Spare Change (11 page)

Going Home

W
ith Charlie in the trunk,
driving became a bit easier. Olivia set the radio to a station that played
mostly country music and she sang along with Patsy Cline through to the top end
of Georgia. In South Carolina she switched over to Elvis and pressed her foot
down on the accelerator. By late afternoon, she was nearing Raleigh, which is
when the convertible took to sputtering. “Oh, dear,” she sighed and eased off
to the side of the road. Once the car had rolled to a stop, she climbed from
behind the wheel to look the situation over. A flat tire she would have
recognized right off, but smoke billowing out from beneath the hood was
something else entirely.  She pulled the owner’s manual from the glove
compartment and read it cover to cover—page after page of information about the
horses beneath the hood, but not a word on sputtering engines.   

Olivia, furious with Charlie for stranding her in a situation such as
this, was contemplating the thought of gulping down the seeds Canasta had given
her, when a trailer tractor pulled up behind her. A bearded man with what she’d
call a troublesome glint in his eye, stepped down from the truck and asked,
“Need help?”

She hesitated, recalling how this was the sort of situation where a
woman travelling alone got robbed and murdered—left by the roadside for
buzzards to pick apart. 

Ignoring the fact that she hadn’t answered, he said, “Your engine’s
probably overheated,” and came walking toward her.

Another woman may have had other options, Olivia did not. She tried to
force a smile but the result was a look of paralysis with the whites of her
eyes showing the full way around and the left corner of her mouth tilted at an
odd angle. “It’ll be okay in a minute or two,” she eventually mumbled.

He popped open the hood, “Let’s take a look.” A cloud of steam rose
from the engine when the hood was lifted. “Not good,” he sighed and took to
fingering his chin. He waited a bit for the car to cool down, then started
poking around. “Ah-ha,” he finally exclaimed and directed her attention to a
black hose which had split apart. “There’s the culprit! Looks like you’re gonna
need a tow.” He gave a sympathetic smile which, despite the beard, made him
seem somewhat less menacing. “I can give you a lift into Claymore,” he said,
“you’ll find a mechanic there.”

It was late in the afternoon, in an hour or two it would be pitch
black, she could stand here hoping things would take a turn for the better, or
risk a ride with the stranger. “Okay,” she answered, then opened her purse,
took out one of the green peppercorns and swallowed it down. A month ago Olivia
would not have thought it possible she’d hike up her skirt and climb into the
truck of a man she’d known for less than fifteen minutes; but there she was,
riding shotgun for a load of cantaloupes and headed for a town smack in the
middle of nowhere. The truck swung back onto the highway and she watched in the
side view mirror as the blue convertible got smaller and smaller, then finally
disappeared. 

“Peter O’Ryan,” the man said. He let go of the right side of the
steering wheel and shoved his hand across the cab. “You?”

In an effort to seem less a woman travelling alone, she answered,
“Missus Charles Doyle.” She noticed the photograph of a round-faced woman and
five little girls stuck to Peter’s dashboard, then added, “Olivia.” When she
learned Peter was a church-going man who’d been married for sixteen years and
taught bible studies on Sunday mornings, she let down her guard. “If you ever
pass through Hopeful,” she said, “you ought stop and visit Canasta Jones.”
Peter claimed he was generally pretty anxious to get home to his family, but
promised to keep the thought in mind. 

Claymore, which was twenty three miles from where Olivia had abandoned
the convertible, had two gas stations but only one was equipped to repair
automobiles. And, as fate would have it, their mechanic was off on vacation for
the remainder of the week. “But,” Olivia moaned, “…surely there’s someone
else?”

“Not till Monday,” the clerk repeated.

Olivia’s eyes welled with tears as she turned and walked out into the
street. It seemed things were going from horrible to even worse, helpings of
bad luck stacking up like dirty dishes.
W
hatever had she gotten
herself into?
When she got to the corner, Olivia turned, whether it had
been right or left, she’d be hard pressed to say because by then she was
without direction. The sky turned dusky as she tromped aimlessly up one street
and down another. She passed by a Boy Scout who rattled a tin can in her face
and called out that it was time to help the poor. “I’m the one who’s poor,”
Olivia mumbled and continued to move one foot in front of the other. She took
no notice of anything, until, she found herself standing in front of a brightly
lit Ford showroom. Right there in the window was the answer to her prayers—a
shiny new black sedan. That was the kind of car a woman of her nature should
have—something solid and dependable, something with a roof that didn’t fold up
like a hankie, something
black
, not a frivolous shade of powder blue.
Without a second thought, she walked in.

“Do you take trade-ins?” she asked the young man standing behind the
counter.

“Yes indeed.”

“Even if the car’s got a broken hose?”

“No problem.”

“How about if it’s stuck out on the highway?”

“Hmm,” the young man twitched his mouth to the right in a mannerism
quite like Charlie’s, which immediately gave Olivia a good feeling. “We could
send a tow truck, but that’s an extra charge.”

“An extra charge?” Olivia repeated.  She was about to ask how much that
charge would be when the salesman held up his hand.

“Okay, okay,” he groaned playfully, “you’ve twisted my arm—no extra
charge if we do the deal right now!”

 “Right now? But, I still have my things in the trunk.” It was not like
Olivia to go about blabbing her business, so she felt no need to explain
Charlie’s death but she did nonetheless feel ashamed about including him under
the heading of
things
.

“No problem,” the salesman
said, “We’ll have your old car towed back here you can take whatever you want.”

T
wo days later, Olivia arrived
back in Wyattsville driving a Ford Fairlane, equipped with air conditioning, a
static free radio and customized floor mats. “Where’s Charlie?” the neighbors
asked. “What have you done with his lovely convertible?”

When Olivia explained how Charlie died of a massive heart attack and
had to be brought home bottled up inside a silver urn, everyone raised an
eyebrow.

“Charlie was never sick a day!” Clara Bowman said.

“A day?” Maggie Cooper sneered, “Why, not even five minutes!”

“And what about his convertible?” Henry Myerson asked. “Charlie loved that
car. Are we supposed to believe
that
died too?”

“It did,” Olivia answered. “Not died exactly, but boiled over in such a
way I thought it was going to explode.” She was about to explain how she found
herself stranded at the side of the road in North Carolina and had no choice
other than to trade Charlie’s car in for a more practical replacement, but by
then all the neighbors had turned and walked away. “I’m sorry,” she sighed
tearfully, but no one was listening.

Olivia pulled the luggage from the car and tugged it through the lobby
of the building. She heaved and pushed to maneuver the things into the
elevator, then one by one dragged the suitcases and cartons of souvenirs to the
far end of the seventh floor hallway. Not a single person came to help—husbands
who suggested lending a hand would be the neighborly thing to do were quickly
shushed by their wives. “Help that hussy?” they’d snarl, “the woman who
murdered Charlie?”

Once the last of the bags had been carted into the apartment, Olivia
closed and bolted the door behind her. She fell upon the bed—the same bed where
Charlie had kissed her mouth and made love to her, the same bed where he’d
promised to love her for a thousand years. How, she wailed, could he have
misled her with such a foolish promise when in truth he had less than a
thousand heartbeats to offer? And, how could
she,
a woman with such a
practical nature, have given up everything and waltzed off like a love-crazed
schoolgirl? Now here she was, all alone in an unfamiliar place, with neighbors
who banded themselves together and turned against her as they would a person
carrying the plague. 

By morning Olivia had decided the boundary of her new world would
extend no further than the threshold of Charlie’s apartment. For almost three
weeks, she cracked the door open early in the morning, stuck her arm out far
enough to retrieve the daily newspaper, then locked herself inside.  She used
an outdated carton of powdered milk for her coffee, ate tins of Spam and baked
beans for supper, and once she’d finished the only can of orange juice in the
freezer, simply did without fruit. With her life turned topsy-turvy as it had
been, the balancing of five basic food groups seemed of little concern.

Three weeks to the day Olivia arrived back in Wyattsville, there was a
knock on the apartment door. “Who is it?” she called out.

“Clara Bowman,” the voice answered.

Olivia slid back the bolt, opened the door and without saying a word,
stood there looking Clara square in the eye.

“I hate to intrude,” Clara said frostily, “but I believe I left my
yellow sweater in Charlie’s closet and with the weather turning somewhat cool…”

Olivia swung the door open and motioned Clara inside.

“Thanks.” Clara strolled over to the hall closet, rummaged through a
jumble of hangers, and tugged loose the sweater. “This is it,” she said tucking
it under her arm. With one foot already out the door, Clara turned back to Olivia
and asked, “Are you alright?”

It was a fair enough question, for Olivia had developed the look of a
ghost. Where there had once been a fullness of face, she had turned gaunt; her
eyes were rimmed with red and a grey ash of sadness had settled upon her. “I’m
fine,” Olivia answered politely.

“But, you don’t look…”  Before she could carry on with the thought, the
door swung shut. Clara, a woman known for her keen observations, was not about
to let a question go unanswered. She rang the bell for a second time; then
pounced forward when Olivia opened the door. “You don’t look good!” she said pushing
her way back into the apartment.

“Excuse me?” Olivia stammered in a somewhat indignant fashion.

“You look sick.” Clara replied and tromped through to the kitchen. 
“Like a person who’s not been eating!” She yanked open cupboard after cupboard
and glared at the almost empty shelves. “No wonder,” she snarled, “look at
this, not a crumb of food fit to eat!”

“It so happens, I
like
canned soup.”

“You like getting scurvy?  Because that’s what people who don’t have
fresh fruits and vegetables get!” Clara was shorter than Olivia but almost
twice as wide, and built like a fireplug. She charged from the kitchen into the
living room; “Why, this place is a mess,” she exclaimed, “…there’s a month’s
worth of newspapers that need throwing out!”

“I’m not finished reading them,” Olivia answered.

“You’re finished!” Clara scooped up a huge armful of papers and stomped
out the door, grumbling how it was shameful the way Olivia had been treated
when she was so obviously distraught over the loss of her husband. “It’s Maggie
Cooper’s fault,” she huffed, “Maggie
never
sees the good in people.”
With that Clara disappeared down the hallway, but five minutes later she was
back, bing-bonging the doorbell for a third time. She was carrying a laundry
basket full of food. “You locked me out,” she said when Olivia opened the door.

“I
thought you were gone.”

“Gone? I’m not even half-finished.” She
reached into the basket and hauled out an orange. “Eat this,” she said, pushing
the fruit into Olivia’s hand. Without another word Clara marched herself into
the kitchen and set about making a chicken casserole. “It’s a good thing I got
here when I did,” she sighed, “otherwise you never know…”

“Nonsense; feeling down about Charlie’s death is the only thing wrong
with me.”

“Oh really? Do you think a person’s skin is
supposed
to be
grey?  You think eyes are
supposed
to be red as a beefsteak?”

Olivia had to admit she’d been unaware such was the case; she then settled
in alongside of Clara and lent a hand to the peeling of onions. By the time the
casserole was ready to take from the oven, she’d gone through the full tale of
Charlie’s death, including the part about the unlucky opal.  

“You poor thing,” Clara sighed sympathetically; then she dished up two
plates of chicken, and set them on the table. She slid into the chair opposite
Olivia and leaned forward, waiting to hear the rest of the story.

“There I was,” Olivia said when she got to the part about the
convertible breaking down, “stranded by the side of the road, miles from civilization,
no way to get home…”

“You did the right thing, honey. Getting yourself a good serviceable
car is
exactly
what Charlie would have wanted you to do!”