First, Last, and in Between

by Jamie Bennett

  I cleaned the house from top to bottom, keeping an eye out for Mrs. Tollman, and lingering for a while in her son Wilder’s bedroom. He had noticed that something was going on, finally—it had taken him a few weeks before he’d counted his roll of money and realized that he had a problem. He had moved his cash from the deflated ball underneath his bed, but there were only so many places he could hide it in his room, and I’d unearthed it every single time.

  I found Wilder’s money again today, shoved inside the carboard tubes in the extra toilet paper rolls in his bathroom, and like I’d been doing since I started working at the Tollman house, I helped myself to a few of the twenties from the big stack. I knew that he had to get this money by doing something illegal or cheating somehow. Like, maybe he sold weed or wrote essays to peddle to his other rich classmates. Something slightly bad, but not as if he would be sent to prison, like…no. I wasn’t thinking about him.

  If Wilder Tollman had a real, legit job, he wouldn’t have stashed wads of cash in toilet paper in his bathroom. He’d have gotten a paycheck and deposited it in one of the big bank accounts that his parents had for him. They were already chock full of money saved up for his future. I had found all the documents inside his mom’s desk drawer a few weeks before and looked at the totals, thinking how unfair it was that this dumb teenager already had more money than I would ever see in my lifetime, no matter how hard I worked cleaning big houses like his.

  Then I’d gone upstairs and helped myself to another twenty or two. Thanks to the steady cash from Wilder and some extras from my other houses, I had been able to pay for my car repairs after Rory’s friend had towed it for me.

  But taking the money today didn’t ease my current sadness and anger. If anything, I felt worse as I slid the bills into my back pocket and descended into the kitchen, dragging my ever-present bucket with me. I tried to shake it off. Why should I have cared about some kid who didn’t deserve it anyway? I was like Robin Hood in that movie, taking from a rich guy and giving it to someone who really needed it: me. Wilder Tollman could just go to the ATM and have buckets of money anytime he wanted to. Maybe he could ask his mom to give him some out of the salary that she had shorted me from the last time I’d been over.

  I was dragging through the house by that point, sad and achy and confused. I just wanted my money and I wanted to leave, right away. “Mrs. Tollman?” I called. I walked through the spare, white rooms again. She wasn’t anywhere, not her office, not the home gym, not her bedroom, or the library, the den, or the sunroom. Was her plan not to give me anything at all for the work I’d done? That bitch. “Mrs. Tollman?” I called again as I went back into the kitchen. What was I going to do now, if she decided not to pay me?

  A slight noise to my right made me turn my head. The door to her hoarder room was cracked open and I heard a faint clink and a thud from inside. “Hello?” I asked. I approached the room warily. “Mrs. Tollman, are you in there? Hello?”

  The door suddenly swung back all the way and crashed into the wall, and I practically jumped up to the ceiling in fright. Mrs. Tollman stood in the opening and I tried to keep the shock off my face—not at her sudden entrance, but at the sight of her. Her perfect hair was now dirty and messy, sticking up in bumps and knots all over her head. She was wearing one of her beautiful blouses but it wasn’t tucked into the old sweatpants she had on for bottoms, and the blouse itself was stained and wrinkled. Like she had slept in it, maybe, and maybe for more than one night. Mascara and liner ringed her eyes like a raccoon, but really, she reminded me of…Jade. She reminded me of my mother.

  “Are you all right?” I asked cautiously, and she took a stumbling step forward. I took one away from her.

  “Fine,” Mrs. Tollman answered, drawing the word out. She moved two paces toward the table and then took an extra step to the left as she lurched and almost fell over.

  “Mrs. Tollman?”

  “Fine,” she drawled out again. She made it over to her purse and removed her wallet, but she kept dropping bills as she tried to count out what she owed me.

  “Here.” I picked up the money from the floor and subtracted my salary for the day. I held it in front of her face, showing her. “See? This is right.”

  Mrs. Tollman squinted at it, as much as her hard, frozen face could squint. Then she put her hand to cover a cut on her cheek, like maybe the slight expression had made it hurt. “Fine,” she repeated for the third time. “Sure, there’s your money.” She rocked and steadied herself by grabbing my arm and tilting my way, much too close. She reeked of wine, like she’d been bathing in it. I figured that she’d been hiding out in that room, drinking the day away.

  I put the money in my pocket with Wilder’s twenties, thinking that she probably wouldn’t remember this and might accuse me of stealing from her. I realized that I should have recorded her saying that I had taken the right amount. I also thought that I should get out of this house, immediately, because if this woman was a monster while sober, a drunk Mrs. Tollman would surely be worse. But I hesitated.

  “What time are your kids coming home?” I asked.

  She stared, eyes bleary. “Kids?”

  “Leighton and Wilder,” I reminded her. “Your daughter and son.”

  She started muttering something about practice, so I assumed they were gone for a while. Good, because even if I did think that they were overprivileged, spoiled, probably drug-dealing brats, no one deserved to come home to a drunk mom. I was frowning as I remembered it from my own childhood.

  Mrs. Tollman spun suddenly and tried to walk to the counter, but she staggered again, and this time she actually fell. She swore, slurred and ugly, as she landed on her knees and palms.

  Shit. I stepped to her side but then stood awkwardly, frozen with uncertainty. Whatever was going to happen from here on out wouldn’t end well for me. I was probably going to get fired, because she wouldn’t be able to take the fact that I’d seen her like this, all sloppy and disordered. Imperfect.

  “Can I help you up?” I asked quietly.

  She held out her arm and I managed to yank her back to her feet, and I walked her to the table and into a chair. Then I got a big glass of water and put it near her shaking hands, but still, I hesitated.

  “Is your husband going to be home soon?”

  “Husband?” Her head snapped up and she glared. “What did you say about him?”

  “Nothing. Um, can I do anything else for you?” I asked her, more nervous with how she was looking at me. “I’m going to go.”

  “Husband,” she repeated, still stuck on that. “Fuck him.”

  I felt my eyes widen. “Sure, ok. Then I’m going to go—”

  “That cheating son of a bitch,” she snarled. “He has a girlfriend.” She pointed a trembling finger in my direction. “Whore.”

  I didn’t know if she meant me or the mistress, but Mrs. Tollman went on.

  “I helped him,” she told me. “I got him through school.” “Shool,” she said by mistake. “I made him what he is and look how he acts. He was trying to hide it from me, but I knew.”

  I nodded, easing farther away from the table. “I have to go.”

  “Look at my face!” she demanded, pointing.

  I did look at the scratch that ran down her usually perfect cheek. “Did he do that to you?” I asked. “Your husband?”

  “He’s worf…work…” She stopped and moved her lips, like she was practicing. “Worthless,” she said very clearly. She soundlessly formed words again and then she looked at me, right in the eyes. “They’re all the same,” Mrs. Tollman announced. “Men are all the same.”

  I picked up my bucket and left. Maybe, at heart, we were all that bad.

  There was a familiar figure waiting on the front steps of my building when I parked my car that evening. “I didn’t let myself into your apartment,” he called as I slowly got out of my car, stiff after the physical work of the day with a body that was still sore more than a week after my encounter with Kash. I hadn�
�t seen or heard from him since, which was unusual. He generally called in the few days afterwards, to tell me that he was sorry, that it wouldn’t happen again. And I would find myself nodding at the phone, trying to believe him. But this time, nothing, and I didn’t know if I was glad about that or heartbroken.

  “Thank you for waiting outside,” I answered. Rory walked quickly over and took the heavy bucket from me, and as he did, he brushed his fingers across the inside of my wrist.

  “I wasn’t outside until just now. I was in there, having tea with Rella.”

  I stumbled a little in shock. “You were? Why?”

  “She wanted to get to know me better.” He jammed the button to the elevator but nothing happened. “This is broken again?”

  I nodded and led the way to the stairs. “What did you two talk about? Did she put you through the wringer?”

  “She sure tried. I usually don’t have a whole lot to say, but she heard a few things.”

  I wanted to hear them too, so I waited, but he didn’t continue. “Such as?” I prompted.

  “Such as, she got to hear my entire goddamn family tree. My adoptive family, I mean. They’re all very good, normal people, and she seemed happy about that.” He smiled a little. “I didn’t get into my biological parents at all. I figured it was best to leave her in the dark about them.”

  “Why? Why do you care what she thinks?” I had always gotten the feeling that he didn’t care what anyone thought about him.

  Rory shrugged an answer, but then he told me, “She’s a nice lady. She made me lemon bars, so I thought it was a fair trade for my information.”

  I smiled. “I’d do just about anything for lemon bars. They’re my favorite.”

  “She told me that.”

  It made my smile fade. “She did? Were you two talking about me, too?” What else had she told him?

  “We talked about you some,” he said, but again, he didn’t continue with the information that I wanted. He held the door open for me at the top of the stairwell. “I don’t like the idea of you coming up and down here alone. With this,” he added, hoisting my bucket high like it was full of feathers. I knew for a fact that it wasn’t.

  “It’s ok. I’m used to it.”

  “No.”

  “What? What do you mean, ‘no?’” I turned back to face him, and he took the keys from my hand and opened my front door.

  “No, you’re going to get used to other things, starting now,” he said. “Go inside and get changed.”

  “For what?” I asked, totally confused.

  “For me taking you out. Go,” he repeated, and his hand on my shoulder guided me into the apartment.

  I stopped just inside the door. “Rory, I can’t. I’m…” I indicated my face.

  “It’s not so bad.”

  Yes, it was. I remembered how Ameyo had reacted today after a week of me healing.

  “Let’s see what you have to put on. Fancy stuff,” he said, and walked to the tiny indentation in the wall that passed for my closet. “What do you wear when you go out?”

  When was the last time that I’d gone out? “I don’t know…”

  “What about this?” He pulled out an old sweater, faded and stretched with age. “That’s pretty. You’d be pretty wearing this.”

  “No.” It was not pretty in any way, and I certainly didn’t feel that way about myself right now. “No, I wouldn’t. I would look terrible.”

  “You’re pretty wearing anything,” Rory told me.

  “I am?” I asked softly. I didn’t know he thought that about me. “No, I’m not,” I said, and pointed at my bruised cheek, the cut that hadn’t healed on my lip. “I’m scary.”

  “You don’t scare me.”

  I thought of Wilder Tollman’s money that I had at this moment in my pocket. Maybe I should have.

  He put back the sweater and took out a dress, probably the only one that I had. “Wear this.”

  “Um, I don’t know.” I hesitated, and not just because it had been so long since I’d worn that dress that I didn’t know if it would fit me. “Where are we going? Don’t you have to be careful about being around, with people seeing you?”

  He put his hand on my shoulder again, this time to walk me into the bathroom, and he passed me the hanger with the dress on it. “You don’t need to worry about me. Put that on and do…” He looked at my hair, puzzled. “What do you do with that?”

  I laughed, startling myself. “I guess I could brush it,” I suggested. “Or curl it. Put it up.” I pulled my hair off my neck and considered how it would look, getting a little excited at the idea of going out. That was what my mom did when she got fancy: elaborate up-dos. She was really good at them but I could also hold my own from the years of watching her.

  Rory nodded. “Good. Do your stuff. We’ll go soon.” He shut the door and left me staring at myself under the harsh overhead light of my tiny bathroom.

  I had been avoiding the mirror since Kash had left the other night, but now I looked closely at my body as I stripped off my clothes. He had really done a number on me this time, I thought, turning to the side to see more yellowish-blue bruises. It was lucky he hadn’t broken something. And I remembered what he had been saying as he did it, calling me names, telling me I deserved it. I had it coming.

  I jumped when Rory knocked on the bathroom door. “You ready?” he called.

  “It’s been about sixty seconds!” I protested.

  “It takes longer than that?”

  Another unexpected laugh flew from my mouth and I saw myself smiling in the mirror. “Yes, it takes longer than that! You’ll know I’m ready when I come out.” I heard some muttering and, still smiling, I turned on the water for the shower. I was going to make a real effort to be the pretty girl that he seemed to see in me.

  ∞

  Rory

  If that waiter tried to look down her dress one more time—

  “Rory?” Isobel smiled across the table at me. She had been happy since she had walked out of the bathroom, her hair kind of fluffy and fancy and stuff covering up the bruises on her face. She didn’t need to do anything, but I had wanted her to know that I appreciated her efforts.

  “You look beautiful,” I’d told her, and that had been the right thing to say because that was when she lost the worried, apprehensive face and started with her smile.

  “What are you thinking about?” she asked, and took a sip of water. She dabbed around the cut on her mouth with her napkin. “You looked like you were going to kill someone for a second.”

  “Nothing. Nothing at all,” I said. “What happened today? How did everyone treat you?”

  She didn’t answer right away, but she tilted her head to the side and looked at me kind of strangely. “Do you really want to know? I don’t do much that’s very interesting or exciting to talk about over dinner at a nice restaurant.” She glanced around the room under the dim lights, at the waiters dressed in ties, and the tables with crisp cloths. “This is the nicest place I’ve ever been,” she said, her voice low.

  “We can talk about your day any place we happen to be. And yes, I really want to know about it. Why wouldn’t I be interested if it’s about you?”

  That had been another good thing to say, I noticed immediately. Isobel smiled even bigger.

  “Well, it was kind of weird, really,” she told me. “One of my clients, the mean one, was home and was drunk off her ass. She fell, even.”

  “Did she pay you?”

  She nodded and looked at her water glass. “I helped her up. I kept thinking about her kids…” She trailed off.

  “How is Jade?”

  “Let’s talk about something else instead,” she said brightly, and this time her smile wasn’t real at all. “Tell me about your day. Before you went and ate all my lemon bars at Rella’s apartment.”

  “She saved you some. I didn’t do too much.” I had finally found a good lead on my old business associate Memphis, which meant I was a step closer to getting the mo
ney he owed me. I fished in my pocket. “I made some samples. Tell me which one you like,” I said, and set several small sections of oak onto the tabletop.

  She picked one up and ran a finger down the curves and twists. “What are these?”

  “Samples,” I repeated. “I turned them on the lathe that Cal has. It’s a good one and I’m getting better at it.”

  “Samples of candlesticks or something? You could sell these, I think. They’re really cool.” She picked up a different piece. “I like this one. It’s the simplest but it’s the prettiest.”

  “Excuse me, your entrée,” the waiter said, and damned if he didn’t sneak another peek as he bent to put down her plate of fish.

  “Hey.”

  He looked up from her breasts and I held his gaze.

  “Yes, ok,” he stammered at me. It was enough—I didn’t want to end up with spit in my food, like Leopold’s wife did at all the restaurants she ate at after she berated every person who worked there.

  Isobel hadn’t seemed to notice that exchange. She was looking at her plate with big eyes. “This is so fancy,” she whispered after the waiter served me and walked away. “It’s really expensive, too.”

  “That’s ok.”

  “But you owe that money.” She started to get nervous, squirming around a little in her chair. “I know it’s none of my business, but you bought a new car, and now you’re taking me to this nice place. Wouldn’t it be better to save? Maybe you could pay it off in installments.”

  I almost laughed. “Installments? Like getting a new TV?”

  “Don’t laugh at me,” she answered, her voice very low.

  “Hey,” I said again, but not in the same way I’d warned off the waiter. “Isobel.” I reached across the table and took her hand from her water glass. “Thank you for worrying about me. Just so you know, my boss gave me that car, I didn’t buy it. The guy I’m doing protection for. He likes to show off and he liked the idea of his bodyguard driving around in that, and maybe I’ll be taking him in in sometimes.”

  “Oh.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, it’s going to be ok, because I’m close to getting the money back, too. I’m pretty close.”