All the drawers and compartments of her jewelry case were unchanged, and every piece of jewelry in its place: he bought her this necklace for their thirty-fifth anniversary, this ring to replace the one she lost when they were working the cruise ship. She used to keep an anklet with silver doves on it in this little drawer.
He sat in a wing chair near the windows, one of the matched pair they picked out at least eighteen years ago. “Anyway, that’s the house. It’s where I’m staying for now, and I notice it doesn’t bring me any more joy than that little apartment we had in Van Nuys, and it’s easy enough to figure. You were the joy, Mandy. No matter where we were living, you were the joy. I’ll always remember that.”
He went downstairs, put on a jacket from the entry closet, and took the urn outside.
The valley was heading into winter. Frost had withered the flowers, blackened the fallen leaves, and now lay thick and crusty in the hollows and dark places. The lawn crunched under his feet.
He followed the trail past the barn and into the field that encircled the pond. It was a quiet, restful place he’d already visited many times, and Shirley had told him about the wildflowers that grew here in the spring and how tall the grass could grow. There would be no people traffic here. Shirley wouldn’t be running over it with the riding mower or tilling it to plant beans. Only the passing seasons would touch it.
He looked up toward the house. “You see that? I can see down here from my study. I can watch the seasons go by like we used to do, and thank God that we shared so many. And every time the wildflowers come up … well, I guess they’ll be yours, won’t they?”
He uncapped the urn and released the ashes to the breeze. They drifted like mist over the field, spreading, thinning, reaching far away. He stood and watched until the last trace had come to rest.
In a five-second ceremony, Eloise took her hobo hat from her head and hung it on a coat hook next to the front door. Perfect. Symbolic. She now had a place to hang her hat.
The apartment was unfurnished but as cute as she could ask for and— right on!—within walking distance of McCaffee’s. Sarah Middleton’s husband, Roy, built it over their garage, his mother stayed there until her death, it housed Sarah’s art projects and Roy’s junk until Roy’s death two years ago, and then, to generate extra income, it became a clean apartment again and Sarah needed a tenant. Mia knew Sarah, connected Sarah with Eloise, and right about that time Eloise had the money to rent the place.
It had to be a God thing.
There was no table to eat from, no chair to sit on, and only an air mattress and some blankets to sleep on. There was no television or radio, but they could surely wait; she had to get a telephone first thing, with a number she could give out for people to call, withan answering machine. She had two cardboard boxes for her foldable clothes, but there was a closet and the thrift store provided hangers for Eloise’s growing wardrobe, mostly this-and-that, mix-and-match items she used for costumes. Eloise arranged her shirts and blouses by color, her costumes by venue, and her shoes—a pair of tennis shoes, a pair of sandals, a pair of cloddy boots, and one pair of black loafers—in a neat row.
Friday, November 5, at McCaffee’s. Full house, great crowd, lots of coffee, sandwiches, and pastries moving.
Eloise dug out a deck of cards and approached a young lady seated at a table. “Hi there! What’s your name?”
“Pamela,” said the young lady. She looked like a professional. Probably sold real estate or annuities. She had her husband and two teenagers with her.
“Want to hold these for me?” Eloise placed the deck of cards in her hand facedown, gently closed Pamela’s fingers against the sides of the deck, then circled around behind her so everyone could see. “Hold ’em still now. Here we go.”
Standing behind Pamela and looking over her shoulder, Eloise pointed with one finger at the deck. “Now help me out. Let the cards go where they want to go.” She slowly pulled with her finger, as if an invisible thread ran from her finger to the top card. The card tilted upward toward the rear of the deck and then, once vertical, tucked itself between the back edge of the deck and the heel of Pamela’s hand, sticking up like a wall.
“Just hold it there with your pinkie,” Eloise said, helping her out a little.
Great move. Everybody loved it and every eye was watching.
Eloise pulled with her finger again, and the next card tilted up toward the left and tucked itself against the left side. Eloise pulled invisibly, the third card lifted toward the right, and this time she waved her hand between her finger and the card. No wires, no strings. Three little walls now.
Last card. Eloise pulled, the card lifted toward the front and tucked itself against the front edge of the deck. Now the cards formed a little box open at the top. Eloise planted her hand over the top. “So, what do we do now? Got any magic words?”
Pamela’s eyes rolled toward the ceiling as she searched for one. “Ummmmm …”
“That’s good, that’s good! Everybody say, ‘Ummmmm … ’”
The whole crowd said a dumb-sounding “Ummmmm …”
Eloise lifted her hand away.
Pamela looked into the box and did a wide-eyed double take. “No. Way!” She reached into the box and withdrew her driver’s license. The real thing, with her picture on it.
Pamela dug out her wallet and was stunned all over again to find that the little slot for her license was empty. She held up her wallet for everyone to see.
“Well, let’s see if we can put it back,” said Eloise.
Pamela dropped her driver’s license back into the box made from cards, Eloise covered it with her hand and told everybody, “We have to do this whole thing in reverse, right? Everybody say ‘Mmmmmuh … ’”
Everybody, including Pamela, said “Ummmmm” backward between laughs.
Eloise lifted her hand away … and there was a silver dollar. Aha! Eloise’s eyes shot over at Larry, a middle-aged man who’d already won two silver dollars from her in a coin toss routine. She craftily twitched her eyebrows.
Larry beckoned. “Bring it on.”
“What about my license?” Pamela asked.
“Is it in your wallet?” said Eloise.
While Eloise crossed the room to go eye-to-eye with Larry, Pamela opened her wallet again and there, intact and in its rightful place, was her driver’s license.
Eloise was ready before the applause died down. She had Larry flip the coin and slap it onto the back of his other hand. She appealed to the crowd, “Okay, youcall it this time!”
“Heads!” called half the crowd.
“Tails!” called the other half.
She rolled her eyes. “They want it both ways!”
She nodded to Larry, who uncovered the coin on his hand—it was now twosilver dollars, one tails and one heads.
The house went nuts. Larry was about to give the dollars up, but Eloise wagged her head sadly. “They said heads and tails. These are tails and heads. Nuts!”
As Eloise overplayed some frustration, Larry dropped the two new silver dollars into an empty coffee cup. Now he had four.
She searched her pockets. “Burt? Anybody seen Burt?”
She looked at Larry and his group, then at the coffee cup on the table in front of them. They looked in the coffee cup.
There was Burt smiling up at them. Larry tilted the cup and let Burt roll into his hand while …
… Eloise found four silver dollars in her coat pocket and dropped them from hand to hand while everybody marveled and applauded.
“Say …” Big pitiful look. “Can I have Burt back?”
Larry was into it, goaded by his friends. “What about my four dollars?”
Eloise deadpanned to the crowd. The whole joke was working. “I’ll make it five.”
“What?”