by Edna Curry
In the meantime, Lucy would keep adding money into the account until all the money she’d spent was repaid. She stopped at a department store and bought a good pair of walking shoes for work. Oddly, she learned her feet were two sizes bigger than she remembered. Had they changed shoe sizes over the years? Then she bought more towels, basics like shampoo and kitchen utensils for her apartment and then rode the cab to the motel, told the cabbie to wait for her and checked out before returning to the rooming house and paying her rent.
Once again, she hoped using this money wouldn’t get her into trouble. She’d work as many hours as she could to save up enough to pay this Lucille back when she figured things out.
Then she carried her things up to her room and settled in. She needed to get some rest before starting her new job early in the morning.
She was almost asleep when her cell phone rang. Only a few people had her phone number. She’d given it to Vi and Martha yesterday.
Thinking it must be Vi with more instructions about her job, she climbed out of bed, grabbed her purse to dig out her phone and quickly answered it.
A man’s voice asked, “Lucy?”
She recognized his voice immediately. She hadn’t been able to get that attractive man out of her mind since she’d met him. “Dave. How nice to hear from you.”
“I told you I’d call to see how you were doing.”
“Yes, but…”
“But you really didn’t think I would?” Dave’s low laugh rumbled over the phone.
“I…I guess not.” He was right. She hadn’t really believed he’d meant it when he’d said he’d call.
“Well, I don’t tell a girl that unless I mean it. So, how are you doing? Were your folks all right?”
The reminder of her discovery choked her up and tears flowed. “No. The detective was right. They’re dead.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Lucy. Can I help with the funerals or anything?”
Could he make the last sixty years disappear? Could he bring back her happy, comfy life with loving parents? “No. No, everything’s been done already, quite a while ago.” She drew a deep breath and bit her lip to keep from adding that it had all been done a very long time ago.
“But there must be legal stuff to take care of, handling the sale of their home and bills and their estate.”
She swallowed hard, closing her eyes against the pain. Sixty years ago, someone else must have handled all that. She couldn’t do anything about it now. No one would even believe her if she tried to claim she was their daughter and heir. “A lawyer handled it all,” she said, wondering if one really had or if she lied. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Oh. So, where are you staying?”
“I found a job at a café and rented a small apartment with a kitchenette nearby in downtown Mankato. It’s close enough so I can walk to work. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. I’ve waitressed before.”
“Oh, that’s great. Tell me about the restaurant.”
She told him about it and his voice got a little weird. But he didn’t say much. Just that he’d try to see her soon. With that, they said goodbye. She cuddled back into her pillow with a little smile. Dave was a nice man. And he’d actually called and said she’d see him soon.
What a good day this had turned out to be.
Chapter 5
March 18, Grand Bahama Island
Roscoe Mattison leisurely swam in the ocean, enjoying the warm Caribbean weather. A nice change from the ice and snow he’d left back in Minneapolis. Glancing toward the lawn chair where his latest sweetie had promised to meet him, he saw instead the man he seldom enjoyed spending time with. He swam to shallow water, waded out and reluctantly crossed the beach to where his father waited for him, a scowl on his face. Obviously, someone at the hotel had told the Senator where to find him.
“Hello, Father. What brings you to the Islands?” Roscoe picked up his towel and dried himself, trying to look nonchalant. When Harry Mattison scowled, almost everyone he knew trembled. Few people stood up to him. Had his father heard about Lucy?
“I’ve caught wind of your latest shenanigans. I thought I told you to keep a low profile at least until after the elections this fall?”
“I have. What’s the problem?”
Harry’s eyes narrowed and he snarled, “You lying, good-for-nothing brat. I was told you beat Lucy up pretty good. I don’t know what my dad was thinking to leave you so much money. It’s just made you a lazy, lay-about. Your grandfather earned his money by doing lots of hard work. He should have known you wouldn’t appreciate anything you got for nothing.”
Roscoe smirked. His father had always resented the amount of money Gramps had left him. “Yeah, well, Gramps had a soft heart. No one would ever say that about you, would they?” Not a smart thing to say, but what the hell? His father was already mad.
Harry’s face purpled. “I oughta break your sniveling neck. If you screw up this election for me, maybe I will.”
“Don’t worry. If you’re concerned about Lucy, she broke our engagement and went back to Minneapolis. Everything’s fine, Father.”
Harry frowned. “Are you sure she won’t talk to the papers? She must have been hurt bad if she was in the hospital for days.”
“I didn’t do that. I heard she was hit by a car in St. Paul, crossing the street.”
“Yeah, right. And which of your cronies was driving that car?”
Roscoe frowned. “I don’t know a thing about it.”
Harry snorted. “Humph. Of course not.”
“She has amnesia. Doesn’t remember a thing about it. My source at the hospital tells me the cops already talked to her and got nothing.”
“Oh, yeah? Let’s hope she doesn’t remember later and decide to talk to the papers, then. And nobody else had better say anything to the papers about it, either. Or it’s gonna be your ass, this time. I’ve had it with your playboy stuff. You hear me?”
Roscoe worked water out of his ears with a towel-covered finger. “Yeah. I hear you.”
“What about her parents? Or her brothers? What if she tells them?”
“You know her parents are on that around the world trip they’d planned for years. And neither of them is into computers or social media, so they don’t even call her very often. Besides, my buddy got her cell phone and laptop after the accident. So she doesn’t have that or her list of contacts or email addresses in it. I’ll send them a few emails to make them think everything is okay here. And she hardly ever talks to her brothers. They’re pilots and always flying off somewhere. So, don’t worry about it, okay?”
“I hope you’re right. Use a little of that money Dad left you to pay her off and keep her quiet instead of chasing other girls. Okay?”
“Okay,” Roscoe agreed with a grimace. He watched as Harry turned and stomped off back to his waiting cab beside the hotel.
“Like hell I will,” he muttered. He’d tried that before. It didn’t work. They always took the money and then wanted more money later. And then he’d be paying and paying and paying. No, his way was better. He dropped into his chair and found his cell phone. Best to check on whether his orders were getting done back in Minneapolis.
***
In the cab on his way back to the airport, Harry phoned his campaign manager. “Put one of your best operatives on Lucy Denton, okay….Yeah, my kid’s girlfriend, or ex now, he says. I just want your guy to keep tabs on her. I want to know where she’s living and who she knows, what she does, okay?....Yeah, I know that’s expensive. Just write it off to damage control or publicity insurance or something. Taking care of expenses is your job. Tell him he can start at Regions Hospital in St. Paul. She was hit by a car. I’m sure he can get the police report.…Yeah. Give him my number and have him keep me informed. I’ll take it from there with him.”
***
That evening, Roscoe pulled up Lucy’s email account on his laptop. He’d had her put access to it on his, saying they didn’t need to lug two laptops around on vacation. Now
he saw that she’d gotten several messages from Betty Denton, her mother. Yikes, the last one sounded like she was upset at not being answered. He’d better reply to her before she started trying to call Lucy and couldn’t get her, since he’d had Buddy destroy her phone and laptop.
He tried to think of generic nice things to say to soothe Betty’s hurt feelings at being ignored for several days, but nothing he wrote sounded like the way Lucy wrote. Finally, he just looked for some old messages she’d sent Betty and copied one of them that sounded like what they might be doing now. Lucy was always getting an upset stomach over something or other she ate, so he figured that sounded okay for an excuse for not writing. He typed, ‘Love Lucy’ after it and sent it. Had to keep the old parents happy, even though he knew they didn’t like him much. Well, he didn’t like them much, either, so what the hell?
***
Mankato, Minnesota
Lucy spent the next morning at the café, easily following Sally’s directions and settling into her job. The breakfast and coffee crowds were easier to handle than the noon crowd, since there were fewer breakfast choices and many of the people just wanted something simple, like coffee and a roll.
Lucy was amazed at the tips people left her. Her memories of tips were of dimes and quarters. Now she usually got dollar bills and often more than one. But remembering that inflation had also raised the prices of everything she needed to buy, she tried not to show her joy. She couldn’t let Sally or Vi know about her memory loss. They might think she wasn’t fit to work. Her memory had nothing to do with her physical ability to wait tables and take orders.
She was doing fine. Sally had showed her their numbering system for the booths and tables, so she just had to get the numbers right when she wrote down their orders to know which order went to which table. She’d always had to just remember faces before, so she liked this system. Sally was still taking care of putting the orders in the computer cash register for her.
She remembered back when she’d waitressed before, how soon she’d learned the regular customers’ ‘usual’ order. She hoped that would happen here, too, although Sally said their crowd didn’t have all that many regulars. Some were nearby business people or employees, but a lot of their customers were shoppers who just occasionally came to the larger stores in Mankato from the surrounding small towns. It might be weeks before they returned, so there was no need to try to remember them.
After the noon crowd thinned, Sally said, “Let’s take a break and get lunch ourselves.”
They went back to the employees’ table in the break room off the kitchen and settled down to eat their lunch.
“Are you feeling okay? Not too tired? I know the first day on the job can be hard on your feet,” Sally asked, taking a big bite of her hamburger.
“My feet are a bit tired, but I’m okay,” Lucy said.
“At least all the college girls showed up today,” Sally said. “I hate it when we’re short-handed.
“That’s always hard on the rest of the staff,” Lucy agreed.
“Do you have a family?” Sally asked.
Lucy hesitated, taking another big bite to give her a bit of time to think. Finally she said, “I don’t think so. As far as I know, I’m an orphan.”
“I’m sorry,” Sally said. “I can’t imagine being alone. I come from a huge family. It’s always a zoo when we all get together for a birthday or whatever.”
“Sounds like fun,” Lucy said, swallowing back tears. She remembered Christmas and Thanksgiving with her parents, aunts and uncles and cousins. They’d gathered at one house or another and always enjoyed seeing each other and catching up on each other’s news. Were they all dead now? She’d have to try to find out. She forced her mind back to the present.
They finished their lunch and then Sally said, “While it’s quiet for a couple hours, I’ll teach you to use the cash register. It’s really not hard.”
Lucy nodded and followed her out to the unit at their workstation.
Panic tightened her gut as Sally ran through the directions. “You touch this number for the table and press that to enter. That brings up the list of foods on the menu. Then touch the screen on the food items on the menu that the people at that table ordered, then enter again.”
“Just pressing the screen makes it go?” Lucy said in disbelief. “But…But it doesn’t have any numbers on it. Don’t you have to type in the amounts and total them up?”
Sally laughed. “No, this one already has the amounts of the items programmed into it. Vi changes the amounts if she changes the prices on the menu. So you just have to tell the till which items they want and it does the rest. But you need to punch this discount button if they have a senior discount or if you need to subtract something, like if an order wasn’t okay for some reason.”
They went over and over it several times, but the way the screen turned on and off and the way different words and pictures jumped up at her made Lucy so nervous she couldn’t concentrate.
She made mistake after mistake until Sally finally gave up, saying, “Well, let’s just forget using the till for now. Just give me the orders and I’ll put them in for you for another few days. That’ll give you a bit of time to get used to it.”
“Okay,” Lucy said, relieved.
The rest of her shift went smoothly. By the time the evening shift came in at three o’clock, she was more than ready to change back into her own clothes and go home.
Not wanting to cook for herself after her first tiring day of work, she bought a takeout sandwich for her supper and strolled home, stopping at the drugstore to buy a newspaper and a paperback novel to read and a twelve pack of soda. The weather had turned warmer and sunny but it was, after all, still only March. By the time she’d reached her rooming house, she was thoroughly chilled. She must remember to wear a warmer outfit for walking to and from work, and to buy a pair of snow boots as well. But she didn’t have the energy tonight.
She climbed the stairs to her room and put the soda into the refrigerator, then settled into the sofa to watch TV. Nothing seemed to interest her, though she was still amazed at how good the reception was and that everyone could now afford colored television. That was certainly a nice change.
She was going to heat up her sandwich, but couldn’t figure out the strange oven. There didn’t seem to be any instructions, so she went downstairs to ask Martha how to use it. Martha seemed to think that was a strange question, but, said, “The microwave isn’t working?”
“I don’t know if it is working or not. I just can’t seem to figure it out,” Lucy said.
Martha went upstairs with her.
Lucy went over and pressed the button to turn off the TV she’d left running.
“Isn’t there a remote for the TV?” Martha asked. “I hope the last renter didn’t take it.”
“Remote?”
“To control the TV. Yes, here it is.”
Lucy eyed the black bar with buttons Martha picked up from the end table. “How does it work?”
Martha frowned at her. “You just aim it at the TV and push the buttons, see? This one turns it on or off, this one makes the sound go up or down, this one changes the channel. Or you can press the buttons for the channel number you want. There should be a list of programs around here…yes, here it is. See? This one is the weather channel, this one CNN for news, and so on.”
“Oh. Thanks.” So, it worked almost like the one in the hospital, but without the call button for the nurse and controls for the bed. She’d thought it was a special thing for patients, but apparently everyone had them for a TV now. Lucy swallowed, staring at the long list of channel names and numbers. She laid it aside, thinking she’d experiment with it later.
“So, let’s see about the oven here.” Martha went over to the microwave and flipped open the door. A light came on. “Looks like it’s working okay. Did you try heating something?”
“No…” Lucy stammered. She was feeling very stupid again. “Show me how it works, please. I jus
t wanted to heat my sandwich.”
Martha looked at her, pursing her lips in frustration. “You just put it in the oven on a plate or a napkin. Paper or glass are okay, but nothing metal. Then press the buttons for the time to heat it. Your sandwich will probably only take about thirty seconds. Then press this start button, see? A cup of water for tea or instant coffee will take about one minute.”
“Doesn’t the oven have to warm up first?”
“Nope. It just heats the food right away.”
“And it only takes about half a minute to heat a sandwich?”
“Yep. You leave it in longer and it will get really hard.”
“Thanks so much.” Lucy watched her sandwich turning around through the glass oven door. Then a buzzer sounded and it stopped.
“Done,” Martha said, pressing the button to open the door. “See? That’s all there is to it.”
“Amazing,” Lucy said, reaching for the plate.
“Careful,” Martha said. “It’s hot.”
Lucy grabbed a hot pad and used it to take out the plate. It really was hot. She could see that the cheese had melted on her hamburger. “Thanks so much for showing me this.”
Martha chewed her lip, frowning. “You never used a microwave or a remote control before?”
Lucy swallowed, then said, “I don’t know. It’s just that I’ve forgotten so many things I used to know. Because of the accident, you see. So, I have to learn them all over again.” That sounded logical, didn’t it? She certainly hoped so.
“Oh. I see,” Martha said. “So, the accident gave you head problems. Well, there’s a book of instructions here for the microwave. It even has recipes in it.” She reached on top of the oven and showed Lucy the book. “Let me know if you need anything else, dearie.” With that, she went back downstairs.
Lucy ate her sandwich and read the booklet, feeling amazed at the changes in home appliances. She eyed the toaster sitting on the counter. At least that still looked like the one she used to use. Like the cash register at work, she needed to learn or relearn a lot.
