ready to eat?”
Glory Hallelujah, he actually formed a sentence. “Not long at all. Would you like to set in the rest of the row?” she asked, as she tried to still her quivering hands.
“Yeah, sure. I got nothin’ better to do.”
And oh, his hands––those elegant long fingers so gentle as he caressed the tiny plants and tucked the earth around them. And how beautiful his straight and strong young back, as he hovered over them.
“You want to do a row of peppers, Paul?”
He also did two rows of tomato plants and a row of cucumbers.
“Well,” said Kitty, more calm now. “It’s well past noon. You don’t by any chance like salads, do you?”
“You don’t, you know, eat meat, do you?” Paul said.
“No, not for twenty years. Not since I lived in a commune in California.”
“You lived in a commune in California? Cool. I don’t like meat either. My father ate raw steaks. It used to make me want to puke.”
“Well, nobody’s making you eat meat here, Paul.”
“Yeah, but Uncle Ben fires up the grill every single night. I don’t want to, you know, offend him or nothin’. See, when I was a little kid we hit a deer. My father, as usual, was speeding, and it splattered all over the place. There was blood and bits of flesh all over the hood and windshield. And I will never forgot those terrified eyes as he lay there dying. It actually made me sick. I know it’s stupid, but no matter how I try I can’t get rid of it. My father even sent me to a shrink, but no go. Every time I face a piece of meat I think of that poor animal.”
“Oh, that’s all right, Paul, he doesn’t care,” Kitty said. “We learned years ago, the hard way, that we had to respect each others’ peculiarities or call it quits.”
They stood at the kitchen counter, shoulder to shoulder. They peeled, chopped, grated, and sliced. They mashed avocados and squeezed lemons.
When Paul had swabbed up the remainder of the vinaigrette dressing from his bowl, he said, “You gonna eat what’s left on the counter?”
The next thing Kitty knew she was seated on the sofa with Paul’s body slumped across her lap. His tears flowed freely, falling on her overalls. He sobbed, he truly sobbed––and she had never felt so elated in her entire life. She had a strong inclination to stroke his hair, but hesitated, fearing he would jump up and scream “fuck off.” But she was overcome by an unaccustomed tenderness, and touched his head ever so lightly, surprised to see that it seemed to comfort him. She proceeded to stroke his head, like she stroked and patted Geraldine.
Is this how a mother feels when they hand her that first newborn? Some unaccustomed feeling, noble and unselfish was welling up inside her.
After awhile Paul sat up, looking horrified. “Sorry,” he said, “Oh God, gees, I’m really sorry.”
“No, no, don’t feel sorry. You don’t have to feel sorry.”
And before long they were sitting shoulder to shoulder on the porch swing, mulling over Kitty’s seed catalogs.
“It’s never too early to plan for next year,” she said. “And Paul, who knows? Maybe between us we can convert your uncle Ben, and get rid of that nasty old grill altogether.” She began feel all swoony, like you feel when you are falling in love.
And for the first time since he arrived––Paul smiled at her.
THE THIEF, by Bev Rees
The mall is brightly lit for Christmas, though it’s just three weeks past Halloween. Plastic wreaths hang down on wires, full of shiny balls and blinking lights. Gert O’Bannon comes through the door at precisely half-past ten, a little creaky, but you could set your watches by her.
She passes the laughing Santa, ho, ho, ho, and his belly, girded by a shiny plastic belt, shakes like a bowl of jelly. Occasionally his batteries run down and his ho, ho, hos turn into one long groan, until he is completely silent. Gert is glad for the change of scenery; enough of witches’ hats and orange jack-o’-lanterns, enough of waxy little puritans with wicks sprouting from their dreary heads.
Gert has a route she follows up the center of the mall. She passes the entrances to ladies’ garments, displayed on anorexic mannequins. Mouths pout on heads thrust forward, and bony hips do likewise. She moseys past “The Casual Man.” Jeans and tee-shirts are tacked on headless wire forms, and look like they’ve been washed a hundred times, and never ironed. Gert addresses her reflection in the plate glass window. In my day, when you bought something, you wanted it to look brand spanking new. Not all wrinkled up and faded like some old cast-off of an older sibling.
She always finds the kitchen shop challenging. All kinds of newfangled gadgets, displayed in the window, stare back at her. Gert hates to admit it, but she hasn’t the slightest notion what they are for. But she isn’t going in the shop and embarrass herself by asking. She enjoys looking at the fancy dishes though, and she never gives the computer store a passing glance. Why should she? The Internet is not a part of her life. She wanders past the nail salon, cupping her hand over her mouth and nose. She is fascinated by the women who sit there, all shapes and sizes, as nails get pasted on by gloved hands and masked faces.
Right on schedule she goes straight to “Cindy’s Cinnamon,” just about the best part of her day. The sugary icing clings to her lips like a gift from Heaven. She takes three creamers, pulls off the tiny paper covers, and watches the cream twirl this way and that way as it hits the hot black liquid. She watches the sugar crystals drizzle out of the packet and disappear into the coffee. This ritual over, she settles down and watches all the people, amazed at how different they all are––and yet, how much the same.
* * * *
Gert O’Bannon’s life was never easy. She grew up in Pennsylvania on a miserly, rock-strewn farm where the winters are bitter. A long and sorry tale of cold and hunger. When she thinks of it, which she tries hard not to do, she considers it a miracle that any of them survived.
She and her sisters grew up half-starved in more ways than one: an alcoholic father, a defeated mother, and the truant officer forever pounding on the door. She marvels that she’s outlived the whole damn bunch of them. And what did she do but turn around and marry another heavy drinker, whose pilot light, early on, blew out. She had thought she was escaping, but she jumped from the pot in to the frying pan. Her only child was in prison, and at seventy-two what was a mother to do?
Walk the mall and eat cinnamon buns, that’s what. A year ago she nearly died of pneumonia, the best stroke of luck she ever had. A caring doctor alerted the Social Services, and that’s how she got out of that cold rat-trap of a house. At Senior Towers the registers spewed glorious hot-air day and night.
* * * *
Christmas Eve arrives with snow, no blizzard or anything like that; just a sky as thick as pudding, releasing scattered snow flakes. Gert wakes up feeling blue; the weight of the coming holiday sits heavy on her head. She turns off the carols bursting forth on the radio. She does not want to be reminded of Christmases past on that farm of deep despair. This day is no different than the others, she firmly tells herself, and after all, she’s got her schedule––Christmas Eve or not.
She pulls her boots on, slips
