She said, “Sheila will be right with you, Mr. Gorgon.”
He said, “Well, get her up here, I don’t have all day.”
The young woman with the Statue of Liberty hair whipped around the front counter with a smile as phony as Ruby’s. “I’m right here, Mr. Gorgon. You can come on back.”
As he strutted away, I watched him with the repulsed fascination I’d give a nest of baby vipers. Maurice and Ruby seemed equally unable to tear their eyes away from him. Even Baby had cocked his ears and was staring at him with big astonished eyes.
Sheila of the white spiked hair bustled around a manicure stand, getting him seated, making sure he was comfortable, offering him something to drink, putting out her bowls and bottles and tools as if she were getting ready to do major surgery. The man all but sneered at her, but he allowed her to touch his broad hands. They seemed to have something of a practiced routine.
As if we all came out of a trance, Maurice and Ruby and I turned away from them at the same moment.
In a barely audible murmur, Maurice said, “Speak of the devil.”
Brilliantly, I said, “Huh?”
He leaned close and pretended to arrange a hair behind my ear while he whispered, “That’s the man Laura’s seeing!”
Since she’d only lived in Sarasota a few weeks, she couldn’t have seen much of him. Besides, anybody with two brain cells to rub together would know he wasn’t Laura’s type. Then I remembered how she’d talked about how rich her husband was, and how much she’d liked being a rich man’s wife. This guy sporting diamonds on his hammy hands obviously had money. Maybe his money was enough to make Laura overlook his nasty disposition. I gave the man another look. I knew he wasn’t the man who’d called while I was there because his voice was gruff and harsh, not the unctuous smarm of the guy who’d come to Laura’s door.
I thanked Maurice profusely, tried to give him a tip which he refused, and left him and Ruby telling Baby how wonderful he was. I didn’t say goodbye to Sheila. I was afraid it would interfere with her concentration and enrage her manicure customer.
That’s the kind of thing that makes me grateful for my own profession. I don’t have to be a different person at work than I am at home. I don’t have to suck up to people I despise so that little pieces of my soul get chipped away every day.
As I trudged back to the Bronco, I thought how women tend to envy beauties like Laura, but if we’re going to envy anybody, it probably should be women like Ruby. She was a lot happier than Laura, she had a man who loved her whole zaftig self, and she was content with her life. I suspected that Laura’s experience with men was that they all wanted to show her off to other men, like a rare jewel in their possession.
Oddly, I felt sorry for Laura. She probably needed a friend as much as I did. Maybe some of her cool self-esteem would rub off on me, and maybe I could help her feel that she was more than just a lovely face.
9
At the diner, Judy was too busy to talk, but she was quick with the coffee. After she poured the first cup she stepped back to let a young Hispanic man carrying a bright-eyed baby boy in a plastic carrier pass, and for a second he and Judy did one of those sidestepping routines in which each offers right-of-way to the other. While that went on, the baby and I smiled at each other and he waggled his bare feet in innocent ecstasy at being cute and lovable. I tapped one of his plump little brown toes with my finger, and he laughed before his father moved forward and took the baby out of my reach. It’s just disgusting what a pushover I am for babies.
Judy hurried away as a middle-aged man and a dewy-eyed young woman—probably office workers taking an early lunch—stopped at the empty booth across the aisle. The girl slid into the booth’s bench seat, and the man hesitated a moment as if he might slide in next to her. Flushing, she quickly put her handbag on the seat, and he sat down across from her. A strand of hair had fallen forward over her face. As if it couldn’t help itself, his hand floated across the space between them and smoothed the errant hair away from her brow. She looked startled, and he jerked his hand back in a shamed spasm. He wore a wedding band. She wore a look that said she might soon change jobs.
By nature’s design, men have the same response to pretty girls that women have to babies. They are compelled to touch them, caress their soft skin, inhale their scent. Lust and tender yearning are two facets of the same diamond.
Judy slid my breakfast in front of me. “Tanisha says hi.”
I looked up and waved a thank-you at Tanisha’s shiny black face smiling at me through the opening to the kitchen. Tanisha is wide as a bus from eating her own cooking, so she took up most of the opening.
As usual, she had done my breakfast exactly the way I like it—two eggs over easy, extra-crispy home fries, and a biscuit. No bacon, because I have a bacon monitor in my head that knows how much bacon I can eat without ending up big as Tanisha. Some days I tell the monitor to mind its own business, but only when I really, really need fried fat to ease my soul.
Judy scooted away and left me to enjoy my breakfast. The man and the girl across the aisle were busy eating now, neither looking at the other or talking. A little bacon might have made them both feel better.
I ate as fast as I could, dropped money on the table, and waved goodbye to Judy and Tanisha. My mind and body were screaming for sleep.
Except for sloshing surf and squawking seabirds, everything was quiet when I got home. The parakeets were having a siesta, and only a few bored shorebirds ambled along the sand. The day seemed to have lasted a week or two, and my Keds made weary shuffling sounds as I dragged myself up the stairs to my apartment.
Ella was waiting for me inside the French doors, which meant that Paco had brought her up before he went off to catch a drug dealer or nab a bank robber or do whatever his job of the day was. I picked her up and kissed her nose, feeling better the instant I heard her start to purr. That’s the neat thing about cats. You can be feeling like yesterday’s cold oatmeal, and the sound of a cat’s purring just because you’re there makes you feel like you might be worth something after all. She blinked cat code for I love you and then twisted out of my arms and leaped to the floor, where she proceeded to hike her back leg in the air and gnaw at the base of her tail.
That’s another neat thing about cats. They don’t waste time in feel-good sentiment when there’s an itch that needs attention.
I stood for a while under warm water and then fell naked into bed and oblivion. I woke up annoyed at myself for going into a funk over things that were, to be honest about it, none of my business. I was a pet sitter, not a surgeon or social worker. That being the case, I needed to keep my mind on my own life and not indulge in the ego trip of taking on other people’s problems.
I told myself that Jeffrey had excellent surgeons and caring parents. I told myself that Laura was an intelligent woman with a family she could call for any support she needed. I told myself that no matter how much I sympathized, I actually couldn’t make any difference in what either of them was going through.
With that determined, I got up and padded naked to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. Carrying the tea to my closet-office, I flipped on the CD player to let Patsy Cline’s no-nonsense, no-equivocation, no-shit voice break the silence. That’s what I needed, less of my own morbid thoughts and more of Patsy Cline’s soul. While I whipped through the clerical parts of my business, Ella sat on my desk and tapped her tail in sympathy for Patsy Cline falling to pieces at the sight of an old lover.