saying it out loud.

Ellie heard her hesitation. “Of course, you have to get back to your family,” she said. “I’m sorry—”

“No,” Teresa said quickly. “They’re in between round one and round two. I did my bit. I’m fine. I’ll stay.”

Ellie’s face lit up, and so did something inside Teresa. Ellie poured them drinks while the oven warmed up. “Sorry, I don’t have a microwave,” she said.

“Don’t apologize,” Teresa said, taking her coat off and hanging it on one of the pegs by the door. “My mom won’t have one in the house. My aunts, either. Convinced it’ll give them cancer. Of course, they think that about everything.”

Ellie slid the foil-wrapped pie tin into the hot oven and joined Teresa at the table.