“How are we going to prove that?”
“Find the old guy and he’ll tell you.”
“What makes you so sure he saw the accident?”
“He must have because I remember catching sight of him as I approached the exit to the parking lot. I didn’t pay much attention because I was focused on the street ahead.”
“You saw him where?”
“On the far side of Palisade.”
“Doing what?”
“I don’t know. I guess he was waiting to cross the street, so he must have seen the van about the same time I did.”
“What age would you say?”
“What do I know about old guys? He had white hair and his jacket was brown leather, sort of dry-looking and cracked.”
“Can you recall anything else? Did the old guy wear glasses?”
“I don’t remember.”
“What about the shape of his face?”
“Kind of long.”
“Clean shaven?”
“I think so. For sure, he didn’t have a beard, but he might’ve had a mustache.”
“No moles or scars?”
“Can’t help you there. I was upset so I didn’t pay much attention.”
“What about height and weight?”
“He seemed taller than me and I’m five-six, but he wasn’t heavy or rail thin or anything like that. I’m sorry I can’t be more specific.”
“What about his hands?”
“Nope, but I remember his shoes. They were those old-time black leather lace-up shoes like the kind my granddad wore to work. You know the ones with holes punched around the instep?”
“Wing tips?”
“Yeah, them. They needed polishing and the sole on his right shoe was coming loose.”
“Did he have an accent?”
“Not one that I noticed.”
“What about his teeth?”
“A mess. Kind of yellow like he smoked. I’d forgotten about that.”
“Anything else?”
She shook her head.
“What about your injuries, aside from whiplash?”
“I had headaches at first, but those have gone away. My neck’s still sore and I guess that’s what’s throwing my back out of alignment. I lost two days at work, but nothing beyond that. If I sit for any length of time, I have to get up and walk around for a while. I guess I’m lucky things weren’t worse.”
“You got that right,” I said.
During that next week, I didn’t have occasion to talk to Melanie, but Henry kept me informed about her hassles with Gus, whose prickly disposition had resurfaced. Twice, in the early morning, I saw her arrive from the motel. I knew she stayed late, looking after him. I suppose I could have invited her to my place for a glass of wine or reminded her of her offer to buy dinner. Better yet, I could have put together a nourishing casserole, thus providing a meal for the two of them in the manner of a kindly neighbor. But does that sound like me? I didn’t extend myself for the following reasons:
(1) I can’t cook.
(2) I’d never been close to Gus, and I didn’t want to get caught up in the turbulence surrounding him.
In my experience, the urge to rescue generates aggravation for the poor would-be heroine without any discernible effect on the person in need of help. You can’t save others from themselves because those who make a perpetual muddle of their lives don’t appreciate your interfering with the drama they’ve created. They want your poor-sweet-baby sympathy, but they don’t want to change. This is a truth I never seem to learn. Problematic in this case was that Gus hadn’t generated his troubles. He’d opened a window and in they’d crept.
Henry told me that the first weekend Gus was home, the Rolling Hills nursing director had recommended a private-duty nurse who was willing to work an eight-hour shift on Saturday and again on Sunday. This relieved Melanie of the more odious of medical and personal hygiene responsibilities while simultaneously providing Gus with someone else to abuse when his mood went sour, which it did on an hourly basis.
Henry had also told me Melanie had had no response from the classified ad she’d run. She’d finally contacted an agency and had been interviewing home companions, hoping to find someone to step into the breach.
“Has she had any luck?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t call it luck exactly. She’s hired three so far, and two didn’t make it to the end of the day. The third fared better, but not by much. I could hear him blasting her from across the back hedge.”
I said, “I guess I should have offered to help, but I decided I’d be better off if I learned to cope with my guilt.”
“How’re you doing with it?”
“Pretty well.”
10 SOLANA
Solana parked the car and rechecked the ad in the “Personals,” making sure the address was correct. There was no phone number listed, which was just as well. The last classified ad she’d responded to had been a dead end. The patient was an elderly woman living in her daughter’s house, confined to a hospital bed that had been installed in the dining room. The house was lovely, but the makeshift sick bay ruined the overall effect. High ceilings, light pouring in, all the furnishings done in exquisite taste. There was a cook and a housekeeper on the premises, and that put a damper on Solana’s enthusiasm.
Solana was interviewed by the daughter, who wanted someone to attend to her mother’s needs but felt she shouldn’t be required to pay private-duty rates since she would be present in the home as well. Solana would be expected to bathe, feed, and diaper the senile mother, change linens, do her laundry, and administer medication. These were responsibilities she was capable of handling, but she didn’t like the daughter’s attitude. She seemed to view a nursing professional as a household servant, on a par with a laundress. Solana suspected that the housekeeper would be treated better than she.
The haughty daughter made notes on her clipboard notepad and said she had several other job applicants to interview, which Solana knew was a bald-faced lie. The daughter wanted her to feel competitive, as though she’d be fortunate to be offered the position, which consisted of nine-hour days, one day off a week, and no personal calls. She’d be allowed two fifteen-minute coffee breaks, but she was expected to provide her own meals. And with a cook working right there in the next room!
Solana asked a good many questions, showing how interested she was, making sure the daughter spelled out particulars. In the end she agreed to everything, including the low wages. The daughter’s manner went from cold to prim to pleased with herself. It was clear she felt smug for having talked someone into accepting such ridiculous terms. Solana noticed there was no further mention of the other candidates.
She explained she didn’t have time just then to do the paperwork, but she’d bring the completed application with her when she came to work the next morning at eight. She jotted down her phone number in case the daughter thought of anything else she wanted to discuss. By the time Solana left, the daughter was falling all over herself, relieved that she’d managed to solve her problem at so little cost. She shook Solana’s hand warmly. Solana returned to her car, knowing she’d never see the woman again. The phone number she’d provided rang through to the psychiatric ward in a Perdido hospital, where Tiny had once spent a year.
Now Solana sat across the street and a few doors down from the address she’d been looking for. This was in response to an ad she’d seen over the weekend. She’d dismissed the possibility at first since there wasn’t a telephone number listed. As the week went on and no other jobs of interest appeared, she’d decided the house might be worth a quick look. The setting didn’t seem promising. The place had a neglected air, especially compared with the other houses on the block. The neighborhood was close to the beach and consisted almost entirely of single-family dwellings. Sandwiched here and there, between the small depressing houses, she could see a new duplex or fourplex in the Spanish-style architecture common to the area. Solana’s guess was that many of the residents were retired, which meant fixed incomes and little in the way of discretionary spending.