The Remedy for Regret
Page 4
At ten, I raise the cage that opens out onto the second floor of Water Tower Place and then set the store’s CD player to random play. A few minutes after ten, Antonia breezes in, stopping to look at my island scene in the front window.
“Is very good, Tezz,” she says. She left Italy for America twenty-five years ago, but her accent is as strong and alluring as ever. “Where did you get the beach umbrellas?”
“From Bahama Llamas on the first floor, “I answer. “Rent-free. All we have to do is tell people where to get them if they ask.”
“Smart girl.” She heads to the back of the boutique where she pours herself the first of what will be many cups of coffee for the day.
The rest of the morning passes by slowly and business doesn’t start to pick up until the noon hour. By one-thirty, things haven’t slowed down and I am starving.
“Juz go,” Antonia says to me. “You need to eat. Elena will be here in fifteen minutes anyway.”
The phone rings then and Antonia picks it up after the first ring. She shoos at me and mouths the word, “Go,” before saying, “Linee Belle. This is Antonia,” into the mouthpiece.
I grab my wallet from my bag under the cash register and start to walk away.
“Juz a moment,” I hear her say and then she calls me. “Tezz. Is for you.”
I turn back and take the phone from her. She walks away to help two women looking at silk scarves.
“This is Tess,” I say into the phone.
There is a slight pause.
“Tess?” The woman on the other side sounds unsure of herself.
“Yes,” I say. “This is Tess. Can I help you?”
“Tess, it’s Blair.”
I am utterly amazed to hear her voice. She has never called me at work before, not even during a time of crisis, which is usually when she calls. And it doesn’t sound like her. Blair and I talk to each by phone other every other month or so, but always at home and always on the weekend. She and her husband Brad and twin girls live in St. Louis, a day’s drive away. Sometimes Brad’s business will bring him to Chicago and she will call me if she comes with him so that we can get together for lunch. But I am struggling to remember when was the last time we did that. Has it been a year? I can remember the last phone call, however. It was two months ago, in February. She was lamenting her depressing lack of true friends. She was tired of cocktail parties and Mah Jongg lunches and country club weekends. I didn’t know what to say to her. What do you say to someone who has just realized money, even a lot of it, can’t buy good friends? Then she told me she felt like she and Brad were drifting apart, that it seemed like her marriage had lost its momentum. I’d always known Brad’s money couldn’t buy a happy marriage either, but I did not say this. I’d told her maybe they should see a counselor. As if I know anything at all about marriage.
In any case, her calling me at work in the middle of the day is not like her. It occurs to me maybe she and Brad are in Chicago and she wants to get together.
“Blair! What’s up?” I say.
“I called your apartment,” she is saying. “Simon gave… Simon gave me this number. He said you wouldn’t mind…”
But Blair’s voice fades away before she finishes her sentence.
“Blair?”
I hear a choked-back sob on the other end.
“Blair. Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
“Tess, Brad collapsed while jogging this morning,” she says. “They’re thinking he had a heart attack. He’s… he’s in a coma.”
I am stunned. Brad’s only in his thirties. “Blair, I am so sorry,” I manage to say. It doesn’t seem possible that he could have had a heart attack this young.
“The doctors say it was bad,” Blair’s voice is thick with distress. “They… they aren’t sure he’s going to pull through. They…”
Another sob cuts her short.
I hardly know what to say. Antonia is looking at me. So are the two women she is helping.
“Blair, do you want me come?” I say.
That’s it. That’s all I can think of to say. I am astounded that that is all she wants to hear.
“Could you?” she says, her voice not much more than a squeak. “Could you really?”
“Well… of course,” I stammer, wondering what in the world makes me think my presence will make things easier for her.
“I… I can’t leave the hospital, but I’m sure I can find someone to pick you up at the airport. I’ll pay for the ticket,” Blair says through her tears.
“You don’t have to worry about that—” But she interrupts me.
“No, you must let me. I want to.”
I can tell it’s important to her that she is in control of at least one little thing this day.
“Okay, okay,” I suddenly remember her twin daughters. “Blair, where are the girls?”
There is a momentary pause. Blair seems not to have heard me.
“Blair?”
“They’re with Brad’s sister,” Blair finally says. “Can you come today, Tess? I don’t care how much the plane ticket costs. I will pay for it. Can you come today?”
“Yes, I will,” I answer, but I feel anything but confident. “I need to hang up now, Blair, so I can make some arrangements, okay? I’ll try and get there this evening sometime.”
“Okay,” Blair whispers. “You still have my cell phone number?”
“I’ve got it at home,” I assure her.
“Okay. Call me when you land and I’ll find someone to come get you.”
“Blair, I’ll just get a rental car at the airport. I’ll call you from the rental agency, okay? You can tell me how to get to the hospital.”
“All right,” Blair says. “Thank you, Tess. I… I didn’t know who else to call.”
For a moment I am deeply touched that Blair thought of me first, but then I realize that well-to-do Blair with her million dollar home, beautiful children and silver Mercedes has really never been subjected to weakness and powerlessness, not even when we were kids. She probably believes that most of her affluent St. Louis friends are just like her; unaccustomed to misfortune and therefore unable—unqualified—to help her. She knows I am familiar with grief. Of course she would call me.
“Blair, I’m going to go now and call the airlines. You hang in there. I’ll see you soon,” I tell her.
“Okay,” she says. “Tess, come as quick as you can.”
“I will. I’ll see you tonight.”
It doesn’t take long to explain to Antonia that I am going to need a few days off as she practically heard the whole conversation. She tells me to ring up the scarves while she calls her travel agent. By the time I close the cash register drawer, Antonia has secured a seat for me on a flight that leaves O’Hare for St. Louis at 5:10 p.m.
Elena arrives as I am hugging Antonia goodbye.
“Thanks, Antonia,” I say. “I’ll make it up to you.”
“Yez, you will!” she says with a wink and then adds as raises her hand in farewell, “Ciao.”
“Ciao,” I say back as I make my way out of the boutique.
I am halfway home before I realize that Simon and I sort of have a date tonight. A date to talk. I inwardly groan as I realize how bad the timing is. I spend the rest of the drive home wondering how to explain things to Simon.
But again, Simon is not home when I arrive. There is no note to let me know where he is. He must be planning on getting back before the time I usually get home from work, which is six o’clock. I’ll be in the air by then. His cell phone is sitting uncharged on his night table so I cannot call him.
I yank out a suitcase and begin tossing things in it, pausing at the slightest sound to see if Simon is coming through the front door. By three o’clock I am anxious to get going. I have to get through afternoon traffic, drop my car off at the park and ride and make it through security at the airport. I can’t wait any longer.
I grab a piece of paper and a pen to write a hurried note.
Simon—I w
anted to wait until you got home to tell you this in person, but I ran out of time. Blair called me this afternoon after she talked to you. Brad is in a coma, docs think he’s had a heart attack and they don’t expect him to live. I’m taking a flight that leaves for St. Louis at 5:10. I may be gone a few days, maybe a week. It depends on what happens next. I know we were supposed to talk tonight and I am honestly sorry about this. But Blair needs me, Simon. She asked me to come. I’ll call you tonight from Blair’s house. Missing you already—Tess.
I read the note twice to make sure he will understand I want him here when I get back. Then I tape the note to the bathroom mirror, right over the note that reminds him that I love him.
I grab the suitcase and my canvas bag, noticing for the first time since I got home that the light on the answering machine for our landline is blinking. I rush to it thinking it might be Simon letting me know where he is. I press the button. Instead of hearing Simon’s voice, I hear my Dad’s.
Hey Tess, it’s Dad. You’re probably at work, but I just wanted to let you and Simon know that Zane and I are throwing a surprise 40th birthday party for Shelley on the twenty-ninth and am hoping you guys won’t mind the drive and can come. Or maybe you will want to fly in. Just let me know. You can call me back tonight; just don’t say anything to Shelley about the party if she happens to answer the phone.
Well, talk to you later. Bye.
I don’t have the time or the energy to consider how I feel about my stepmother’s upcoming fortieth birthday. The drive to Dayton, Ohio, where Dad and Shelley live, isn’t that bad from Chicago but I can’t picture Simon making that kind of trip right now. And I don’t feel an urge to spend several hundred dollars on plane tickets. I wouldn’t mind seeing my half-brother Zane, though. But going to Shelley’s party? Where I know no one? Does my Dad really think I will come? Does he really want me to come? Is he just asking for the sake of asking?
I can’t think about this right now. I have to go. I can’t miss my plane.
On impulse, I go back to the bathroom to take one more look at the note on the mirror. I read it, and then I pick up the pen that I had left on the counter by the sink. I add a line of X’s and O’s after my name.
Five
The gate is crowded with other travelers as I wait for my flight to be called. I am anxious to be airborne. The longer I sit in the terminal at O’Hare the more I feel like Simon has arrived home and has seen my note. I want to be far away when he reads it. I don’t know why.
There is a woman sitting next to me as we wait in plastic chairs. She is holding a baby. Two other children are sitting at her feet as all the other chairs are taken. I’ve seen many tall, slender black women in Chicago in the five years I have lived here but this is the first one that looks so much like Corinthia Mayhew. I catch myself looking at her purse as her little girl, who I guess to be three or four, rifles through it, pulling out keys, a comb and a tiny package of tissues.
“Abigail, put that stuff back,” the woman says to the little girl. “When they call our seats, we need to be ready.”
The little girl looks up from the purse.
“I want gum,” she says.
The mother, jiggling the baby in her arms to keep it distracted or contented, I can’t tell which, says, “Well, I don’t have any. Put it all back.”
The little boy at her feet looks up at his mother. He looks like he’s about five.
“I gotta go potty,” he says.
“Lordamercy, Simon, I told you to go before we left Nana’s,” the mother says.
I am startled to hear Simon’s name.
“But I didn’t have to go then. Now I do,” the little boy named Simon says.
“King Jesus, you better help me out,” I hear the mother whisper under her breath. She looks at her watch, at the gate where the airline employees are getting ready to announce our flight, at the rest rooms across from our chairs, at the baby in her arms and then back to her little boy.
“Simon, you’re just gonna have to wait and go on the plane,” she finally says.
“But I can’t wait. I gotta go now!”
I feel funny sitting there, watching the little drama, fully able to help this woman who looks so much like Corinthia, but doing nothing.
“Can I help you?” I suddenly say, surprising myself.
The woman turns to me.
“Beg your pardon?” she says.
“I can go tell the people at the desk not to leave without you,” I said. “And I can come into the bathroom with you and hold the baby while your little boy uses the toilet.”
“Lord, that was quick,” she says, but not to me.
“What?” I say.
She turns to me and her eyes lock onto mine.
“That’s very kind of you, Miss. Very kind.” This she says to me.
I smile. “I’ll be right back,” I say, as I get up and make my way to the desk. I tell the agent at the desk not to leave without me and the family behind me, that we need to make a quick trip to the rest room.
The employee grins. “Okay,” he says. “But make it quick. We’re starting to board the first class passengers.”
I tell him thanks and then I walk back to the woman and her children.
“Okay, Simon, Abigail, let’s go,” the woman says, grabbing a diaper bag, her purse and a sack full of books and toys, all the while holding the baby.
We get to the ladies rest room and the little boy named Simon begins to complain.
“This one’s for girls!” he says.
“Simon Nathaniel, you know I can’t go in the men’s room and you know I will not let you go in there by yourself. So it’s either the ladies room or you wait and go in the rest room on the plane.”
Simon looks downcast, but he trudges into the ladies room and the rest of us follow. Thankfully the rest room is not crowded. The woman picks the handicap accessible stall to give her plenty of room.
“I have to go, too,” the little girl named Abigail says.
“Of course you do,” the woman says looking at me in mock exasperation. She drops her bags inside the stall, ushers her son and daughter into it and then turns to me. She hesitates a moment before handing the baby to me.
“I promise I won’t move a muscle,” I say to assure her that she can trust me.
She pauses another moment and then her face relaxes. She places the baby in my arms.
“I know you won’t. You’re the answer to my prayer.”
She turns, walks into the stall and closes the door. Within five minutes the children are at the sinks and their mother is helping them wash and dry their hands.
“Okay,” she says to me, trying to adjust her bags and purse so that she can take the baby, who has been studying my face the whole time.
“Would you like me to just follow you onto the plane and give your baby to you after you get the little ones seated?” I say.
She grins. “You’re one of the best ones He’s ever sent,” she says quickly and then turns to her children. “Let’s go, let’s go.”
We file out of the bathroom and I follow them to the gate as our seats have already been called. Once inside the plane, the woman settles Simon and Abigail into their seats and then reaches for her baby.
“May God bless you for your kindness to me,” she says to me and I can scarcely take my eyes off her. She is like Corinthia’s twin, come to soothe my soul with words from heaven itself.
I hand her the baby and mumble, “You’re welcome.”
I find my own seat several rows away and slide into it. The experience of helping the woman, short as it was, has left me feeling emotionally drained. It cannot be possible that I was the answer to her prayer. Cannot be possible. God feels as far away to me as He has ever been.
I try to let my thoughts wander as the plane prepares to taxi down the runway. I look at the airline’s magazine in the seat pocket. I stare out the window. I close my eyes and try to imagine my island. But my thoughts keep turning back to Corinthia.
In the end, though, he agreed. He and I were both tired of fast food and Spaghetti-O’s at the TLF. And the kitchen wasn’t fully unpacked by six o’clock anyway. So we walked across our front lawn to the Mayhews’ house. Over their front door was a little wooden plaque that said “The Mayhews—Peace to all who enter here.”
A young boy answered the door and then opened it wide for us to enter. He didn’t say anything, so it was kind of awkward for my dad and me. But then Corinthia came around the corner and welcomed us warmly.
“Come in, come in,” she said. “Welcome, welcome. Samuel, the neighbors are here!”
A tall, black man—tall as any man I had ever seen—stepped around the corner, smiling widely. He stuck out his hand to my father.