By the Book

by Mary Kay McComas

Vi laughed a mirthless laugh. “I don’t care who you date. You can have Jonah, if you want him. There are plenty of other men. But if you’re only dating him because you thought I wanted him, then you’re worse off than I thought.”

  “I’m not ... I didn’t ... I ... I love him. I didn’t think it would matter to you.”

  “It doesn’t,” she said, almost hissing the words. “You could have told me you were going after him, but it doesn’t really matter and it doesn’t have anything to do with this other business.”

  “What other business?” she asked, both hands out in supplication. “What else have I done?”

  “Leaving early, taking long lunches on busy days.”

  “Oh. You’ve never taken a long lunch?”

  “Not on a crazy-busy day,” she said, and seeming to realize this point might be debatable, she hurried on to the next. “And you knew Lisa was saving money to bring her mother over here from Korea. You knew she wanted Mary’s job in Loans for the extra money so she could bring her over sooner. And you marched right into Joleen’s office and snatched that job right out from under her. And what for? It’s only temporary. You don’t get brownie points for knowing all that stuff. You know you won’t be able to give loans to everyone who wants one—and the old Ellen we all knew and loved would have hated having to turn someone down. So why’d you do it? Just to be mean? Is it because she’s Korean?”

  “No. No. I ... No.”

  “You know what’s really sad about all this? She thought filling in for Mary was an honor. An honor for you because you’d trained her and an honor for her to be able to help out Mary. She’s perfectly willing for you to have all the honor of helping our friend Mary, and she refuses to admit she’s disappointed that her mother won’t be coming sooner. But she was so excited before. Really, Ellen, it was a lousy thing to do.”

  “I ... I didn’t know. I mean, I did know ... that she was saving to bring her mother over. But I didn’t know that’s why she wanted the job. I didn’t think ... It never occurred to me. I ... Oh, God. What have I done?”

  Vi studied her for a second or two, then backed off even as she took a step forward.

  “You really didn’t know, did you?” Ellen shook her head and Vi looked a bit sheepish. “Maybe I should have guessed that when Sylvia said that Joleen said you were adamant about having the job. Adamant just doesn’t sound like you.”

  “No. I was adamant. I found out Lisa was making fifty cents an hour more than I was and that they were thinking of letting her fill in for Mary ... and they hadn’t even asked me to and ... well, I was adamant. Very adamant. I didn’t think about Lisa, didn’t even give Joleen time to explain the situation to me. I ... I didn’t even want the job. It was the principle of it all. I was standing up for myself, not trying to hurt Lisa.”

  She felt horrible, could hardly look Vi in the eye. If she’d known all the facts, she wouldn’t have done it. The last thing she wanted to do was to delay the reunion of Lisa and her mother.

  “That’s probably what threw us all off in the first place,” Vi said, breaking the fragile silence between them. And when Ellen looked up in confusion, she added, “You standing up for yourself.” Then she grinned. “Very out of character, but not a bad thing. Maybe you should have given us a warning or something. Put us on alert.” Ellen chuckled a little and Vi laughed out loud and looped an arm around her shoulder. “Maybe this camera guy, Jonah, is having a positive influence on you. You better tell me all about it. Start with the sex.” They were leaving the restroom when she came up short. “But first tell me how much you make an hour. If Lisa’s making more than me, too, I’m going to want you to have another little talk with Joleen.”

  Ellen laughed and then sucked in air when their hips bumped passing through the doorway.

  “What? What happened? What’s wrong?” Vi asked, her face a mask of concern at the pain in her friend’s face.

  Ellen sighed and, needing a friend, told Vi the whole story in as few words as possible as they walked slowly back to their cubicles in the window. However, she carefully forgot to mention where she’d gotten her inspiration for her escapades that week.

  “Jeez,” Vi said at the end of the tale, leaning against the partition between their desks. “No wonder you’ve been acting so weird. Underpaid. Beaten up. And no sex?”

  “I knew you’d put it all in perspective for me.” She leaned back in her chair, feeling totally drained.

  “You know, you shouldn’t be here today,” Vi said. Ellen looked up and raised her brows to remind Vi of their conversation in the restroom. “No. I mean it. It’s been pretty slow today; I can handle it alone. Let me get some lunch, then you go check on Felix and go home, take care of yourself. That’s your biggest problem, you know. You take better care of everyone else than you do yourself.”

  It seemed to Ellen those were the very words that had gotten her into this mess to begin with, but she was too tired to argue.

  While Vi was at lunch, she had another, much shorter meeting with Joleen—who was so delighted to be able to make harmony reign among her employees again, she didn’t hesitate to give her the rest of the afternoon off.

  The nurses related that Felix had been medicated for pain and might be sleeping, and that she’d missed her mother and sister by a good fifteen minutes. It was just as well. Truth be told, she wasn’t eager to face any of them in broad daylight. Given the time to think, now that the crisis was over, she was fairly certain they wouldn’t be looking at her kindly. Not after the part she’d played in getting Felix beaten to a pulp.

  She stepped silently into his room, stood there for several minutes to make sure he was sleeping, then crept closer to the bed. His left eye was hideously swollen and blue-black, along with several other places on his once handsome face. His cheeks were puffed out, as if he had a walnut stuffed in each one, and he was breathing through his mouth. She could see a mishmash of wires across his teeth, locking his jaws together. His right arm was bent at the elbow and encased in a large plaster cast, elevated on a pillow and taped to the bed rail, so the fingers were in the air, curled loosely over the end of the cast. She touched them gently with her index finger, feeling their warmth, noting they were slightly swollen as well.

  She stood there for a long time listening to him breathe, in and out, and felt the whole situation take on a certain unrealness—as if it were all a bad dream and she’d be waking up soon. After all, how could she ever possibly have believed she could solve his problems all by herself? Oh, it was one thing to think she could solve her own problems—and hadn’t that turned out well?—but to presume she could wave her little green book around and magically solve Felix’s troubles as well was ... unreal. She’d been dreaming.

  No. She’d been a fool.

  Tears clouded her vision. She really wanted to have a good cry, but she didn’t want Felix to wake up and find her blubbering over his bed, so she turned and left the room, taking the first exit she saw. But instead of leaving the building or going down to the basement to the cafeteria, she took the ascending stairs and wound up on the second floor, a few doors down from Earl Blake’s room.

  She didn’t really want Jonah to see her crying either, but if she could get him to hold her for a minute or two ... Oh, the thought of it filled her with such yearning, it seemed to hollow her out like a cored apple, she needed him so much. If she could get him to hold her for a minute or two, she knew this overwhelming feeling of being hopelessly stupid and incompetent and so totally, totally wrong about everything in her life would stop spreading, would maybe ease a little, or even go away. Because aside from the fact that she’d pretended to be someone she wasn’t in the beginning, what she’d come to feel for Jonah was the one true, unshakable, absolutely right thing she’d done all week—maybe in her whole life.

  Blinking her eyes clear, she approached Earl’s room with great hope of finding Jonah inside. But he wasn’t. Earl lay in his bed, his lifeless eyes wide open, his body angled to the right a bit, the
sheets folded back and tucked in tight.

  “Aw, Earl,” she said, sighing as she entered the room and walked toward the man in the bed. “We blew it big time, didn’t we?” She studied his wrinkled face, and even the lines that were supposed to give his face character and tell a thousand stories about his life didn’t reveal a single element of his personality. “You know, if there really was some sort of magic potion I could use to change another person’s life, I’d use it on you. And you’d be glad I did. You would,” she said, tugging on the tight sheet, loosening it so it draped in a more natural fashion. “You missed something really wonderful in your life.” She hesitated. “It sure doesn’t take very long to screw things up, does it? Took me about a week. How long did it take you to decide that Jonah would be better off at a boarding school than wandering all over the world with an eccentric, self-absorbed loner like you? Ten minutes? A month?” She paused. “Strange, isn’t it, the way some mistakes can be fixed, and some—no matter how much you want it—can’t be undone.” She sighed again. “You probably already know this, but I’m going to tell you anyway. Your son, Jonah, is a good man. He’s kind and sweet and smart, really smart. And he’s got so much love to give ... maybe because you weren’t around to give it to or maybe it’s just the way he is. I don’t know. And I don’t know if he’ll ever set the world on fire, or if he even wants to, but you should be really proud of him. I love him, Mr. Blake. And I’m going to keep on loving him, as hard as I can, for as long as I can.” She gave him one last chance to respond, but he didn’t. “I just thought you’d like to know all that.”

  She gave his thin, bony shoulder a friendly, reassuring pat and left the room.

  She hadn’t realized how truly bone weary she was until she pulled into her parking space behind the lovely old Victorian house and took the key from the ignition. She leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes. The weight of the world pressed heavily on her chest. Her life was a mess. All she wanted to do was curl up in Jonah’s arms and let him take care of her, just for a little while, until her muscles stopped aching and her energy returned. Then she’d fix everything, she’d make her life right again, turn it all around. She would.

  She opened her eyes and opened the car door. Of course, the next best thing to having Jonah baby her a little would be some tea and sympathy from Mrs. Phipps. She’d fuss over her and do all the talking. Ellen could sit there and sip warm Earl Grey; listen to Bubba purr and not think.

  Coming home early, she hadn’t expected to see Mrs. Phipps on the back porch waiting for her, but she was disappointed anyway. She needed a friend, and in a perfect world friends would be there, waiting.

  She wasn’t sure what drew her gaze to the rearview mirror, but she did a double take, then turned her head to see the object of her wishful thinking walking briskly across the drive behind her car with a small wire pushcart in tow.

  “Mrs. Phipps,” she said, getting out of the car as quickly as her battered body allowed. “I was just thinking about you.” She stopped and turned toward her, a bright smile as her greeting. “How are you feeling?”

  “Just fine, dear. And how are you? We’ve missed you this week.”

  “I’ve missed you too,” she said, walking up to her. Motioning to the small bag of groceries in the pushcart, she asked, “Can I help you with that?”

  “No, no. It’s nothing, dear. We can manage it.”

  “It’s pretty hot out this afternoon. Should you be out walking in this heat?”

  “Well, my goodness, why not?” She laughed cheerfully. “When we were young, we walked all the time. Heat. Snow. Rain. When my son was little, he used to run the three blocks to the grocery. Of course, he always had that extra dime I’d give him for candy, burning a hole in his pocket.” She chuckled at the memory.

  They reached the back door and Ellen held it open for her, lifting the back of the pushcart off the ground to help her over the threshold.

  “Felix is in the hospital,” she said. “I—”

  “My, my, my.” She shook her head. “I know. I know. How is he? Have you been to see him? Your young man was here this morning and he told me the news.”

  “Jonah? Jonah was here this morning?”

  “Yes, dear. A little after nine. We stepped out to tell him that he’d just missed you.” She chuckled. “He had two little cups of coffee and a bag of store-bought muffins. He offered to share his coffee with us, since you were already gone but, of course, we don’t drink coffee, so he came in while we made tea and we sat and had a nice little visit.” She shook her head again, remembering. “Felix. How is he doing, dear? Your young man hadn’t been to the hospital yet; he didn’t know much.”

  “He’s fine, I guess, considering.” She didn’t really want to think about this right now. She wanted tea. She wanted pity. “I just left him. His mouth is wired closed and his arm is in a cast and he has bruises all over, but the nurses say he’s fine.”

  “So sad. Such a dear, sweet boy, when he’s not under the weather.”

  They were walking down the hall, toward her door. Ellen could almost taste the tea already.

  “He wasn’t under the weather when this happened, you know, he—”

  “Well, we won’t keep you, dear,” she said when they reached her door. “Your young man said you weren’t feeling well and you do look tired.” She hesitated. “Do you need anything?”

  “Well ...” She’d been hoping for the familiar invitation to tea, but it didn’t look as if it was coming. Good thing she wasn’t too nice anymore. “I was hoping we could have tea.”

  Mrs. Phipps’s head tipped to one side as she considered her neighbor with great fondness.

  “You are such a dear, sweet girl, Ellen,” she said, her voice cracking with feeling. She stepped forward and put a hand on Ellen’s arm. “But you don’t have to have tea with us anymore, dear. In fact, I think we owe you an apology.” Ellen would have stopped her if she knew what she was talking about. Instead she stood in stunned silence while Mrs. Phipps said, “The past few days have made us realize that we’ve been abusing your friendship, and we never meant to do that. We ... we get lonely sometimes, and we so very much enjoy your company that ...” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Well, we’d think up things for you to buy at the store so you’d have to stop by every evening and chat with us.” The sincerity in her expression was tearing Ellen to shreds. Her throat was tight and tears were pushing at her eyes. She was afraid to speak for fear the wail of despair building inside her would cut loose and bring the house down on both of them. “We didn’t stop to think that you were young and busy and had better things to do with your time than sit around having tea with an old woman and her cat. Goodness, we were young once. We remember how it is.”

  Ellen wanted to die. Just lie down on the floor and die. Nothing, not one thing she’d done that week, had been anything but a well-intentioned attempt to improve her own life, and yet she’d done nothing but hurt other people in the process.

  “But we’re mending our ways,” Mrs. Phipps said. “We’ll be doing our own shopping from now on, and we won’t press you to have tea with us so often. Any time you feel like coming down, we’ll be delighted to see you. We love you, dear. Come when you have the time to spare and only when you really want to.”

  It crossed Ellen’s mind to fall on her knees and beg the old lady’s forgiveness, but she had a feeling that she’d never get up again if she did. How had she managed to hurt the kindest woman in the world?

  “This week has been a little unusual,” she said, feeling as flat and heavy as an anvil. “And maybe I am a little tired,” she added, starting up the stairs to her apartment. “But Mrs. Phipps?” She look over the banister at her. “I love having tea with you.”

  The woman smiled and nodded. “Then you come down when you’ve rested up a bit and we’ll have some.”

  She smiled back at her, hoping everything she’d screwed up that week was as easy to fix; that everyone she’d hurt or deceived was as forgi
ving and understanding. Then she saw the trash bag still propped against the wall outside her door. She trudged to the top step and stood staring at it, then over at Eugene’s door. Apparently even small rodentlike people who lived in the dark were not without feelings. No food, no neighborly trash disposal. She looked back at the small white plastic bag of trash.

  She’d have to think this one over.

  She let herself into the apartment, closed the door, and leaned back against it. Her eyes closed automatically—in relief, but in self-defense too. Her mind was too numb to take in one more thought, one more ounce of guilt or even half a question. All she wanted to do was sleep, close out the world, hide for a little while.

  She opened her eyes and the first thing she saw was not the blinking light on her answering machine telling her she had nine messages waiting, but the purse she’d used two nights ago, tossed upside down in the chair. The purse with the teal blue negligee wrapped so carefully in tissue, hope and excitement inside. Jonah wedged his way back into her thoughts, pushed everything else aside, putting more pressure on her heart than she ever dreamed possible. Part of her desperately wanted him there, to hold her and comfort her. Another part wanted him there so she could finally be honest with him. But another part was dreading their next encounter, afraid of the truth, afraid of disappointing him, afraid that being herself wouldn’t be enough for him.

  She picked up the purse and kicked off her shoes on her way to the bedroom, and that was all she could remember. She was asleep in seconds.

  CHAPTER TEN

  STEP TEN

  It requires wisdom to understand wisdom; the music is nothing if the audience is deaf.

  —Walter Lippmann

  Don’t beat your head against walls. It’s not only stupid, it’s disfiguring. Any gambler will tell you that you have to know when to hold and when to fold. Choose your battles carefully. And remember, failure isn’t really failure if a lesson’s been learned.