Cast Me Gently (16 page)

“I liked them, too. Thank you for inviting me,” Ellie said. She reached over for Teresa’s hand. “Could we stop by Rob and Karen’s for a minute?”

“Sure,” Teresa said. “But we have to make a stop first.”

She drove down the alley and parked behind the store. “Here,” she said, opening the VW’s hood and handing Ellie a wrapped plate of food. “Set that on the trash can, will you?” She scooped dog food into Lucy’s bowl and set it next to the plate.

“For Dogman and Lucy,” Teresa explained when Ellie looked at her questioningly.

“Dogman?”

Teresa shrugged. “I don’t know his name.”

Ellie looked from the food to Teresa. “Is this the man you told me about weeks ago? You do this every night?”

Teresa nodded. “Lately. They usually sleep here.”

“You are such a good person,” Ellie said.

Teresa swallowed. “If I am, you made me that way,” she managed to say.

Ellie shook her head. “You just are.”

Teresa looked at Ellie in the gathering dusk and wished she could kiss her there. Ellie must have been thinking the same thing, because she stepped closer. A noise from the alley startled them, and they jumped apart.

“We should go,” Teresa said. She drove them over to Rob and Karen’s house, where the two of them were watching television. Rob answered the door and invited them in.

“We don’t mean to barge in on you.” Ellie offered the bag she’d brought with her. “I just wanted to give you this. I don’t know anything about wine. I hope these are good.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” Karen said as she took out one of the bottles to inspect it.

“I know,” said Ellie. “But y’uns had us over. Just wanted to give you a little something.”

“Oh, it’s so nice and quiet here,” Teresa said, closing her eyes.

“Yes, it is,” Rob agreed, but there was a tightness to his voice as he said it.

Teresa watched him as he threw another log on the fire. “Do you want me to talk to Ma? She might be able to convince Pop it’s time to let this go.”

Rob snorted. “I don’t want someone to talk him into it.”

Karen’s lips pursed. “Who is his father’s son?”

Ellie laughed, but Teresa turned away frowning.

Lying in bed later, Teresa stared at the ceiling. She’d just spent the best Christmas of her life —no, the best day of her life—with the woman she loved. “Who would have thought I’d ever utter such a thing?” she could have laughed out loud, but if her parents could never get to the point of accepting Karen, there was no hope that they would ever accept Ellie.

As what, exactly?

Teresa couldn’t answer that. She wasn’t able to picture what a life with Ellie might look like; she only knew she no longer wanted to face the future without Ellie in it.

CHAPTER 16

Friday morning, the day
after Christmas, the bus chattered to a halt at the stop where Ellie and three others were waiting.

“Hey, Ellie,” said the driver. “Have a good Christmas?”

Ellie smiled as she climbed the steps of the bus and handed her card to be punched. “I had a very nice Christmas, Larry. How about you? Did you get your wife those fancy shoes she wanted?”

Larry chuckled as he closed the bus door and released the brake. “I took your advice and bought ’em. Don’t know when she’ll ever wear ’em, but she’s got ’em.”

“That’s all that matters,” Ellie said, sliding into the seat behind him. “Even if she never gets to wear them anywhere special, she’ll always remember that you remembered.”

Larry glanced at her in his overhead mirror. “Thanks to you. I thought it was crazy, but that woman’s put up with me all these years.”

Ellie laughed. The bus lurched to a halt at the next stop, letting a few more people on.

“You know, you could take her out dancing for New Year’s,” Ellie said thoughtfully.

He looked up at the mirror again. “You think?”

Ellie nodded. “Take her somewhere she can dress up, wear those new shoes. And you dress up, too. Like you used to when you were dating.”

Larry guffawed. “I used to cut a fine figure. Not no more.” He patted his bulging belly, barely constrained by his uniform buttons. “Too much o’ her good cookin’.” He stopped the bus to let some passengers off. “Dancin’, huh?”

Larry was clearly still thinking about that when Ellie got to her stop.

“See you Monday, Fred Astaire,” Ellie said as she hopped down the bus steps. She could still hear Larry laughing as the door shut and the bus pulled away with a belch of diesel smoke.

It was bitterly cold as Ellie walked the remaining blocks to the bank, each breath hanging in a cloud of vapor for a moment. She looked around as she walked, but she didn’t see any street people.
I hope they’re all in shelters,
but she knew that wasn’t likely. There were just too many of them lately. Sometimes, it was hard not to get discouraged about the poverty and unemployment in this city. She was lucky to have a job and she knew it.

Suzanne was already in the staff locker room when Ellie came in. “Good Christmas, Suzanne?” Ellie asked, pushing her coat into her locker.

“Hmmph.” Suzanne sat nearby, changing from boots to shoes. “Not much of a Christmas with his new job. Barely making half of what he made in the mill. We only had a few presents each for the kids.”

Ellie unwound her scarf and hung it in the locker as well. It was going to be an eggshell day. Linda had taken the rest of the week off, so it was only the two of them working the windows today.

“Hello, ladies.”

Ellie jumped. “Mr. Myers,” she said.

He smiled. “I think it’s time you called me Aaron, Ellie.”

“I don’t think so, Mr. Myers.” She turned back to her locker, pretending to be searching for something in her backpack as she waited for him to go away, but he didn’t. Suzanne pushed heavily to her feet and Ellie quickly closed her locker so that they could walk together past him.

“What was that about?” Suzanne asked with a scowl.

“No idea,” Ellie said in a low voice.

“Stay away from him. He’s done this before, with other young tellers.” Suzanne glanced at Ellie and did a double take. “What’s that?” she asked, reaching out to Ellie’s chest where the heart necklace lay on her sweater.

Ellie’s hand flew to it. It must have caught on her scarf and pulled free.

Suzanne’s sharp gaze locked on Ellie. “And who is that from?”

“No one,” Ellie said, but she could feel her face coloring. They went to the vault to retrieve their trays and take them to their windows.

“No one, my foot,” Suzanne said, and Ellie knew she wouldn’t let this go. “You don’t get a heart from no one.”

“It’s just a friend,” Ellie insisted, tucking the necklace back under her sweater. “So, what happened with your Christmas?” She knew from experience that the best way to distract Suzanne was to get her focused on her own troubles.

She half-listened as Suzanne went on about no one appreciating all the time she took to buy and wrap presents, and how her husband and kids only gave her token gifts of perfume and stockings—“Stockings!” As Ellie listened, she felt an odd tingle running up her spine. She turned and looked. From up on the second floor, Aaron Myers was standing at the balcony, watching her. She turned back to her drawer, refusing to look up again.

Every time the door opened, she looked up hopefully, but Teresa didn’t come in. She knew that Mr. Benedetto brought the deposit more often than Teresa did, but she’d hoped Teresa would find an excuse to come by. At lunch, she considered walking to the drug store, but
you just spent all day with her yesterday,
she reminded herself, sitting in the staff room with Suzanne as they ate their lunch. Ellie picked at her sandwich as Suzanne continued her complaints about all the time she’d spent preparing Christmas dinner with no one offering to help her.

The afternoon dragged on, and finally, at closing time, she said good night to Suzanne and hopped a bus headed downtown. She was scheduled to work her last holiday hours at Kaufman’s over the weekend, helping with the after-Christmas rush, “and then I’ll be home more,” she’d promised KC, who had sat looking forlorn and lonely just that morning as Ellie rushed out the door.

The evening passed quickly. The store was packed with people exchanging presents or trying to use gift certificates. “It’s been like this all day,” Ellie’s manager said in a harassed tone. She was grateful when Ellie took over the floor in the men’s department, rushing about, helping people find the size or color they needed. By the time the clock ticked nine o’clock, Ellie was exhausted.

She punched out, grabbed her things and hurried to the diner.

“I’m not here to eat,” she said as Louise looked up. “I know you’re trying to close up. I just wanted to thank you for my atlas. It’s wonderful!”

Louise beamed at her. “So you can start planning those trips to all those places you’re going to see. And thank you for my silk scarf. Silk! And that blue. It looks like it came from a peacock.”

“It’ll look beautiful on you,” Ellie said with a fond smile.

Louise looked at her more closely. “You look wiped out.”

Ellie nodded. “I am. I think I’m getting too old for fourteen-hour days. I don’t know how you do it.”

Louise waved a hand. “It’s different when it’s your own place and you’re doing what you love.” She leaned her elbows on the counter as Ellie hopped onto one of the stools. “So how was your Christmas with Teresa’s family?”

Ellie’s face lit up. “It was so nice. Her aunts, especially her godmother, they were great.” She reached out for Louise’s hand. “I’ve never had a Christmas like that.”

“Teresa seems like a nice girl.”

“She is,” Ellie said. “She’s become a good friend.”

Louise squeezed her hand. “I’m so glad, Ellie.” Her expression sobered. “For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve never had a friend.” She waved a hand as Ellie opened her mouth to protest. “I don’t mean the people from the store or the bank. You get along with everyone. I mean a real friend. Someone you can count on to be there, no matter what. Teresa seems like that kind of person.”

To Ellie’s embarrassment, her eyes stung with sudden tears. “I think she is,” she said, blinking rapidly. “Between you and Teresa, I’m set.”

Louise laughed. “You know you got me, baby girl. Forever.” She went to ring up a customer.

“See you soon, Louise,” Ellie called as she went back out into the night.

The low winter sun pushed its way through the blinds of Ellie’s bedroom window, burnishing the edges of the petals of a single white rose propped in a small vase on the bedside table. KC made tiny snoring noises as she lay curled up against Ellie’s side while Ellie stared at the rose. It had been left outside her door at the top of the stairs sometime yesterday. She’d nearly tripped over it coming home. No note. None was needed. It was like having a bit of Teresa with her.

She rolled over and stretched, luxuriating in being able to sleep in, just a bit. She had to be at Kaufman’s at noon, but there was something she had to do first.

She got up and scrambled some eggs, mixing a little egg into KC’s dry food. When they were done eating, Ellie showered and got dressed for work.

“I’ll be home later, little one,” she said as she pulled on a coat, hat, boots, and mittens.

On the unheated landing, two wrapped bundles of flowers sat where she’d left them the day before. She gathered them up and headed outside, where the refreshingly cold air helped blow the cobwebs from her mind. She walked for about a half an hour, climbing over a few remaining snow piles pushed up by the plows at the intersections. Presently, she found herself at the cemetery, the grave markers standing like sentinels rising from the untouched snow still covering many of the gravesites. Ellie stood listening to the hush of the place.

After her father’s death, Ellie’s mother had insisted they go to the cemetery every Christmas, Easter, and on her father’s birthday. Daniel hated to go—“He was stupid enough to get himself killed working for that damned mill,” he used to mutter, but only so Ellie could hear. “I’m never working in those mills.” But he trudged along, sullen and resentful, with Ellie clinging to his hand as their mother tenderly laid flowers and cleaned the gravesite of any leaves or fallen branches from nearby trees. After Daniel was in Vietnam and Ellie’s mother got too sick to go, sometimes Ellie had to go alone. “Bring him flowers,” her mom had begged. “I don’t want him to think we’ve forgotten him.” Ellie had looked into her mother’s eyes, luminous in her wasted face, and wanted to ask, “If he’s in heaven, the way everyone says, why are we still acting like he’s there in the graveyard?” But she could never bring herself to say the words. Before long, it wasn’t one grave she was going to visit, but two.

Following the tracks of the cars that had recently wound along the paths through the cemetery, Ellie made her way first to her father’s burial site. A little bit of snow had clung to the granite, like frosting. She brushed it away, taking care not to disturb the snow over the grave.
Michael Ryan, Beloved Husband and Father
.

Ellie unwrapped one of the bouquets and laid the flowers against the headstone. “Here are your flowers, Dad. I’m a few days late, but I’m here.”

The only sound was the occasional soft plop of a clump of snow falling from a tree and the chattering of a few squirrels. She stood there a while, and then said, “I’ll be back to see you again soon.”

From there, she walked to her mother’s grave. “Can’t they be buried together?” Ellie had begged when her mother’s arrangements had had to be made, but the cemetery man insisted that there were no available gravesites near her father, and unless she could afford to buy two sites and have her father’s remains moved, they would have to be in separate places. That stone, too, had some snow clinging to it. She brushed it clean and set the second bunch of flowers against it.
Ellen Ryan
. Nothing else. Just her dates of birth and death. There hadn’t been enough money to have anything else carved on the stone. Ellie had been named for her. Everyone always thought Ellie was short for Eleanor, but “Ellie
is
my name,” she had insisted over and over to teachers and principals who tried to convince her that no one was named just Ellie.

She opened her mouth to speak, but sudden tears choked off the words. It was always harder to visit her mom. Things had been hard after her dad died, but they had managed. It had been so much harder when Ellen got sick, and then Daniel got drafted.
Why?
Ellie covered her face and cried. She knew it made no sense to ask that, but sometimes… sometimes she just felt so alone. She wiped her cheeks with her mittens, but the cold air chapped the damp skin, leaving her cheeks red and raw.

“I’ve met someone,” she whispered. “I don’t know how you’d feel about it. I think you’d like her.” Ellie closed her eyes. “I hope you’d like her.”

Sniffling, she stood up and made her way back through the silent cemetery toward the nearest bus stop.