by Joan Boswell
There was no light at all in the stairwell. She longed to fling open the door and bolt for home. But a promise was a promise. Gingerly, she fumbled her way up three flights of steep stairs, glad she had sanitizer in her purse. At the top, she rapped on the south side door.
“Door’s open. Come in,” Perry called.
Harriet entered a different world. To begin with, there was light, lots of light, and it reflected off pink-tinted, cream-painted walls where mirrors made the space seem bigger than it was. She stared around. She imagined most of the disparate furniture had come from Goodwill. All exposed wood was painted. Most pieces were white, but a navy blue Windsor chair and poppy red desk added zip. Brightly hued quilts, vibrant posters and a multitude of books created a warm, welcoming space.
“Nice apartment,” she said. “But shouldn’t you lock the doors?”
Perry shook his head and looked down at his arms, both in casts and in slings. “I’m almost helpless, and my neighbours are wonderful, so why would I lock the door?”
As well as Russell, reformed addict and thief, she could just imagine his neighbours—the flotsam and jetsam of the criminal and mental health systems.
“What can I do for you?” Harriet said.
“I’m sure you don’t want to do anything. Actually,” Perry smiled and looked down at his tartan pajama bottoms. “I’m relieved, if you can stand the pun, and you will be too to know that I can take an arm out of its sling and manage to do the bathroom thing for myself, if I have enough pain killers.”
Her apprehension must have been obvious.
Perry nodded toward the door behind her. “Russell, he lives across the hall, did brilliant things to make my life easier. He wrapped my toothbrush, my pen and some cutlery in wads of duct tape.” He nodded at his right hand. “See how my fingers are? I can’t close them to get a grip, but Russell has made it possible for me to use the few utensils that are important. I’ll give them a try tomorrow.”
Russell’s ingenuity impressed Harriet. She’d steeled herself to do who knew what and was relieved that she wouldn’t have to touch Perry. She’d never liked physical contact.
“Russell’s coming over in a few minutes. How about you make us all a cup of tea. And if you’d give me two painkillers, that would help.”
In the kitchen, tiny but clean, Harriet turned on the gas, boiled water and made tea. Perry managed to clutch a rough ceramic mug with both hands. Harriet did have to put the pills in his mouth, but she managed this minimal contact with what she thought was grace.
“Perry, don’t you feel guilty that you can afford a better apartment, yet you’re taking one that someone who really needs it could be renting?” she asked.
Her brother considered her. “Summer and I talked about that. But twenty-two, get that, at least twenty-two and sometimes more people live in the building, and we act as the superintendents. When the toilets break or the heat isn’t on, or there isn’t enough heat, we mount an assault on the owner.” He grinned. “And it must be working. Our lovely slum landlord has offered us much better accommodation in one of his tonier buildings. I think we cost him a lot of money because we’re connected in the community and threaten to make big trouble for him if he doesn’t fix things.”
“He could start with the hall lights,” Harriet grumbled.
“That isn’t the landlord. Tenants pinch them. You won’t believe how many we’ve replaced.” He smiled. “We consider that as our contribution to the house. We can afford it—others can’t. By the way they’re in the cupboard next to the door. Will you replace the bulbs? There’s one outlet on the wall next to our door and another on the north wall of the second floor landing. You’ll see it when you get the first one in.”
Harriet’s tea was still too hot to drink. She opened the cupboard and wasn’t surprised to find a stock of energy efficient lights. Bulbs in hand, she opened the door, stepped out and shrieked as she crashed into someone. The light spilling from Perry’s apartment shone on a tall, thin man.
He disentangled himself and stepped back. “Sorry, I scared you. I’m Russell, and you must be the renowned Harriet.” He reached for the bulbs. “I’ll do that.”
What had he meant by renowned? She and Perry had minimum contact with one another—what had Perry said about her? She hadn’t liked his tone.
When he returned, she and Russell sized one another up.
She’d expected the kind of ex-con she saw in TV programs, a tattooed wonder with long greasy hair and shifty eyes; but Russell looked every inch the professional businessman he had once been.
“I showed my sister what you’d done to help me cope. I’m really grateful,” Perry said.
“Considering that I owe my life to you, it wasn’t much. I only wish I could do more,” Russell said.
“That sounds very dramatic,” Harriet said and knew her voice reflected her distaste for excessive emotion.
“And not true. You would have done fine without me,” Perry offered.
“No. I wouldn’t.” Russell placed his cup on the table. “Harriet, you may think that I’m exaggerating, but let me tell you exactly how it was.”
Harriet nodded, although she didn’t care.
“First, you have to know that a crack addiction is terrible. I lost my family, my job—everything I held dear because of it. When I came out of prison and couldn’t find work, I figured I might as well start using again. But the night I decided my situation was hopeless, I stopped at the truck where Perry was giving out sandwiches.”
“I looked at you, saw your desperation, saw that you were about to do something drastic,” Perry said.
“‘Wait until I finish, and we’ll talk’, you said. I did, and you offered to help me find a job and an apartment.” He smiled at Harriet. “Perry did save my life, and I’ll owe him forever.”
“If you owed me anything, and I don’t think you do, you more than repaid it with the help you’ve given me.” Perry turned to Harriet. “You visited Mom today, didn’t you?”
“Damn shame about your mother,” Russell said. “Perry told me about her very generous financial contributions to the food banks and the homeless shelters. You must be proud to have such a community-minded mother.”
Alarm flooded through Harriet. Had her mother given everything away?
“Perry, Mom said she showed you her will. Has everything gone to charity, or has she left something for us?” She really wanted to ask how much there was for her but knew that asking would be unwise.
“The vultures are circling,” Russell said.
Perry coughed, “Russell, don’t be unkind. Harriet, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind me telling you that she’s left $150,000 for you and $300,000 to Summer and me. The rest goes to designated charities.”
Shit. Why would he get twice as much? This wasn’t fair. A Porsche Cabriolet cost at least $190,000. She tried to control her dismay but suspected she hadn’t done it well.
Perry frowned. “Summer’s pregnant, and Mom wanted to be sure we had a nest egg for the baby.”
Russell was watching her. “You look disappointed,” he said. “Not enough for something you want?”
The observation was too close for comfort. Harriet forced a smile from her reserve of practiced expressions. “Let’s talk about something else.”
Perry grinned. “You’re right. It’s macabre.”
Russell finished his tea and excused himself, explaining that he worked a late night shift at the nearby 7-Eleven.
Harriet assured him she’d make sure Perry was okay for the night before she left. Later, she called her mother, reported that Perry was doing well and promised to drop in every evening until Summer returned.
She lay awake that night, thinking of the future and what she’d do with the money. Eventually she must have dozed off. When the alarm buzzed, she thought it was the phone and, expecting to hear bad news, groped to reach it. Realizing her mistake, she smacked the off button and lay for some time staring at the ceiling.
Next
evening, when she entered the front hall, the pitch-black stairwell again confronted her. Probably it took a bulb a day to keep it lit. She carefully felt her way up the three flights of uncarpeted stairs. When she answered Perry’s invitation to enter, she found Russell there as well. He stood leaning in the kitchen doorway with his arms crossed over his chest and his head cocked to one side. He stared at her steadily until she began to feel uneasy.
“Great move you made,” he said. “Could have blown us all to hell.”
“What?”
“Don’t what me. I wasn’t born yesterday. I’m sure you know you left the gas on and the door locked. Good thing I have a key, or we all would have done a little sky surfing.”
“My god. How could that have happened?” She knew she looked surprised. It was one of the expressions she’d practiced in the mirror when someone had told her she never registered any emotion. She shook her head and frowned. “Something must have distracted me after I made tea. I can’t think what it would have been. After we’d drunk it and had a chat, I helped Perry into bed, turned off the lights and left. I suppose I pushed in the door knob’s lock, because I automatically lock doors.” She turned to Perry. “I’m so sorry and glad that Russell arrived in time.”
Perry said nothing. He considered her for several minutes before he spoke. “Forget it. It was an accident. Could have happened to anyone. Russell is a suspicious guy, but with the life he’s lived, that isn’t a surprise.” He looked over at his friend. “Stay awhile and get to know my sister. She isn’t the villain you’re making her out to be.”
Russell’s gaze fixed on her. “I’m sure she isn’t,” he said, and it was apparent he meant exactly the opposite. “Thanks, but I have things to do.”
Harriet talked about car emissions, a topic that interested her. Perry, who didn’t own a car, said nothing. Eventually, when she couldn’t think of anything else to say, she washed the mugs, tidied the kitchen, helped Perry into bed, collected her purse and turned off the lights. She closed the door behind her and stepped into the engulfing blackness. She wondered why Russell hadn’t replaced the bulb and where the draft was coming from.
Two hands on her back propelled her into space. As she crashed down the stairs, she thought of the gleaming silver Porsche. She knew as she gathered momentum, hit the floor and felt her neck snap that there would be no Porsche.
Joan Boswell won the $10,000 Toronto Star’s short story contest in 2005. A member of the Ladies Killing Circle she co-edited Fit to Die, Bone Dance and When Boomers Go Bad. Her first mystery, Cut Off His Tale, was published in 2005, and her second, Cut to the Quick, in the spring of 2007.
Eve Gets Even
Joy Hewitt Mann
“She didn’t mean a thing to me,”
He tried to tell his wife
As she approached him wrathfully,
Preceded by a knife.
He wished he’d been more careful,
He wished he’d been more hep...
He wished he had eyes in the back of his head
As he slipped on that first step.
“He meant all the world to me,”
Sobbed his grieving wife
While she ate the perfect apple
She was peeling with her knife.
The Dog on Balmy Beach
Madeleine Harris-Callway
My life is over,” Ora said to the sky, the sand and the implacable blue lake.
Melanie, content on the hard wooden bench, ran her swollen, misshapen fingers through her guide dog’s golden fur. As always, she didn’t acknowledge Ora’s heartfelt declaration.
Sometimes I wonder why we’re still friends. Ora thought. Nothings changed since our teacher put us at the same reading table in Grade One. After fifty-five years, can’t she sense that I’m desperate to talk to someone? Especially today.
Melanie leaned down, touching Basil’s nose with her own. “You want pet mode, don’t you, boy?” His feathery tail thumped on the boardwalk. She fumbled with the metal clasps of the dog’s harness while he struggled to be free.
“That is a really bad idea,” Ora said.
“Basil needs to run off his spring friskies.” Melanie’s mouth curved in a mischievous smile. “He already got away from me once this morning.”
A nightmare image flashed into Ora’s mind of the big golden retriever plunging in front of the Queen streetcar, dragging Melanie with him. She made a grab for Basil’s harness, but he slipped free, bounding onto the wide stretch of silver beach before them. “Relax for once. He’ll be fine.” Melanie turned her broad face to the pale morning sun and folded her hands over her worn beige parka. “And you’ll find another job. You’re a survivor.”
No, I won’t, Ora wanted to scream. Melanie floated through life oblivious to its malicious blows, even to the multiple sclerosis that had stolen her sight. But then she’d never really had to worry about anything. Her disability pension covered her modest needs. And her friends always leaped forward to care for her whenever she had a crisis.
No one does that for me, Ora thought, pulling her red cashmere coat tighter against the biting wind. I can’t get up again, not this time.
“Come on, they’d be crazy not to hire you,” Melanie said. “You’re so organized.”
Oh, yes, I’m very organized, Ora thought. She felt in her pocket to make sure the bottle of pills was still there. She’d set everything out on the dining room table back at her condo: her list of instructions, cash to cover the costs, her best black dress...
“Aren’t you curious to know how I got Basil back?” Melanie asked, startling Ora back to reality.
The dog had reached the water’s edge. He ran back and forth full of energy.
“All right, I’m listening,” Ora said. Basil remained immune to entreaties, toys and food whenever she tried them.
“A nice young man helped me. He startled me in the first place—that was the problem. He came rushing out of those bushes up by the reservoir. I tripped, dropped Basil’s harness, and off he went.”
“You shouldn’t walk on the beach when nobody’s around,” Ora said. These days, only dark human motives occurred to her.
“Oh, come on. Anyway, I figured Basil would head for the lake just to be a bugger. I kind of staggered off the boardwalk, so the man said sorry, he hadn’t seen I was blind, and he’d fetch Basil. ‘Hope you like swimming,” I told him. And he said: ‘Your dog won’t go in. The water’s too cold.” So I said: ‘Forget that. Basil thinks he’s part polar bear.’”
Ora watched Melanie’s polar bear leap at a seagull and miss. “So Basil rewarded him with a soak.”
“Not exactly,” Melanie chuckled. “When the guy brought Basil back, he asked me why nobody was on the boardwalk today. Obviously he wasn’t a Beacher, or he’d know that only dog walkers are nutty enough to brave the lake on a cold spring day like this one.”
“And that didn’t make you feel scared?”
“Honestly, I don’t know how you can go through life being so paranoid.”
A loud noise burst through the pale quiet.
“What was that?” Ora sprang up. She looked up and down the boardwalk, but spotted no one. “That sounded like a gunshot.”
“Relax, it’s just kids with firecrackers.”
But it’s not Victoria Day yet, Ora thought. She gazed at the shoreline. Basil had dwindled to a tiny yellow dot amidst the silvery driftwood and white specks of gulls. Time to drag him back, if she could manage to catch him. She studied her impractical black business pumps. How to navigate the sand in these?
“Look out!” an arrogant voice shouted next to her ear.
A hard blow to her shoulder sent her staggering. A man on roller blades shot past. She had a brief glimpse of a straggling grey ponytail and knotted veins in muscular calves.
“Bastard,” she managed, brushing off her coat. Seething, she watched him stride away over the rough boards, heading east toward the reservoir.
“I’ll bet that was Tyrone, the old hippy
,” Melanie said from the bench. “Grey hair? Frisbee?”
“Yes,” Ora bit out. She resumed her seat next to her friend and tugged her coat even tighter.
“He blades here every morning, hoping to find young boys.”
“How do you know that?”
“The other dog walkers told me.” Melanie smiled, pulled off her brown knitted hat and shook out her grey braids. “They say that he skates up and down the boardwalk because the school banned him from hanging around the playground. Even his own wife kicked him out.”
“Wonderful! So he’s a pervert as well as very rude.” Ora squinted into the sun. Tyrone had shrunk to a small black dot in the distance.
“Forget Tyrone. You didn’t hear the end of my story. Basil let the young man catch him, but he got his revenge.”
Ora stiffened. “What did Basil do?”
“The guy shouts: ‘Your dog’s got his face in my pack.’ So I said. ‘Did you have food in there?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, a sandwich.’ ‘You don’t any more,’ I said. ‘But it was wrapped in plastic,’ the poor guy says. Honest to god, I couldn’t help laughing. ‘That won’t stop Basil,’ I told him, ‘but it’ll sure explain his weird poop and scoop tonight.’”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. You should have paid the man for his sandwich.”
Melanie shrugged. “By the time I got Basil’s harness back on, he’d left.”
“Where did he go?”
Another burst of firecrackers made Ora jump. Shielding her eyes, she failed to pinpoint the source of the sound.
Melanie fiddled with her braids. “I missed you at the poetry reading last week.”
“Sorry.” At least after today, I won’t have to sit through another evening of suffocating feminist poetry, Ora thought.
