Destined (28 page)

Heading back inside to get to work, I
thought about how different they were from the people I had met at the
Gladstone funeral. None of my new friends were rich, or dressed in gorgeous
clothes, or lived in huge mansions. But they were wealthy beyond the dreams of
any reasonable person in terms of happiness and fulfillment. They cared about
things that were really important, and if they ever had a spare moment from
struggling to pay the bills, they used the time to help someone else. They were
a community, a melding of resources and attitudes, and faiths, and races, and
ages, and genders, and sexual orientations, and everything else. Like my circle
of women, this community was also
way
stronger than the sum of its individual parts.

I worked on my new display for the
antique lace and linens for most of the morning, with very little interruption
from either customers or the telephone. It was a quiet day in the neighborhood,
and there was no sign of either my wayward employer or my wayward boyfriend.
Perhaps they were off being wayward together somewhere, I wouldn’t have put it
past them. I felt oddly left out and a little jealous. In any case, my day was
quiet to the point of nearly being boring, when I heard the back door open and
Amy stuck her head into the room.

“Hey!” she greeted me with enthusiasm.
She came across the room to talk to me while I was staple-gunning a floral bed
sheet onto the free-standing partition I had just made out of the lid of one of
the giant wooden crates in the basement.

“What’s up?” Amy asked. As an
afterthought, she flashed me a peace sign. “You back now? Like, for good and all?”

“Yeah, I am totally back,” I said, “Hey,
is your Mom OK? How is she doing?”

Amy shuffled back and forth nervously,
avoiding eye contact.

“Well, she’s better, actually. She
might be getting a job soon!” She looked up and I saw she was trying to suppress
her hopeful excitement.

“Wow,” I said encouragingly, “That is
way cool! It’s great to hear she’s feeling well enough to work!”

“Isn’t it?” said Amy. “I thought we
were movin’ to the hospital at one point.” She brushed her ragged bright red
and black striped hair out of her face, tearing up. She looked up at me with
her heart in her eyes, saying, “I want to thank you for what you did for us,
Emily.” She looked out from under her long bangs shyly.

“No problem,” I said briefly, tearing
up a little bit myself. OK, more than a little.

We blinked rapidly at each other for a
few minutes, but did not touch. She wasn’t ready for that yet, it was clear
from the prickly energy that radiated from her body.

“Hey Amy,” I said, thinking.

“Yeah?”

“Want to do a couple more things
around here every day, and maybe, like, get paid for it?”

She looked stunned. “Like, what?”

“Like, help in the kitchen or clean
and dust stuff, pack boxes, that kind of thing.”

“I can do that,” she said slowly,
wonderingly. “I mean, I think I can. Do you really want me to? Like, a job?”

I turned casually and showed her my
back for a minute, fussing with the display, giving her a chance to think
privately.

“I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t think
you could do it, Amy,” I said.

There was silence behind me. Then, “Sweet!
When do I start?”

“How about today?” I said, struggling
to hold the sheet and staple it at the same time. “Maybe you could help me with
this new display I’m trying to put together!”

“Sure,” she said, frowning. “You’re
going to pin stuff up there? That’s like, a background?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“Won’t that, kind of, make holes in
all your stuff?”

“It would, yes, so I need to find a
better way to attach them. They used pushpins at the store where I saw this
done. They just make a teeny hole.”

“You got any ribbons? The nice kind,
like from a sewing store?”
 
She had
a calculating look in her eye.

“I could easily get some. What’s your
idea?”

“You could make big loops out of
ribbons, maybe with bows if you want, and attach them to the background with
staples, then you’d tuck the lace through the loops and it could hang down from
them. It would look nice, kind of cascading down…”

It was a dynamite idea, and would look
even better than what I’d planned. I was going to put this tall display behind
the antique trunk and the shelves where we kept the old textiles. A pile of
folded fabrics doesn’t look like much, so we needed an artful way to let people
know what we were offering.

I went over to the cash register and
opened it, taking out several bills. I made a note on a pad inside the drawer,
and closed it again.

“Here,” I said, handing her the cash. “Take
this and go buy the ribbons from the dressmaker down the street. I saw it on
her sign, she has notions and thread. If she isn’t open, I can drive over to
the mall later, or tomorrow.”

She received the money solemnly. She
folded it up and stuffed it deep into her pants pocket, which I hoped had no
holes in it. Her other clothes had them dotted about liberally, probably for
deliberate effect.

“Hey, this is awesome, Emily!” she
said with a grin, and sped out the back door.

She was back in half an hour with a
shopping bag full of grosgrain and patterned fabric ribbons, various colors, to
go with the floral sheet which was now firmly attached to its frame. We worked
together for an hour or so, and then I stopped and let her finish it. She was
obviously more than capable. I decided to give her a shot at the two windows on
Crescent Street after we got through the weekend.

By the time Amy had finished our new
display looked wonderful and several customers had already commented on it. One
elderly lady had actually purchased a lace table runner after stopping to
admire the goods. The day slowly crept to an end and I still had not seen Tony,
nor had Henry reappeared. Then finally the telephone rang.

“Hello, darling Emily,” Tony said,
sounding upbeat.

“Hello your darling self,” I said,
smiling. “There you go again, trying to make me think you like me, or
something.”

He chuckled, a rich deep sound. “What
are you doing right now?”

“Don’t you mean, what are you
wearing
right now?” I whispered into the
phone wickedly.

“No, but since you mentioned it…?” he
whispered back, playing along.

It had gotten hot during the day and I
was sweating, fanning myself with a newspaper. I didn’t like to use the air
conditioning unless it was absolutely necessary.

“More than I would like to be, I
assure you,” I answered.

“Well!” he said delightedly, “Let me
come over there and help you with that!”

“Certainly, you can come over here.
You live here, remember?”

“Um, yes. I haven’t been there much
for the past few days. But, what do you say we meet over at Laurie and John’s
place for a drink in a few minutes? I’ll go straight there.”

“Great, I’m starved,” I said,
realizing it was true.

“You’re always starved.”

“No I am not, only at meal times, when
I’m supposed to be. And, when I haven’t had anyone to hug and kiss me for a
long time!”

“Well, you poor girl, we will have to
satisfy your cravings immediately!”

“Just one thing first,” I said,
switching to a serious tone, “Have you heard from Henry at all today? He went
out for a walk this morning and he never came back!”

There was silence on the phone line
for a moment, except for the sound of cars in the background.

“Yes, I did speak to him a little while
ago. He was with a friend. I told him we would not be around for dinner. He’s
fine, don’t worry!”

“OK, good,” I said, relieved. We said
goodbye and hung up.

As I sent Amy off with a large
container of leftovers and a satisfied smile on her face, I reflected that
people with big money like the Gladstones didn’t necessarily have to get so
carried away with it. They didn’t have to live in huge houses that were empty
most of the time, or drive cars that guzzled gas and were killing the
environment. They could afford to invest in solar panels instead of buying
endless gallons of oil for their heating and cooling systems. They could live
responsibly as all inhabitants of planet Earth should, rich or poor. It would
be better for us all if everyone practiced moderation.

I went into the
little bathroom and brushed my hair, putting on some eye makeup and freshening
my lipstick. This cat and mouse game with Tony was making me a little nuts.
Whatever was really going on between us, I wanted to bring it right out into
the open. Flirting was fun and I loved the verbal repartee, but enough’s
enough. It was time for some honesty and plain talk, as far as I was concerned.
I locked up the building, and set off across the intersection to tell him
exactly that.

Description: The
horned, clawed, bat-winged Devil stands grinning behind a naked man and woman
who are chained to his throne.

Meaning: Hedonism,
gluttony and excess. Wild sensual experiences. Sometimes it’s healthy to purge
these feelings, and sometimes it’s dangerous.

The evening sky was streaked with deep rose and magenta,
with a few lavender clouds clinging to the western horizon. Heat radiated up
from the black pavement under my sandaled feet. We were hoping for some rain late
tonight according to the forecast on the radio, but at the moment it was clear
and still, and the air was sultry.

All the outside tables at the Green
Thumb were occupied and I didn’t see Tony, so I pushed the double doors open
and went inside. John and Laurie were both behind the bar, and the place was
hopping. A sign near the entrance said, “Please Wait to Be Seated,” so I did.
Laurie looked up when I came in and saw me, smiling and holding up one finger
in a “wait one minute” gesture. I looked around and still didn’t see my date,
so I walked over to the bar and slid onto an empty stool in front of the beer
taps. It was a little early for dinner but I only saw a couple of empty tables.
Everyone was out on the town tonight, blowing off steam from the work week and
trying to cool down.

“Hi, girlfriend!” Laurie said, putting
a cocktail napkin in front of me. “Tony called and we’re holding you a spot in
the corner,” she said, gesturing toward a table for two. “Can I get you a drink
while you wait?”

“Yes, definitely. How about a gin and
tonic?”

“Lime?”

“Yes, please. Do you have Tanqueray?”
I asked, squinting at the forest of liquor bottles behind the bar.

“Absolutely!” she replied, grabbing
the green bottle to mix me my favorite summer cocktail. She shook it up in a
silver cocktail shaker and poured it onto ice cubes in a tall, frosty glass.
She placed the pretty drink on the napkin in front of me. I squeezed my lime
wedge into the mixture and took a refreshing sip, enjoying the bubbly bright
taste.

Laurie and John were both too busy to
talk, so I drank alone while I looked around the room watching the diners enjoy
themselves. Nearly everyone was dressed in casual summer weekend clothes,
though a few people had obviously come straight from the office and their suit
jackets were slung over the backs of their chairs. It was such a hot, humid
night that everyone was eager to shed as many garments as possible. Neckties
were off, shirts were untucked and collars were opened. A lot of skin was
visible in various shades of black, brown and beige, and it all shone with the
gleam of sweat, despite the air conditioning and ceiling fans inside the
restaurant.