“Again, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I sometimes assume other people have more—”
I thought she was going to say “common sense.”
“—street smarts. But I guess that’s me,” Rita said.
“Why would she come looking for you? How do you know her?”
“I work at a food pantry in Laguna when I’m in town.” Rita grimaced as she turned to check whether the lane was clear to pass a moving van.
I felt terrible. Because of me, she was driving the streets instead of resting her back. I wondered if Heather could overdose on twenty bucks’ worth of drugs.
As if reading my thoughts, Rita said, “Maybe she’ll score and pass out. Sleep it off.”
“Thank you for that.”
My phone beeped. A text from Jessie. I responded that I couldn’t talk but would call her back.
She sent me a row of sad-faced emojis.
I called her. “Is everything all right?”
“Are you still in Monterey?”
“I’m in Newport Beach with Rita. What’s wrong?”
Rita glanced over at me, concerned.
“I’m losing my mind,” said Jessie. “My life is turning to shit.”
“Are the kids okay?” I couldn’t stand it if something happened to Jessie or her family.
“My mother wants visiting rights.”
My mouth hung open. The last they’d seen of each other was when Sandy tried to push a pregnant Jessie down a flight of stairs. Both of them had been hospitalized. Jessie was released right away—both she and the baby were fine—but Sandy was moved to a longer-term facility. In the meantime, Jessie packed up and moved to Georgia with a convenient, if unsuitable, boyfriend.
“Is she out of the hospital? Back with your dad?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care. She keeps texting and calling. I swear, she’s stalking me.”
“Calm down. You can handle this.”
Jessie answered with a curse that I won’t repeat here. It was quite colorful.
After moving to Georgia, a couple of good things had happened. Jessie got counseling, which changed her life. She enrolled in college and earned a degree in Family Therapy. All this while living in a single-wide trailer with baby Sunshine and the increasingly mean-spirited boyfriend. I was proud of my young friend, for who she was and what she’d accomplished.
“Karen?” said Jessie.
“I’m here.”
“I’m in bed, hiding from the light. I think I’m getting a migraine,” Jessie said. “Ryan’s supposed to be watching the kids, but he’s got a videoconference to attend. I’m praying they’ll behave while he’s talking, cuz every time I stand up, it’s like a sledgehammer to my head.”
Rita had entered the Laguna Beach area and was cruising a city park. She drove by slowly, but it appeared deserted. I tapped her leg and gave her a questioning look. She shook her head.
“Hey, Jessie? I’ll be flying into Denver on my way home. Why don’t I come for a short visit?”
“How soon can you get here?”
“I’ll call you tonight.” We hung up. I might have screwed up in Rita’s world, but maybe I could help Jessie.
Rita was staring out the windshield, biting her lower lip.
“Where now?” I asked.
“I’m trying to think. There’s somebody who might know.” She cranked the Caddie in a tight U-turn and roared back to the highway. Turning onto a back street in Laguna, she pulled into a cracked and rutted parking lot strewn with pungent red berries from the ancient pepper trees drooping overhead. A homeless person slept in the parched dirt planter at the base of a tree. We walked past a couple of overflowing dumpsters to the back door of a business. Rita knocked, waited, and knocked again, harder.
I wondered who she knew in this dreary environment, and I realized I didn’t know her very well at all.
The door unlocked and swung inward. The silver-haired woman who opened it squinted through thick glasses. “Look what the cat drug in. Thought you went AWOL.”
Rita gave her a hug. “Hey, Betty. This is Karen. Have you seen Heather?”
Betty looked from me to Rita. “Not this morning. Why?”
“I think she’s in trouble,” Rita said.
“What happened?”
“I gave—” I started to say.
Rita cut me off. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Let’s ask the troops.” Betty marched us past shelves labeled Groceries, Hygiene, and Baby. Other than a few cans of corn, the shelves were bare.
“Where is everything?” asked Rita.
“Compassion fatigue. Nobody donates this time of year.” Betty hurried through another door, leading to a community room. A dozen women, some elderly, some with children, lined up in front of two tables where they waited with empty shopping bags for packaged food and supplies. In the next room, women and children sat at tables, eating breakfast. Others shuffled past a buffet where scrambled eggs and bacon were being served. A young girl with matted hair, about ten or eleven, sat by herself, eating with her fingers.
Rita stared, her face a mask of pain. It reminded me of my mother’s funeral, and Aunt Marie’s face as she watched her sister’s casket disappear into the earth. At the time, consumed by grief myself, I focused on the truth that death was the only thing that was totally final, and that otherwise, as long as we were alive, we would have options. We could fight. As I watched Rita watch the matted-hair girl, I saw a battle looming in my friend’s eyes.
Betty dragged a folding chair across a chipped linoleum floor and climbed onto it. “Listen up,” she shouted. “Excuse me. Can I have your attention?”
The women turned toward Betty. “Has anyone see Heather?”
In the quiet room, a baby fussed, and the mother comforted it. Heads were bowed, eyes on the floor. Nobody wanted to involve themselves in the hell of a missing loved one.
“Did anybody see her last night or this morning?” Betty repeated. “She’s about five-seven, real skinny, white girl.”
Rita stepped forward. “If I can get to her in the next half hour,” she said, her voice surprisingly forceful, “we can probably save her. But you need to help me. This is something you can do. We are not powerless! Help me find her.” She glared at the room, her neck extended, eyes fierce as an Aztec priestess.
One mother shuffled forward, her baby carried across her chest in a sling. “She wear dreads?”
“Did you see her?”
“Couple hours ago.” The woman, still young, had no teeth. A faded scarf, tied around her head, covered one eye.
“Where?” Betty climbed down.
“Bathroom downtown by the boardwalk. She was getting out of some dude’s car.”
“How did she look?”
The woman shrugged. “Sleepy. Sit on the curb.”
Rita uttered a curse and took off toward the back door, almost knocking me over in the process. I ran after and barely got in before she threw the car in reverse and backed out. Betty, her face grim, waved goodbye from the back door.
Not noticing, Rita peeled out. “She’s not far from here.” We sped north on PCH, darting through traffic, toward the center of town. Near the volleyball courts, she slowed. We’d almost passed the park area when we saw a blanketed figure lying on the sidewalk, a hundred yards from the street. Rita left the Caddie at the curb and dashed toward the bench to the sound of angry car horns.
The dreadlocks were a giveaway. Rita fell to her knees next to Heather’s inert form. “Call nine-one-one,” she yelled to me.
Shaking, I dialed, squawking our location into the phone. Heather was breathing, but just barely. I watched for the ambulance as Rita grasped Heather by the shoulders, shaking her and crying, “Wake up! Heather, open your eyes, honey, Heather! HEATHER!”
The girl didn’t respond.
Within minutes, the wail of a siren pierced the morning, drawing louder and cutting off abruptly as it found us. The ambulance bumped up over the curb and
down the sidewalk to us. The paramedics put an oxygen mask on Heather, unwrapped her enough to get a drip going, and loaded her onto a gurney.
Within ten minutes, she was on her way to the hospital, and we were following it, racing back the way we’d come. On the way, Rita phoned Betty at the pantry.
Rita checked in with the ER receptionist and called Grady. Her explanation was detailed as if he’d already forgotten the reason we’d barreled out of there this morning. She got up and walked a little distance away from me, frowning and gesturing with her free hand. She told him she loved him three or four times, hung up, and sat down by me. She leaned forward, elbows resting on knees, her head dipping below her shoulders.
“How does it come to this?” she asked.
I didn’t know if she meant Heather or Grady.
For a few minutes, we sat there, listening to the waiting room doors shuddering open and closed, announcements blaring over the PA, and the noise of a morning news show on the television monitor.
Betty came through the sliding doors and sat down next to Rita. “How is she?”
“They’re not going to tell us anything, but I overheard the nurses talking. At least she’s not dead.”
“Thanks be to God,” said Betty.
I looked at the floor.
Rita nudged me with her shoulder. “It’s a good hospital.”
I nodded, feeling completely horrible.
“I talked to the brother,” Betty said. “He’s coming from Thousand Oaks.”
“We’ll have a couple hours to wait.” Rita patted the seat next to her, and Betty sat down.
Although I could have stuck around and tried to help, my preference was to get the hell away from the hospital and go someplace where I could breathe. Besides, I wanted to visit Peggy before I left for Denver.
Rita agreed to let me use her car. “I’ll walk out with you.”
Outside, I apologized again. “I should have thought. I just didn’t. I’m really sorry.”
“Quit torturing yourself,” said Rita. “If it wasn’t you, it would have been some guy tonight. Heather was circling the drain. This could end up being a good thing. I’ll make sure she gets into rehab.”
I wondered how Rita would keep tabs on Heather if she were driving her truck cross-country, but I admired her anyway. No doubt she identified with the tragedies of the streets, given where she and her brother started. I felt uplifted by her presence.
“You’re a good person, Rita.”
She ducked her head, reached into her pocket, and pressed the button on the remote. The Cadillac unlocked with a subtle click. “Take as long as you want.”
I took the keys from her. “Before you go, can I ask you a question?”
She stopped. Turned back to me.
“Is Grady okay?”
“Sure. He’s fine.” She kicked a bottle cap. It skittered across the parking lot, coming to rest against a tire.
“I know, but—”
“He’s older. It’s inevitable that a person might be more forgetful. He’s a little worse than the norm, but he’s fine. Don’t worry. And have fun with the car. There’s a Starbucks card in the console if you need a hit of caffeine.” Rita flashed me a brilliant smile and went back to the ER.
I stood in the parking lot, watching her go, wishing there was some way I could lighten her load.
Chapter 15
PEGGY QUIT GLOBAL HEALTH a few years after I left, saying she couldn’t take any more of Wes, our boss. She retired and went on a world cruise but quickly became bored. When she disembarked in San Pedro, she had the cab take her straight to Global and demanded her job back. With the office in worse shape than ever, a desperate Wes rehired her, gave her a raise, and moved her into a big new office.
After that, Peggy ran the place. Employees were happy, the bottom line improved, and Wes kept his mouth shut. Peggy took advantage of him, but he owed her. He owed us. I used to work for that bastard, and he’d destroyed my career.
So I loved it when she told me, maybe a year ago, that she had Wes picking up her groceries and doing minor repairs around her house. How I would have loved to see him in that mode, the weasel.
Peggy and I hadn’t talked in a while. I looked forward to surprising her.
The sixteen-story building—my old office—appeared to be made of dark blue mirrors, and the lot was full of Mercedes and Lexus coupes. I parked the Cadillac and straightened my slacks and blouse. I looked nice but hadn’t dressed up. What were they going to do, fire me?
Still, it was false bravado. Over the last few miles, I’d developed a case of nerves, and by the time I pushed open the heavy glass door to the lobby, I felt nervous as Looney Tunes when the veterinary truck drives up.
As I slipped into the cold interior, a wave of nostalgia washed over me. The place felt both achingly familiar and yet foreign.
In the lobby, expensive abstract art hung on gray linen walls. The white marble floor was shot through with veins of gray and silver. And, just like in the old days, black-clad anorexics hurried up and down the hallway, their sky-high heels clacking as they buzzed through the hive.
One of their number, a twenty-something blonde with perfect skin and jutting breasts, looked up from her computer screen and narrowed her eyes at me from behind the reception counter. “Are you looking for something?” Her voice grated in the scary affectation they call vocal fry.
“No. Thanks.”
The girl was already back at her screen. I pressed the elevator button and rode to the tenth floor, getting out in the silent foyer we had called the compression chamber. I pushed open one of the double oak doors to Global Health, and my past.
When I last saw the place, after I’d been fired but before I forced Wes to write a giant check for all the older employees he’d terminated illegally, Global Health was on life support. Cubicles had stood empty, and the remaining few employees were merely waiting for the place to collapse under Wes’ pointless leadership.
But things had changed. The floor-to-ceiling windows, for example, had previously been clad with cheap drapes and blockaded by banks of filing cabinets. Now, the windows were unobstructed, offering a crystalline view of the Pacific. The waiting area was comfortably furnished with upholstered chairs, occasional tables, and reading lamps. Rather than cubicles, the work areas were separated by low partitions that allowed privacy without blocking the view. Telephones rang quietly, and voices were subdued.
The suite occupied the entire floor. Small private offices, a spacious conference room, and a well-equipped kitchen took up the south wall, while the executive offices were situated on the north. Unnoticed, I made my way to Peggy’s office, third door down Mahogany Row on the right. The door was slightly ajar. I tapped, but when no one answered, I pushed it open.
The office was empty and dark. Peggy’s old drapes hid the view—her preference—and they smelled of cigarette smoke. It was her one bad habit, but Wes knew better than to stop her, and thanks to the specially-upgraded fan in her executive washroom, the employees didn’t notice. Peggy said she was too old to go outside every time she needed a smoke.
The desk was cleared off, and an open drawer was empty. There were no signs of her personal effects. I heard a footstep behind me.
“Is that Karen?”
At that voice, I spun around but had to stop myself from gaping at the old man standing in the doorway. The weasel had gone gray and wore glasses. Beige Dockers sagged at the waist under a middling paunch, and his dress shirt was wrinkled.
“Where’s Peggy?” I asked.
“Good to see you.” Wes held out his hand. “It’s been a long time.”
I hesitated, then shook it.
“Peggy had to take a medical leave of absence.” He went over and sat in the desk chair. “Unfortunately, I don’t see her coming back.”
“Why? What happened?”
“You know she’s ninety.”
“So? She was in great health. I mean, except for the smoking.”
; “That may have contributed. She’s having problems with her thinking. Cognition takes longer, and it’s harder for her to speak.”
“Did she have a stroke?”
He looked toward me, the light reflecting in his glasses so I couldn’t see his eyes. “The doctors don’t know. I understand her, but nobody else really can. But I think she’s comfortable.”
“Did she have to move out of her apartment?” Peggy had no family to speak of. Assisted living would kill her.
He blushed. “Actually, she moved in with me. I live in Monarch Bay. Her suite looks right out on the ocean.”
Now I reached for a chair. “Her suite?”
“It’s a pretty nice house.”
In Monarch Bay? I guess. But Peggy living with Wes—the thought blew my mind. “Tell me how this happened.”
“You know she went on that world cruise.”
I nodded. “She was bored out of her skull. You let her have her job back.”
“To be candid, I wasn’t willing, but my superiors were extremely unsettled about the recession, and Peggy was known for her work in finance. At first, her return was a challenge.” He looked down at the floor.
I stifled a grin, remembering how Peggy used to call Wes on the intercom, yell at him, and slam the phone down.
“With all the chaos that was going on after 2008, she and I realized we had to work together, or the company would go under. We’d be financially ruined and out of a job.”
Like me. But I didn’t say it.
“So we buckled down, and surprisingly, found we worked well together. That was the case for a few years, but she started to decline.”
“I talked with her on the phone every few months,” I said. “I never noticed.”
“It was subtle at first.” Wes rubbed his temples. “But eventually, it was too hard for her to come to work. She planned to book an Eternal Cruise. Have you heard of them?”
Knowing Peggy, I could imagine. “You never disembark?”
“Not in the earthly sense, but that was her plan. She had nowhere else to go. She refused to be in assisted living, and the two options cost about the same.”
Dakota Blues Box Set Page 63
