by Nancy Warren
Eric’s days fell into a routine. He rose at dawn, dressed in his workingman's uniform of jeans and a T-shirt, stuffed his feet into old sneakers and set a ball cap on his head. He'd collect the lunch that Millie always left him in the fridge and loaded up a gallon of water. Millie had offered to make his breakfast for him, but she already had to do his mom and dad’s breakfast every morning and he didn't see why he should add to her workload. Besides, he liked the quiet time to himself in the morning.
He put on coffee, made toast, usually scrambled himself some eggs, grabbed some fruit and he was out of there. He made certain to arrive at the Bailey's property well before his start time of seven. At first, it was out of fear that if he was so much as five minutes late the judge would haul him off to jail. After the first couple of days, the judge didn’t bother to check on his arrival. But José did. He knew the head gardener had it in for him and he was determined not to give the guy an excuse to badmouth him to the judge or to Mrs. Bailey.
But, after a while, he realized he was arriving early as a point of pride. He'd made a commitment to these people and damn it, he was going to stick to it.
The work was mind-numbingly tedious and physically exhausting. Even the endless tunes on his iPod got boring after a while. He started downloading podcasts on subjects that interested him, and then audiobooks. He'd never done very well in school, but it wasn’t because he was stupid. It was because he was bored and lazy. But, as each day passed, and he took a small measure of pride in the section of pool he had cleaned so thoroughly that not even José could find anything to complain about, he started to get a sense of how much his laziness had cost him. He should have done better in college.
Maybe, if he’d put more effort into his education, he wouldn’t have been so bored that he pulled stupid jokes and pranks. Maybe, if he’d tried harder in school, he’d have some idea about what he wanted to do with his life. He knew what he didn't want to do, and that was become a stockbroker. Even the small amount of studying he’d done so far had made him realize that he had zero interest in the world of stocks and bonds. He'd seen his stockbroker’s license as a ticket to an easy life. But maybe an easy life wasn't much of a goal.
He was a physical guy, he liked to be active, preferably outside. He didn't want to spend his waking hours selling clients on some company that might improve its profits or might not, and he really didn’t want to spend three-hour lunches courting people he didn't particularly like.
As the days went by, he had a lot of time to think, and he started to get a pretty clear idea of what he did not want in life. And what he didn't want was exactly where he was headed at the moment. But, his big problem was, if he changed course what direction was he going to take? Why was it so much easier to know what he didn't want to do than what he did?
It took him two weeks to finish the pool. As he scrubbed the last patch of algae off the final corner of the pool he felt a sense of pride. He stretched out on his back and took a break to suck back about a liter of water. Then he went looking for José. But before he found the head gardener, he bumped into Mrs. Bailey. She was cutting roses. As he walked by, he said "Good morning, ma'am."
She startled as though she hadn't heard him approaching, and he wondered whether she was losing her hearing. The only other possibility was that she was nervous of him, and it hurt him to imagine that might be true. He barely knew the woman, but he saw goodness in her that made him want her to like him, or at least not to be afraid of him. So, he paused and said, "It's a beautiful day." Since it was about day one hundred in a row of solid sunshine, and everyone was desperate for rain, he knew that it was a stupid thing to say. But the foolish comment was all he could come up with on the spur of the moment.
She glanced up at him from under the brim of a big straw hat and said, "Yes, it is."
Her gloved hand was closed around a pair of clippers, but he could see that she was struggling to cut through the thorny stems of the roses. Her hand shook. On impulse he knelt beside her and put his hand out for the clippers. He said, "Why don’t you point out which stems you want and I'll cut them."
He saw her waver, and then decide to trust him. At least with a few rose stems. "Thank you. It's just this wrist is a little weak. I broke it a few years ago and it’s never been quite right."
"No problem.” He snipped and carefully placed the bloom in the shallow basket where three roses already lay. "Which one next?"
"That one, I think."
He grasped the stem of the pink bloom she was pointing to and cut it so it was about the same length as the others. She kept pointing and he kept clipping and in less than five minutes, there were more than a dozen pink and white roses in her basket.
"Thank you," she said. "That was very kind."
"Happy to do it." He stood and when he would have moved on, she said, "Are you getting on all right?"
He wasn't entirely sure what she meant by those odd words, but assuming she was referring to him working here he said, "Yes. I just finished scrubbing out the pool. I'm looking for José to let him know."
Maybe she heard the note of pride in his voice, for she said, "That's wonderful. I believe you'll find José down on the long lawn overlooking the ocean.
He walked down that way and sure enough José was there along with two other Mexican helpers. He walked up to the head gardener. "Hola," he said.
José fired something back in rapid Spanish and one of the other gardeners laughed. Eric didn’t catch many of the words but he knew what gringo meant.
He was tired of being barked at in Spanish by a man who spoke perfectly good English. He drew from his pocket his secret weapon. A Spanish-English dictionary. If José wanted to play this game with him, he was perfectly willing to play along. He knew a little Spanish, but pretended to know none, he opened up the pocket dictionary and said aloud, "Let's see, I . . ." He went through the book, then he said, “Yo,” and pointed to himself. Then he muttered, "I have finished… f, f, f, there it is." He glanced up at José and said, “Terminar."
The two Mexican helpers gazed at José, looking puzzled. They obviously knew he could speak English perfectly well. He glanced from one to the other of them, "Hey, if either of you guys speaks English, maybe you could translate?"
He knew all three of them had understood him when they exchanged glances and the two helpers merely shrugged as though they had no idea what he’d just said.
He turned back to his book, muttering, “Pool . . . pool.” In another minute he managed to spit out, “Yo terminar la piscina.” He knew damned well that was wrong but a language barrier could work two ways.
José glared at him for a moment and then jerked his head. Eric was a head taller than the gardener and so to glare at him the man had to stare up. Eric could tell it annoyed him. Naturally, he drew himself up as tall as he possibly could, adding to the height difference.
José stomped ahead of him all the way to the pool. He climbed inside and walked around inspecting the work but Eric knew he’d done a great job and there was nothing to criticize. Naturally, this annoyed José even more. He muttered something in Spanish and then climbed out of the pool and strode to a small shed and threw open the door. Inside were pool chemicals, nets, life-saving devices, and on the shelf in the back was a collection including some large cans of paint. He hefted a five-gallon pail down and dumped it at Eric’s feet, an inch from his toe.
Eric pulled out his dictionary once more. "How . . ." He said aloud as he thumbed through the pages. “Como . . . Let’s see. How do I apply it?"
José grabbed the dictionary out of his hand and tossed it in a trashcan in the corner. In flawless English, he said, "Follow the directions on the can. Rollers, handles, brushes, everything’s in that corner there. You need something else, you ask me.” Then, glaring one more time, he stomped back out of the pool shed.
Eric waited until he was gone before letting out his grin. It was only a small victory against the gnarly gardener, but it was a start.
He
hefted the pail of paint and painting supplies to the edge of the pool and then read the directions.
No one had ever specified his hours. The judge had told him to arrive by seven every morning, but had never given a quitting time. So he set his own hours. He arrived a little before seven every morning, took around half an hour lunch break, and worked until about five.
He figured no one could accuse him of slacking with those hours, and he was keeping track of them, hoping he might get his sentence repealed early for good behavior.
He got set up, hauled everything into the pool, pulled out his iPod and set to work.
It was almost four o'clock when Tasmine caught his eye by waving down at him. He pulled out his earbuds. "Hi."
"Hi. I don't know what you're listening to, but I called your name twice and you didn't hear me."
"Sorry. I was listening to a podcast. I was concentrating, never even heard you." She wore a pretty blue sundress and heels. Big, dark, sunglasses shielded her eyes. "What you doing here?"
"I'm here on business. Mrs. Bailey wants to redecorate a couple of her upstairs rooms and asked me to quote on her furniture."
"Nice."
"I thought, since I'm here anyway, I’d come over and say hi."
"Hi."
"And also to ask if you can help me move a couple of heavy pieces of furniture out of the way."
"Sure."
He pulled a rag out of his back pocket and made sure his hands were clean and dry before climbing out of the pool. He and Tasmine walked toward the back of the house. They crossed an outdoor patio where the judge sat at a round glass and wrought-iron table with his newspaper spread out in front of him along with what looked like a gin and tonic and a tray of snacks. Olives and peanuts and a small mound of potato chips. The sun glinting on the oil of the olives made his mouth water and he realized he was starving.
The judge either didn’t see them or chose not to. When they got to the back door he said, "I’ll take my shoes off, don’t want to track paint in."
The judge glanced up at the sound of his voice and then returned his attention to his paper without so much as acknowledging Eric’s presence. He followed Tasmine into the house and up a flight of stairs. It was mostly bedrooms up here. Tasmine said, "She wants to redo a couple of the bedrooms for her grandchildren. We need to move a heavy dresser out of the way so I can see where the electric plugs are. That will affect the furniture placement and the kinds of pieces I will suggest."
"No problem." He followed her through a doorway and found himself in a nice sized bedroom with a dormer window. Mrs. Bailey sat on the bed contemplating a fan of fabric samples. This was clearly going to be a little girl's room since all the fabric included patterns in pink or purple.
An ornate, heavy oak dressing table complete with mirrors took up most of the opposite wall to the bed and it was this that had to be moved. He managed to shift the heavy beast far enough that Tasmine could see what was behind it.
"Thanks," she said.
"No problem." She’d mentioned a couple of things. “Anything else?”
“That rocker. If we move it out we’ll get a better sense of the room, but I can do that.”
“I got it.” He picked up the old oak rocker and walked it out of the room and placed it in an alcove in the hallway where he figured it was out of the way. As he left the room, he heard Mrs. Bailey say, “He’s so strong.”
“He is,” Tasmine agreed.
“Anything else?” he asked when he’d returned.
“No, that’s good. Thanks, Eric.”
He nodded.
As he was leaving Mrs. Bailey said, “I can’t tell if these are bicycles or balloons. I've left my glasses downstairs in the kitchen. I'll just run down and get them."
He jogged down the stairs and back the way he’d come in. He was out the patio door and about to put on his shoes when he heard strange noises. He glanced up. The judge was jerking in his chair and getting red in the face. "Judge? Are you okay?"
Stupid thing to ask. The judge was a long way from okay and, at Eric’s words, put his hands around his throat in the classic ‘I’m choking’ signal.
He ran behind the older man and tried a sharp blow in between the shoulder blades.
No effect.
He rapidly reviewed what he remembered of the Heimlich maneuver. He’d studied it in first aid but he’d never used it. First time for everything. He knew the most important thing was not to panic. He got behind the judge, reached down, got his fisted hands above where he guessed the judge’s navel to be, pushed into the fleshy paunch and then sharply up. The judge slumped over his arms and, not only had whatever was caught in the judge’s throat not dislodged but Eric worried that the old guy was losing consciousness. "Stay with me, Judge."
Chapter 6
Feeling desperate now, and knowing he didn't have a lot of time, he pulled the judge right out of his chair and hauled him upright. He sucked in a breath, knowing he was going to need all his strength to dislodge whatever was stuck in the judge's throat.
He was about to try again when he heard a shriek from behind him.
"What are you doing?" He recognized Mrs. Bailey's voice but he didn't have time to stop and explain to her what was going on. He got his hands right onto the fleshy spot above the navel.
She screamed. "No! No! Leave him alone. Stop it! I'll call the police!" He felt a hard object smack him on the back and then the head and his back again. Meanwhile, she kept yelling. “Stop it, get away from him!" He tried to ignore her, and the pain of the blows raining down on him and focus on his task.
A new voice joined in the yelling. He heard Tasmine yell, “No. Mrs. Bailey. Stop! The Judge is choking. Eric’s trying to save him."
He heard a struggle behind him and then the blows stopped.
He pulled his fisted hands right in under the judge’s diaphragm and with all his strength yanked upwards.
He heard a sound like a pop and a gurgle and then a shiny green olive flew out of the judge's mouth and plopped to the ground at his feet. Eric half carried and half dragged the judge to the nearest patch of grass and laid him down. The old man dragged in a huge lungful of air and began to cough.
"What are you doing?" Mrs. Bailey yelled again, looking half hysterical.
He glanced over to where she was being held firmly. Tasmine had wrapped her arms around the woman to hold her in place and her small body was vibrating with anger and panic and confusion.
Tasmine repeated, "The judge was choking. Eric saved him." She held on one more second before releasing Mrs. Bailey.
The judge’s wife ran forward and dropped to her knees at her husband's side. "Oh my dear, are you all right?"
The judge nodded. Slowly, he sat up. He looked up at Eric, "Thank you,” he said in a raspy voice. “I'm obliged to you."
They sat side by side and Mrs. Bailey stroked her husband's back. "I didn't understand what was going on. I'm sorry, when I saw you with your arms around him I thought you were attacking him."
Eric was feeling a little shaky himself. Without permission he sank into one of the lounge chairs around the edge of the patio. The sight of those olives glistening in the sun no longer made him feel hungry.
"Mrs. Bailey," Tasmine said, "why don't I come back tomorrow and we’ll finish measuring for the furniture. If you have time, you can take a look at the fabric samples and let me know what you like."
"Yes, dear. If you don't mind, I think that would be best. I can't quite believe what just happened." She turned to her husband, "Should I call the doctor? Or an ambulance?"
He scowled at her. "No, I don't want to go to the hospital, and I don't want a doctor. I didn't choke to death, I don't have brain damage, and I don't want any fuss."
Eric stood. "I think I'll head off now, too.” It was a little earlier than his usual quitting time but he didn’t think anyone cared. “Good night, Judge Bailey. Night Mrs. Bailey.” He walked over and picked up his shoes from the ground. He realized that Mrs. B
ailey had used his own shoes as a weapon to hit him with. By the time he had his shoes back on, Tasmine had collected her bag from inside the kitchen, so they walked out together.
When they were out of earshot, Tasmine turned to him, "I've never seen that done before. It was amazing. He would be dead right now if it wasn't for you."
He nodded. "Probably."
They walked on a little more. He’d never saved anyone’s life before. It was a powerful feeling.
"You know, you never know what things are for. Maybe there was a reason that you got in trouble with the judge and had to come back here and clean his pool. Maybe fate led you here, so you could save the judge's life."
"Be a lot easier if fate had stopped Mrs. Bailey from putting out olives today."
"Well, if you ask me, a man's life is worth a lot more than a painting."
The guilt he’d been carrying around lessened a notch. He looked down at her, "Thanks." Then he said, on impulse, “I'm hungry. Can I take you for dinner somewhere?"
"Oh. Sure. That would be nice."
He looked at her in her pretty summer dress and her heels and then down at himself. "I've got a clean shirt in the car and my gym bag, do you think the Baileys would let me shower in the pool house?"
"I think the Baileys would do anything for you right now," she replied, "but they've had a shock. Let’s not bother them. You can shower at my place."
"You sure?"
"I'm sure."
He followed her to an apartment complex in Venice Beach. And when she drove her car into the underground parking he was able to find a spot on the street. He grabbed his gym bag out of the trunk and she came to the front door and let him in. They took the elevator up to the third floor and he followed her to her apartment. Once inside, he thought it was obvious that she was in the furniture or design business. Even though she hadn't known he was coming, the place looked professionally staged.
Now that he was here, she grew slightly nervous. "I only have one bathroom. You get to it through my bedroom."
He grinned at her. "Yeah? I get to see the room I’ve been dreaming about?"
