Jean drew in a quick breath and looked down at the teapot. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I guess I’m not a very careful housekeeper since Ivan died.”
“You ain’t kidding,” Sylvia said. “But that’s not the point. The point is you ain’t taking care of yourself and that worries me. I always liked you and we always had good times together, you and me and your hubby. I’ll just say it out blunt so’s you’ll know where I stand. That’s just the way I am. I say it like it is. You mentioned religion? Well, I see now that I’ve been called to save you.” She reared back and smiled as though she had just bestowed a high honor on Jean.
Jean wasn’t sure she had understood. The medicine was taking too long to act. “Save me from what?”
“From yourself. You ain’t doing so good, that’s clear as day,” Sylvia said.
“That’s because I just lost my husband,” Jean said.
“Well, you ain’t going to find him this way,” Sylvia said with another burst of laughter. “Time to move on, and that’s where I come in. I’m the kind of person that likes to help the downtrodden. That’s just the way I am.” She leaned forward and spread her arms as though about to engulf Jean again. “Warren always said that was my biggest fault, wanting to help people. And it’s clear as day you’re letting yourself go with all this grieving, just like I did. But now I’m here to help you. I’ll do your shopping for you, so you won’t be eating cow pats, some cooking so you don’t blow away like a dandelion, some cleaning so the place don’t smell like a toilet.”
Jean pressed back against the sofa pillow. Was this the hallucination the old doctor had warned her about? Booze and drugs don’t like each other, he’d said. You’ll see things you won’t like, ugly things. No more pills until I know you’re not drinking. Are you trying to kill yourself? Is that what you’re doing? He had been unkind, and so she had found the new doctor. Jean forced herself to smile. “It’s nice of you to offer,” she said, “but I don’t need any help. I’m all right.”
“You’re all wrong,” Sylvia said, with a flip of her fat fingers. “You’re lonely and you’re zonked out on booze and drugs. Like when you were in the kitchen fixing the tea? Took yourself a pill, didn’t you? And a snort, too, I bet. Maybe two snorts.”
“I took my medicine because it was time,” Jean said.
“Your hubby maybe couldn’t smell the gin, but I ain’t got this nose for nothing.” Sylvia twisted her nose this way and that and let loose with her awful laugh.
Jean peered more closely. There was nothing familiar about this woman, not the loud raspy laughter or the copper curls or the moon face. Not even the name. “I don’t think I ever knew anyone named Sylvia Smith in my whole life,” Jean said. “You never lived around here, did you? You made it all up, Warren and the Tudor.”
“That’s a perfect example of what’s happening to you, your memory’s going.” Sylvia pressed her lips together and shook her head as though in sorrow. “You need help and here I am, sent by the Lord to help you.”
Jean lifted her chin. “I don’t need help, thank you.”
“You don’t?” Sylvia leaned across the tea tray and plucked the edge of Jean’s bathrobe. “Well, just take a look at yourself. Wearing a filthy nightie at five in the afternoon. Stinking like a drunken old bag lady. Bet you haven’t took a bath in a week. And how many times you turned that sofa cushion because you peed it? You’re going to hell in a hand basket, missy.”
Jean began to tremble and her breath came short. “I want you to leave,” she whispered, and then in a stronger voice said, “Get out of my house.”
Sylvia laughed and said. “See? I’ve made you better already. Put a little gumption in you.”
“If you don’t leave, I’m going to call the police.” Jean reached across the arm of the sofa toward the telephone.
“Don’t get your underdrawers in a tangle.” Sylvia said. She hoisted herself up and, like a yacht weighing anchor, glided past Jean to the front door. As she opened the door, she called over her shoulder, “It’s my Christian duty to look after you, and I’ll be back.”
When she heard the door closing, Jean fell against the sofa pillows. That awful woman, that hideous creature, a liar, pretending to be from the neighborhood, pretending to know Ivan. Ivan was more fun than a barrel of monkeys, she had said. That was a barrel of lies. She didn’t know Ivan or she would know not ever to touch the heirlooms.
Jean glanced over at the cabinet and noticed that the door was ajar. When she stood up and walked over to close it, she saw a tiny clean circle surrounded by dust where the gold thimble had been. She looked all through the cabinet but there was no gold thimble. The woman had stolen it. Ivan would have been furious. I can’t trust you with anything.
Jean went to the telephone to call the police. As she pressed the 9, she rehearsed what she would say. I want to report a theft. A woman stole Ivan’s thimble. How absurd the police would think her, to be calling 911 because of a thimble. They would never understand how much Ivan had valued it and how miserable she now felt. She had no idea where the woman lived, or even her real name, though she was pretty sure it wasn’t Sylvia Smith. The police would ask why she had let in a stranger, and why was she still in her nightgown, and why she smelled of gin, and they would call Carolee and Andrew.
Jean’s hands were shaking as she put the telephone back in its cradle. She had not wanted to look after the heirlooms, but Carolee and Andrew had refused to take them, scoffing at them, saying they were just dust catchers. Perhaps they were. Perhaps the thimble wasn’t really valuable, just a little piece of gold plate. She went to the cabinet and blew on the dust to cover the clean spot.
The encounter and then the trouble with the thimble had been exhausting and had left her weak and trembling. That awful woman had called her a bag lady and said she smelled. Jean put her nose to her armpit. Yes, there was a dank, mossy smell. Of course she would have showered, but how could she with that awful woman bursting in. She went back to the sofa and lay down until she could catch her breath. I’ll just lie quietly for a minute or two and then I’ll bathe.
***
It was full dark when the telephone awakened her, and she pulled herself up from the sofa to answer it. It was Andrew. For the three months since Ivan’s death, he had called every Thursday. “You’re like clockwork,” she said. “How are you?” She felt a pang of guilt. He would be so ashamed if he saw her in the filthy nightgown, her hair lank and greasy, her chin itching with dried spit.
As he always did, he reported on the week past and the week ahead, his son’s exploits on his high school baseball team, the French movie he and his wife had seen, the new wonder product his company was marketing. “How about you?” he asked. “Taking care of yourself? Seeing people?”
For a moment, she thought she would tell him about that woman and the stolen thimble. No—that would worry him and make him think she was incompetent, letting in a stranger. But he would be pleased to know she had had company.
“Yes, I had company this afternoon, an old friend I hadn’t seen in a long time,” she said, smiling, hoping the smile sounded in her voice. “Every day I feel better.”
“I’m glad,” he said. “I’ll call next week.”
It was easy to fool Andrew. He so wanted to believe everything was fine. Carolee was more suspicious. When she had called last Friday she had said Jean’s voice sounded slurred, and Jean had quickly said she had gone to the dentist—“First time since your dad got sick”—and her mouth was full of Novocain. Carolee had said she was very pleased to hear Jean was taking care of herself. They were good children, and though Ivan had left them the house once Jean died, Jean’s gift to them was not ever bothering them.
It had been hours since she had had any medicine, and the new doctor had told her every four. No wonder her head was throbbing and her hands were shaking. She went to the kitchen and took down the medicine bottle and shook out a pill. Zonked on pills and booze, that awful woman had said. Zonked? Well, whatever z
onked meant, she was not zonked. She took her medicine because the new doctor had prescribed it. Why would you have a doctor if you didn’t do what he said?
After she had swallowed down the pill and the gin, she went over to the refrigerator. The new doctor had put his fingers around her upper arm and said, I want you to put some meat on these bones, and she had promised she would. He wasn’t mean and judgmental like the old doctor, and she wanted to please him.
She opened the refrigerator and took out a slice of bread and an egg. The bread was stale but it would be all right after it was toasted. She put the bread in the toaster and broke the egg into a frying pan. I’m doing what you told me to, she said to the new doctor. And he would smile and say, Very good, young lady.
As she scooped the egg onto the toast, the yolk broke and the yellow began to ooze across the plate like living slime, and a smell of sulphur rose up. Jean’s stomach clenched, and for a moment she thought she would vomit. She quickly sat down and put her head between her knees and took deep breaths.
Once her stomach had settled, she ate the part of the toast that the broken egg hadn’t touched and drank half a glass of orange juice. Though it was only eight-thirty, she decided she would go upstairs, take a shower, wash her hair, and sleep in her own bed—she would not sleep on the sofa ever again. She shook out two pills and poured a tumbler of gin, not for now, no, but she would take them with her just in case she woke up during the night and needed them. No point in having to come all the way back downstairs.
She carried the pills and the gin up to her bedroom and put them on the bedside table. As she started to take off her robe and nightgown so she could shower, she realized she couldn’t go to bed with her hair wet—it might ruin the pillow and she might catch cold and anyway she was too tired. In the morning she would shower and wash her hair and put on fresh clothes and she would feel good all day. I am not going to hell in a hand basket.
The television remote control was on the bedside table and she turned it on. Some men were playing cards. They looked very scruffy in T-shirts and loud jackets, just the kind of men Ivan despised. She watched for a few minutes, until one of the men stood up and began to shout, and then she clicked on another channel. An enormous loud woman who looked like Sylvia only brunette and short was shouting at an old man and he was shouting at her. Why did everyone shout so?
Jean clicked again and a fawn-colored gazelle with a white chest and beautiful lyre-shaped horns was running through the brush. Jean relaxed back against the pillows to watch the little gazelle. The scene changed and something huge—a lion—leaped from the bushes and grabbed the gazelle and began to tear at its flesh, and the gazelle began to screech. Jean quickly turned off the television, but already her head was throbbing and her hands were shaking. She had promised the new young doctor she would take the medicine only every four hours, and it wasn’t time yet. But if she drank a little of the gin maybe she would be able to forget that awful screeching and fall asleep, and tomorrow she would bathe and wash her hair.
***
“Passed out, did you? Still in that nasty nightie and just look, you peed yourself again.” Sylvia batted her hand in front of her nose. “Can’t leave you alone for a minute.”
Jean opened her eyes. She was on the sofa in the living room, and there was Sylvia sprawled in the big chair across the tea table. “How did you get in?” Jean muttered.
“If you’re going to leave the door unlocked you’re lucky it was me come in and not some axe murderer.” Sylvia shook her head and her copper curls seemed almost electrified. “What a nasty kitchen. Whoof. God almighty chunks of egg and bread all over the place. I cleaned it all up. See how useful I can be to you? But next time you upchuck try to make it to the sink.”
Jean didn’t remember coming downstairs during the night or trying to eat, but she still tasted the vomit. “That was just an accident,” she murmured.
“Well I didn’t think you did it on purpose.” Sylvia barked out a short laugh. “Now get up and go to the little girls’ room before you pee that sofa again. And take off that nasty nightie while you’re about it and get yourself a bath.”
“Go away,” Jean said. “Please go away.” As she sat up, she remembered the thimble, and she thought that perhaps Sylvia was contrite and was returning it. Be forgiving, the minister had told her long ago, just as the Lord forgives us. And she was forgiving. Carolee said so. Andrew said so. “I’m glad you’ve brought back the thimble.” She put out her hand toward Sylvia and smiled. “I won’t say a word about it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The gold thimble you took from the cabinet.”
Sylvia seemed to swell up to twice her size. “You accusing me of stealing?” She rolled her immense shoulders forward and jutted out her chin, and she looked at though she might leap across the table.
Jean pressed back against the sofa pillows “Of course I’m not accusing you of stealing. I just thought…”—But what could she have thought?—“…that you borrowed it since you said you were coming back.”
“I don’t need to borrow no thimble. I got a dozen of my own.” Sylvia eyed Jean as though deciding what action to take, and then she relaxed back against the chair and huffed out a little laugh. “You better watch that tongue of yours, else we ain’t going to get along so hot.”
Jean took a deep breath and sat up straighter. “But I don’t want us to get along. I want you to leave or I’ll call the police.”
“I don’t think you want to be making any threats.” Sylvia narrowed her eyes and they were like laser beams aimed at Jean. “What if your children found out what a mess you are, all them pills and booze and upchucking and peeing all over the place. I wonder if it ain’t my Christian duty to tell them.”
Jean felt a fluttering in her head, and she was afraid she would pass out again. “But you don’t know my children,” she said
“Don’t I?” Sylvia said with a little sneer. “Carolee and Andrew? That ain’t their telephone in this book?” She held up Jean’s little address book. “If I call and tell them what’s going on here, it would break their hearts.”
“No,” Jean said, “no, please don’t call them.” She pressed her hands to her temples to settle the dizziness. “I know we can work this out.”
Sylvia sat back. “All’s I want is to be helpful. That’s the way I am. I care more about others than I do about myself.” She waited until Jean nodded, and then she said, “Okay, here’s the way it’s going to work. You give me three hundred dollars a week—checks are okay—and I’ll come over every afternoon about five, fix us some dinner, tidy up the place, make you take a bath so you don’t stink so bad, be company for you.” She looked hard at Jean. “When’s the last time you saw any of your old pals?”
Jean said. “I just wanted to be alone for a while.”
“How long a while? Until you croak? Is that what you want?”
Jean said. “Two or three weeks.”
Sylvia got up and walked to the bric-a-brac cabinet. “This where that thimble was you say I stole?”
“I misspoke,” Jean said.
Sylvia opened the cabinet and took out Ivan’s grandmother’s cameo with the gold-filigreed frame. “Nice,” she said, turning the cameo in the light. Then she pointed into the cabinet. “What’s that?”
“It’s a Fabergé egg,” Jean said. “Ivan said it was very valuable.”
“Anybody clean in here in the last century?” Sylvia took a handkerchief from between her breasts and began to smear the dust over the shelf, lifting first one item then another. “You don’t need the aggravation, situation you’re in,” she said, batting away the dust particles that swam in the air. “They’re just something more for you to worry yourself with and keep you from doing what you want.”
“Yes, they’re a burden,” Jean said, “but Ivan made me promise I’d take care of them.”
“Ivan’s dead, ain’t he?”
“Yes,” Jean said, “he’s dead.”
“You’re right,” Jean said as she left the room.
Sylvia had cleaned up the kitchen. The pill bottle was on the counter and the empty gin bottle in the trash and the floor had been mopped. Sylvia was wonderful. Jean took her checkbook from the drawer under the cabinet and made out a three hundred dollar check to cash because she didn’t know Sylvia’s real name. Then she reached under the sink where she kept the case of gin. There were only three bottles left, but by the time they were finished maybe she wouldn’t need any more.
As Jean went back into the living room, Sylvia turned from the bric-a-brac cabinet and laughed. “I hope you enjoyed it.” She held out her hand and took the check. “Look, I don’t care about the booze and the pills. I just want you to be happy, and I tell you them dusty old souvenirs ain’t doing it and if the booze does, then okay. See? I’m kind of your guardian angel.”
“I think you are,” Jean said.
Once the front door had closed behind Sylvia, Jean looked into the bric-a-brac cabinet. All Ivan’s heirlooms had been rearranged after Sylvia’s dusting, but Jean realized the cameo and the Fabergé egg and, yes, the pearl tie pin were gone. Sylvia was doing her work more quickly now. Tomorrow perhaps the three little gold demitasse spoons with Ivan’s family crest and the black fan with the diamond decorations and the next day the letter opener with the ruby-and-amber inlay and the letter bearing the seal of the Archduke.
Jean felt a rush of fear and began to tremble. Ivan would be furious. But then she smiled. As Sylvia had said, Ivan was dead and Jean was free to do what she had wanted to do for so many years. And once the hideous heirlooms were gone, she would send the sofa cushions to be cleaned, scour the gunk off all the dishes, and throw the bric-a-brac cabinet in the city dumpster. Everything should be nice for Carolee and Andrew. A widow she knew had had the inside of her house painted and the windows washed, and when she had accomplished that she died.
Old Ladies Page 14
