by 72 Hour Hold
“Thank you, darling.” I was wearing a light blue pantsuit, businesslike with the jacket, casual without. I was prepared for anything. I will not think about last night. If Ex-boyfriend dropped in and wanted to take me to lunch, well… . I looked like a Pretty Young Thing my damn self.
“Did the Old Man say he could get the stain out of the jacket?” Frances asked.
“It’s still in my car. I’ll take it in today.” I looked around. “Where’s Adriana?”
“I don’t know. She had a date last night.”
“Same guy?”
Frances nodded.
“Did she tell him?”
Frances shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
Once inside my office, I made myself a cup of peppermint tea and called Trina’s psychiatrist. Dr. Bellows had been monitoring her medication ever since she’d become compliant, interpreting her monthly blood tests, making sure that the psychotropic drugs she ingested didn’t wreak havoc on her liver. He titrated the dosage up or down as her moods escalated or subsided. It was just a little after nine and naturally he wasn’t in his office, so I left him a lengthy message describing Trina’s behavior, asking him to call me as soon as possible.
Trina’s therapist, whose job it was to unravel the complicated skein of emotions Trina’s brain was constantly knitting, wasn’t in either, and I left her the same message. I repeated it again for Elaine, the program director at the Weitz Center, adding an urgent postscript.
“Please keep an eye on Trina today. She was up all night, and I’m afraid that … that … I’m afraid… .”
I closed my eyes. Saw Trina, her mouth gaping and twisted, screaming curses. Saw Trina with her weapon of choice, the telephone, calling, calling, calling, way into the night. Felt Trina’s fist crashing into my skull. Heard her screeching laugh.
“Just—call me.”
Customers began drifting in at ten. A client I’d been expecting came in with a Vera Wang gown while I helped a woman choose between two dresses. Frances was busy. Adriana still hadn’t shown up or called. I excused myself from the customer, ushered the client into my office, and returned to the floor, banishing the annoyance that was sitting between my shoulder blades.
Half an hour later, Adriana rushed through the door. I gave her a look, and she got pink in the face. “Oh, Keri, I’m so sorry,” she said. “Traffic.”
“Mulholland Drive has been waiting for fifteen minutes in my office.”
“Oh.”
What in her voice, in her face, made me look past her, out the picture window, to see him walking away? Just a man on a street, going somewhere or nowhere. What made me think that he’d been with her? What was in his walk, his carriage, his profile that made me think—no, made me know—that he was dangerous? I watched him until I couldn’t see him, and then I began to watch her.
Most employees who’d pissed off the boss would steer clear. Not Adriana. For the rest of the morning she was bringing me tea and scones, trying to make me laugh and being so solicitous that eventually she wore me down.
“You can quit sucking up now,” I said when she offered to buy me lunch whenever I was ready. I was sitting in my office, pricing half a dozen new items. Adriana hated to upset me, mostly because she felt she owed me so much, which she really didn’t.
SHE’D WALKED INTO THE STORE THREE YEARS EARLIER, applying for the job of sales assistant in a soft baby voice. I’d had to ask her to repeat herself. She was only twenty-three at the time, a pretty girl who wouldn’t look me in the eye. The résumé she presented showed a gap of several years between the last job she’d held and the present. When I questioned her about it, she told me that she’d been at home in Minnesota helping her aging parents. Her excuse made me wonder. I didn’t hire her.
Adriana returned several days later, with two more rejections under her belt. She waited until I finished ringing up a customer and then tapped me on my back. We went into my office; I closed the door. She must have thought I’d be the most understanding.
“I want to tell you the truth,” she said.
I figured she’d admit to a string of firings and that, after prodding, she’d confess to inefficiency.
Surprise, surprise!
“I’ve been working as a call girl,” she said in her soft voice.
“How did that happen?” I asked.
It was the same old sad story: Stepdaddy liked to play touchy-feely and Mama liked to play blind. By seventeen she’d left home with dirty handprints on her body and mind. She told me her tale with no tears, no gulping for air. But her face wasn’t hard either, which impressed me.
Nobody ever sets out to become a prostitute. It’s the place they end up, like Denny’s at midnight. Given my own Former Fast Girl credentials, I had no desire to judge someone for getting paid for what had once been my favorite hobby. Yeah, that was twelfth-grade me, with my bare feet sticking out the back window of somebody’s daddy’s fogged-up gyrating Ford. That was college me, downing way too much Jack and waking up smooshed against some frat boy I barely knew. And that was old-enough-to-know-better me, sneaking into the motel with Sally Sue’s husband. Or was it Ruby Begonia’s old man? Me again, looking in the mirror, seeing nothing but ugly. For quite a while, that was me. Clyde had helped me to heal. Things shifted inside me after Trina was born, kind of like my own personal tectonic plates. I had fresh joy to push away the memories of bad times. Trying to make life better for Trina, I outgrew my own pain. Until the baby died.
Clyde, Jr., was our second and came four years after Trina was born. He was fat and round and sweet, a pleasant, cooing baby. One night his cooing stopped. Crib death is a quick death. The slow death came later.
“Look,” Adriana had told me, “I’ve made a lot of bad choices in my life, but I’m trying to get straight now.”
“Are you on drugs?” I asked.
“No.”
“No?” I waited.
“I’ve been clean and sober for about a year.”
“Are you in a program?”
“Narcotics Anonymous.”
“So you want to work here with me?”
She nodded.
“And then what? After you outgrow an entry-level position that doesn’t pay all that much, what then? Suppose some guy comes in here. How do I know you won’t proposition him?”
“I’m supposed to take things one day at a time,” she said.
“I’m not. You’re young. You seem intelligent. Think about school. I’ll let you know about the job.”
“I will work so hard for you,” she said.
Hiring Adriana proved to be a good move for both of us. She really was ready for a change. I kept mentioning school, and after the first year she enrolled in college at night. She brought me her grades: all A’s and B’s, and when I praised her she seemed to float. And, except for the occasional tardiness, she was a hard worker, always trying to please me. Maybe too much. But now I wondered if a man with an evil profile was lurking in her life.
In some ways Adriana was like a second daughter, one who had chosen me for a mother. Maybe it was because, after all her other potential employers had turned her down, she had come back to me with the truth. I worried about her. She always seemed so lonely. Adriana never mentioned hanging out with the girls. She seemed not to have a life apart from the store. From time to time she spoke of going out with a man, but it never went any further than two dates. It was on the second date that she always revealed her past.
“Why do you have to tell them anything?” Frances asked when Adriana informed us of her policy. “It’s not like you’re going to marry them.”
“Suppose we’re out somewhere and some john comes up to me?”
“Just say, ‘You must have me confused with somebody else,’ ” Frances said.
Adriana shook her head. “I don’t want to live a lie.”
“That ain’t a lie; that’s your business,” Frances said.
Frances and I kept rooting for the Third Date Man, but so far h
e hadn’t materialized.
Adriana wasn’t the only redeemed soul working with me. Right before I hired her, Frances had lived in a shelter for battered women. She’d landed there after she fled from her first husband’s fists and finally his weapon. Her social worker was one of my customers. She’d told me about Frances’s situation and convinced me to hire her. I never thought about why the three of us came together, but people come into each other’s lives for a reason. If it’s not clear in the beginning, all you have to do is keep on living.
I WAS STILL PRICING GARMENTS, MY HEAD BENT OVER A beaded silk purse, when I felt a hand on my shoulder. When I looked up, Frances was smiling at me. “Somebody’s here to see you,” she said.
“Orlando?”
I smiled to myself, feeling smug.
She shook her head. “It’s your ex.”
As in husband, not boyfriend. My heart pumped a little bit harder. I put my jacket back on and pressed my lips together quickly to maximize their color.
When Clyde saw me, his eyes widened just enough to let me know he thought I was looking good. Which made me smile.
“Sorry I didn’t call. I was in your area and, uh—I just—”
“Is something wrong?” He rarely came by, and never without calling.
“No, I just—have you had lunch?”
The restaurant was in a strip mall off Wilshire in the heart of Koreatown. The owners, former guest workers in Japan, had learned the art of making sushi from the masters and brought their skills to the west. The place was located down the street from spa row, where new immigrants had opened luxury massage parlors that catered to an arriviste clientele as well as anyone looking for the cheapest body scrub in town. Koreatown had risen like the phoenix from the fires of 1992. That year rioters enraged by the verdicts that had exonerated the LA police, whose video-taped beating of Rodney King had been seen around the world, unleashed their fury on a group they viewed as exploiting them in their own neighborhoods. Although their gripe was with those Koreans who’d established mom-and-pop stores in black and Latino communities, charged high prices for goods, and never hired any of the people who lived in the area, rioters and looters traveled to Koreatown to exact their revenge. Businesses were destroyed, and so were dreams. But now the area seemed to be surging with an abundance of shops and malls, offering everything from clothes to electronics to karaoke-infused happy hours and barbecue à la Seoul. The Koreans had survived the fires of 1992, and in the process they’d internalized an American mantra: A setback is just a setup for a comeback.
It was a lesson few of the looters had learned.
As we sat down, Clyde appraised the restaurant and the waiters bustling back and forth. “Now see,” he said, leaning across the table toward me, “I’ll bet you anything that everybody here is a family member. That’s why Koreans are so successful. If black people would just—”
“Clyde.” I wasn’t in the mood for one of his “Up, up, ye mighty race, you can accomplish what ye will” speeches, but he ignored me.
“—stop complaining and learn from these immigrants, they’d be better off.”
“They?”
Clyde sighed. “The secret of Korean success is hard work and unity.” He sat back in his chair and gave me a self-satisfied smile. “Do you still like eel?” he asked.
“Love it.”
“Okay, we’ll get the elephant roll,” he said, marking off a tiny square. “How about yellowtail?”
I nodded, glad his diatribe had ended, watching his fingers as he held the pencil; he clenched it. When he looked at me, he seemed awkward, as though he’d spoken out of turn and regretted it. The waitress appeared; he ordered, didn’t say a word, and began eating as soon as the food came. I didn’t feel uncomfortable with the silence. Even when we were married, Clyde wasn’t much of a talker. He was too busy hanging out in his own head to let me in.
“Do you want to know how Trina’s doing?” I asked.
“Yes, of course.” He looked sheepish, as though I’d caught him in a lie.
If I tell him the truth, we’ll just argue, I thought. “She’s fine; she’s just fine.” He nodded absentmindedly; he hadn’t been listening. “What’s on your mind? Why did you invite me to lunch?” When he looked at me, his face was troubled. “What?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”
He stared at me a long time. “Aurelia wants to leave me.”
“I’m so sorry. What happened?”
“A lot of stuff happened. She wanted a baby, I didn’t. That was major. But I told her I didn’t want kids when we got together. She hates all the functions and appearances that I have to make because of the job. She says I don’t give her enough of me.”
“You can’t be in a relationship with someone if you’re chasing dollars and fame twenty-four/seven.”
“She knew what my life was like when we got together.”
“Aurelia is your fourth wife. Doesn’t that tell you something?”
He grew quiet. I knew he was going through the roll call of ex-wives in his mind.
“Yes, it tells me something.”
“Have you tried marriage counseling?” Clyde had refused to get help for our marriage, but I hoped he was more open now.
“I’m not into that,” he said. “I was hoping maybe you could talk to her.”
“Me?” I said, feeling angry all of a sudden.
“Aurelia likes you. She respects you. She’d listen to you.”
“And what am I supposed to be saying?”
“That I’m a good person. That she should stay.”
“Clyde—”
“She and Trina have always gotten along so well. It might be difficult for them to have a relationship if Aurelia and I aren’t together. You know how that goes. I don’t want Trina to have another loss.”
So many conflicting emotions bombarded me. I felt sadness and a rush of excitement, but mostly I felt angry that once again Clyde was asking me to pick up the pieces. “Will you at least consider therapy?”
His face darkened. “I told you. I’m not into that.”
“Your kid sure had to get into it.”
“That’s because you forced her to go.”
“And if I hadn’t, do you know where she’d be?”
“She’d be fine. Probably better off without some shrink putting weird ideas in her mind.”
“You’re a piece of work, you know that? Trina needs counseling, and she needs medication. And you—”
“All right. All right. We can talk about that later. Will you just do me this one favor? Please.”
To end the argument so soon was a letdown. Venom was still coursing through my veins. Once Clyde tapped my rage, it was hard to stop the flow, but I swallowed my retort and ate my sushi. Neither digested well.
Home is the place where, if you have to go there, they have to take you in. Was I still home to Clyde? Was that why he’d come to me?
We were young together, Clyde and I. We were poor together. In our time we made love that set the roof on fire. The memory of it warmed me still. But I didn’t want to remember. I was Clyde’s first wife. There had been three others. Our time had passed. That’s what I had to keep reminding myself.
When I returned, the store was full, phones were ringing, and Adriana had one question after another for me. Frances informed me that both Dr. Bellows and Trina’s therapist had left messages. And, of course, when I called them back, only their answering services were available. I stayed in my office, returning calls and hoping to hear from anyone on Trina’s health team. Frances popped in from time to time, pretending that she was looking for something, trying to act busy when her real intention was to check on me.
Elaine from Beth Israel’s Weitz Center was the first person actually to speak to me. Trina was where she was supposed to be and hadn’t gone AWOL during her cigarette break. Elaine listened quietly as I described Trina’s behavior the previous night, her irritability and insomnia. I didn’t say I suspected that Trina had been smoking weed, howe
ver, because Elaine might have kicked her out of the program.
“Look, Keri,” Elaine said, when I had finished talking. “Your daughter has a brain disease. Every day isn’t going to be the same for her.”
“How has she been acting today?”
“She’s been absolutely fine. Maybe a little bit hyper, but you’re going to have to relax, dear. Her healing is her job, not yours.”
I didn’t feel quite as dismissed by Dr. Bellows, when we finally spoke later that afternoon. I told him about my suspicion that Trina had been smoking pot.
“Could it send her into an episode?” I asked.
Dr. Bellows sighed. “Yes.” He was quiet for a moment; then he proposed increasing her antipsychotic from five milligrams a day to ten for the next few days. “Get her to her psychologist as soon as possible, so she can talk about whatever it is that’s bothering her.”
It was a good plan, and I hung up feeling relieved. My relief gave way to frustration when I learned that her therapist would be on vacation for the next two weeks. Trina was really attached to her. It would be very unlikely that she’d open up to anyone else, including me.
Frances poked her head inside my office.
“You okay?” she asked.
She didn’t wait for me to answer before sitting down on the chair next to my desk. “When my nephew was on drugs, every night was crazy. I can’t even remember the number of times me and my sister would get in the car and go riding around looking for his dumb butt. Delores started beating on him in the middle of the street one night, just as he was coming out of some get-high place. She tore him up. But you know what? He was right out there the next night doing the same damn thing. All Delores did was make herself crazy, along with a few of her family members. And for what? When the drugs kicked his ass to the point where he couldn’t stand himself, that’s when he got clean.”
She looked at me and smiled.
“Trina’s gonna do what she’s gonna do. And you can’t stop her.” She leaned over the desk and put her hand on mine. “She’s going to be all right. You need to stop worrying about her and live your own life.”
