by Donna Ball
“It was unspeakable,” Paul told Harmony that evening over Purline’s baked hen and oven-roasted potatoes served with sliced yellow tomatoes in a balsamic vinaigrette. “The spinach was …” he suppressed a shudder, “canned.”
They dined on the enclosed porch where once dozens had enjoyed Sunday brunch accompanied by Paul’s creative cocktails, trying to ignore the dismal sight of all those tables and chairs stacked in the corners and the way their voices echoed around the empty room. The windows were open to an evening twilight and a light breeze caused the candle flame to dance inside its hurricane globe. The peaceful vista of the winding stone paths and distant mountains was broken only by the sound of a half dozen yapping dogs, who had apparently finished their own dinners and were looking for something to do. Everyone at the table pretended to ignore them.
“Please,” said Derrick with a small groan. “I’m trying to eat.”
“And it was creamed in …” He swallowed hard. “Evaporated milk.”
Derrick put down his fork, forced to clear the memory with a sip of wine.
“Well,” said Harmony practically, helping herself to another slice of chicken, “that’s what they have at the food bank.”
Paul said, “Food bank?”
“Of course. That’s where the food for these kinds of programs comes from.”
“My guess would have been prison,” said Derrick.
Paul sighed. “The worst part was, I don’t think our supervisor was very happy with us at all. We were three hours late getting back, but what were we to do? The conditions that some of these poor things lived in were appalling. Naturally we had to tidy up a bit before we served the food—and I use that term loosely.”
“They were so lonely,” added Derrick. “The only hope we had of getting them to eat that awful fare was if we stayed to chat with them.”
At that moment one of the kittens launched herself onto the window screen and clung there, tail twitching, like a lizard on a wall. Derrick quickly jumped up and pried her off, checking the screen for damage before releasing the kitten to the floor, where it scampered away as though a bear were in hot pursuit.
“You know,” observed Harmony wisely, “you really can’t keep those dogs locked up like that much longer. Even if they do have the run of the place during the day, they are starting to complain about the accommodations.”
Derrick gave her a dry look as he resumed his seat. “So I noticed.”
“Next on our agenda,” Paul assured her. He transferred a slice of tomato that was easily the size of a melon onto his plate. “Unfortunately they only gave us credit for three hours work today—which was how long our route should have taken, according to the driver who had it before us.” He sliced the tomato and made an appreciative sound as he tasted it. “Entirely possible, I suppose,” he added, “if all one did was drop off the food and didn’t even wait for the clients to toss it in the trash bin.”
“It’s so sad to think about people having to live like that when we have so much,” Derrick said, delicately buttering a corner of one of Purline’s homemade biscuits. “I’m just not sure I can face it again tomorrow.”
Paul paused in the act of cutting another bite of tomato and looked up at Derrick, the light of an idea slowly beginning to dawn in his eyes.
“That’s right,” he said, “we do.”
~*~
The next morning they bounced up the rutted dirt drive again, and the aromas that came from the wicker basket between them made even their mouths water. There was a lasagna made with tomatoes fresh from the garden, chicken salad with apples and walnuts, a fresh vegetable medley, and cornbread still warm from the oven. The only thing marring the heavenly aromas that filled the car came from the backseat, where the bulldog mix Derrick had dubbed Gaston paced excitedly back and forth, panting his foul-smelling breath from one window to the next.
“I’m sure this is against some health code,” Paul complained. “Why did you have to bring him anyway?”
“Harmony says when you save a life you’re responsible for it,” Derrick replied, jaw set stubbornly. “And she’s right. The dogs deserve to get out once in a while, even if it is only to go for a ride.”
Paul pulled the car up in front of the ramshackle house, set the brake, and picked up the basket. But when Derrick went around to open the back door, he put his hand up firmly. “The dog,” he told him, “stays in the car. We’re breaking enough rules as it is.”
Trying to disguise their trepidation with determinedly squared shoulders, they marched up the steps and knocked loudly on the door. Paul stepped back quickly, protecting his shins, when it was finally opened.
Mr. Briggs glared at them. “You again.” He actually spat on the floor, barely missing one of Derrick’s oxblood loafers. “What do you want?”
Derrick took the basket from Paul and thrust it through the door. “We felt bad that you didn’t get anything to eat yesterday,” he said.
“So we brought something we hope you like better,” Paul said.
“You can keep the basket,” added Derrick, and started to back away.
The old man opened the basket suspiciously and peered inside. He broke off a piece of cornbread and stuffed it in his mouth. “Hey,” he said, yellow flecks of cornbread dripping from his lips, “this ain’t bad.” He peeled back the lid on the chicken salad container and scooped out a bite on two fingers. He tasted it. “Not bad at all.”
Paul smiled, relieved, and Derrick said, “We’re glad you like it. Bon appetit.”
They started to turn and go down the steps, but Mr. Briggs stopped them with a sharp, “Hey!”
They turned back cautiously.
“What’s that you got there?”
After a moment they realized that he was peering at the ugly little bulldog who was bouncing in the backseat of the car, fogging up the window with his breath and clawing at the glass. His expression was wistful. “I used to have me a dog like that. Best friend I ever did have.”
Paul looked at Derrick, an idea clearly dawning in his eyes. Derrick turned to the man in the doorway. “Mr. Briggs,” he said, “would you like to meet Gaston?”
~*~
On Ladybug Farm
~*~
“So you know Paul,” Bridget said, “he never saw a need he couldn’t meet, an occasion he couldn’t rise to …”
“A scene he couldn’t overplay,” supplied Cici. “And Derrick, God bless him, is even worse.”
Bridget grinned. “Right,” Bridget said. She set a platter of peanut butter cookies on the wicker table as she settled into her rocking chair on the front porch. “After the success with Mr. Briggs, they went back over the entire route with plates from their own kitchen—and may I say, I’m talking about real china—filled with leftovers from dinner and baskets of fresh vegetables from their garden. Everyone was so appreciative that they did it again the next day, and the next.”
“The perfect solution,” said Lindsay, nodding approval. “They’re overwhelmed with all that produce, and that poor cook of theirs has already filled two freezers and a pantry.”
“Not entirely perfect,” Cici pointed out, “unless they’re going to start their own lunch program. I mean, they can’t keep it up forever.”
Bridget chuckled. “I think that girl they’ve got working for them let them know the long and short of that on the second day. By the end of the week she was cooking lunch for forty-two people! Still, I think they would have found a way to keep it up if their supervisor hadn’t caught on. It seems there was a sixty-eight percent increase in applications for the program virtually overnight, and she got suspicious. It didn’t take much snooping to find out they were taking the lunches from the Meals with Love kitchen, tossing them in the dumpster, and substituting their own.”
Lindsay groaned. “Oh, don’t tell me she’s pressing charges. If they have to go back to court …”
Bridget laughed. “No chance. The people in the program would have her lynched. No, she wrote off t
he rest of their community service hours in exchange for the promise that they wouldn’t come back.”
Lindsay stretched over Cici to help herself to a couple of cookies. “Now that’s what I call a happy ending. And …,” she toasted Bridget with a cookie, “we got a few benefits too.”
Bridget shrugged it off. The cookies were left over from the six dozen she had baked, along with a lemon pie and an angel food cake, to accompany the lunch plates. “It was the least I could do.”
“I do feel sorry for the people on their route though,” Cici said. “Now they have to go back to that awful dreck they were eating before.”
Bridget raised a cautionary finger. “Not entirely. Paul and Derrick are donating their excess produce to the food bank, and as every cook knows, a good meal starts with fresh ingredients. Not to mention the fact that as soon as the restaurant opens again, Paul and Derrick will be delivering the leftovers from brunch to everyone on their route on Sunday afternoons—served on fine china with cloth napkins, of course.” She added, “It’s no trouble for me to bake an extra cake or pie for the weekend, and we might get some of the other ladies in town to contribute.”
“Well now, that really is a happy ending,” Cici said, raising her wine glass. “To our friends—the nicest guys I know!”
The other two clinked glasses and drank, and then Bridget said, swallowing hastily, “And you didn’t even hear the best part. You know all those animals?”
Cici looked at her suspiciously. “Yes.”
“They’re all gone! They found homes for each and every one of them. Purline took the little poodle, which,” Bridget conceded reluctantly, “proves she’s got a good heart, I suppose. And the rest of them went to the people on their route who were starving for someone to love and look after—and to look after them. All except one, of course.”
She reached down and scooped up the kitten formerly known as Mr. Mestopheles, who had been twining through her ankles. She smiled as she snuggled him against her face. “I think,” she said, “I’ll call him Ratatouille.”
~*~
EIGHT
There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
Oscar Wilde
Josh was almost out of minutes. Every time he looked at the counter on his cell phone, what he thought was, Almost out of time, almost out of time … And then the panic would rise in him in waves, choking off his breath and clouding his vision with a red haze. He had called information for the number of every name he could remember, but who had a landline anymore? Finally he remembered Leda’s cousin Lenny had been working at the Twelfth Street Pizza Hut before he left, and he took a wild shot and called there. Of course Lenny had been fired months ago, but the assistant manager who answered the phone happened to know him and happened, also, to think the firing was less than righteous, and when Josh told him he was an old friend, he gave up Lenny’s cell number without hesitation.
Josh was down to twelve minutes on his phone when Lenny answered. “Lenny, this is Josh. Josh Whitman, you remember me.”
A hesitation while Lenny’s brain, whose synapses had never been particularly fast to fire even when he wasn’t high, made the connection. Then he said, “Josh, my man! Last I heard you was in the pen.”
“Yes, that’s right. I’m out now.”
Josh breathed out a long slow breath and let his heartbeat return to normal. They had stopped at a Laundromat just outside of Hayesville, Kansas, because the last two campgrounds they’d pulled into had not had laundry facilities and Artie insisted he was running out of clean shorts. It killed Josh to be so close—a day and a half of driving at most, but what could he do? Even when he got to Kansas City, he had no idea how to find Leda, so he’d tried to use the time, and a good cell phone signal, productively. Finally it had paid off.
He drew in a shallow breath of humid, bleach-scented air and walked quickly to the glass front of the building, away from the sound of the radio playing in the background and the rhythmic click and clack of the driers. Artie was sitting in one of scuffed plastic chairs, smiling and nodding to himself as he read a magazine, and a tired-looking woman in denim shorts was folding laundry on the table in the middle of the room. Josh could see them both reflected in the window against the night background of a rain-washed parking lot and a neon sign across the street promising quick title loans. “Listen, Lenny, I’m trying to find—”
“You’re out, that right? Hey, man, that’s great! You in town, man? You looking for some first-class stuff?”
“No, I don’t … what I mean is, I’m looking for Leda. I tried calling her but her phone doesn’t work.”
“Hey, man, she can’t afford no phone. Her old man done left her with all them kids to feed and she can’t barely even feed herself, man. I do my part, you know what I’m sayin’, but a man’s gotta take care of himself too, man. What you want with her, anyhow?”
Josh’s hand tightened on the phone until he was very much in danger of cracking the case. Lenny had never been a very reliable source of information, and if he really didn’t know why Josh was looking for Leda, he could hardly be counted on to know much else. But Josh had to try. “Listen,” he said, “is she still in that little house down on Beaumont?”
“Oh, hell, no, man, she got kicked out of there back in April, you know what I’m saying? No rent-y, no sleep-y.” He cackled at his own bad joke.
Josh struggled to keep his voice calm. He thought that if he could reach through the phone he would have had Lenny by his scrawny neck by now. “You happen to know where she went?”
“I guess I do, man. Ain’t I been crashing on her floor for the past month myself?”
Every muscle in Josh’s body sagged with relief. Thank you, Jesus, he thought, and then, in almost the same instant, Let it be true. Knowing Lenny, his memories of the past month could have actually taken place a year or more ago. Josh hoped he sounded calm and casual as he said, “That’s cool. I was thinking about dropping around to see her. You too, if you’re there. You got the address?”
“Yeah, she’s over at the Bluebird Apartments on Howard Street, man. Number 212. It’s a dump, but it’s a roof, you know what I’m saying. Listen, you come see me and I’ll fix you up with some first-class stuff, man. You in town?”
“Thanks, Lenny.” There was more he wanted to say, more he wanted to know, but he was down to five minutes. He could ask the questions, but he was afraid of the answers. He had to see Leda. That was all that mattered. “Thanks a lot. Listen, Lenny … tell Leda I called, okay? If you see her, tell her I’m on my way. Can you do that?”
“Yeah, sure man, I’ll tell her. Course, I don’t know when I’ll see her again. Don’t know what happened to her after the landlord kicked her out. All them kids, too.”
“What?” A wash of cold drained through Josh and his voice was hoarse. “Are you saying she’s not at the Bluebird any more?”
“Hell, man, how should I know? I ain’t seen her in weeks.”
No, no, no no …. His fist tightened on the phone until his knuckled went white. “Damn it, Lenny, you just told me you’d been sleeping on her floor for a month!”
“Well, I guess that was a while back. I don’t know where she went after that. But I tell you what, when you get here, you be sure to look me up, man. I’ll fix you up with some first-class stuff.”
Josh was breathing hard when he jabbed the disconnect button and thrust the phone back into his pocket. So close, so close …
“Damn it,” he whispered through lips that felt numb and dry. “Damn it.”
He wanted to put his fist through the plate glass window. He wanted to tear every machine in the place out of the wall. He wanted to scream his rage at the top of his lungs, and keep on screaming. He wanted to cry.
Instead he did what he always did, what had gotten him through those last dark months of prison, what had kept him walking when his feet were bleeding, what had kept him alive even after he’d thought the reason
for living was gone. What had made his heart smile even when it was broken.
He reached into his pocket for the photo, but it wasn’t there. He checked the other pocket, and then he remembered. It was in his other jeans. He had changed because Artie had insisted on washing …
He whirled around and saw Artie, no longer in the plastic chair, pulling wet laundry from one of the washing machines and transferring it to a dryer. He charged forward, shouting, “What did you do? God damn it, what did you do?”
He shoved the startled little man away from the machine and reached inside, flinging damp articles of clothing on the floor until he found the jeans he was looking for. The woman at the folding table stared at him, looking alarmed, but he barely noticed. He untangled the wet jeans with frantic, clumsy motions and wedged his fingers inside the front pocket, the pocket where he always kept it, and what his fingers caught was a wad of damp, shredded paper. His lips formed the word “No” but he wasn’t sure he actually said it. He pulled the shredded scraps out because he had to. He stared at the mess in his hand, all bleached and soggy and balled together. There was nothing left to save.
Nothing.
Artie came up next to him, looking puzzled. “Did you leave something in the pocket, son?”
Something white hot and sharp-pointed rushed through him and erupted from his throat with an inarticulate roar. Somehow Artie was against the wall and Josh had fistfuls of his shirt twisted in his fingers and he was screaming, “Do you know what you’ve done, you stupid son of a bitch? You had no right! Do you hear me, you had no right!” And suddenly it wasn’t Artie’s small, misshapen face in front of him, but his dad’s. It wasn’t Artie’s mild, startled hazel eyes he was looking into but his stepfather’s swollen, bloodshot brown ones, streaked with grief and helplessness. The sound he heard in his ears was no longer his own ragged breathing but the sound of broken sobs echoing down the cold white corridor of an empty past.
